..续本文上一页tions so as to leave only a nature that is pure and simple. That”s when we”ll be really at ease, really relieved.

　　Let the khandhas be khandhas pure and simple in their own way, without our messing with them, without our struggling with them for power, without our forcing or coercing them to be like this or like that. The khandhas are then khandhas, the mind is then the mind, each with its own separate reality, each not infringing on the others as it used to. Each performs its own duties. This is called khandhas pure and simple, the mind pure and simple, without any conventional realities adulterating them. What knows is what knows, the elements are elements, the khandhas are khandhas.

　　Whatever things may break apart, let them break apart. We have already known them clearly with our discernment. We have no doubts. We”ve known them in advance, even before they die, so when death comes, what doubts can we have

　　 — especially now that they display the truth of their nature for us to see clearly. This is called studying the Dhamma, practicing the Dhamma. To study and practice this way is to follow the same way that sages have practiced and known before us.

　　All of these conditions are matters of conventional reality — matters of the elements, the khandhas, or the sense media (ayatana). The four khandhas, the five khandhas, whatever, are inpidual conditions, inpidual conditions that are separated in line with conventions. Discernment is also a condition; and mindfulness, another condition — conditions of the heart — but they”re Dhamma, means of curing the mind that is clouded and obscured, means of washing away the things that cloud and obscure it, until radiance appears through the power of the discernment that cleanses the heart. Once the heart is radiant, in the next step it becomes pure.

　　Why is it pure

　　 Because all impurities have fallen away from it. The various misconstruings that are an affair of defilement are all gone from the heart, so the heart is pure. This pure heart means that we have completed our study of ourselves, in line with the statement of the teaching:

　　vusitam brahmacariyam katam karaniyam:

　　”The task of the religion is done, the holy life is complete, there is no further task to be done.”

　　When the tasks we have had to do — abandoning and striving — are done to completion, we know right here, because delusion lay right here in the heart. We study and practice simply to cure our own delusion. Once we know right here, and delusion is gone, what else is there to know

　　 — for beyond this there is nothing further to know. What else is there for us to be deluded about

　　 We”re no longer deluded, because we know fully all around.

　　This very state of mind: When at the beginning I referred to the superlative Dhamma, the marvelous Dhamma, I was referring to this very state of mind, this very Dhamma — but it”s something known exclusively within itself, and exists only within itself. It”s marvelous — this we know within our own mind. It”s superlative — this we also know within our own mind. We can”t take it out or unfurl it like other things for other people to see.

　　So if you want to have any Noble Treasures to show for yourself, practice. Remove all those dirty stains from the heart, and the superlative things I have mentioned will appear by their own nature — in other words, they will appear in the mind.

　　This is called completing your study of the Dhamma; and your study of the world is completed right here. The ”world” means the world of elements, the world of the khandhas that lie right here with each of us, which are more important than the worlds of elements and khandhas belonging to other people, because this world of elements and khandhas lies with us and has been weighing on the heart all along.

　　When we have stu…

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