Buddho
 by
Phra Ajaan Thate Desaransi
(Phra Nirodharansi Gambhirapannacariya)

(Translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu)




     When you go to study meditation with any group or teacher who is experienced in a
     particular form of meditation, you should first make your heart confident that your teacher
     is fully experienced in that form of meditation, and be confident that the form of meditation
     he teaches is the right path for sure.   At the same time, show respect for the place in
     which you are to meditate.   Only then should you begin practicing.

     Teachers in the past used to require a dedication ceremony as a means of inspiring
     confidence before you were to study meditation.   They would have you make an offering
     of five pairs of beeswax candles and five pairs of white flowers -- this was called the five
     khandha -- or eight pairs of beeswax candles and eight pairs of white flowers -- this was
     called the eight khandha -- or one pair of beeswax candles each weighing 15 grams and
     an equal number of white flowers.   Then they would teach you their particular form of
     meditation.   This ancient custom has its good points.   There are many other ceremonies
     as well, but I won't go into them.   I'll mention only a very simple, easy-to-follow ceremony
     a little further on.

     Only after you have inspired confidence in your heart as already mentioned should you go
     to the teacher experienced in that form of meditation.   If he is experienced in repeating
     samma araham, he will teach you to repeat samma araham, samma araham, samma
     araham.   Then he'll have you visualize a bright, clear jewel two inches above your navel,
     and tell you to focus your mind right there as you continue your repetition, without letting
     your mind slip away from the jewel.   In other words, you take the jewel as the focal point
     of your mind.

     If you go to a teacher experienced in meditating on the rising and falling of the abdomen,
     he will have you meditate on rising and falling, and focus your mind on the different
     motions of the body.   For instance, when you raise your foot, you think raising.   When
     you place your foot, you think placing, and so on; or else he will have you focus
     continually on being preoccupied with the phenomenon of arising and passing away in
     every motion or position of the body.

     If you go to a teacher experienced in psychic powers, he will have you repeat na ma ba
     dha, na ma ba dha, and focus the mind on a single object until it takes you to see heaven
     and hell, deities and brahmas of all sorts, to the point where you get carried away with
     your visions.

     If you go to a teacher experienced in breath meditation, he will have you focus on your
     in-and-out breath, and have you keep your mind firmly preoccupied with nothing but the
     in-and-out breath.

     If you go to a teacher experienced in meditating on buddho, he will have you repeat
     buddho, buddho, buddho, and have you keep the mind firmly in that meditation word until
     you are fully skilled at it.   Then he will have you contemplate buddho and what it is that is
     saying buddho.   Once you see that they are two separate things, focus on what is saying
     buddho.   As for the word buddho, it will disappear, leaving only what it is that was saying
     buddho.   You then focus on what it is that was saying buddho as your object.

     People of our time -- or of any time, for that matter -- regardless of how educated or
     capable they may be (I don't want to criticize any of us as tending to believe in things
     whose truth we haven't tested, because after all we all want to know and see the truth) and
     especially those of us who are Buddhists:   Buddhism teaches causes and effects which
     are entirely true, but why is it that we have to fall for the claims and advertisements which
     we hear everywhere?   It must be because people at present are impatient, and want to see
     results before they have completed the causes, in line with the fact that we are supposed
     to be in an atomic age.

     Buddhism teaches us to penetrate into the heart and mind, which are mental phenomena.
     As for the body, it is a physical phenomenon.   Physical phenomena have to lie under the
     control of mental phenomena.   When we begin to practice meditation and train the mind to
     be quiet and untroubled, I can't see that we are creating any problems at that moment for
     anyone at all.   If we keep practicing until we are skilled, then we will be calm and at
     peace.   If more and more people practice this way, there will be peace and happiness all
     over the world.   As for the body, we can train it to be peaceful only as long as the mind is
     in full control.   The minute mindfulness lapses, the body will get back to its old affairs.   So
     let's try training the mind by repeating buddho.

     Preliminary Steps to Practicing Meditation

     Before practicing meditation on the word buddho, you should start out with the
     preliminary steps.   I.e., inspire confidence in your mind, as already mentioned, and then
     bow down three times, saying:

     Araham samma-sambuddho bhagava -- The Blessed One is pure and fully self-awakened.

     Buddham bhagavantam abhivademi -- To the Blessed, Awakened One, I bow down.

     (Bow down once.)

     Svakkhato bhagavata dhammo -- the Dhamma is well-taught by the Blessed One.

     Dhammam namassami -- To the Dhamma, I bow down.

     (Bow down once.)

     Supatipanno bhagavato savaka-sangho -- The Community of the Blessed One's disciples
     have conducted themselves rightly.

