                           LESSONS IN SAMADHI
                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                                          
                                          
                                          
                                          
                               Groundwork
                               ~~~~~~~~~~
                                          
                             July 30, 1956
      
      
      If, when you're sitting, you aren't yet able to observe the 
  breath, tell yourself, `Now I'm going to breathe in.. Now I'm going to 
  breathe out.' In other words, at this stage you're the one doing the 
  breathing. You're not letting the breath come in and out as it 
  naturally would. If you can keep this in mind each time you breathe, 
  you'll soon be able to catch hold of the breath.
                                          
                                * *  *
      
      In keeping your awareness inside your body, don't try to imprison 
  it there. In other words, don't try to force the mind into a trance, 
  don't try to force the breath or hold it to the point to where you 
  feel uncomfortable or confined. You have to let the mind have its 
  freedom. Simply keep watch over it to make sure that it stays separate 
  from its thoughts. If you try to force the breath and pin the mind 
  down, your body is going to feel restricted and you won't feel at ease 
  in your work. You'll start hurting here and aching there and your legs 
  may fall asleep. So just let the mind be its natural self, keeping 
  watch to make sure that it doesn't slip out after external thoughts.
      
      When we keep the mind from slipping out after its concepts, and 
  concepts from slipping into the mind, it's like closing our windows 
  and doors to keep dogs, cats and thieves from slipping into our house. 
  What this means is that we close off our sense doors and don't pay any 
  attention to the sights that come in by way of our eyes, the sounds 
  that come in by way of our ears, the smells that come in by way of our 
  nose, the tastes that come in by way of our tongue, the tactile 
  sensations that come in by way of the body and the preoccupations that 
  come in by way of the mind. We have to cut off all the perceptions and 
  concepts -- good or bad, old or new -- that come in by way of these 
  doors.
      
      Cutting off concepts like this doesn't mean that we stop thinking. 
  It simply means that we bring our thinking inside to put it to good 
  use by observing and evaluating the theme of our meditation. If we put 
  our mind to work in this way, we won't be doing any harm to ourself or 
  to our mind. Actually, our mind tends to be working all the time, but 
  the work it gets involved in is usually a lot of fuss and bother 
  without any real substance. So we have to find work of real value for 
  it to do -- something that won't harm it, something really worth 
  doing. This is why we're doing breath meditation, focusing on our 
  breathing, focusing on our mind. Put aside all your other work, and be 
  intent on doing just this and nothing else. This is the sort of 
  attitude you need when you meditate.
      
      The Hindrances that come from our concepts of past and future are 
  like weeds growing in our field. They steal all the nutrients from the 
  soil so that our crops won't have anything to feed on, and they make 
  the place look like a mess. They're of no use at all except as food 
  for the cows and other animals that come wandering through. If you let 
  your field get filled with weeds this way, your crops won't be able to 
  grow. In the same way, if you don't clear your mind of its 
  preoccupation with concepts, you won't be able to make your heart 
  pure. Concepts are food only for the ignorant people who think they're 
  delicious, but sages don't eat them at all.
      
      The five Hindrances -- sensual desires, ill will, torpor & 
  lethargy, restlessness & anxiety, and uncertainty -- are like 
  different kinds of weeds. Restlessness & anxiety is probably the most 
  poisonous of them, because it makes us distracted, unsettled and 
  anxious all at the same time. It's the kind of weed with thorns and 
  sharp-edged leaves. If you run into it, you're going to end up with a 
  stinging rash all over your body. So if you come across it, destroy 
  it. Don't let it grow in your field at all.
      
      Breath meditation -- keeping the breath steadily in mind -- is the 
  best method the Buddha taught for wiping out these Hindrances. We use 
  directed thought to focus on the breath, and evaluation to adjust it. 
  Directed thought is like a plow; evaluation, like a harrow. If we keep 
  plowing and harrowing our field, weeds won't have a chance to grow, 
  and our crops are sure to prosper and bear fruit.
      
      The field here is our body. If we put a lot of thought and 
  evaluation into our breathing, the four properties of the body will be 
  balanced and at peace. The body will be healthy and strong, the mind 
  relaxed and wide open, free from Hindrances. 
      
      When you've got your field cleared and leveled like this, your 
  crops are sure to prosper. As soon as you bring the mind to the 
  breath, you'll feel a sense of rapture and refreshment. The four bases 
  of attainment (iddhipada) -- the desire to practice, persistence in 
  the practice, intentness and circumspection in your practice -- will 
  develop step by step. These four qualities are like the ingredients in 
  a health tonic. Whoever takes this tonic will have a long life. If you 
  want to die, you don't have to take it, but if you don't want to die, 
  you have to take a lot. The more you take it, the faster the diseases 
  in your mind will disappear.
      
