•We expect to be really happy with the things we attach to, only to inevitably feel dissatisfied and disillusioned in the end.
• We face it and do not see its face; we follow it and do not see its back.
• We fail to see the suffering that is facing us in the future.
• We have a choice of a heart under domination or a heart of freedom. Why do we make the wrong choice?
• We have all been brothers and sisters in this life before.
• We have been bearing the load of our body since birth, and it never seems to get any lighter. • We have had the good fortune to be born as human beings, rather than just as animals. We are capable of perceiving the way, capable of following the path from beginning to end. Act while you have a chance. • We have long been passively submissive under the mass of defilements. It’s only when we begin to become weary of their domination, and start to realize their curse, that we are able to resist. • We have no safety vaults within our worldly hearts, so we are continually open to danger. • We have so many desires for pleasure at a very coarse level of feeling, perception and thought, and it’s so easy to fall into their guiles and fall into a life of negligence. • We have to be careful about what we do and say; otherwise, we constantly hurt ourselves. • We have to know what is deluding us before we can let it go. • We have to watch our minds, and whenever our practice slackens, we must make it firm again. 125 • We must be circumspect and avoid the arising of an action before it happens. This way we can keep our actions pure and not waste energy thinking of their consequences. • We must choose between the way that leads back into the world and the way that leads out of this world. • We must consider what this living-under-a-tree really means. • We must continue to combat the thousand-and-one ways of sinking in the mud. • We must excel in expounding the turning of the incomparable Wheel of the Dhamma, in expounding in depth and in detail the Four Noble Truths realized with the attainment of enlightenment. • We must have a detached perspective on suffering before we can finally see it for what it is. • We must hurry and practice to go beyond suffering while we still have the chance in this life. Once the Dhamma is forgotten, it can be lost in darkness for a very long time. • We must keep the Buddha in mind, and be mindful of everything we do, sitting, standing, walking or lying. • We must make the effort. The Buddha only points out the way. • We must not over-tax our bodies with overindulgence and undernourishment. • We must penetrate further, taking the heart of the heart as our target. • We must practice meditation, not practicing in quest of our own desires, but practicing upon the groundwork of the right understanding and the right intentions communicated to us by the Buddha. • We must seek and find the Dhamma within ourselves and then tame it like a wild animal in a bone cage. 126 • We must study the Dhamma by watching the actions of body and the heart and learn to do the opposite of what seems to come naturally. • We must try to correct whatever is detrimental by examining its fundamental nature and rectifying its place of origin. • We must try to observe everything very patiently in meditation, in order to see that phenomena are not held together with a core. • We need to gather and make our state of mind stronger, so that it washes out the stains of impurity and replaces them with pure states of mind, for, when impure states of mind arise, they do not lead to peace and detachment. • We only become and exist as our minds condition us. • We pick up and react to every impulse which impinges on the mindbody senses. That is the nature of experience Impulse and reaction. Is that all there is? • We practice in order for wisdom to arise. We practice restraint to avoid doing any harm: shame and fear restrain us from doing harm. • We should not long for things in the past, because once they have passed they do not last. • We should use the body to do good before it deteriorates away into death. • We suffer kamma returning to us, coming even from half-conscious motives of which we have been unaware ourselves. • We tend to emphasize the side of beauty and pleasures of youth, whilst we push aside and ignore the ugly side of life, of old age, sickness, death, boredom, despair and depression. This is human nature; this is illusion. 