     Sangham namami -- To the Community, I bow down.

     (Bow down once.)

     Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma-sambuddhassa. (Three times).

     (Think of the virtues of the Buddha, the foremost teacher of the world, released from
     suffering and defilement of every sort, always serene and secure.   Then bow down three
     times.)

     Note:   These preliminary steps are simply an example.   There's nothing wrong with
     chanting more than this if you have more to chant, but you should bow down to the
     Buddha as the first step each time you meditate, unless the place in which you are
     meditating is unconducive.
 
 

     Now, sit in meditation, your right leg on top of left, your hands palm-up in your lap, your
     right hand on top of your left.   Sit straight.   Repeat the word buddho in your mind,
     focusing your attention in the middle of your chest, at the heart.   Don't let your attention
     stray out ahead or behind.   Be mindful to keep your mind in place, steady in its
     one-pointedness, and you will enter into a state of concentration.

     When you enter into concentration, the mind may go so blank that you don't even know
     how long you are sitting.   By the time you come out of concentration, many hours may
     have passed.   For this reason, you shouldn't fix a time limit for yourself when sitting in
     meditation.   Let things follow their own course.

     The mind in true concentration is the mind in a state of one- pointedness.   If the mind
     hasn't reached a state of one-pointedness, it isn't yet in concentration, because the true
     heart is only one.   If there are many mental states going on, you haven't penetrated into
     the heart.   You've only reached the mind.

     Before you practice meditation, you should first learn the difference between the heart and
     the mind, for they aren't the same thing.   The mind is what thinks and forms perceptions
     and ideas about all sorts of things.   The heart is what simply stays still and knows that it is
     still, without forming any further thoughts at all.   Their difference is like that between a
     river and waves on the river.

     All sciences and all defilements are able to arise because the mind thinks and forms ideas
     and strays out in search of them.   You will be able to see these things clearly with your
     own heart once the mind becomes still and reaches the heart.

     Water is something clean and clear by its very nature.   If anyone puts dye into the water, it
     will change in line with the dye.   But once the water is filtered and distilled, it will become
     clean and clear as before.   This is an analogy for the heart and the mind.

     Actually, the Buddha taught that the mind is identical with the heart.   If there is no heart,
     there is no mind.   The mind is a condition.   The heart itself has no conditions.   In
     practicing meditation, no matter what the teacher or method:   If it's correct, it will have to
     penetrate into the heart.

     When you reach the heart, you will see all your defilements, because the mind gathers all
     defilements into itself.   So now how you deal with them is up to you.

     When doctors are going to cure a disease, they first have to find the cause of the disease.
     Only then can they treat it with the right medicine.

     As we start meditating longer and longer, repeating buddho, buddho, buddho, the mind will
     gradually let go of its distractions and restlessness, and gather in to stay with buddho.   It
     will stay firm, with buddho its sole preoccupation, until you see that the state of mind
     which says buddho is identical with the mind itself at all times, regardless of whether you
     are sitting, standing, walking or lying down.   No matter what your activity, you will see the
     mind bright and clear with buddho.   Once you have reached this stage, keep the mind
     there as long as you can.   Don't be in a hurry to want to see this or be that -- because
     desire is the most serious obstacle to the concentrated mind.   Once desire arises, your
     concentration will immediately deteriorate, because the basis of your concentration --
     buddho -- isn't solid.   When this happens, you can't grab hold of any foundation at all, and
     you get really upset.   All you can think of is the state of concentration in which you used
     to be calm and happy, and this makes the mind even more agitated.

     Practice meditation the same way farmers grow rice.   They're in no hurry.   They scatter
     the seed, plow, harrow, plant the seedlings, step by step, without skipping any of the
     steps.   Then they wait for the plants to grow.   Even when they don't yet see the rice
     appearing, they are confident that the rice is sure to appear some day in the future.   Once
     the rice appears, they are convinced that they're sure to reap results.   They don't pull on
     the rice plants to make them come out with rice when they want it.   Anyone who did that
     would end up with no results at all.

     The same holds true with meditation.   You can't be in a hurry.   You can't skip any of the
     steps.   You have to make yourself firmly confident that, "This is the meditation word
     which will make my mind concentrated for sure."   Don't have any doubts as to whether
     the meditation word is right for your temperament, and don't think that, "That person used
     this meditation word with these or those results, but when I use it, my mind doesn't settle
     down.   It doesn't work for me at all."   Actually, if the mind is firmly set on the meditation
     word you are repeating, then no matter what the word, it's sure to work -- because you
     repeat the word simply to make the mind steady and firm, that's all.   As for any results
     apart from that, they all depend on each person's individual potential and capabilities.

