We're
told that if we listen well, we gain discernment. If we don't listen well, we
won't gain any discernment. In terms of the Buddha's teachings, listening well
means that the mind has to be centered and firmly intent. Success depends on our
mind's being firmly intent. If we're not intent, there won't be any success --
we won't succeed in attaining the paths and fruitions leading to nibbana in the
way they did in the past. In the past they listened for just an instant and succeeded
in attaining nibbana. Why was that? Because they listened well. They gained discernment.
They understood. In other words, they took it to heart. Nowadays we study all
kinds of things -- going abroad to study; studying many, many fields of knowledge
-- but it doesn't lead to release from suffering. It just leads back into the
world of conventional truths and wandering on. We already know a lot, but if we
want to listen well, in the way that leads to discernment, the mind has to be
still.
How do we make it still? Offerings we've already given. The precepts
we've already taken: against killing, against stealing, against illicit sex, against
lying, against intoxicants. And now it's up to us as to whether we'll keep them
or not. The rewards of keeping the precepts, you know, go all the way to nibbana.
The attainment of the human state, the attainment of the heavenly state, the attainment
of nibbana are all results of keeping the precepts. That's what we're told.
Next
comes meditation, making the mind centered, firmly intent. This is the duty of
each and every one of us. You have to make a mental effort to look after the mind.
It's a subtle thing, not blatant at all. It's subtle -- but it lies within us.
Lots of teachers have come through here, teaching you to think buddho, or buddho,
dhammo, sangho. You have to keep recollecting these things until the mind gets
firmly centered. The reason the mind isn't yet firmly centered in concentration
is because you go centering it outside. It's centered inside just a bit and then
goes stretching outside. It won't stay centered inside. And when this is the case,
you find it hard to listen well. So you have to try to listen well. Make the mind
firmly centered. You listen with your mind, not just with your ears. You listen
with your mind. When the mind is firmly centered, you gain discernment. Understanding.
Total comprehension. In the past, they listened for just a little bit and they
understood. They became stream-winners, once-returners, non-returners, and arahants.
So
focus your minds on meditating. Make the mind still. Let it calm down from its
outside preoccupations. Outside preoccupations are all around us. Let your eyes
and ears be still. Our ears keep on hearing, so how can they be quiet? We're the
ones who aren't quiet. We keep giving rise to things that go flowing out the ears
and eyes. We keep making contact. So we're told to make the mind quiet. Make it
centered. We have to be mindful, keeping the breath in mind.
So. Sit and meditate
right now. Focus on your breath. Close your eyes and focus on your breath. Close
your eyes and think bud- with the in-breath, dho with the out. Bud- in, dho out.
Train the mind. And listen. If you simply listen without doing the training, nothing
will develop. When you've listened, that's not the end of it. You have to listen
and do it as well. What this means is that when you've listened, you have to do
it right then and there so that you can gain some benefits from listening. Only
then will you gain the skillfulness that you hope for, that you want. When the
mind is centered and you understand, it leads to merit and skill. When the mind
is still, you see what they mean by "merit," you reach what they mean
by "merit." It's not the least bit hard. If the mind isn't centered,
it's pretty hard. So fix the mind firmly on nothing but the in-and-out breath.
Observe the breath. Is there an in-breath? An out-breath? It's something we all
have within each and every one of us. This treasure is already there. The in-breath
is there. The out-breath is there. So we have to bring our powers of observation
inside the body. Keep this breath in mind. Don't go wandering off far, okay? Look
at what's already there inside you.
You have a valuable treasure within you
-- the treasure of being a human being. So you have to look after this treasure
until it grows more complete, until it becomes the treasure of the heavenly realms,
the treasure of nibbana. Look after this treasure. It's hard to look after if
you don't know how to use it, if you don't know how to take care of it. If you're
not discerning, this treasure can turn into a liability -- there's no need to
doubt it. So what can we do when we're not yet discerning? There are all kinds
of dangers that can make us fall away from this treasure. This is why we have
to develop the skills needed to take care of it -- in other words, observing the
five precepts and keeping the mind firmly centered on the in-and-out breath. Keep
the mind firmly centered. Keep watch over the breath continually. Keep after it
continually, making sure that the in-breath is comfortable, the out-breath is
comfortable. When we do this, we're looking after our treasure. When we look after
it mindfully, nothing will threaten it. If anything comes our way, we'll know
in advance. We'll be able to look after our treasure for the rest of our lives.
