
                           LOOKING INWARD
                                          
               Observations on the Art of Meditation
                                          
                                by
                        K. Khao-suan-luang
                                          
                      Translated from the Thai
                        by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

      This work may be freely copied, printed, and redistributed
              provided it is offered free of any charge.
                                          
                                * * *
                                        
                       DharmaNet Edition 1994
                                        
      This electronic edition is offered for free distribution
          via DharmaNet by arrangement with the translator.
                                        
                       DharmaNet International
                P.O. Box 4951, Berkeley CA 94704-4951
                                        
              Transcribed for DharmaNet by David Savage
  
  
                            * * * * * * * *
  
                                CONTENTS
  
                              Introduction
                          The Practice in Brief
                          An Hour's Meditation
                          A Basic Order in Life
                           Continuous Practice
                         Every In-and-Out Breath
                             Taking a Stance
                           The Details of Pain
                         Aware Right at Awarenes
                             The Pure Present
                          The Deceits of Knowing
                          //Sabbe Dhamma Anatta//
                              Going Out Cold
                             Reading the Heart
  
                            * * * * * * * *
  
                                          
                              INTRODUCTION
  
  
       K. Khao-suan-luang is the penname of Upasika Kee Nanayon 
  (1901-1978), one of the foremost women teachers of Dhamma in modern 
  Thailand. Following Thai tradition, she took her penname from the name 
  of the place where she lived: the forested hill in Rajburi province 
  where she had established a women's center for practicing Dhamma. 
  Although she did not allow men to reside in her center, both men and 
  women were welcome to visit on the weekly Observance days and listen 
  to her talks. Known for the simplicity of her way of life and the 
  direct, uncompromising style of her teaching, she had a way with words 
  evident not only in her talks but also in her poetry, which was widely 
  published.
  
       Many of her talks were transcribed and printed for free 
  distribution. This present collection consists of a brief outline of 
  the practice that she wrote as an introduction to one of her early 
  books of talks, plus excerpts from her later talks that help flesh out 
  the outline.
  
       Although this collection is too brief to serve as a complete 
  guide to the practice, my hope is that it will provide insight and 
  inspiration for all those who, in their search for freedom and 
  happiness, have begun looking inward to the subtleties of their own 
  minds.
  
                                          The translator
  
  
                                 * * *
                                          
                                          
                                          
                                          
                         THE PRACTICE IN BRIEF
  
  
       Those who practice the Dhamma should train themselves to 
  understand in the following stages:
  
       The training that is easy to learn, gives immediate results, and 
  is suitable for every time, every place, for people of every age and 
  either sex, is to study in the //school of this body// -- a fathom 
  long, a cubit wide, and a span thick -- with its perceiving mind in 
  charge. This body has many things, ranging from the crude to the 
  subtle, that are well worth knowing.
  
       The steps of the training:
  
       1. To begin with, know that the body is composed of various 
  physical properties, the major ones being the properties of earth, 
  water, fire, and wind; the minor ones being the aspects that adhere to 
  the major ones: things like color, smell, shape, etc.
  
       These properties are unstable (inconstant), stressful, and full 
  of filth. If you look into them deeply, you will see that there's no 
  substance to them at all. They are simply impersonal conditions, with 
  nothing worth calling "me" or "mine." When you can clearly perceive 
  the body in these terms, you will be able to let go of any clinging or 
  attachment to it as an entity, your self, someone else, this or that. 
  
       2. The second step is to deal with mental phenomena (feelings, 
  perceptions, thought-formations, and consciousness). Focus on keeping 
  track of the truth that these are characterized by arising, 
  persisting, and then disbanding. In other words, their nature is to 
  arise and disband, arise and disband, repeatedly. When you investigate 
  to see this truth, you will be able to let go of your attachments to 
  mental phenomena as entities, as your self, someone else, this or 
  that.
  
       3. Training on the level of practice doesn't simply mean 
  studying, listening, or reading. You have to practice so as to see 
  clearly with your own mind in the following steps:
  
        a. Start out by brushing aside all external concerns and turn to 
  look inside at your own mind until you can know in what ways it is 
  clear or murky, calm or unsettled. The way to do this is to have 
  mindfulness and self-awareness in charge as you keep aware of the body 
  and mind, until you've trained the mind to stay firmly in a state of 
  normalcy.
  
       b. Once the mind can stay in a state of normalcy, you will see 
  mental formations or preoccupations in their natural state of arising 
  and disbanding. The mind will be empty, neutral, and still -- neither 
  pleased nor displeased -- and will see physical and mental phenomena 
  as they arise and disband naturally, of their own accord.
  