     Once in the Buddha's time there was a monk sitting in meditation near a pond who saw a
     heron diving down to catch fish and eat them.   He took that as his meditation subject until
     he succeeded in becoming an arahant.   I've never seen a heron eating fish mentioned as
     a subject in any of the meditation manuals, but he was able to use it to meditate until he
     attained arahantship -- which illustrates what I have just said.

     When the mind is intent on staying within the bounds of its meditation word buddho, with
     mindfulness in control, it is sure to grow out of its rebelliousness.   We have to train and
     restrain it, because we are looking for peace and contentment for the mind.   Ordinarily, the
     mind tends to be preoccupied with looking for distraction, as I have already explained, and
     for the most part it strays off to this sort of distraction:   When we start meditating buddho,
     buddho, buddho, as soon as we focus the mind on buddho, it won't stay there.   It'll run out
     to think of whatever work we are about to start or have left undone.   It thinks about doing
     this and doing that until it gets all worked up, afraid that the work won't come out well or
     won't succeed.   The work we've been assigned by other people or which we're doing on
     our own will be a waste of time or will cause us to lose face if we don't do as we've been
     told....

     This is one of the distractions which prevent new meditators from attaining
     concentration.   You have to pull your mind back to buddho, buddho, buddho, and tell
     yourself, "Thoughts of this sort aren't the path to peace; the true path to peace is to keep
     the mind with buddho and nothing else"   -- and then keep on repeating buddho, buddho,
     buddho....

     After a moment, the mind will go straying out again, this time to your family -- your
     children, your wife or husband:   How are they getting along?   Are they healthy?   Are they
     eating well?   If you're far apart, you wonder about where they're staying, what they're
     eating.   Those who have left home think about those at home.   Those at home think about
     those who have gone far away -- afraid that they aren't safe, that other people will molest
     them, that they have no friends, that they're lonely -- thinking in 108 different ways,
     whatever the mind can imagine, all of which exaggerate the truth.

     Or if you're still young and single, you think about having fun with your friends -- the
     places you used to go together, the good times you had, the things you used to do -- to
     the point where you actually say something or laugh out loud.   This sort of defilement is
     the worst of the bunch.

     When you are meditating buddho, buddho, buddho, your defilements see that the situation
     is getting out of hand and that you'll escape from their control, so they look for things to
     tie you down even more tightly all the time.   Never from the day of your birth have you
     ever practiced concentration at all.   You've simply let the mind follow the moods of the
     defilements.   Only now have you begun to practice, so when you repeat buddho, buddho,
     buddho to get the mind to settle down with buddho, it's going to wriggle away in the same
     way that fish try to wriggle back into the water when they're tossed up on land.   So you
     have to pull the mind back to buddho.

     Buddho is something cool and calm.   It's the path for giving rise to peace and contentment
     -- the only path that will release us from the suffering and stress in this world.

     So you pull the mind back to buddho.   This time it begins to settle down.   As soon as you
     feel that it's staying put, you begin to get a sense that when the mind stays put, it is rested
     and at ease in a way different from when it's not still, when it's restless and upset.   You
     make up your mind to be careful and alert to keep the mind in that state and. . .   Oops.
     There it goes again.   Now it's taking your financial interests as an excuse, saying that if
     you don't do this or search for that, you'll miss out on a really great opportunity.   So you
     focus your mind on that instead of your meditation word.   As for where buddho has gone,
     you haven't the least idea.   By the time you realize that buddho has disappeared, it's
     already too late -- which is why they say that the mind is restless, slippery and hard to
     control, like a monkey which can never sit still.

     Sometimes, after you've been sitting in meditation a long time, you begin to worry that
     your blood won't be flowing properly, that your nerves will die from lack of blood, that
     you'll grow numb and end up paralyzed.   If you're meditating far from home or in a forest,
     it's even worse:   You're afraid that snakes will bite you, tigers will eat you, or ghosts will
     haunt you, making all kinds of scary faces.   Your fear of death can whisper to you in all
     sorts of way, all of which are simply instances of you yourself scaring yourself.   The truth
     is nothing at all like what you imagine.   Never from the day of your birth have you ever
     seen a tiger eat even a single person.   You've never once seen a ghost -- you don't even
     know what it would look like, but you fashion up pictures to scare yourself.

     The obstacles to meditation mentioned here are simply examples.   There are actually
     many, many more.   Those who meditate will find this out for themselves.