      
      
      
      
      
                         The Art of Letting Go
                         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
      
                            August 17, 1956
      
      When you sit and meditate, even if you don't gain any intuitive 
  insights, make sure at least that you know this much: When the breath 
  comes in, you know. When it goes out, you know. When it's long, you 
  know. When it's short, you know. Whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, 
  you know. If you can know this much, you're doing fine. As for the 
  various thoughts and concepts (sanna) that come into the mind, brush 
  them away -- whether they're good or bad, whether they deal with the 
  past or the future. Don't let them interfere with what you're doing -- 
  and don't go chasing after them to straighten them out. When a thought 
  of this sort comes passing in, simply let it go passing on. Keep your 
  awareness, unperturbed, in the present.
      
      When we say that the mind goes here or there, it's notreally the 
  mind that goes. Only concepts go. Concepts are like shadows of the 
  mind. If the body is still, how will its shadow move? The movement of 
  the body is what causes the shadow to move, and when the shadow moves, 
  how will you catch hold of it? Shadows are hard to catch, hard to 
  shake off, hard to set still. The awareness that forms the present: 
  That's the true mind. The awareness that goes chasing after concepts 
  is just a shadow. Real awareness -- `knowing' -- stays in place. It 
  doesn't stand, walk, come or go. As for the mind -- the awareness that 
  doesn't act in any way coming or going, forward or back -- it's quiet 
  and unperturbed. And when the mind is thus its normal, even, 
  undistracted self -- i.e., when it doesn't have any shadows -- we can 
  rest peacefully. But if the mind is unstable and uncertain, it wavers: 
  Concepts arise and go flashing out -- and we go chasing after them, 
  hoping to drag them back in. The chasing after them is where we go 
  wrong. This is what we have to correct. Tell yourself: Nothing is 
  wrong with your mind. Just watch out for the shadows.
      
      You can't improve your shadow. Say your shadow is black. You can 
  scrub it with soap till your dying day, and it'll still be black -- 
  because there's no substance to it. So it is with your concepts. You 
  can't straighten them out, because they're just images, deceiving you.
      
      The Buddha thus taught that whoever isn't acquainted with the 
  self, the body, the mind and its shadows, is suffering from avijja -- 
  darkness, deluded knowledge. Whoever thinks the mind is the self, the 
  self is the mind, the mind is its concepts -- whoever has things all 
  mixed up like this -- is lost, like a person lost in the jungle. To be 
  lost in the jungle brings countless hardships. There are wild beasts 
  to worry about, problems in finding food to eat and a place to sleep. 
  No matter which way you look, there's no way out. But if we're lost in 
  the world, it's many times worse than being lost in the jungle, 
  because we can't tell night from day. We have no chance to find any 
  brightness because our minds are dark with avijja.
      
      The purpose of training the mind to be still is to simplify 
  things. When things are simplified, we can see. The mind can settle 
  down and rest. And when the mind has rested, it'll gradually become 
  bright, in and of itself, and give rise to knowledge. But if we let 
  things get complicated -- if we let the mind get mixed up with sights, 
  sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations and ideas -- that's 
  darkness. Knowledge won't have a chance to arise.
      
      When intuitive knowledge does arise, it can -- if you know how to 
  use it -- lead to liberating insight. But if you let yourself get 
  carried away by knowledge of the past or future, you won't get beyond 
  the mundane level. In other words, if you dabble too much in knowledge 
  of physical things, without gaining wisdom with regard to the workings 
  of the mind, it can leave you spiritually immature.
      
      Say, for example, that a vision arises and you get hooked: You 
  gain knowledge of your past lives and get all excited. Things you 
  never knew before, now you can know. Things you never saw before, now 
  you see -- and they can make you overly pleased or upset. Why? Because 
  you take them all too seriously. You may see a vision of yourself 
  prospering as a lord or master, a great emperor or king, wealthy and 
  influential. If you let yourself feel pleased, that's indulgence in 
  pleasure. You've strayed from the Middle Path. Or you may see yourself 
  as something you wouldn't care to be: a pig or a dog, a bird or a rat, 
  crippled or deformed. If you let yourself get upset, that's indulgence 
  in self-affliction -- and again, you've strayed from the path. Some 
  people really let themselves get carried away: As soon as they start 
  seeing things, they begin to think that they're special, somehow 
  better than other people. They let themselves become proud and 
  conceited -- and the true path has disappeared without their even 
  knowing it. If you're not careful, this is where mundane knowledge can 
  lead you.
      
      But if you keep one principle firmly in mind, you can stay on the 
  right path: Whatever appears, good or bad, true or false, don't let 
  yourself feel pleased, don't let yourself get upset. Keep the mind 
  balanced and neutral, and discernment will arise. You'll see that the 
  vision or sign displays the truth of stress: it arises (is born), 
  fades (ages) and disappears (dies).
      