       c. When the knowledge that there is no self to any of these 
  things becomes thoroughly clear, you will meet with something that 
  lies further inside, beyond all suffering and stress, free from the 
  cycles of change -- deathless -- free from birth as well as death, 
  since all things that take birth must by nature age, grow ill, and 
  die.
  
       d. When you see this truth clearly, the mind will be empty, not 
  holding onto anything. It won't even assume itself to be a mind or 
  anything at all. I.e., it won't latch onto itself as being anything of 
  any sort. All that remains is a pure condition of Dhamma.
  
       e. Those who see this pure condition of Dhamma in full clarity 
  are bound to grow disenchanted with the repeated sufferings of life. 
  When they know the truth of the world and the Dhamma throughout, they 
  will see the results clearly, right in the present, that //there 
  exists that which lies beyond all suffering//. They will know this 
  without having to ask or take it on faith from anyone, for the Dhamma 
  is //paccattam,// i.e., something really to be known for oneself. 
  Those who have see this truth within themselves will attest to it 
  always.
  
                                          K. Khao-suan-luang
                                          March 17, 1954
  
  
                                 * * *
                                          
                                          
                                          
  
                          AN HOUR'S MEDITATION
  
       For those of you who've never sat in meditation, here is how it's 
  done: Fold your legs, one on top of the other, but don't cut off the 
  nerves or the blood flow, or else the breath energy in your legs will 
  stagnate and cause you pain. Sit straight and place your hands one on 
  top of the other on your lap. Hold your head up straight and keep your 
  back straight, too -- as you had a yardstick sticking down your spine. 
  You have to work at keeping it straight, you know. Don't spend the 
  time slouching down and then stretching up again, or else the mind 
  won't be able to settle down and be still....
  
       Keep the body straight and your mindfulness firm -- firmly with 
  the breath. However coarse or refined your breath may be, simply 
  breathe in naturally. You don't have to force the breath or tense your 
  body. Simply breathe in and out in a relaxed way. Only then will the 
  mind begin to settle down. As soon as the breath grows normally 
  refined and the mind has begun to settle down, focus your attention on 
  the mind itself. If it slips off elsewhere, or any thoughts come in to 
  intrude, simply know right there at the mind. Know the mind right at 
  the mind with every in-and-out breath for the entire hour....
  
       When you focus on the breath, using the breath as a leash to tie 
  the mind in place so that it doesn't go wandering off, you have to use 
  your endurance. That is, you have to endure pain. For example, when 
  you sit for a long time there's going to be pain, because you've never 
  sat for so long before. So first make sure that you keep the mind 
  normal and neutral. When pain arises, don't focus on the pain. Let go 
  of it as much as you can. Let go of it and focus on your mind....For 
  those of you who've never done this before, it may take a while. 
  Whenever any pain or anything arises, if the mind is affected by 
  craving or defilement, it'll struggle because it doesn't want the 
  pain. All it wants is pleasure.
  
       This is where you have to be patient and endure the pain, 
  //because pain is something that has to occur//. If there's pleasure, 
  don't get enthralled with it. If there's pain don't push it away. 
  Start out by keeping the mind neutral as your basic stance. Then 
  whenever pleasure or pain arises, don't get pleased or upset. Keep the 
  mind continuously neutral and figure out how to let go. If there's a 
  lot of pain, you first have to endure it and then relax your 
  attachments. Don't think of the pain as being //your// pain. Let it be 
  the pain of the body, the pain of nature.
  
       If the mind latches tight onto anything, it really suffers. It 
  struggles. So here we patiently endure and let go. You have to 
  practice so that you're really good at handling pain. If you can let 
  go of physical pain, you'll be able to let go of all sorts of other 
  suffering and pain as well....Keep watching the pain, knowing the 
  pain, letting it go. Once you can let it go, you don't have to use a 
  lot of endurance. It takes a lot of endurance only at the beginning. 
  Once the pain arises, separate the mind from it. Let it be the pain of 
  the body. Don't let the mind be pained, too....
  
       This is something that requires equanimity. If you can maintain 
  equanimity in the face of pleasure or pain, it can make the mind 
  peaceful -- peaceful even though the pain is still pain. The mind 
  keeps knowing, enduring the pain so as to let it go.
  
       After you've worked at this a good while, you'll come to see how 
  important the ways of the mind are. The mind may be hard to train, but 
  if you keep training it -- if you have the time, you can practice at 
  home, at night or early in the morning, keeping watch on your mind -- 
  you'll gain the understanding that comes from mindfulness and 
  discernment. Those who don't train the mind like this go through life 
  -- birth, ageing, illness, and death -- not knowing a thing about the 
  mind at all.
  