     If you hold buddho close to the heart, and use your mindfulness to keep the mind with
     nothing but buddho, no dangers will come your way.   So have firm faith in buddho.    I
     guarantee that there will be no dangers at all -- unless you've done bad kamma in the past,
     which is something beyond anyone's power to protect you from.   Even the Buddha
     himself can't protect you from it.

     When people begin meditating, their confidence tends to be weak.   No matter what their
     meditation subject, these sorts of defilements are sure to interfere, because these
     defilements form the basis of the world and of the mind.   The minute we meditate and
     make the mind one-pointed, the defilements see that we're going to get away from them,
     so they come thronging around so that we won't be able to escape from the world.

     When we see how really serious and harmful they are, we should make our minds
     forthright and our confidence solid and strong, telling ourselves that we've let ourselves
     be deceived into believing the defilements for many lifetimes; it's time now that we be
     willing to believe the Buddha's teachings and take buddho as our refuge.   We then make
     mindfulness solid, and fix the mind firmly in buddho.   We give our lives to buddho, and
     won't let our minds slip away from it.   When we make this sort of commitment, the mind
     will drop straight into one-pointedness and enter concentration.

     When you first enter concentration, this is what it's like:   You'll have no idea at all of what
     concentration or one-pointedness of mind is going to feel like.   You are simply intent on
     keeping mindfulness firmly focused on one object -- and the power of a mind focused
     firmly on one object is what will bring you to a state of concentration.   You won't be
     thinking at all that concentration will be like this or like that, or that you want it to be like
     this or like that.   It will simply take its own way, automatically.   No one can force it.

     At that moment you will feel as if you are in another world (the world of the mind), with a
     sense of ease and solitude to which nothing else in the world can compare.   When the
     mind withdraws from concentration, you will regret that that mood has passed, and you
     will remember it clearly.   All that we say about concentration comes from the mind which
     has withdrawn from that state.   As long as it is still gathered in that state, we aren't
     interested in what anyone else says or does.

     You have to train the mind to enter this sort of concentration often, so as to become skilled
     and adept, but don't try to remember your past states of concentration, and don't let
     yourself want your concentration to be like it was before -- because it won't be that way,
     and you will just be making more trouble for yourself.   Simply contemplate buddho,
     buddho, and keep your mind with your mental repetition.   What it does then is its own
     business.

     After the mind has first attained to concentration, it won't be the same way the next time
     around, but don't worry about it.   Whatever it's like, don't worry about it.   Just make sure
     that you get it centered.   When the results come out in many different ways, your
     understanding will broaden and you'll come to develop many different techniques for
     dealing with the mind.

     What I've mentioned here is simply to be taken as an example.   When you follow these
     instructions, don't give them too much weight, or they will turn into allusions to the past,
     and your meditation won't get anywhere.   Simply remember them as something to use for
     the sake of comparison after your meditation has begun to progress.

     No matter what method you use -- buddho, rising & falling or samma araham -- when the
     mind is about to settle down in concentration, you won't be thinking that the mind is about
     to settle down, or is settling down, or anything at all.   It will settle down automatically on
     its own.   You won't even know when you let go of your meditation word.   The mind will
     simply have a separate calm and peace which isn't in this world or another world or
     anything of the sort.   There's no one and nothing at all, just the mind's own separate state,
     which is called the world of the mind.   In that state there won't be the word 'world' or
     anything else.   The conventional realities of the world won't appear there, and thus no
     insight of any sort will arise in there at all.   The point is simply that you train the mind to be
     centered, and then compare it to the state of mind which isn't centered so that you can see
     how they differ, how the mind which has attained concentration and then withdraws to
     contemplate matters of the world and the Dhamma differs from the mind which hasn't
     attained concentration.

     The heart and the mind.   Let's talk some more about the heart and mind so that you'll
     understand.   After all, we're talking about training the mind in concentration:   If you don't
     understand the relationship between the heart and the mind, you won't know where or
     how to practice concentration.

     Everyone born -- human or animal -- has a heart and mind, but the heart and mind have
     different duties.   The mind thinks, wanders and forms ideas of all sorts, in line with where
     the defilements lead it.   As for the heart, it's simply what knows.   It doesn't form any ideas
     at all.   It's neutral -- in the middle -- with regard to everything.    The awareness which is
     neutral:   That's the heart.

     The heart doesn't have a body.   It's a mental phenomenon.   It's simply awareness.   You
     can place it anywhere at all.   It doesn't lie inside or outside the body.   When we call the
     heart-muscle the heart, that's not the true heart.   It's simply an organ for pumping blood
     throughout the body so as to keep it alive.   If the heart-muscle doesn't pump blood
     throughout the body, life can't last.