127 • We think that a book is very solid, but if we could look at this book under a microscope, it would appear to be full of holes, full of empty spaces. • We think that we are substantial, but if we have real insight into our nature of being composed of elements that are mutually dependent upon and interacting with each other, then, the idea of a coherent abiding self is weakened, and nothing we can call self is found. • We usually see things as solid and compact, but we have to train our minds to look at and analyze that supposed compactness more closely. • We want to drop the rock of wrong understanding and let it go, but we force ourselves to continue to carry it, until we become so weak and exhausted that we drop with the rock as we let it go. • We, who have nothing, will feed on rapture. • Weaken the resolve of an unruly mind and bring it to stillness. • Weakness leads into harm and danger; strength leads to firmness and stability. • Wealth brings about its own ruin; the true treasure is found in the mind. • Wealth exposes one to jealousness, deceitfulness and unscrupulousness. • Wealth wastes away, like a heron in a dried-up lake. • Well-gotten righteous wealth promotes social welfare and health. • Well-taught Dhamma does not always result in well-learned Dhamma. • What a long procession of dead bodies follows in the wake of a living person. • What am I to do with this great demon that clings to my sense of self, causing harm and strife and the fear and suffering with which this world is rife? 128 • What appears to exist in the mind has no real independent existence. • What are we waiting for? If we stop waiting, we stop expecting. • What can be lost through a vigorous examination into the true state of affairs? • What dies is the supposed thing the heart is observing and dissecting. • What gathers in the bladder can make it burst. What accumulates in the mind makes it die of thirst. • What happens if you cling to the idea of letting go? • What impulse causes you to indulge in all sorts of moral transgressions? • What is better than a mountain home free of dust? • What is hidden in darkness is definitely out of sight. • What is inexpressible is inexhaustible. • What is the confluence of opposites that meets in the middle? • What is the sound of the soul? Is it hollow or is it whole? • What lies beyond the ken of perception is prone to deception. • What makes one so stupid and irrational are attachment and passions. • What the eye sees is just the outside skin. It does not see the smelly, disintegrating, organic reality inside. • What the present state of mind sows the next state of mind reaps. • What track leads to the trackless? • What we are is the result of what we have thought and done. • What we experience as self is actually input from the five senses and the way the mind responds to this input. • What we grasp onto burns our fingers. • What you are looking for is under your nose. Why look far away? 129 • What you are willing and wanting now was present a thousand lifetimes ago; beings come and go but the Buddha-Dhamma remains the same. • What’s truly useful and good is very hard to do. • Whatever a faithful kinsman might do for you, the well-directed mind can do as well or better. • Whatever arises from conditions: when the conditions are there, the result comes about. When the conditions are not there, the result does not come about. • Whatever disturbs your mind and makes it upset, so that you cannot eat or sleep, focus your concentration on it and firmly seek to cut out the root. • Whatever good one has done, it only bears fruit if it is based on right view and right understanding. • Whatever has the nature of arising has the nature of cessation. • Whatever has the nature of arriving has the nature of ceasing. • Whatever is a necessity to the life of one who lacks it and whoever supplies it is a giver of nourishing gifts. • Whatever mental states get in the way of our practice, we should regard as defilements. • Whatever we want is what arises in the mind and becomes the object of the mind. • Whatever you are doing, observe that you are there, and the energy of your practice will grow mature. • Whatever you are studying, just concentrate on that alone. However, whoever is interested only in study alone cannot go beyond suffering. • Whatever you do for worldly gain is a waste of time and not worth the pain. 130 • When a fruit tree is in bloom, the wind scatters some of the blossoms on the ground. • When all external objects have faded, the Dhamma will appear. • When an evil man, seeing you practice goodness, comes and maliciously insults you, you should patiently endure it and not feel angry with him. • When anger arises, it grows and changes and finally disappears. When happiness arises, it changes and disappears. • When appearances of the mind are as transparent as space, they are gone. • When attachment is contemplated and understood, insight into nonattachment arises. • When cleverness, which is mindfulness and wisdom, has cleaned out all the filth and gloom from the heart, it becomes bright and clear. • When conditions end, so does any concern about them, and all that is left is a consummate state of purity. • When craving ends, suppositions are gone. • When death does occur, one accepts it as a verdict of kamma, with maturity and equanimity. • When delusion disbands, all sufferings that depend on delusions disband. • When delusions are present, the mind is in hell. • When desire comes back, nobody sees it. • When desire is cut off, there is no new becoming; just as in a lamp, when the oil is used up, the flame is extinguished and disappears. • When disenchanted with stressful states, one leaves them behind. 