      If you get hooked on your intuitions, you're asking for trouble. 
  Knowledge that proves false can hurt you. Knowledge that proves true 
  can really hurt you. If what you know is true, and you go telling 
  other people, you're bragging. If it turns out to be false, it can 
  backfire on you. This is why those who truly know say that knowledge 
  is the essence of stress: It can hurt you. Knowledge is part of the 
  flood of views and opinions (ditthi-ogha) over which we have to cross. 
  If you hang onto knowledge, you've gone wrong. If you know, simply 
  know, and let it go at that. You don't have to be excited or pleased. 
  You don't have to go telling other people.
      
      People who've studied abroad, when they come back to the rice 
  fields, don't tell what they've learned to the folks at home. They 
  talk about ordinary things in an ordinary way. They don't talk about 
  the things they've studied because (1) no one would understand them; 
  (2) it wouldn't serve any purpose. Even with people who would 
  understand them, they don't display their learning. So it should be 
  when you practice meditation. No matter how much you know, you have to 
  act as if you know nothing because this is the way people with good 
  manners normally act. If you go bragging to other people, it's bad 
  enough. If they don't believe you, it can get even worse.
      
      So whatever you know, simply be aware of it and let it go. Don't 
  let there be the assumption that `I know.' When you can do this, your 
  mind can attain the transcendent, free from attachment. 
      
                                * *  *
      
      Everything in the world has its truth. Even things that aren't 
  true are true -- i.e., their truth is that they're false. This is why 
  we have to let go of both what's true and what's false. Once we know 
  the truth and can let it go, we can be at our ease. We won't be poor, 
  because the truth -- the Dhamma -- will still be there with us. We 
  won't be left empty-handed. It's like having a lot of money: Instead 
  of lugging it around with us, we keep it piled up at home. We may not 
  have anything in our pockets, but we're still not poor.
      
      The same is true with people who really know. Even when they let 
  go of their knowledge, it's still there. This is why the minds of the 
  Noble Ones aren't left adrift. They let things go, but not in a 
  wasteful or irresponsible way. They let go like rich people: Even 
  though they let go, they've still got piles of wealth.
      
      As for people who let things go like paupers, they don't know 
  what's worthwhile and what's not, and so they let it all go, throw it 
  all away. And when they do this, they're simply heading for disaster. 
  For instance, they may see that there's no truth to anything -- no 
  truth to the khandhas, no truth to the body, no truth to stress, its 
  cause, its disbanding or the path to its disbanding, no truth to 
  Liberation. They don't use their brains at all. They're too lazy to do 
  anything, so they let go of everything, throw it all away. This is 
  called letting go like a pauper. Like a lot of modern-day sages: When 
  they come back after they die, they're going to be poor all over 
  again.
      
      As for the Buddha, he let go only of the true and false things 
  that appeared in his body and mind -- but he didn't abandon his body 
  and mind, which is why he ended up rich, with plenty of wealth to hand 
  down to his descendants. This is why his descendants never have to 
  worry about being poor.
      
      So we should look to the Buddha as our model. If we see that the 
  khandhas are worthless -- inconstant, stressful, not-self and all that 
  -- and simply let go of them by neglecting them, we're sure to end up 
  poor. Like a stupid person who feels so repulsed by a festering sore 
  on his body that he won't touch it, and so lets it go without taking 
  care of it: There's no way the sore is going to heal. As for 
  intelligent people, they know how to wash their sores, put medicine 
  and bandages on them, so that eventually they're sure to recover.
      
      In the same way, when people see only the drawbacks to the 
  khandhas, without seeing their good side, and so let them go without 
  putting them to any worthwhile use, nothing good will come of it. But 
  if we're intelligent enough to see that the khandhas have their good 
  side as well as their bad, and then put them to good use by meditating 
  to gain discernment into physical and mental phenomena, we're going to 
  be rich. Once we have the truth -- the Dhamma -- as our wealth, we 
  won't suffer if we have money, and won't suffer if we don't, because 
  our minds will be transcendent.
      
      
      
      
      
                        At the Tip of Your Nose
                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                                          
                            August 26, 1957
      
      If feelings of pain or discomfort arise while you're sitting in 
  meditation, examine them to see what they come from. Don't let 
  yourself be pained or upset by them. If there are parts of the body 
  that won't go as you'd like them to, don't worry about them. Let them 
  be -- because your body is the same as every other body, human or 
  animal, throughout the world: It's inconstant, stressful and can't be 
  forced. So stay with whatever part does go as you'd like it to, and 
  keep it comfortable.
      
                                 *  *  *
      
      The body is like a tree: No tree is entirely perfect. At any one 
  time it'll have new leaves and old leaves, green leaves and yellow, 
  fresh leaves and dry. The dry leaves will fall away first, while those 
  that are fresh will slowly dry out and fall away later. Some of the 
  branches are long, some thick and some small. The fruits aren't evenly 
  distributed. The human body isn't really much different from this. 
  Pleasure and pain aren't evenly distributed. The parts that ache and 
  those that are comfortable are randomly mixed. You can't rely on it. 
  So do your best to keep the comfortable parts comfortable. Don't worry 
  about the parts that you can't make comfortable.
      