     People in general are always talking about the heart:   "My heart feels happy... sad...
     heavy... light... down..."   Everything is a matter of the heart.   Abhidhamma experts,
     however, speak in terms of the mind:   the mind in a wholesome state, the mind in an
     unwholesome state, the mind in a neutral state, the mind on the level of form, the mind on
     the formless level, the mind on the transcendent level and so on, but none of them know
     what the real heart and mind are like.

     The mind is what thinks and forms ideas.   It has to make use of the six senses as its
     tools.   As soon as the eye sees a visual object, the ear hears a sound, the nose smells an
     aroma, the tongue tastes a flavor, the body comes into contact with a tactile sensation --
     cold, hot, hard or soft -- or the intellect thinks of an idea in line with its defilements, good or
     bad:   If any of these things are good, the mind is pleased; if they're bad, it's displeased.
     All of this is an affair of the mind, or of defilement.   Aside from these six senses, there's
     nothing the mind can make use of.   In the texts they are analyzed into the six faculties, the
     six elements, the six forms of contact, and all sorts of other things, but all these things lie
     within the six senses.   So these are characteristics of the mind:   that which can never sit
     still.

     When you train the mind -- or, in other words, practice concentration -- you have to get
     control over the mind which is wriggling after the six senses, as already explained, and
     make it stop still with one thing:   its meditation word, buddho.   Don't let it go straying out
     ahead or behind.   Make it stay still, and know that it's staying still:   That's the heart.   The
     heart has nothing to do with any of the six senses, which is why it's called the heart.

     When people in general talk about the heart of something, they are referring to its center.
     Even when they talk about their own hearts, they point to the center of the chest.
     Actually, the heart doesn't lie in any particular place at all -- as I have already explained --
     although it lies right in the center of everything.

     If you want to understand what the heart is, you can try an experiment.   Breathe in deeply
     and hold your breath for a moment.   At that point there won't be anything at all except for
     one thing:   neutral awareness.   That's the heart, or 'what knows'.   But if you try to catch
     hold of the heart in this way, you can't hold on to it for very long -- only as long as you can
     hold your breath -- but you can give it a try just to see what the true heart is like.

     (Holding the breath can help reduce physical pain.   People who are suffering from great
     pain have to hold their breath as one way -- fairly effective -- of relieving their pain.)

     Once you realize that the heart and mind have different duties and characteristics like this,
     you'll find it easier to train the mind.   Actually, the heart and the mind are really the same
     thing.   As the Buddha said, the mind is identical with the heart.   When we practice
     concentration, it's enough just to train the mind; once the mind is trained, that's where
     we'll see the heart.

     Once the mind has been fully trained by using mindfulness to keep it with buddho as its
     only preoccupation, it won't go straying after different things, and instead will gather into
     oneness.   The meditation word will disappear without your being aware of it, and you will
     feel a sense of peace and ease which nothing else can equal.   Those who have never
     experienced this ease before, when they first experience it, won't be able to describe it,
     because no one else in the world has ever experienced that kind of peace and ease.   Even
     though other people have experienced it, it's not the same.   For this reason, you find it
     hard to describe -- although you can describe it to yourself.   If you try to describe it to
     others, you have to use similes and analogies before they'll understand you.   Things of
     this sort are personal:   Only you can know them for yourself.

     In addition, if you have developed a lot of potential in previous lifetimes, all sorts of
     amazing things can happen.   For example, you may gain knowledge of heavenly beings
     or hungry ghosts.   You may learn about your own past and future, and that of other
     people:   In that particular lifetime you were like this; in the future you'll be like that.   Even
     though you didn't intend to know these things, when the mind attains concentration it can
     know on its own in a very amazing way.

     This sort of thing is something which really fascinates beginning meditators.   When it
     happens to them, they like to brag to other people.   When those people try to meditate, but
     don't get the knowledge or abilities, they become discouraged, thinking that they don't
     have the merit or potential to meditate, and they begin to lose faith in the practice.

     As for those who see these sorts of things, when that knowledge or ability deteriorates --
     because they've been carried away by external things, and haven't taken the heart as their
     foundation -- they won't be able to grab hold of anything at all.   When they think of the
     things they used to know, their minds become even more stirred up.   People who like to
     brag will take the old things they used to see and talk about them in glowing terms.   Avid
     listeners really love to listen to this sort of thing, but avid meditators are unimpressed --
     because true meditators like to listen only to things which are present and true.

     The Buddha taught that whether his teachings will flourish or degenerate depends on
     those who practice them.   The teachings degenerate when meditators get just a little bit of
     knowledge and then go bragging to other people, talking about external matters with no
     substance at all, instead of explaining the basic principles of meditation.   When they do
     this, they make the religion degenerate without their even realizing it.