131 • When distracted by noise, the untrained-mind loses detachment, balance and poise. • When effort becomes effortless, the mind reaches deathlessness. • When evil ripens, the fool falls down in pain. • When gold dust gets in your eyes, it affects your vision. • When good-actions ripen, the fruit is good. • When ignorance disbands, delusions disband. • When irritation with distractions arise, do not be angered. Turn them into meditation objects. • When lust, anger, confusion, arrogance, indifference, obstinacy, lowmindedness, selfishness, affliction, greed, acquisitiveness arise, they cause a lack of respect, deference and consideration for others. • When lying down to sleep, one may end one’s day repeating a Dhamma word or phrase, over and over, until one falls asleep. • When meditating, leave expectations behind and just concentrate on the moment. • When mental concoction stops, one sees the detached nature of the mind that is without fire or anguish. • When mindfulness and desire meet, desire disappears. • When mindfulness is settled, no longer are you restlessly drawn out after sense objects or meaningless thought fabrications • When mindfulness is strong, sense contact is weak. • When nothing can rush into an empty mind, self has blown out. • When observed calmly, all things reach their intended, inherent end. • When one abides in noble states, there is an ultimate escape from the whole field of perception. What there was to be done is done, and there will be no more of this. 132 • When one concentrates on single pointed-ness, one’s mind is open and empty and has an all-embracing quality. Rather than being merely reflective, sorting out and refining coarseness and impurities, the mind is all-absorbed within one single point of clarity and purity, allabsorbed to the exclusion of everything else. • When one contemplates noble, arisen states, joy enters the mind. • When one is desperately ill and feels helpless, a kind word or gentle act becomes a source of comfort. • When one knows in oneself what actions are profitable, blameless and commended by the wise, such actions lead to welfare and happiness. • When one realizes that one cannot sneak away from oneself, one realizes one needs not to be attached to a cave either. • When one sees with discernment that all phenomena are not self, this is the path to purity. • When possessiveness seems pointless, we can let go of our obsessive grasp on the body and allow it to follow its own course, whether it is holding together or entering the inevitable phase of dissolution. • When practiced too intensely, meditation makes you feel miserable. • When practicing walking meditation, hold the hands clasped, in front of you, with the left in the right, and take twenty to thirty paces, counting as you go, as an aid to keeping concentration. Then, turn about in a clockwise direction and walk back along the same line in the same way. • When recollecting with detachment all the meritorious deeds, one has done in one’s life, the mind becomes tranquil and happy. • When right understanding arises, liberation from suffering lies before us. 133 • When right view and right thought come together, they are like two strands twisted together to make a stronger cord. When all eight strands of the path are spliced and twisted together into one strong rope, this is called The Middle Way. • When self-control, implies no-self to control. • When sitting, care should be taken that the body is erect yet relaxed. • When the body is rigid like wood or stone there is no discrimination. • When the brain is cut-off from the physical phenomenon cannot last. • When the breath gets very subtle so you hardly notice it, shift concentration to a pleasant sensation, such as a feeling of lovingkindness. • When the defilements are gone, only spotless purity remains, and perfect happiness is to be found. • When the defilements of greed, hate and delusion have been cleaned and cleared away, the mind reaches a state which may be declared to be venerable. • When the defilements see that the mind is becoming one-pointed, they come thronging around, attempting to prevent us from escaping from the psycho-sensual world. • When the defilements take over the processing of recollecting, they can pierce through to the heart, causing great suffering and torment which can lead even into madness. • When the defilements, complete with cravings, flood the heart what can drain them out? • When the heart cannot deceive itself anymore, it becomes