..续本文上一页th discernment, or being preoccupied with the affairs of discernment when entering concentration — for that would be wrong. Whichever work you”re going to do, really make it a solid piece of work. This is the right way, the appropriate way — the way Right Concentration really is.

　　Once discernment has begun uprooting defilements step by step, the heart develops brightness. The lightness of the mind is one of the benefits that come from removing the things that are hazardous, the things that are filthy. We see the value of this benefit and keep on investigating.

　　What defilement is, is a weight on the heart. Our mind is like a prisoner constantly overpowered — coerced and tormented — by defilements and mental effluents ever since we were born. When we come right down to it, where is defilement

　　 Where is being and birth

　　 Right here in this same heart. When you investigate, these things gather in, gather in, and enter this single heart. The cycle of rebirth doesn”t refer to anything else: It refers to this single heart that spins in circles. It”s the only thing that leads us to birth and death. Why

　　 Because the seeds of these things are in the heart.

　　When we use mindfulness and discernment to investigate, we explore so as to see clearly, and we keep cutting in, step by step, until we reach the mind that is the culprit, harboring unawareness (avijja), which is the important seed of the cycle in the heart. We keep dissecting, keep investigating in, investigating in, so that there is nothing left of ”this is this” or ”that is that.” We focus our investigation on the mind in the same way as we have done with phenomena (sabhava-dhamma) in general.

　　No matter how much brightness there may be in the heart, we should know that it”s simply a place for the heart to rest temporarily as long as we are still unable to investigate it to the point where we can disperse and destroy it. But don”t forget that this shining star of a heart is actually unawareness.

　　So investigate, taking that as the focal point of your investigation.

　　So then. If this is going to be obliterated until there”s no more awareness, leaving nothing at all — to the point where the ”knower” is destroyed along with it — then let”s find out once and for all. We”re investigating to find the truth, to know the truth, so we have to get all the way down to causes and effects, to the truth of everything of every sort. Whatever is going to be destroyed, let it be destroyed. Even if ultimately the ”knower” who is investigating will be destroyed as well, then let”s find out with our mindfulness and discernment. We don”t have to leave anything remaining as an island or a vantage point to deceive ourselves. Whatever is ”us,” whatever is ”ours,” don”t leave it standing. Investigate down to the truth of all things together.

　　What”s left, after the defilement of unawareness is absolutely destroyed, is something beyond the range to which convention can reach or destroy. This is called the pure mind, or purity. The nature of this purity cannot be destroyed by anything at all.

　　Defilements are conventional realities that can arise and vanish. Thus they can be cleansed, made to increase, made to decrease, made to disappear, because they are an affair of conventions. But the mind pure and simple — the phenomenon called a released mind — lies beyond the range to which any defilements, which are all conventions, can reach and destroy. If the mind isn”t yet pure, it”s a conventional reality just like other things, because conventional things have infiltrated it. Once they are entirely removed, the phenomenon of release is one that no defilement can any longer affect — because it lies beyond range. So what is destroyed

　　Stress stops, because the cause of stress stops. Nirodha — the cessation of stre…

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