Or we'll be able to increase it, add to it, so that it becomes the treasure of
the heavenly realms, the treasure of nibbana. It all comes from this one spot
right here. It comes from the breath. If we can take care of it and keep it firm,
it'll take us to the treasure of the human state, the treasure of the heavenly
realms, all the way to the treasure of nibbana.
Now, it's only natural that
doing this will require persistence. Effort. Patience and endurance. Only then
will we arrive at our goal. If we're diligent and persistent, we're sure to succeed,
just like the great ajaans, just like the Buddha. They reached the paths and fruitions
leading to nibbana through endurance, diligence, and persistence. That's how the
Buddha became the Buddha we worship and bow down to every day. Why do we bow down
to him? Because he exerted the kind of effort and persistence that enabled him
to gain omniscience, to become the mainstay for all beings, human and divine.
The
same principle holds true for us. Once we've set our minds on developing our treasures
-- our noble wealth, our inner wealth as well as our outer wealth -- we have take
good care of this spot: the breath. We have to train the heart so that it's firmly
centered and established, staying with the breath at all times every day.
Actually,
the breath is already always there. If it weren't there, we'd be finished. The
breath has been with us ever since the day of our birth, but the mind hasn't looked
after it, hasn't taken care of it. In other words, it hasn't looked after its
guardian, hasn't even been acquainted with its guardian from birth. This guardian
has looked after us all along, you know, from the time we came out of our mother's
womb up until now. If this guardian hadn't been attentive in caring for us, we'd
be dead. Finished. So we shouldn't forget the good that she's done us. Look to
see what kind of person she is: What does she look like? What are her features?
Is she warm or cold? Short or long? Focus on seeing what kind of person she is,
to see why she's been so good-hearted. She's been looking after us all the way
up until now, even though we aren't acquainted with her, haven't paid her any
attention at all, to see how she's getting along, what her needs are. We've never
looked after her at all. So let's give her some thought. Look to see what she's
like when she comes in, what she's like when she goes out. Keep track of her.
Pay her some attention. Be observant. Reflect on what you see. That way you'll
see that the in-breath is there, the out-breath is there. Then it's up to you:
sit here and keep this awareness going. Keep the breath going comfortably. Notice:
is the in-breath comfortable? Is the out-breath comfortable? If the in-breath
and out-breath are comfortable, keep them going that way. If they're not comfortable,
we can change them. You might try in long and out short, depending on what you
notice feels good. If long breathing isn't comfortable, you can change to short.
Or if short breathing isn't comfortable, you can change to long. In other words,
gain a sense of how to adjust things so that they're comfortable. If you're well
acquainted with the breath, you can adjust it. If you're not acquainted with the
breath, how will you be able to adjust it?
So first we have to get acquainted
with it, to see the features of the breath already coming in and going out of
the body. What's it like when it comes in? What's it like when it goes out? When
we can clearly observe it, when it's comfortable, then we keep after it, keep
it going, continually. We'll find that our guardian grows more good-hearted and
kind. When our guardian is good-hearted, our heart will grow good as well. Why
is that? It's the same as when we live with good-hearted people, our heart feels
good, too. When our guardian is good-hearted, our heart will keep on being good.
The
Buddha taught, asevana ca balanam, panditanañca sevana: when you associate
with fools.... When our heart sours, it's as if we associate with fools -- fools
inside us. When the heart is good, it's because we have good friends -- panditanañca
-- within. When the mind has a good friend as its guardian within, it will grow
bright, open, and refreshed. It will gain in mindfulness and discernment. Whatever
we think of doing won't be for the purpose of harming ourselves or others. So
keep your mind firmly established in this way, because you've got a good friend,
a guardian who will keep giving you good advice. The mind will experience brightness
and clarity throughout the day, the month, the year, all the way until there's
no more in-and-out breathing. So keep looking after your guardian until you breathe
your last. If the mind is in really good shape, you'll go all the way to nibbana.