      It's like going into a house where the floorboards are beginning 
  to rot: If you want to sit down, don't choose a rotten spot. Choose a 
  spot where the boards are still sound. In other words, the heart 
  needn't concern itself with things that can't be controlled.
      
      You can compare the body to a mango: If a mango has a rotten or a 
  wormy spot, take a knife and cut it out. Eat just the good part 
  remaining. If you're foolish enough to eat the wormy part, you're in 
  for trouble. Your body is the same, and not just the body -- the mind, 
  too, doesn't always go as you'd like it to. Sometimes it's in a good 
  mood, sometimes it's not. This is where you have to use as much 
  thought and evaluation as possible.
      
      Directed thought and evaluation are like doing a job. The job here 
  is concentration: centering the mind. Focus the mind on a single 
  object and then, giving it your full attention, examine and reflect on 
  it. If you use a meager amount of thought and evaluation, your 
  concentration will give meager results. If you do a crude job, you'll 
  get crude results. If you do a fine job, you'll get fine results. 
  Crude results aren't worth much. Fine results are of high quality, and 
  are useful in all sorts of ways -- like atomic radiation, which is so 
  fine that it can penetrate even mountains. Crude things are of low 
  quality and hard to use. Sometimes you can soak them in water all day 
  long, and they still don't soften up. But as for fine things, all they 
  need is a little dampness in the air and they dissolve.
      
      So it is with the quality of your concentration. If your thinking 
  and evaluation are subtle, thorough and circumspect, your 
  `concentration work' will result in more and more stillness of mind. 
  If your thinking and evaluation are slipshod, you won't get much 
  stillness. Your body will ache, and you'll feel restless and 
  irritable. Once the mind can become very still, though, the body will 
  be comfortable and at ease. Your heart will feel open and clear. Pains 
  will disappear. The elements of the body will feel normal: The warmth 
  in your body will be just right, neither too hot nor too cold. As soon 
  as your work is finished, it'll result in the highest form of 
  happiness and ease: nibbana -- Liberation. But as long as you still 
  have work to do, your heart won't get its full measure of peace. 
  Wherever you go, there will always be something nagging at the back of 
  your mind. Once your work is done, though, you can be carefree 
  wherever you go.
      
      If you haven't finished your job, it's because (1) you haven't set 
  your mind on it; and (2) you haven't actually done the work. You've 
  shirked your duties and played truant. But if you really set your mind 
  on doing the job, there's no doubt but that you'll finish it.
      
                                 *  *  *
      
      Once you've realized that the body is inconstant, stressful and 
  can't be forced, you shouldn't let your mind get upset or excited by 
  it. Keep your mind normal, on an even keel. 'Inconstant' means that it 
  changes. `Stressful' doesn't refer solely to aches and pains. It 
  refers to pleasure as well -because pleasure is inconstant and 
  undependable. A little pleasure can turn into a lot of pleasure, or 
  into pain. Pain can turn back into pleasure, and so on. (If we had 
  nothing but pain we would die.) So we shouldn't be all that concerned 
  about pleasure and pain. Think of the body as having two parts, like 
  the mango. If you focus your attention on the comfortable part, your 
  mind can be at peace. Let the pains be in the other part. Once you 
  have an object of meditation, you have a comfortable place for your 
  mind to stay. You don't have to dwell on your pains. You have a 
  comfortable house to live in: Why go sleep in the dirt?
      
      We all want nothing but goodness, but if you can't tell what's 
  good from what's defiled, you can sit and meditate till your dying day 
  and never find nibbana at all. But if you can set your mind and keep 
  your mind on what you're doing, it's not all that hard. Nibbana is 
  really a simple matter, because it's always there. It never changes. 
  The affairs of the world are what's hard, because they're always 
  changing and uncertain. Today they're one way, tomorrow another. Once 
  you've done something, you have to keep looking after it. But you 
  don't have to look after nibbana at all. Once you've realized it, you 
  can let it go. Keep on realizing, keep on letting go -- like a person 
  eating rice who, after he's put the rice in his mouth, keeps spitting 
  it out.
      
      What this means is that you keep on doing good but don't claim it 
  as your own; Do good, and then spit it out. This is viraga-dhamma: 
  disengagement. For most people in the world, once they've done 
  something, it's theirs -- and so they have to keep looking after it. 
  If they're not careful, it'll either get stolen or else wear out on 
  its own. They're headed for disappointment. Like a person who swallows 
  his rice: After he's eaten, he'll have to defecate. After he's 
  defecated he'll be hungry again, so he'll have to eat again and 
  defecate again. The day will never come when he's had enough. But with 
  nibbana, you don't have to swallow. You can eat your rice and then 
  spit it out. You can do good and let it go. It's like plowing a field: 
  The dirt falls off the plow on its own. You don't need to scoop it up 
  and put it in a bag tied to your water buffalo's leg. Whoever is 
  stupid enough to scoop up the dirt as it falls off the plow and stick 
  it in a bag will never get anywhere. Either his buffalo will get 
  bogged down, or else he'll trip over the bag and fall flat on his face 
  right there in the middle of the field. The field will never get 
  plowed, the rice will never get sown, the crop will never get 
  gathered. He'll have to go hungry.
      