       When you know your own mind, then when any really heavy illness 
  comes along, the fact that you know your mind will make the pain less 
  and less. But this is something you have to work at doing correctly. 
  It's not easy, yet once the mind is well trained, there's no match for 
  it. It can do away with pain and suffering, and doesn't get restless 
  and agitated. It grows still and cool -- refreshed and blooming right 
  there within itself. So try to experience this still, quiet mind....
  
       This is a really important skill to develop, because it will make 
  craving, defilement, and attachment grow weaker and weaker. All of us 
  have defilements, you know. Greed, anger, and delusion cloud all of 
  our hearts. If we haven't trained ourselves in meditation, our hearts 
  are constantly burning with suffering and stress. Even the pleasure we 
  feel over external things is pleasure only in half-measures, because 
  there's suffering and stress in the delusion that thinks it's 
  pleasure. As for the pleasure that comes from the practice, it's a 
  cool pleasure that lets go of everything, really free from any sense 
  of me or mine. I ask you reach the Dhamma that is the real meat inside 
  this thing undisturbed by defilement, undisturbed by pain or anything 
  else.
  
       Even though there's pain in the body, you have to figure out how 
  to let it go. The body's simply the four elements -- earth, water, 
  wind, and fire. It has to keep showing its inconstancy and 
  stressfulness, so keep your mindfulness neutral, at equanimity. Let 
  the mind be above its feelings -- above pleasure, above pain, above 
  everything....
  
       All it really takes is endurance -- endurance and relinquishment, 
  letting things go, seeing that they're not us, not ours. This is a 
  point you have to hammer at, over and over again. When we say you have 
  to endure, you //really// have to endure. Don't be willing to 
  surrender. Craving is going to keep coming up and whispering -- 
  telling you to change things, to try for this or that kind of pleasure 
  -- but don't you listen to it. You have to listen to the Buddha -- the 
  Buddha who tells you to let go of craving. Otherwise craving will 
  plaster and paint things over; the mind will struggle and won't be 
  able to settle down. So you have to give it your all. Look at this 
  hour as a special hour -- special in that you're using special 
  endurance //to keep watch on your own heart and mind//. 
  
                          March 3, 1977 
  
  
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                         A BASIC ORDER IN LIFE
  
       The most important thing in the daily life of a person who 
  practices the Dhamma is to keep to the precepts and to care for them 
  more than you care for your life -- to maintain them in a way that the 
  Noble Ones would praise. If you don't have this sort of regard for the 
  precepts, then the vices that run counter to them will become your 
  everyday habits....
  
       Meditators who see that the breaking of a precept is something 
  trifling and insignificant spoil their entire practice. If you can't 
  practice even these basic, beginning levels of the Dhamma, it will 
  ruin all the qualities you'll be trying to develop in the later stages 
  of the practice. This is why you have to stick to the precepts as your 
  basic foundation and to keep a lookout for anything in your behavior 
  that falls short of them. Only then will you be able to benefit from 
  your practice for the sake of eliminating your sufferings with greater 
  and greater precision.     
  
       If you simply act in line with the cravings and desires swelling 
  out of the sense of self that has no fear of the fires of defilement, 
  you'll have to suffer both in this life and in lives to come. If you 
  don't have a sense of conscience -- a sense of shame at the thought of 
  doing shoddy actions, and a fear of their consequences -- your 
  practice can only deteriorate day by day...     
  
       When people live without any order to their lives -- without even 
  the basic order that comes with the precepts -- there's no way they 
  can attain purity. We have to examine ourselves: In what ways at 
  present are we breaking our precepts in thought, word, or deed? If we 
  simply let things pass and aren't intent on examining ourselves to see 
  the harm that comes from breaking the precepts and following the 
  defilements, our practice can only sink lower and lower. Instead of 
  extinguishing defilements and suffering, it will simply succumb to the 
  power of craving. If this is the case, what damage is done? How much 
  freedom does the mind lose? These are things we have to learn for 
  ourselves. When we do, our practice of self-inspection in higher 
  matters will get solid results and won't go straying off into 
  nonsense. For this reason, whenever craving or defilement shows itself 
  in any way in any of our actions, we have to catch hold of it and 
  examine what's going on inside the mind.
  
       Once we are aware with real mindfulness and discernment, we'll 
  see the poison and power of the defilements. We'll feel disgust for 
  them and want to extinguish them as much as we can. But if we use our 
  defilements to examine things, they'll say everything is fine. The 
  same as when we're predisposed to liking a certain person: Even if he 
  acts badly, we say he's good. If he acts wrongly, we say he's right. 
  This is the way the defilements are. They say that everything we do is 
  right and throw all the blame on other people, other things. So we 
  can't trust it -- this sense of "self" in which craving and defilement 
  lord it over the heart. We can't trust it at all....     
  
