..续本文上一页oesn”t grow ill, doesn”t die, for happiness that doesn”t change.

　　So the Three Characteristics in and of themselves are not the content of Buddhist wisdom, Buddhist discernment. They have to be placed in context, the context of the question of skillfulness: “What are you doing

　　 What are your intentions

　　 What are the results of your actions based on those intentions

　　 Are you content with them or do you want better

　　” The Three Characteristics spur you on to be more demanding of yourself, saying, “I want better than this. I”ve got this human life; what am I going to do with it

　　” And the answer should be, “I”m going to do the best I can to find true happiness, to have something to hold onto, something to show for all the suffering I”ve been through as I take birth, age, grow ill, and die.”

　　So we should think about these issues as we meditate. We”re not getting into the present just to stop there. That would be like someone who, after a great deal of effort, finally gets to a road—and then lies down on the road, forgetting that the road is there to be followed to see where it takes you. When you get into the present moment, that”s not enough. You have to learn how to ask yourself the right questions of the present moment, in particular, “What are your intentions right now, and what results do they have

　　”

　　Intentions just don”t float in and out of the mind without leaving a trace. They leave their mark. They do have results. Are you satisfied with the results

　　 If not, what can you do to get better results

　　 Learning how to ask these questions, the Buddha said, is what gives rise to discernment so that your actions go beyond just the ordinary, mundane level. As the Buddha pointed out, there are four kinds of action: actions that are skillful on a mundane level, actions that are not skillful on the mundane level, actions that are mixed, and then actions that take you beyond the mundane level, that open you up to the Deathless and bring you to the end of action. That fourth kind of action is what he says is really worthwhile. That”s what”s special about his teaching. That”s what”s distinctive about his teaching. He discovered that the principles of causality work in such a way that you can bring yourself to the Uncaused by being as skillful as possible in what you do. And the discernment that shows you how to act in those ways, that detects what in your intentions is skillful and what”s unskillful, what in your actions is skillful and unskillful, what in the results of your actions are satisfactory or not: that”s what guides you in the right direction.

　　You take your desire for happiness, and you take it seriously. It”s not that the Buddha condemns all craving. There”s a passage where he says, “There is a kind of craving that has good results, the craving that leads you away from repeatedly wandering on, the desire to get out of this wandering, to discontinue this wandering.” So you take that desire—which is what the expression of metta is all about, the desire for happiness, both for yourself and other people—and then you add to it the conviction that you can do things that lead to happiness. You take that desire, you take that conviction, you put them together, and then you try to watch as skillfully as you can to see what you”re doing. Monitor the results of your practice and adjust them as necessary. It”s these factors all taken together that lead to the discernment that leads to release.

　　There”s no one technique that can guarantee that you”ll gain discernment, just as there”s no one technique that has a monopoly on giving rise to discernment. The techniques are things that you use in your quest for discernment, but your quest has to be informed by more than techniques. It has to be informed by the right questions, by the right qualities of mind, by the rigor you bring to your attention to what you”re doing, by your willingness to set the highest possible standards for yourself, your unwillingness to settle for a happiness that falls under the Three Characterisitics. That”s how discernment comes about.

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