      Buddho, our meditation word, is the name of the Buddha after his 
  Awakening. It means someone who has blossomed, who is awake, who has 
  suddenly come to his senses. For six long years before his Awakening, 
  the Buddha traveled about, searching for the truth from various 
  teachers, all without success. So he went off on his own and on a 
  full-moon evening in May sat down under the Bodhi tree, vowing that he 
  wouldn't get up until he had attained the truth. Finally, towards 
  dawn, as he was meditating on his breath, he gained Awakening. He 
  found what he was looking for -right at the tip of his nose.
      
      Nibbana doesn't lie far away. It's right at our lips, right at the 
  tip of our nose. But we keep groping around and never find it. If 
  you're really serious about finding purity, set your mind on 
  meditation and nothing else. As for whatever else may come your way, 
  you can say, `No thanks.' Pleasure? `No thanks.' Pain? `No thanks.' 
  Goodness? `No thanks.' Evil? `No thanks.' Attainment? `No thanks.' 
  Nibbana? `No thanks.' If it's `no thanks' to everything, what will you 
  have left? You won't need to have anything left. That's nibbana. Like 
  a person without any money: How will thieves be able to rob him? If 
  you get money and try to hold onto it, you're going to get killed. If 
  this thief doesn't get you, that one will. Carry `what's yours' around 
  till you're completely weighed down. You'll never get away.
      
      In this world we have to live with both good and evil. People who 
  have developed disengagement are filled with goodness, and know evil 
  fully, but don't hold onto either, don't claim either as their own. 
  They put them aside and let them go, and so can travel light and easy. 
  Nibbana isn't all that difficult a matter. In the Buddha's time, some 
  people became arahants while going on their almsround, some while 
  urinating, some while watching farmers plowing a field. What's 
  difficult about the highest good lies in the beginning, in laying the 
  groundwork -- being constantly mindful, examining and evaluating your 
  breath at all times. But if you can keep at it, you're bound to 
  succeed in the end.
      
      
      
      
      
                     The Care & Feeding of the Mind
                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                                          
                              May 7, 1959
                                          
                                          
      The breath is a mirror for the mind. If the mirror is abnormal, it 
  gives abnormal reflections. Say you look into a convex mirror: Your 
  reflection will be taller than you are. If you look in a concave 
  mirror, your reflection will be abnormally short. But if you look into 
  a mirror that's flat, smooth and normal, it'll give you a true 
  reflection of yourself.
                                * *  *
      
      Knowing how to adjust the breath, putting it in good order, is 
  tantamount to putting the mind in good order as well, and can give all 
  kinds of benefits -- like a good cook who knows how to vary the foods 
  she serves, sometimes changing the color, sometimes the flavor, 
  sometimes the shape, so that her employer will never grow tired of her 
  cooking. If she fixes the same thing all year around -- porridge 
  today, porridge tomorrow, porridge the next day -- her employer is 
  bound to go looking for a new cook. But if she knows how to vary her 
  offerings so that her employer is always satisfied, she's sure to get 
  a raise in her salary, or maybe a special bonus. 
      
      So it is with the breath. If you know how to adjust and vary the 
  breath -- if you're always thinking about and evaluating the breath -- 
  you'll become thoroughly mindful and expert in all matters dealing 
  with the breath and the other elements of the body. You'll always know 
  how things are going with the body. Rapture, ease and singleness will 
  come on their own. The body will be refreshed, the mind content. Both 
  body and mind will be at peace. All the elements will be at peace, 
  free from unrest and disturbances.
      
      It's like knowing how to look after a small child. If the child 
  starts crying, you know when to give it milk or candy, when to give it 
  a bath, when to take it out for some air, when to put it in a playpen 
  and give it a doll to play with. In no time at all, the child will 
  stop crying, stop whining, and leave you free to finish whatever work 
  you have to do. The mind is like a small, innocent child. If you're 
  skilled at looking after it, it'll be obedient, happy and contented, 
  and will grow day by day.
      
                                 *  *  *
      
      When the body and mind are full and content, they won't feel 
  hungry. They won't have to go opening up the pots and pans on the 
  stove or pace around looking out the windows and doors. They can sleep 
  in peace without any disturbances. Ghosts and demons -- the pains of 
  the khandhas -- won't come and possess them. This way we can be at our 
  ease, because when we sit, we sit with people. When we lie down, we 
  lie down with people. When we eat, we eat with people. When people 
  live with people, there's no problem; but when they live with ghosts 
  and demons, they're sure to squabble and never find any peace. If we 
  don't know how to evaluate and adjust our breathing, there's no way 
  our meditation will give any results. Even if we sit till we die, we 
  won't gain any knowledge or understanding at all.
      
