..续本文上一页ar of death

　　A: All kinds of fear because they all come down to the fear of death.

　　Q: Do you appreciate beauty

　　A: I appreciate beauty just as I appreciate ugliness because they are two sides of the same coin. I see both the upside and the downside of life. Beauty is temporal. It will fade away and be replaced by ugliness. When you are young you look handsome and beautiful. Forty years from now you”ll be old and ugly. You have to see both sides of the story in order to have insight or wisdom.

　　Q: What about having an ego, selfishness

　　A: Ego is a delusion created by the mind. “I think I am, therefore I am.” It”s just a thought that we are deeply attached to. When you meditate until the mind stops thinking, then the “I” or “myself” will disappear because it”s just a thought. When there is no thought, there”s no “I”. All there is is just the consciousness, or the mind, by itself. Right now you can only imagine it. You have to meditate to really see it. You have to get to the point where the mind totally stops thinking. It”s like turning off the television. When you turn on the television, you see pictures on the screen, and you become emotionally involved in what you see. You laugh or cry at what you see. When you turn off the television, what happens

　　 You see just a blank screen and you”re not emotionally involved. No emotions or thoughts appear in the mind when you meditate until the mind stops thinking. No self. It”s like turning off the television. No pictures, no sound, nothing. Totally blank, empty. This state remains very briefly for beginners. For an experienced mediator it can last for many hours.

　　You have to use your good thought to destroy your bad thought. This good thought is called insight or wisdom, like thinking that everything is impermanent. Everything is changing. When the mind thinks that this thing is good and will give you happiness, you must say it is not so. Each happiness is always accompanied by sadness. You can eliminate your bad thoughts, it”s like reprogramming a computer. Your mind has been programmed to think that this is I myself. You are now reprogramming your mind to think that it is not I, not myself. It”s just a knowing element or knowingness. First you have to empty your mind in order to see your mind and to see that the thoughts and emotions appearing in your mind are temporal. You are just mind and body. The body is the physical part, an instrument of the mind which is just a knowing element that knows and thinks. When you realize this you will let go of your attachment to a self, to think that people and things are permanent and give you happiness. Instead of thinking of permanence, you will think of impermanence. Instead of thinking of happiness, you will think of unhappiness. Instead of thinking of I, myself or mine, you will think this is not I, not mine, not myself. Reprogramming the mind will take time because old habits die hard.

　　Q: It could be very painful.

　　A: Very painful because it”s like giving up drugs or things that you are attached to, like giving up smoking. You tell yourself smoking is not good for you. But you cannot stop it. If you keep telling yourself all the time, maybe one day you”ll be able to do it. The Buddha did it. He was a prince. He was rich. He had everything. But he could see that it was not true happiness because it could not stop him from worrying about getting old, getting sick and dying.

　　If you are really interested in meditation and want to learn more you can use the Internet and search for the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, the discourse in which the Buddha taught the monks how to develop the mind, how to meditate. He predicted that whoever follows his instruction will achieve the result of becoming enlightened in either seven days at the earliest, or seven years at the latest. You can all realize this if you”d devote the time and effort to it. There are people who, after reading the discourse, become interested and decide to become a monk in order to have all the time to practice what the Buddha teaches.

　　If you want to do some intensive meditation, you should join a meditation retreat which usually lasts seven or fourteen days, where you do nothing else but meditation. I think it will be a time worth spending. It will lead you closer to enlightenment, to lasting peace and happiness, free from greed, hatred and delusion. I hope you will all have a good time studying in Thailand, learn and benefit from your stay here.

《The Path to Enlightenment》全文阅读结束。