     Those who make the religion flourish are those who speak about things which are useful
     and true.   They don't speak just for the fun of it.   They speak in terms of cause and effect:
     "When you meditate like this, repeating the meditation word in this way, it will make the
     mind gather into one and snuff out its defilements and restlessness like this...."

     When you meditate on buddho, be patient.   Don't be in a hurry.   Be confident in your
     meditation word, and use mindfulness to keep the mind with its buddho.   Your confidence
     is what will make the mind firm and unwavering, able to let go of all its doubts and
     uncertainties.   The mind will gather in on its meditation word, and mindfulness will keep it
     solely with buddho at all times.   Whether you sit, stand, walk, lie down, or whatever work
     you do, mindfulness will be alert to nothing but buddho.   If your mindfulness is still weak,
     and your techniques still few, you have to hold on to buddho as your foundation.
     Otherwise your meditation won't progress; or even if it does progress, it won't have any
     foundation.

     For concentration to be strong, the mind has to be resolute.   When mindfulness is strong
     and the mind resolute, you decide that this is what you want:   "If I can't catch hold of
     buddho, or see buddho in my heart, or get the mind to stay put solely with buddho, I won't
     get up from my meditation.   Even if my life will end, I don't care."   When you do this, the
     mind will gather into one faster than you realize it.   The meditation word buddho, or
     whatever it is that may have been bothering or perplexing you, will vanish in the flash of
     an eye.   Even your body, which you have been attached to for so long, won't appear to
     you.   All that remains is the heart -- simple awareness -- cool, calm and at ease.

     People who practice meditation really like it when this happens.   The next time around,
     they want it to happen again, and so it doesn't happen again.   That's because the desire
     keeps it from happening.   Concentration is something very subtle and sensitive.   You
     can't force it to be like this or that -- and at the same time you can't force the mind not to
     enter concentration either.

     If you're impatient, things get even more fouled up.   You have to be very patient.   Whether
     or not the mind is going to attain concentration, you've meditated on buddho in the past,
     so you just keep meditating on buddho.   Act as if you had never meditated on buddho
     before.   Make the mind neutral and even, let the breath flow gently, and use mindfulness
     to focus the mind on buddho and nothing else.   When the time comes for the mind to
     enter concentration, it will do it on its own.   You can't arrange the way it will happen.   If it
     were something you could arrange, all the people in the world would have become
     arahants long ago.

     Knowing how to meditate, but not doing it right; having done it right once, and wanting it
     to be that way again, and yet it doesn't happen: All of these things are obstacles in
     practicing concentration.

     In meditating on buddho, you have to get so that you are quick and adept.   When a good or
     a bad mood strikes you, you have to be able to enter concentration immediately.   Don't let
     the mind be affected by that mood.   Whenever you think of buddho, the mind gathers
     immediately:   When you can do this, your mind will be solid and able to rely on itself.

     When you have practiced so that you are adept and experienced in this way, after a while
     you will find that your defilements and attachments to all things will gradually disappear
     on their own.   You don't have to go clearing away this or that defilement, telling yourself
     that this or that defilement has to be removed with this or that teaching or this or that
     method.   Be content with whatever method you find works for you.   That's plenty
     enough.

     To have the defilements gradually disappear with the method I've just explained is better
     than trying to arrange things, entering the four levels of absorption, sustained thought,
     rapture and pleasure, leaving just one-pointedness and equanimity; or trying to arrange
     the first stage of the path to nibbana by abandoning self-identity views, uncertainty and
     attachment to precepts & practices; or by looking at your various defilements, telling
     yourself, "With that defilement, I was able to contemplate in such-and-such a way, so I've
     gone beyond that defilement.   I have so-and-so many defilements left.   If I can
     contemplate in such-and-such a way, my defilements will be finished"   -- but you don't
     realize that the state of mind which wants to see and know and attain these things is a
     defilement fixed firmly in the mind.   When you finish your contemplation, the mind is back
     in its original state, and hasn't gained anything at all.   On top of that, if someone comes
     along and says something which goes against the way you see things, you start
     disagreeing violently, like a burning fire into which someone pours kerosene.

     So hold firmly to your meditation word, buddho.   Even if you don't attain anything else, at
     least you've got your meditation word as your foundation.   The various preoccupations of
     the mind will lessen, or may even disappear, which is better than not having any
     foundation to hold to at all.

     Actually, all meditators have to hold firmly to their meditation word.   Only then can they be
     said to be meditation with a foundation.   When their meditation deteriorates, they'll be able
     to use it as something to hold to.