      There was once an old monk -- 70 years old, 30 years in the 
  monkhood -- who had heard good things about how I teach meditation, 
  and so came to study with me. The first thing he asked was, `What 
  method do you teach?'
      `Breath meditation,' I told him. `You know -- bud-dho, bud-dho.' 
  As soon as he heard that, he said, `I've been practicing that method 
  ever since the time of Ajaan Mun -- buddho, buddho ever since I was 
  young -- and I've never seen anything good come of it. All it does is 
  buddho, buddho without ever getting anywhere at all. And now you're 
  going to teach me to buddho some more. What for? You want me to buddho 
  till I die?'
      
      This is what happens when people have no sense of how to adjust 
  and evaluate their breathing: They'll never find what they're looking 
  for -- which is why adjusting and spreading the breath is a very 
  important part of doing breath meditation.
      
                                 *  *  *
      
      Getting to know yourself -- becoming acquainted with your body, 
  your mind, the elements (earth, water, fire, wind, space and 
  cognizance), knowing what they come from, how they arise, how they 
  disband, how they are inconstant, stressful and not-self: All of this 
  you have to find out by exploring on your own. If your knowledge 
  simply follows what's in books or what other people tell you, then 
  it's knowledge that comes from labels and concepts, not from your own 
  discernment. It's not really knowledge. If you know only what other 
  people tell you, you're following them down a road -- and what could 
  be good about that? They might lead you down the wrong road. And if 
  the road is dusty, they might kick dust into your ears and eyes. So in 
  your search for the truth, don't simply believe what other people say. 
  Don't believe labels. Practice centering the mind until you gain 
  knowledge on your own. Only then will it be insight. Only then will it 
  be trustworthy.
      
      
      
      
      
      
                       'Just Right' Concentration
                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                                          
                            October 4, 1960
                                          
      
      When you meditate, you have to think. If you don't think, you 
  can't meditate, because thinking forms a necessary part of meditation. 
  Take jhana, for instance. Use your powers of directed thought to bring 
  the mind to the object, and your powers of evaluation to be 
  discriminating in your choice of an object. Examine the object of your 
  meditation until you see that it's just right for you. You can choose 
  slow breathing, fast breathing, short breathing, long breathing, 
  narrow breathing, broad breathing, hot, cool or warm breathing; a 
  breath that goes only as far as the nose, a breath that goes only as 
  far as the base of the throat, a breath that goes all the way down to 
  the heart. When you've found an object that suits your taste, catch 
  hold of it and make the mind one, focused on a single object.  
  Once you've done this, evaluate your object. Direct your thoughts to 
  making it stand out. Don't let the mind leave the object. Don't let 
  the object leave the mind. Tell yourself that it's like eating: Put 
  the food in line with your mouth, put your mouth in line with the 
  food. Don't miss. If you miss, and go sticking the food in your ear, 
  under your chin, in your eye or on your forehead, you'll never get 
  anywhere in your eating.
      
      So it is with your meditation. Sometimes the `one' object of your 
  mind takes a sudden sharp turn into the past, back hundreds of years. 
  Sometimes it takes off into the future, and comes back with all sorts 
  of things to clutter your mind. This is like taking your food, 
  sticking it up over your head, and letting it fall down behind you -- 
  the dogs are sure to get it; or like bringing the food to your mouth 
  and then tossing it out in front of you. When you find this happening, 
  it's a sign that your mind hasn't been made snug with its object. Your 
  powers of directed thought aren't firm enough. You have to bring the 
  mind to the object and then keep after it to make sure it stays put. 
  Like eating: Make sure the food is in line with the mouth and stick it 
  right in. This is directed thought: The food is in line with the 
  mouth, the mouth is in line with the food. You're sure it's food, and 
  you know what kind it is -- main course or dessert, coarse or refined.
      
      Once you know what's what, and it's in your mouth, chew it right 
  up. This is evaluation: examining, reviewing your meditation. 
  Sometimes this comes under threshold concentration -examining a coarse 
  object to make it more and more refined. If you find that the breath 
  is long, examine long breathing. If it's short, examine short 
  breathing. If it's slow, examine slow breathing -- to see if the mind 
  will stay with that kind of breathing, to see if that kind of 
  breathing will stay with the mind, to see whether or not the breath is 
  smooth and unhindered. This is evaluation.
      
