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Observations on the Art of Meditation by Translated from the Thai This work may be freely copied, printed, and redistributed
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The passage for reflection on the four requisites (clothing,
food, shelter, and medicine) is a fine pattern for contemplation, but
we never actually get down to putting it to use. We're taught to
memorize it in the beginning not simply to pass the time of day or so
that we can talk about it every now and then, but so that we can use
it to contemplate the requisites until we really know them with our
own mindfulness and discernment. If we actually get down to
contemplating in line with the established pattern, our minds will
become much less influenced by unwise thoughts. But it's the rare
person who genuinely makes this a continuous practice....For the most
part we're not interested. We don't feel like contemplating this sort
of thing. We'd much rather contemplate whether this or that food will
taste good or not, and if it doesn't taste good, how to fix it so that
it will. That's the sort of thing we like to contemplate.
Try to see the filthiness of food and of the physical properties
in general, to see their emptiness of any real entity or self. There's
nothing of any substance to the physical properties of the body, which
are all rotten and decomposing. The body is like a restroom over a
cesspool. We can decorate it on the outside to make it pretty and
attractive, but on the inside it's full of the most horrible, filthy
things. Whenever we excrete anything, we ourselves are repelled by it;
yet even though we're repelled by it, it's there inside us, in our
intestines -- decomposing, full of worms, awful smelling. There's just
the flimsiest membrane covering it up, but we fall for it and hold
tight to it. We don't see the constant decomposition of this body, in
spite of the filth and smells it sends out....
The reason we're taught to memorize the passage for reflecting on
the requisites, and to use it to contemplate, is so that we'll see the
inconstancy of the body, to see that there's no "self" to any of it or
to any of the mental phenomena we sense with every moment. * * *
This is why we have to practice concentration: to make the mind
quiet, to provide a foundation for our contemplation. For instance,
you can focus on the breath, or be aware of the mind as it focuses on
the breath. Actually, when you focus on the breath, you're also aware
of the mind. And again, the mind is what knows the breath. So you
focus exclusively on the breath together with the mind. Don't think of
anything else, and the mind will settle down and grow still. Once it
attains stillness on this level, you've got your chance to
contemplate.
Making the mind still so that you can contemplate it is something
you have to keep working at in the beginning. The same holds true with
training yourself to be mindful and fully aware in all your
activities. This is something you really have to work at continuously
in this stage, something you have to do all the time. At the same
time, you have to arrange the external conditions of your life so that
you won't have any concerns to distract you....
Now, of course, the practice is something you can do in any set
of circumstances -- for example, when you come home from work you can
sit and meditate for a while -- but when you're trying seriously to
make it continuous, to make it habitual, it's much more difficult than
that. " Making it habitual" means being fully mindful and aware with
each in-and-out breath, wherever you go, whatever you do, whether
you're healthy, sick, or whatever, and regardless of what happens
inside or out. The mind has to be in a state of all-encompassing
awareness while keeping track of the arising and disbanding of mental
phenomena at all times -- to the point where you can stop the mind
from forming thoughts under the power of craving and defilement the
way it used to before you began the practice.
K. Khao-suan-luang
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