..续本文上一页w, in other words, reinforce our old training.

　　Please don”t misunderstand me. Standing, walking, sitting, lying down, eating, drinking, doing, talking and thinking are objects for mindfulness. We perform these tasks with mindfulness, knowing them thoroughly at all times. When lying down to go to sleep, note what the mind is thinking. Let it go on thinking but have mindfulness, follow the thinking until you fall sound asleep. Practise continuously on a daily basis and you will find yourself, unexpectedly, maintaining samadhi.

　　While working, use your concentrated mindfulness to be fully aware of the work. When you are engaged in thought, include mindfulness with the thinking. Take working and thinking as your meditation objects. If the mind is being aware of sense objects as they come and go with mindfulness, the mind is naturally inclined towards calmness. Joy (piti), ease (sukha) and one-pointedness (ekaggata) can arise at any time if the meditator practises earnestly.

　　8 A business person who practised samadhi while working

　　A lady came to see the Master and asked, "Venerable Father, I want to practise meditation but don”t know how to."

　　The Master answered, "If you don”t know how to sit, you don”t have to sit. Just train mindfulness to be with your every action, standing, walking, sitting, lying down, eating, drinking, doing, talking and thinking. " If we develop samadhi in this way, we will come to feel that everything we do, say and think is part of meditation practice, samadhi will harmonize with your daily life.

　　Look at the kinds of work which used to bring on confusion. After samadhi is stabilized you won”t be caught in that entanglement again. The mind will be unconfused and able to solve problems. Sometimes when we are stuck, the mind will collect into one pointedness and the answer to the problem will spontaneously arise, even the nasty problems which concern work can be resolved in this way.

　　We tend to attach to the idea that we shouldn”t think about the world, but only about the Dhamma, but in fact the things of the world are objects of awareness for the mind. Because the mind is that which knows the truth of the world, it must use the world as a stepping stone to go beyond the world.

　　The world is an object of awareness for the mind. Our body and mind are the world. All the situations and experiences we come into contact with are the everyday activities of the world. When we develop mindfulness and are aware of the world, we detach from it. Even though we live in the world, we are only lightly involved. We see all our duties as simply duties. We will be aware of our duties and take responsibility for them, carrying them out in the most direct way.

　　9 Practising meditation as a novice

　　There was once an Ajahn named Ajahn Soowan Sucinno who was a senior disciple of Ajahn Mun. One day he noticed me carrying a book and reciting Pali scriptures while I was walking to and from on my walking path. He said to me, "Novice, if you are studying just study. If you are going to practise walking meditation, then just do that. You need two hands to carry a fish."

　　We can apply this principle when we fix our attention on a kasina [3]

　　Fire kasina - fixing the attention on fire

　　Earth kasina - fixing the attention on earth

　　Air kasina - fixing the attention on air

　　Space kasina - fixing the attention on space

　　Consci, ousness kasina - fixing the attention on consciousness

　　Our body contains all these teachers: earth, water, air, fire, space and consciousness. We can take these kasinas as objects of meditation. They can be both objects of awareness and places to establish mindfulness.

　　10 Studying is Dhamma Practice. An student can practise samadhi.

　　These days you students are spending long hours studying. The important questi…

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