..续本文上一页ant - in both cases we continue to spin around endlessly. But the hub of the wheel is the centre of knowing and being, and this can take it all. This is where the unconditioned lies. If we can summon awareness and be that still centre of knowing, there are still comings and goings - but we have a refuge. This is what Ajahn Chah called, "our real home."
This is the basic structure that the Buddha asks us to look at. Our sensitive body contacts objects. That contact produces pleasant, unpleasant, neutral feelings - vedana. From there comes craving tanha, the grasping of craving upadana, and the whole process of becoming bhava and rebirth jati. If one carries on like this over time, it becomes a habit. It is then very difficult to return to the still centre of being, because one is so restlessly engaged with that which moves, with the emotions and the thoughts.
Why are we kidnapped so much
Even though we sit here determining, "I will not get kidnapped!" - it”s very hard, isn”t it
Don”t think you are alone in this, we are all in the same boat! It is very difficult because of our habits, our kamma. Even though we might have really good intentions, situations arise where we feel anger or fear. That is kamma. What we are trying to do is to break up all these kammic patterns. The way we can do this is by beginning to look at Dhamma, rather than remaining stuck on the level of personality. The contemplation of feelings vedanupassana is one of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. It requires careful attention to notice this basic structure of the way that some things attract our attention, while others repel. We can try it with an emotion, with a bodily feeling, with a thought; or with people. On this retreat maybe you find difficulty with someone, or maybe you fall in love with them. Notice how some people are physically very attractive, while some are not. Some people have a lot of charisma, and others don”t. Notice how you are attracted or repelled; look at that very simple movement of the heart. This is where our habitual emotions are really arising from.
If you can know that movement and learn to not follow or react to it, then you begin not to suffer. For example, your own psyche, the things you don”t like about yourself, the emotions you think should not be there; all these come up as very unpleasant. So ask, "What does an unpleasant emotion feel like
" Or in meditation you might sometimes experience tranquillity, bliss or bright lights, or notice how beautiful silence is, how really attractive that is... but then comes the coarseness of the sound of the JCB! So we attach to the pleasant and the refined, and we try to get rid of the ugly. But what is it that knows pleasant and unpleasant
Sometimes when you are sitting, the mind is bored, the eyes look around, and you find yourself attracted to someone... ah!... and then you start to create. Romance. There is the creation of "me" and "that person", and what "we" are going to do, what is going to happen to "us" - sometimes it”s called a "vipassana marriage" - and then suddenly the bell rings! It can happen with hatred too, for example when there is something unappealing about someone. Rather than just noticing our desire to pull away from them, sitting with that until it reaches neutrality - we become very critical, caught in aversion, and try to push them away. But in contemplation of feelings, we can simply bring up an image of a person, and be mindful of the attraction or aversion. That takes us to peace of the mind - to neutrality, rarther than identification with the feeling itself.
Quite often we are so caught up with the craving for pleasure that we don”t even notice neutrality, which we find boring. As Luang Por Chah said, the neutral, the ordinary is like the spac…
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