disenchanted with itself. • When the heart has attained one-pointed-ness, the meditation topic will disappear on its own. 134 • When the mind achieves stillness and peace, it will turn away from the fevers of passion, aversion and delusion and turn to mental discernment instead. Its views will become clear; it will no longer waver. • When the mind clicks and understands the Dhamma, it becomes stilled. • When the mind escapes the world, it experiences a sense of ease and solitude to which nothing else can compare. • When the mind fixes on a desired object, you must reflect and see the harm and suffering which arises there and compare it to the happiness of the mind freed from the harmful effects of desire. • When the mind has achieved ultimate calm, don’t just sit there and enjoy it. That isn’t the purpose of the practice. Penetrate through the bounds of calm and onto another level. • When the mind has given-up evil and become virtuous and kind, it is radiant and peaceful. • When the mind is aquiver, be quick to still it. • When the mind is detached, subject and object do not interact • When the mind is firmly fixed in its foundation of wisdom, fearless of attaching to exterior things, detached from worldly things, it leaves them all behind and dwells in an abode of peace. • When the mind is focused, the conventional realities of the world won’t appear. • When the mind is good and virtuous, it is happy. When the mind is at ease, there’s a smile in your heart. • When the mind is on fire with anger, we have fallen from the human state into a fiery hell of the here and now. 135 • When the mind is possessed by ignorance and delusion, you cannot remain relaxed or indifferent; you must energetically eradicate the source from which they spring and neutralize the effects of harm and suffering. • When the mind is pulled in different directions by different senses, it quite naturally becomes confused, disturbed and agitated. • When the mind is restless and irritable, we should use discernment to reflect on things that turn it in the opposite direction. • When the mind is unafraid of losing the state of calm, and it lets go of its attachment to calm, it is ready to start penetrating deeper and deeper into a state of profound inner peace that leaves initial calm behind, which is accompanied by a corresponding development of indepth wisdom. • When the mind no longer insists on pleasure, the load of suffering and anguish will lighten. • When the mind sees the cause of suffering and stress, it sees the harm in hanging on to the six senses and lets them go. • When the mind stays still, it is restful and at ease; when it is not still, it is restless and displeased. • When the mind-made concept of personality identifies and absorbs itself into the perceptions of the body, what is going on? • When the moon is reflected on the water, the moon does not get wet, and the water does not get broken. • When the moon looks at the earth, it peers straight down into the garden. • When the Noble Disciples listened to the teaching of the Buddha Dhamma, it wasn’t a ritual; it was a direct experience of the radiance of the truth. 136 • When the noble follower finds estrangement from form, estrangement from feeling, estrangement from perceptions, estrangement from mental perceptions, estrangement from consciousness, this means that the meditator has become weary of form, dispassionate about matter. • When the parched heart lacks Dhamma to cool and nourish it, the fire of the defilements can readily take over. Everything that then arises within it will be scorched. • When the rain falls, some of the blossoms will drop. • When the sense of self feels threatened through bare observation and analysis, it throws up a screen of confusion and cloud to protect itself from exposure. • When the source is cut off, even rivers run dry. • When the thirst stops, the search is over. • When the time comes, I will let go of this body. That’s all. • When the time of necessity is upon us, nobody else can help. • When the unexpected happens, when difficulties and failures arise, the Buddhist realizes that he is reaping what he has sown, wiping off his past debt. • When the wheel of karma crushes us, we suffer the most. • When the wish to injure ceases, pain vanishes. • When there is nobody about to complain to, the body inclines towards rest. When there is no one inside to complain, that is the best. • When there is nothing there, there is nothing to attain. • When there’s nothing to hang onto, you don’t have to let it go. • When there’s nothing to look at and nothing to see, contemplate on whether nothingness can contain eternity. 