      When the mind gives rise to directed thought and evaluation, you 
  have both concentration and discernment. Directed thought and 
  one-pointedness fall under the heading of concentration; evaluation, 
  under the heading of discernment. When you have both concentration and 
  discernment, the mind is still and knowledge can arise. But if there's 
  too much evaluation, it can destroy your stillness of mind. If there's 
  too much stillness, it can snuff out thought. You have to watch over 
  the stillness of your mind to make sure you have things in the right 
  proportions. If you don't have a sense of `just right,' you're in for 
  trouble. If the mind is too still, your progress will be slow. If you 
  think too much, it'll run away with your concentration.
      
      So observe things carefully. Again, it's like eating. If you go 
  shoveling food into your mouth, you might end up choking to death. You 
  have to ask yourself: Is it good for me? Can I handle it? Are my teeth 
  strong enough? Some people have nothing but empty gums, and yet they 
  want to eat sugar cane: It's not normal. Some people, even though 
  their teeth are aching and falling out, still want to eat crunchy 
  foods. So it is with the mind: As soon as it's just a little bit 
  still, we want to see this, know that -- we want to take on more than 
  we can handle. You first have to make sure that your concentration is 
  solidly based, that your discernment and concentration are properly 
  balanced. This point is very important. Your powers of evaluation have 
  to be ripe, your directed thought firm.
      
      Say you have a water buffalo and tie it to a stake. If your 
  buffalo is strong, it just might walk away with the stake. You have to 
  know your buffalo's strength. If it's really strong, pound the stake 
  so that it's firmly in the ground, and keep watch over it. In other 
  words, if you find that your thinking is getting out of hand, going 
  beyond the bounds of mental stillness, bring the mind back and make it 
  extra still -- but not so still that you lose track of things. If the 
  mind is too quiet, it's like being in a daze. You don't know what's 
  going on at all. Everything is dark, blotted out. Or else you have 
  good and bad spells, sinking out of sight and then popping up again. 
  This is concentration without directed thought or evaluation, with no 
  sense of judgment: Wrong Concentration.
      
      So you have to be observant. Use your judgment -- but don't let 
  the mind get carried away by its thoughts. Your thinking is something 
  separate. The mind stays with the meditation object. Wherever your 
  thoughts may go spinning, your mind is still firmly based -- like 
  holding onto a post and spinning around and around. You can keep on 
  spinning, and yet it doesn't wear you out. But if you let go of the 
  post and spin around three times, you get dizzy and -- Bang! -- fall 
  flat on your face. So it is with the mind: If it stays with its one 
  object, it can keep thinking and not get tired, because your thinking 
  and stillness are right there together. The more you think, the more 
  solid your mind gets. The more you sit and meditate, the more you 
  think. The mind becomes more and more firm until all the Hindrances 
  (nivarana) fall away. The mind no longer goes looking for concepts. 
  Now it can give rise to knowledge.
      
      The knowledge here isn't ordinary knowledge. It washes away your 
  old knowledge. You don't want the knowledge that comes from ordinary 
  thinking and reasoning: Let go of it. You don't want the knowledge 
  that comes from directed thought and evaluation: Stop. Make the mind 
  quiet. Still. When the mind is still and unhindered, this is the 
  essence of all that is good. When your mind is on this level, it isn't 
  attached to any concepts at all. All the concepts you've known -- 
  dealing with the world or the Dhamma, however many or few -- are 
  washed away. Only when they're washed away can new knowledge arise.
      
      This is why you should let go of concepts -- all the labels and 
  names you have for things. You have to let yourself be poor. It's when 
  people are poor that they become resourceful. If you don't let 
  yourself be poor, you'll never gain discernment. In other words, you 
  don't have to be afraid of being stupid or of missing out on things. 
  You don't have to be afraid that you've hit a dead end. You don't want 
  any of the insights you've gained from listening to others or from 
  reading books, because they're concepts, and therefore inconstant. You 
  don't want any of the insights you've gained by reasoning and 
  thinking, because they're concepts, and therefore not-self. Let all 
  these insights disappear, leaving just the mind, firmly intent, 
  leaning neither to the left, towards being displeased; nor to the 
  right, towards being pleased. Keep the mind still, quiet, neutral, 
  impassive -- set tall. And there you are: Right Concentration.
      
      When Right Concentration arises in the mind, it has a shadow. When 
  you can catch sight of the shadow appearing, that's vipassana: insight 
  meditation.
      
      The knowledge you gain from Right Concentration doesn't come in 
  the form of thoughts or ideas. It comes as Right Views. What looks 
  wrong to you is really wrong. What looks right is really right. If 
  what looks right is really wrong, that's Wrong View. If what looks 
  wrong is really right, again -- Wrong View. With Right View, though, 
  right looks right and wrong looks wrong.
      