     The Buddha taught that people who make the effort to abandon defilement have to act like
     old-time warriors.   In the past, they'd have to build a fortress with strong walls, moats,
     gates and towers to protect themselves from enemy attack.   When an intelligent warrior
     went out to battle and saw that he was no match for the enemy, he would retreat into his
     fortress and defend it so that the enemy couldn't destroy it.   At the same time, he would
     gather enough troops, weapons and food (i.e., make his concentration forthright and
     strong) and then go out to resume his fight with the enemy (i.e., all the forms of
     defilement).

     Concentration is a very important strength.   If you don't have concentration, where will
     your discernment gain any strength?   The discernment of insight meditation is not
     something that can be fashioned into being by arrangement.   Instead, it arises from
     concentration which has been mastered until it is good and solid.

     Even those who are said to attain Awakening with 'dry insight':   If they don't have any
     mental stillness, where will they get any insight? It's simply that their stillness isn't fully
     mastered.   Only when we put the matter this way does it make any sense.

     When your concentration is solid and steady to the point where you can enter and leave it
     at will, you will be able to stay with it long and contemplate the body in terms of its
     unattractiveness, or in terms of its physical elements.   Or, if you like, you can contemplate
     the people of the world until you see them all as skeletons, or you can contemplate the
     entire world as empty space....

     Once the mind is fully centered, then no matter whether you are sitting, standing, walking
     or lying down, the mind will be centered at times.   You will be able to see clearly how your
     own defilements -- greed, anger and delusion, which arise from the mind -- arise from this
     and that cause, how they remain in this or that way, and you will be able to find means to
     abandon them with this or that technique.

     This is like the water in a lake which has been muddy for hundreds and hundreds of years
     suddenly becoming clear so that you can see all the things lying along the lake-bottom --
     things which you never dreamed were there before.   This is called insight -- seeing things
     as they truly are.   Whatever sort of truth they have, that's the truth you see, without
     deviating from that truth.

     Forcing the mind to be still can make it let go of defilement, but it lets go in the same way a
     person cuts grass, cutting just the part above ground, without digging up the roots.   The
     roots are sure to send up new shoots when rain falls again.   In other words, you do see
     the harm of the preoccupations which arise from the six senses, but as soon as you see it,
     you retreat into stillness without contemplating those preoccupations as carefully as you
     do when the mind is in concentration.   In short, you simply want stillness, without wanting
     to spend any time in contemplation -- like a ground lizard which relies on its hole for
     safety.   As soon as it sees an enemy coming, it runs into its hole, escaping danger only
     for a while.

     If you want to uproot your defilements, then when you see that defilement springs from
     the six senses -- for instance, the eye sees a visual object or the ear hears a sound,
     contact is made which causes you to be pleased or displeased, happy or sad, and then
     you grasp onto it as your preoccupation, making the mind murky, disturbed and upset,
     sometimes to the point where you can't eat or sleep, and can even commit suicide -- when
     you see this clearly, make your concentration firm and then focus your mind exclusively
     on examining that particular preoccupation.   For instance, if the eye sees an attractive
     visual object which makes you feel pleased, focus on examining just that sense of
     pleasure, to find out whether it arises from the eye or from the visual object.

     If you examine the visual object, you see that it's just a physical phenomenon.   Whether
     it's good or bad, it doesn't try to persuade you to be pleased or displeased, or to make you
     love it or hate it.   It's simply a visual object which appears and then disappears in line with
     its own nature.

     When you turn to examine the eye which sees the visual object, you find that the eye goes
     looking for objects and, as soon as it finds one, light gets reflected into the optic nerves so
     that all kinds of visible forms appear.   The eye doesn't try to persuade you to be pleased
     or displeased, to love or to hate anything.   Its duty is simply to see.   Once it has seen a
     visible form, the form disappears.

     As for the other senses and their objects, attractive or unattractive, they should be
     examined in just the same way.

     When you contemplate in this way, you will see clearly that all the things in the world
     which become objects of defilement do so because of these six senses.   If you
     contemplate the six senses so that you don't tag along after them, defilements won't arise
     within you.   On the contrary:   Insight and discernment will arise instead, all because of
     these same six senses.   The six senses are the media of goodness and evil.   We will head
     for a good or a bad destination in the next life because of the way we use them.

     The world seems broad because the mind isn't centered, and is left free to wander among
     the objects of the six senses.   The world will narrow down when the mind has been
     trained in concentration so that it lies under your control and can contemplate the six
     senses exclusively within it.   In other words, when the mind is fully concentrated, the
     outer senses -- the eye seeing forms, the ear hearing sounds and so on -- won't appear at
     all.   All that will appear are the forms and sounds which are mental phenomena present
     exclusively in that concentration.   You won't be paying any attention to the outer senses
     at all.