137 • When things break up, we are not unhappy, for we see their impermanence. We are not happy; we are not unhappy; there is just equanimity. • When this is not, that does not come to be. • When through insight, the fetters of attachment are broken, one rises through successive stages of realization to the attainment of full liberation. • When uncouth cravings overcome you, sorrows grow like grass after rain. • When we are aware of nothingness, there is nothing to escape. • When we are bored, we run to something interesting; if we are frightened, we run to safety. We do not realize this is escapism; we do not want to recognize the opposite poles of life, the way they are, so, instead, we delude ourselves and find ourselves running. • When we are loving and kind, high and noble motives will enter the mind. • When we are practicing proper contemplation, all dualistic thinking has ceased. • When we are truly aware of things, we are conscious of the Dhamma sustaining their causes and conditions. • When we ask why we are so miserable, we never think that it is we ourselves that are making us so miserable. • When we bring patience and equanimity to bear on our present adversities, our deeds become our friends. • When we focus beyond the six senses, we have no sense consciousness. • When we identify with what is mortal or death-bound, that very attachment is suffering. 138 • When we look at a member of the opposite sex with a pure heart, we appreciate the beauty without any desire for contact or possession. We can delight in the beauty of other people, both men and women, when there is no selfish interest or desire. • When we realize that pleasure and pain are just sensations that arise and go away again, we are advancing on the path to peace. • When we realize that we cannot expect contentment from being bound to life on this earth, we do not make that demand. • When we reflect, we contemplate our own humanity as it is. We don’t take it on a personal level or blame anyone anymore. • When we say the heart can’t quite trust and depend on itself, we mean it is conditioned by the body. • When we see the potential pain permeating objects, they cease to be of interest. • When we see the vast endlessness of Samsara, then, we are prepared to leave it behind. • When we successfully pull up the whole trunk, the leaves, branches and roots come are pulled out too. • When we tie ourselves to things, our range is limited by the length of our tether. • When we truly understand ourselves, we will well understand all others. • When what befalls us arises from being pure, what is there to fear? • When wisdom and penetration and right view are conjoined with the noble path, this is supramundane right view. • When wisdom is in close pursuit, craving will beat a hasty retreat. • When wrong-doing ripens, the fruit if evil actions will inevitably fall. 139 • When you are really calm and peaceful, you will find that there is no attachment to anything. • When you are really calm and peaceful, you will not get caught up in trying to get something or trying to get rid of something. • When you can penetrate to the truth of impermanence, suffering and non-self, if even for just a moment, you will see the perfect way to extinguish suffering. • When you cause pain, pain returns to you again. • When you focus properly, the mind will settle down on-its-own; the mind will be in separate peace. • When you know that the nature of anger and joy are empty, it is easy to let them go. • When you let go of the fire elements, they still continue to exist, but there is no clinging. • When you make a choice, is there a ‘you’ who makes the choice, or is the choice dependent on conditions? • When you meditate on the six senses, concentrate on cause and effect. • When you no longer have the need for money, you regard it as poison. • When you realize that you are both the tiger and the tamer, you may reach the point where the two become one. • When you see the origin of suffering, you realize that the problem is the grasping of desire, not the desire itself. Grasping means really being deluded by desire, by identifying with desire and thinking, ‘It is really me; it is really mine.’ • When you see the root causes of how your defilements arise, you’ll soon be able to abandon them. • When you seek nothing, this is bliss. 140 • When you try to force the mind to settle down on one point, it’s going to wriggle away to another. • When your concentration has become constant and steady, to the point where you can leave it at will, you’ll also be able to stay with it for long in the observation and analysis of the mental actions of the body. • When your defilements have chased you into a corner, you’ll wonder where your wisdom has disappeared to. • When, through practice, the mind is ready, wisdom will come. • Whenever and wherever wisdom fails to follow in quickly, this becomes a place to lurk for arising views of ‘self’ and ‘I’ and ‘me’ and ‘mine,’ ‘his’ and ‘hers’ and ‘these’ and ‘theirs.’ • Whenever you cause pain, it will come back to you again. • Where is the Buddha? The Buddha is in the Dhamma. • Where is the peace where both ends meet in the middle? • Where language cannot go is within the mind within the mind. • Where sages dwell together, there is no grief. • Where the focus of the heart and mind become one is at the heart of Theravada Buddhism. • Where there is confusion, there, peace can arise. When confusion is penetrated, with understanding, what remains is peace. • Where there is impurity and filth, the Buddha will not appear. • Where there is knowing, there is no needing to think. • Where there is no craving, there is no fear. • Where there is no intention of harm, there is no necessity for guilt. • Wherever the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha are together and at one, disciple’s minds are unshakable because the fires of desire are quenched. 141 • Wherever we are, we are always alone. We are born alone. When illness comes, it visits us alone. When we die, we die alone. • Wherever wise ones live, this is a place of joy. • Wherever you find delight, you find bondage. • Wherever you see the arising of doubt, sweep it out. • Wherever you try to hide, you cannot escape the fruit of a bad action. • Whether they be human or non-human, visible or non-visible, great or small, near or far, all beings I shall treat with gentleness and wish that they may dwell in peace. • Whether we actually walk the path ourselves and thereby reap its fruits is up to each of us alone. • Whether your actions will be in accordance with moral restraint and in accordance with the Dhamma depends on how you train the body. • While the mind thinks and wanders and forms ideas of all sorts, the inner-heart is simply what knows and doesn’t form any ideas about anything; because it remains neutral. • Whims and desires pull us here and there, never getting us anywhere. • Who is telling the mouth what to say? The orders are coming from somewhere. Find out where the orders are coming from and regulate them. • Who will do the watching? Who will be responsible for the actions? • Whoever does wrong to an innocent person, the wrong returns to him, like dust thrown against the wind. • Whoever harasses an innocent man, who is without blemish and pure, evil will fly back in his face, like fine dust thrown against the wind. • Whoever has tasted the sweetness of solitude and tranquility becomes free from fear and sin. 142 • Whoever seeks happiness by inflicting pain on others will not find happiness after death. • Whoever sees the world as a bubble avoids an worldly death. • Whosoever has not penetrated this impersonality of all existence and does not comprehend that, in reality, there exists only this continually self-consuming process of arising and passing bodily and mental phenomenon, and there is no secret ego entity within or without this process, he will not be able to understand Buddhism in the right light. • Why do men who fear death prefer another cycle of life rather than the end of the cycle of rebirth? • Why do we have this preference for a fixed-frame of reference? Is it just a tool to simplify the flux of phenomenon, so we have a common point of view to rely and depend upon? • Why is it that so few can see that just enough is quite enough? • Why suffer the insufferable when the process is stoppable? • Why would anyone want to maintain suffering? • Wind-tossed, turbulent water is incapable of reflection. • Wisdom as it develops straightens out and eradicates wrong views. • Wisdom can pierce through any and every attachment. • Wisdom will arise at the right time and in the right place at the right moment. • Wise men should speak in short sayings. • Wishing that pain will be replaced by lack of pain or pleasure just increases suffering. • Wishing what is pleasant will not go away is suffering. 143 • With a heart that is free from the past, free from the present and free from the future, pass over to the further shore which is beyond suffering. • With awareness in attendance, the slightest rippling of agitation in the heart will simultaneously arouse mindfulness and wisdom. • With continuing practice, joy disappears, while continuing well-being remains and equanimity and alertness arise. • With every gust of wind, the butterfly changes its place on the willow. • With heart abundant, exalted and measureless in loving-kindness, abide free of all hostility and ill-will, extending out, encompassing the all-encompassing world. • With no fixed place, who can be said to come and go? • With patience, one will not bruise oneself, but will go carefully, stepby-step along the way. • With repeated practice, the foundation piles are driven in deeper and deeper, so that there is no swaying under the impact of sense objects and moods. • With the decline of all conditional phenomena, the body goes the same way as everything else goes. • With the stilling of conceptualization and discursive thought, comes an attainment of inner calm, one-pointed-ness, continuing joyfulness and well-being. • Withdrawn to silent and secluded places, the thoughtful break their ties with the world and seek out the company of wise instructors, who point out their faults, who admonish and instruct them and shield them from wrong. 