Page 33 - 加拿大佛教会湛山精舍杂志季刊第75期

death must therefore abandon the deluded views and the remains, generating more uncleanliness. Examin-
misleading thoughts in order to extinguish the karmic ing this body, where is its purity? Embracing couples
causes. This is the teaching of the third Noble Truth, experience happiness, unaware it is like tow bags of
i.e., the Extinction of Suffering. bones embracing. To restrain and ultimately extin-
guish one’s greed manifesting itself as desire is quite
Extinction is equivalent to cessation. When defile- difficult and therefore we are advised to regard our
ments cease, birth and death cease as well. The path bodies as impure.
to the cessation of suffering is the path to nirvana.
Why is it said that feelings or sensations always result
As the term “path” suggests, there is a destination or a in suffering? Feeling or sensation is a combination of
goal which the path leads to. If one travels by means mind and body. When a happy state predominates
of “beholding the truth”, one can eradicate the delud- there is nevertheless the awareness of its imperma-
ed view. By means of cultivating the truth, one can nence, and therefore the correct understanding of
discontinue misleading thoughts. In order to achieve happiness is that it is layered with suffering. Pleasure
all this one needs to strengthen one’s self-discipline, is by definition enjoyable while it lasts, but once it
and that brings us to the three pillars of all Buddhist has vanished, it is replaced with intense suffering. For
practice, namely discipline, concentration, and wis- those who have renounced the world there is neither
dom. Self-discipline is indispensable for the devel- suffering nor happiness. There is only an awareness
opment of concentration which in turn stabilizes the of change, accompanied by equanimity. Such attitude
mind and cultivates wisdom through the eradication is exactly the opposite of that adopted by people of
of delusion. Thus the three studies are causally con- worldly concerns. They never leave the seesaw of
nected. happy and unhappy mind-frames and the inevitable
result is suffering. The observation of feelings as they
The discipline as understood by Buddhists consists of turn into suffering is an excellent practice that reveals
specific rules of conduct and the practice of concen- all attachments as meaningless bondage.
tration of specific dharmas. Wisdom in this particular
context stands for the absence of ego-notion and all How can one observe the impermanence of one’s own
views derived therefrom. The method used by Bud- mind? Every rising thought is a shadow of the six
dhists for that purpose includes systematic observa- conditioned sense-data. When observed closely, the
tion of one’s own body as impure; one’s feeling or activity of the mind is revealed as completely rooted
sensations as conducive to suffering; one’s own mind in time. It consists of one thought following anoth-
as impermanent and all of this world as without a na- er, each of them rising when the preceding one has
ture of its own. disappeared without trace and this pattern can never
stop. The mind can only hold one thought at a time.
Why should we regard our bodies as impure? Please To examine the passing thoughts one after another is
try to reconstruct in your mind how you obtained to become fully aware of their insubstantial and de-
your body starting from its very beginning. It com- ceptive nature. Every thought rises because of causes
menced from the fluids produced by your parents’ and conditions and since these change continually,
bodies, and was followed by a sojourn in the fluids the resulting thoughts change also thus manifesting
of the womb; then the passage through the vagina their impermanence. Whoever practices according to
into this world that is so dirty it can never be made this teaching can eradicate grasping.
clean again. The body spontaneously generates filth
without and within and the process continues as long What is the meaning of “all of this world is without
as one lives. After life’s end, tiny creatures deep in nature of its own”? Absolutely everything including
ground as well as the countless bacteria will devour the last atom changes from one moment to the next

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