     When your concentration is fully solid and strong, you will be able to contemplate this
     world of the mind which gives rise to sensory contact, perceptions, preoccupations and all
     defilements.   The mind will withdraw from everything leaving just the heart, or simple
     awareness.

     The heart and the mind have different characteristics.   The mind is what thinks, forming
     perceptions and preoccupations to the point of latching on holding them to itself.   When it
     sees the suffering, harm and stress which come from holding onto all the defilements, it
     will go and withdraw from all preoccupations and defilements.   The mind will then be the
     heart.   This is how the heart and mind differ.

     The heart is what is neutral and still.   It doesn't think anything at all.   It is simply aware of
     its stillness.   The heart is a genuinely neutral or central phenomenon.   Neutral with no
     past, no future, no good, no evil:   That's the heart.   When we talk about the heart of
     anything, we mean its center.   Even the human heart, which is a mental phenomenon, we
     say lies in the center of the chest.   But where the real heart is, we don't know.   Try
     focusing your attention on any part of the body, and you'll feel the awareness of that
     spot.   Or you can focus your attention outside the body -- on a post or the wall of a house,
     for example -- and that's the spot you'll be aware of.

     So we can conclude that the true heart is still and neutral awareness.   Wherever there is
     neutral awareness, that's where the heart is.

     When people in general talk about the heart, that's not the true heart.   It's simply a set of
     muscles and valves for pumping blood throughout the body to keep it alive.   If this pump
     doesn't send blood throughout the body, the body can't live.   It'll have to die.   The same
     holds true with the brain.   The mind thinks of good and evil by using the brain as its tool.
     The nervous system of the brain is a physical phenomenon.   When its various causal
     factors are cut off, this physical phenomenon can't last.   It has to stop.

     But as for the mind, which is a mental phenomenon, Buddhism teaches that it continues
     to exist and can take birth again.   This mental phenomenon will stop only when insight
     discerns its causal factors and uproots their underlying causes.

     None of the various subjects and sciences of the world have an end point.   The more you
     study them, the more they fan out.   Only Buddhism can teach you to reach an end.    In the
     first stage, it teaches you to acquaint yourself with your body, to see how it is made up of
     various things (the 32 parts) put together, and what their duties are.   At the same time,
     Buddhism teaches you to see that the body is inherently unattractive.   It teaches you to
     acquaint yourself with this world (the world of a human being), which is made up of
     suffering and stress, and which will ultimately have to fall apart by its very nature.

     So now that we have received this body -- even though it is full of foul and unattractive
     things, and even though it is made up of all kinds of suffering and stress -- we're still able
     to depend on it for a while, so we should use it to do good to repay our debts to the world
     before we leave it at death.

     The Buddha teaches that although the nature of a person (this world) is to fall apart and
     die, the mind -- the overseer of this world -- must come back to be reborn as long as it still
     has defilements.   Thus he teaches us to practice concentration, which is an affair
     exclusively of the mind.   Once we have practiced concentration, we will fell every sensory
     contact inside, just at the mind.   We won't be concerned with out seeing and hearing at
     the eye or the ear.   Instead, we will be aware of the sensory contact right at the mind.
     This is what it means to narrow down the world.

     The senses are the best means for taking the measure of your own mind.   When sensory
     contact strikes the mind, does it have an impact on you?   If it has a lot of impact, that
     shows that your mindfulness is weak, and your foundation is still shaky.   If it has only a
     little impact, or no impact at all, that shows that your mindfulness is strong, and you are
     fully able to care for yourself.

     These things are like Devadatta, who created trouble for the Bodhisattva all along.   If not
     for Devadatta, the Bodhisattva wouldn't have been able to bring his character to full
     perfection.   Once his character had been fully perfected, he was able to gain Awakening
     and become the Buddha.   Before gaining Awakening, he had to withstand the massive
     armies of temptation; and right after his Awakening, the three daughters of temptation
     came to test him once more.   As a result, the people of the world have praised him ever
     since for having conquered defilement in this world once and for all.

     As long as the inner senses still exist, mental contact is still a preoccupation.   Thus those
     who know, having seen the harm of these things, are willing to withdraw from them,
     leaving just the heart which is neutral...neutral...neutral, with no thinking, no imagining, no
     fashioning of anything at all.   When this is the case, where will this world be formed?
     This is how the Buddha teaches us to reach the world's end
 
 

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