144 • Within the Arahat, nothing is lessened or weakened by giving, nor does an Arahat become poorer by bestowing on others the richness of his heart and mind. • Within the realm of conditions, no two things are identical. They are all quite different, infinitely variable and changing, and, the more we try to make things comply with our ideas, the more frustrated we get. • Without application to practice, time flies by, life ebbs away, and it seems as if you are able to achieve nothing to escape from the inevitable effects of suffering. Why such a waste, when it could have been otherwise?” • Without first straightening out our views, there can be no skilled practice of meditation techniques. • Without hesitation, quickly and carefully probe into anywhere that appears dark and obscure, for that’s where the viper will be lurking. • Without sunlight, everything would appear blacker than night. • Without water, there is no ice; without ice, there is no water. • Words are illusions; the way is wordless. • Work at purging and eliminating the poison of detachment which infiltrates and infects every part of the body. • World is the whole gamut of suppositions and assumptions suffered by so-called self. • Worldly knowledge is really ignorance. • Worrying about mental and physical pain is like being shot with two arrows. • Worst of all is the absence of a sense of fear and shame. • Written and verbal descriptions are just incomplete explanations and approximations which serve as figurative guidelines. • Wrong deeds bear bitter fruits. 145 • Wrong view refers to thinking that there is a permanent self. • Yearning for life is greatest when the fear of death is greatest. • You can bind the mind to the post of a meditation object and keep concentrating until it finally begins to quiet down. • You can explore the universe looking for someone more deserving of your love and affection than yourself, and you will not find that person anywhere. • You can train yourself not to give into desires by not giving them a second thought. • You can use your own intelligence to focus on the body, observing inconstancy, stress, passion and craving. Then, continue observing these things, and how your understanding becomes more subtle and more refined. • You can’t hang onto a mental event for even as long as a blink of the eye. • You can’t maintain pleasant feelings without continually renewing the empty moment, until pleasant feelings finally cease, leaving us feeling empty again. • You can’t own the mind, nor you can you lose it. • You cannot arrange and plan the way meditation is going to go; you have to just let it happen. • You cannot blame nature for not rewarding you for you meritorious actions. It doesn’t work like that. • You cannot gain merit, if you cannot give up vice. • You cannot have a permanent desire. • You cannot possess space and you cannot lose it. 146 • You cannot purify the mind only by practicing with the rough externals of body and speech; you have to work your way further and deeper inwards to find what is fine and smooth, shining and beautiful. • You have to succeed in the moral practice before you can succeed in meditation practice. The one without the other is imbalanced. • You have to work your way through the rough to achieve the smooth. • You may become obsessed by the practice, afraid to loosen up for fear of losing control, but don’t worry about that. Just continue quietly until the sense of stress gradually eases and goes away on its own. • You must discern what brings brightness and clarity to the mind. • You must have your own refuge within your own heart and not depend on anything outside of it. • You must hit suffering and torment hard with mindfulness and wisdom; they are the instruments needed to cut open, expose and counter any stratagems of the defilements. • You were never anything-fixed in the past; just a series of fleeting impulses that did not last. • Your body has never had a stable form; it’s been continually changing since the day you were born. Contemplate the truth of change and comprehend it clearly. • Your greatest vices may pull you down to exactly where your enemies would want you to be. • Your mind is basically empty; all appearances are illusory phenomena.. • Your suffering is my suffering and your happiness is my happiness. • Your task is to focus meticulously upon and destroy the defilements in whatever guise wherever they may appear. 147 • Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguardedthoughts.
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