If
that's what you want, you have to make an effort to study and train a lot, keep
after it, for it's a skill that arises only from within you. It's your own direct
refuge. In gaining this skill, you have to depend on yourself. The Buddha taught
us to train ourselves, that we have to be strict with ourselves. Our parents,
brothers and sisters, our teachers: these are simply people with whom we associate
for a short while. But if we're really earnest, really intent, we have to depend
on ourselves. That's what the Buddha taught. When he had taught living beings
to take themselves as their own refuge, he was able to teach them to reach the
paths and fruitions leading to nibbana. When he taught them, they took his teachings
inward -- opanayiko -- to contemplate and then to put into practice so that they
saw in line with the Dhamma.
So we should train ourselves to be better and
better every day, every night, for this is our very own affair. You can say that
the practice of the Dhamma is hard, and it is. You can say that it's easy, and
it is, for the breath is right here within us. It's our very own affair. It all
depends on whether you want to do it or not. If you don't train yourself, aren't
strict with yourself, then you won't make progress. If you train yourself, are
strict with yourself, then you will -- every day, every night. You start out with
your parents and teachers. They teach you how to talk, how to eat, how to sit
up, how to walk, all kinds of things. Ever since you came out crying: how long
has it been? They trained you for months and then years, kept on training you.
You depended on your parents to train you. You couldn't sit up, you couldn't walk,
and so they taught you how. You couldn't talk, so they kept teaching you how.
You gradually became more and more skilled, more and more intelligent. You've
depended on your parents as your first teachers to teach you and advise you to
the point where you're grown. Now it's your own duty. You're adults. It's your
own duty to train yourself, to be strict with yourself. It's all up to you. Whether
you're to be good or bad, to rise or fall, it's all up to you. If you don't train
yourself, and just let things follow their course, who's going to suffer? You
will.
The things we have to practice are all already within us. So we have
to be selective in looking at the heart to make it firmly centered within. We
have to realize that we've already got wealth. We're human beings. Aggathanam
manussesu: the supreme status is in the human state. Being supreme in this way
isn't something easily gained, you know. To be born as a human being and to meet
with the Buddha's teachings is hard. There are a lot of beings out there who don't
make it here. So we already have a treasure, we already have wealth. It's now
up to us to develop that treasure into the treasure of the heavenly realms, the
treasure of nibbana. It's not all that hard.
For those who don't have this
treasure -- spirits, angry demons, hungry ghosts -- it's hard. They want to do
good, but they can't. Why not? Because they don't have any bodies. They don't
have any wealth. They want to do good along with everyone else, but they can't.
So they have to wander around, begging from people here and there, trying to get
a message through by possessing this person and that, telling them to do good.
They themselves want to do good but they can't. Back when they were human beings
they didn't want to do good. Having gained the human state, they were lazy, eating
and sleeping, sleeping and eating, letting the days pass by, pass by.
So we
have to take time out every day to give some value to our lives. If human beings
had a sense of how to give value to their lives -- even just for an hour a day,
every day .... The important thing is that you not be complacent. Be intent on
accelerating your efforts. Whatever goodness you should develop, should realize,
should master, should perfect: make an effort to give rise to it. Give the heart
something to hold to. When the heart has something firm to hold to, it's not put
to any difficulties. So be as intent as you can on not being complacent. The Buddha
told us to accelerate our efforts. Whatever goodness you haven't yet developed
in your actions, go ahead and develop it. Whatever goodness you haven't yet developed
in your words, go ahead and develop it. Whatever goodness you haven't yet developed
in the area of the mind, you should accelerate your efforts and build it up within
yourself as the treasure of the human state. That way, when you die and leave
this human realm, you won't have to beg for anything from anyone else, because
you've already provided for yourself. What you have is perfectly complete, with
nothing lacking in any way at all.