      To put it in terms of cause and effect, you see the four Noble 
  Truths. You see stress, and it really is stressful. You see the cause 
  of stress arising, and that it's really causing stress. These are 
  Noble Truths: absolutely, undeniably, indisputably true. You see that 
  stress has a cause. Once the cause arises, there has to be stress. As 
  for the way to the disbanding of stress, you see that the path you're 
  following will, without a doubt, lead to Liberation. Whether or not 
  you go all the way, what you see is correct. This is Right View. And 
  as for the disbanding of stress, you see that there really is such a 
  thing. You see that as long as you're on the path, stress does in fact 
  fall away. When you come to realize the truth of these things in your 
  heart, that's vipassana-nana.
      
      To put it even more simply: You see that all things, inside as 
  well as out, are undependable. The body is undependable, ageing is 
  undependable, death is undependable. They're slippery characters, 
  constantly changing on you. To see this is to see inconstancy. Don't 
  let yourself be pleased by inconstancy. Don't let yourself be upset. 
  Keep the mind neutral, on an even keel. That's what's meant by 
  vipassana.
      
      As for stress: Say we hear that an enemy is suffering. `Glad to 
  hear it,' we think. `Hope they hurry up and die.' The heart has 
  tilted. Say we hear that a friend has become wealthy, and we become 
  happy; or a son or daughter is ill, and we become sad. Our mind has 
  fallen in with suffering and stress. Why? Because we're unskilled. The 
  mind isn't centered -- i.e., it's not in Right Concentration. We have 
  to look after the mind. Don't let it fall in with stress. Whatever 
  suffers, let it suffer, but don't let the mind suffer with it. The 
  body may be in pain , but the mind isn't pained. Let the body go ahead 
  and suffer, but the mind doesn't suffer. Keep the mind neutral. Don't 
  be pleased by pleasure -- pleasure is a form of stress, you know. How 
  so? It can change. It can rise and fall. It can be high and low. It 
  can't last. That's stress. Pain is also stress: double stress. When 
  you gain this sort of insight into stress -- when you really see 
  stress -- vipassana has arisen in the mind.
      
      As for anatta, not-self: Once we've examined things and seen them 
  for what they really are, we don't make claims, we don't display 
  influence, we don't try to show that we have the right or the power to 
  bring things that are not-self under our control. No matter how hard 
  we try, we can't prevent birth, ageing, illness and death. If the body 
  is going to be old, let it be old. If it's going to hurt, let it hurt. 
  If it's going to die, let it die. Don't be pleased by death, either 
  your own or that of others. Don't be upset by death, your own or that 
  of others. Keep the mind neutral. Unruffled. Unfazed. This is 
  sankharupekkha-nana: letting sankhara -- all things fashioned, 
  conditioned and caused -- follow their own inherent nature.
      
      This, briefly, is vipassana: You see that all things fashioned are 
  inconstant, stressful and not-self. You can disentangle them from your 
  grasp. You can let go. This is where it gets good. How so? You don't 
  have to wear yourself out, lugging sankhara around.
      
      To be attached means to carry a load, and there are five heaps 
  (khandhas) we carry: attachment to physical phenomena, to feelings, to 
  concepts and labels, to mental fashionings and to cognizance. We grab 
  hold and hang onto these things, thinking that they're the self. Go 
  ahead: Carry them around. Hang one load from your left leg and one 
  from your right. Put one on your left shoulder and one on your right. 
  Put the last load on your head. And now: Carry them wherever you go -- 
  clumsy, encumbered and comical.
      
      
                        bhara have pancakkhandha
      Go ahead and carry them. The five khanda are a heavy load,
      
      
                          bharaharo ca puggalo
      and as individuals we burden ourselves with them.
      
      
                        bharadanam dukkham loke
      Carry them everywhere you go, and you waste your time suffering in 
  the world.
      
      
      The Buddha taught that whoever lacks discernment, whoever is 
  unskilled, whoever doesn't practice concentration leading to 
  liberating insight, will have to be burdened with stress, will always 
  be loaded down. It's a pity. It's a shame. They'll never get away. 
  Their legs are burdened, their shoulders burdened -- and where are 
  they going? Three steps forward and two steps back. Soon they'll get 
  discouraged, and then after a while they'll pick themselves up and get 
  going again.
      
      Now, when we see inconstancy -- that all things fashioned, whether 
  within us or without, are undependable; when we see that they're 
  stressful; when we see that they're not our self, that they simply 
  whirl around in and of themselves: When we gain these insights, we can 
  put down our burdens, i.e., let go of our attachments. We can put down 
  the past -- i.e., stop dwelling in it. We can let go of the future -- 
  i.e., stop yearning for it. We can let go of the present -- i.e., stop 
  claiming it as the self. Once we've let our burdens fall, we can walk 
  with a light step. We can even dance. We're beautiful. Wherever we go, 
  people will be glad to know us. Why? Because we're not encumbered. 
  Whatever we do, we can do with ease. We can walk, run, dance and sing 
  -- all with a light heart. We're Buddhism's beauty, a sight for sore 
  eyes, graceful wherever we go. No longer burdened, no longer 
  encumbered, we can be at our ease. This is vipassana-nana.
                                          