This is why those who know accelerate their
efforts. When we're born into the human realm, we're born into a realm that's
abundant in every way. So when those who know are born here, they waste no time
and make every effort to build up their perfections even further. Like the Buddha
-- think about it: for four incalcuable periods and one hundred thousand aeons
he kept returning to this human realm to build up his perfections, taking birth
again and again, growing old, growing sick, and dying again and again. Four. Incalculables.
Do you have any idea how long that is? Twenty-eight beings have completed their
perfections to the point of becoming Buddhas. Each perfection of each Buddha has
to be totally complete in every way. If you were to take all the treasures of
the human realm, they'd still be no match for the perfections of the Buddha. He
was born for the sake of perfection, to build his perfections. That was his aim.
Whatever he was born as, it was always for the sake of his perfections, for the
sake of the knowledge of Awakening. That was why he kept swimming around in samsara,
dying and taking birth, dying and taking birth, dying and taking birth, over and
over again. He kept on building up his perfections until he succeeded in gaining
Awakening in line with his aims. The same with his disciples: they all were born
for the sake of building up their perfections.
So how about us? What are the
perfections we've been born for? Why haven't we accelerated our efforts to give
rise to something? Why haven't we aimed our sights higher? Ask yourself: what
do you aim for? What are your aspirations? When you have an aspiration, work to
fulfil it. Bring it into being in line with your aims. Even if you don't succeed
in this lifetime, you're forming the habits, the requisite conditions, for the
next life, so that they're tempered and strong, so that they'll keep on growing
higher and higher with every lifetime -- because you keep adding to them with
every lifetime. In that way you'll be able to succeed.
When we come into this
world, we have to know within ourselves what we've come for. What were we born
for? What were we born for? We're born to build up our goodness, so we should
hurry up and develop our goodness and make it a reality. Just like the Buddha
and his disciples: They weren't complacent. No matter where they were born, they
were born for perfection. They didn't get infatuated with the affairs of worldly
treasures. No matter how much worldly pleasure they experienced, they weren't
satisfied. As soon as they had the opportunity, they left home to practice the
holy life in order to continue building up their perfections in line with their
aims.
As for us, as soon as we experience a little bit of pleasure we get stuck
on it, addicted to it. And so we aren't willing to go anywhere. Even with just
little pleasures, we get satisfied with the way things are. These pleasures are
really tricky, you know -- these human pleasures. They're called sensual pleasure.
Sensual pleasure is like a drug: One taste and you get addicted. They say that
with heroin it's hard to break the habit, but this is even worse. It goes deep,
right into the bone. It's what made us get born in the first place, and has kept
us circling through birth and death for aeons and aeons. There's no medicine you
can take to break the habit, to wash it out of your system, aside from the medicine
of the Buddha's teachings. Only when you use the Buddha's teachings will your
addiction to these pleasures gradually loosen, gradually lighten, gradually fade
away. Only then will you be done with the poison of this intoxicant. That's what
it is: sensual intoxication. We live with sensual intoxication. It's really fierce.
It's what keeps us swimming around in death and rebirth. Think about it. Think
about it. Human beings, common animals, they're all in the same boat. No matter
where you're born in the sensual realm: even those who are born in the heavenly
realm are still addicted. Even in the heavenly realms, they're not done with it.
As soon as you escape from the human realm you get stuck in the heavenly realms.
So as long as we don't use the medicine of the Buddha's teachings to cut through
this addiction, to drive it out, we'll have to keep on swimming through death
and rebirth, going and coming back the way we are right now, with never a chance
to put an end to it.
This is why those who know have ears, have eyes, have
discernment. They listen well and gain discernment. That's why they see through
everything. They contemplate all fabricated things and see right through them.
That's why they're able to destroy becoming and birth, so that they no longer
have to keep swimming through death and rebirth. They let go of all stress and
suffering, all difficulties and hardships, and enter nibbana. They abandon all
fabrications without leaving a trace and go straight to nibbana. The Buddha and
his disciples have all succeeded in this way, washing away all states of becoming
and birth, so that they don't have to come back and suffer in this human world
ever again.
So we should all set our hearts on making the mind into a firm
foundation that we can hold to, as much as possible. If you can't yet hold to
it, then do what you need to, so that you can.