       The violence of defilement, or this sense of self, is like that 
  of a fire burning a forest or burning a house. It won't listen to 
  anyone, but simply keeps burning away, burning away inside of you. And 
  that's not all. It's always out to set fire to other people, too.
  
       The fires of suffering, the fires of defilement consume all those 
  who don't contemplate themselves or who don't have any means of 
  practice for putting them out. People of this sort can't withstand the 
  power of the defilements, can't help but follow along wherever their 
  cravings lead them. The moment they're provoked, they follow in line 
  with these things. This is why the sensations in the mind when 
  provoked by defilement are very important, for they can lead you to do 
  things with no sense of shame, no fear for the consequences of doing 
  evil at all -- which means that you're sure to break your precepts.    
  
       Once you've followed the defilements, they feel really satisfied 
  -- like arsonists who feel gleeful when they've set other people's 
  places on fire. As soon as you've called somebody something vile or 
  spread some malicious gossip, the defilements really like it. Your 
  sense of self really likes it, because acting in line with defilement 
  like that gives it real satisfaction. As a consequence, it keeps 
  filling itself with the vices that run counter to the precepts, 
  falling into hell in this very lifetime without realizing it. So take 
  a good look at the violence the defilements do to you, to see whether 
  you should keep socializing with them, to see whether you should 
  regard them as your friends or your enemies....
  
       As soon as any wrong views or ideas come out of the mind, we have 
  to analyze them and turn around so as to catch sight of the facts 
  within us. No matter what issues the defilements raise, focusing on 
  the faults of others, we have to turn around and look within. //When 
  we realize our own faults and can come to our senses:// That's where 
  our study of the Dhamma, our practice of the Dhamma shows its real 
  rewards.
  
                          January 29, 1964
  
  
                                 * * *
  
  
  
  
                          CONTINUOUS PRACTICE
  
       The passage for reflection on the four requisites (clothing, 
  food, shelter, and medicine) is a fine pattern for contemplation, but 
  we never actually get down to putting it to use. We're taught to 
  memorize it in the beginning not simply to pass the time of day or so 
  that we can talk about it every now and then, but so that we can use 
  it to contemplate the requisites until we really know them with our 
  own mindfulness and discernment. If we actually get down to 
  contemplating in line with the established pattern, our minds will 
  become much less influenced by unwise thoughts. But it's the rare 
  person who genuinely makes this a continuous practice....For the most 
  part we're not interested. We don't feel like contemplating this sort 
  of thing. We'd much rather contemplate whether this or that food will 
  taste good or not, and if it doesn't taste good, how to fix it so that 
  it will. That's the sort of thing we like to contemplate.
  
       Try to see the filthiness of food and of the physical properties 
  in general, to see their emptiness of any real entity or self. There's 
  nothing of any substance to the physical properties of the body, which 
  are all rotten and decomposing. The body is like a restroom over a 
  cesspool. We can decorate it on the outside to make it pretty and 
  attractive, but on the inside it's full of the most horrible, filthy 
  things. Whenever we excrete anything, we ourselves are repelled by it; 
  yet even though we're repelled by it, it's there inside us, in our 
  intestines -- decomposing, full of worms, awful smelling. There's just 
  the flimsiest membrane covering it up, but we fall for it and hold 
  tight to it. We don't see the constant decomposition of this body, in 
  spite of the filth and smells it sends out....
  
       The reason we're taught to memorize the passage for reflecting on 
  the requisites, and to use it to contemplate, is so that we'll see the 
  inconstancy of the body, to see that there's no "self" to any of it or 
  to any of the mental phenomena we sense with every moment.
  
                                * *  *
  
       We contemplate mental phenomena to see clearly that they're 
  not-self, to see this with every moment. The moments of the mind -- 
  the arising, persisting, and disbanding of mental sensations -- are 
  very subtle and fast. To see them, the mind has to be quiet. If the 
  mind is involved in distractions, thoughts, and imaginings, we won't 
  be able to penetrate in to see its characteristics as it deals with 
  its objects, to see what the arising and disbanding within it is like.
  
       This is why we have to practice concentration: to make the mind 
  quiet, to provide a foundation for our contemplation. For instance, 
  you can focus on the breath, or be aware of the mind as it focuses on 
  the breath. Actually, when you focus on the breath, you're also aware 
  of the mind. And again, the mind is what knows the breath. So you 
  focus exclusively on the breath together with the mind. Don't think of 
  anything else, and the mind will settle down and grow still. Once it 
  attains stillness on this level, you've got your chance to 
  contemplate.
  
       Making the mind still so that you can contemplate it is something 
  you have to keep working at in the beginning. The same holds true with 
  training yourself to be mindful and fully aware in all your 
  activities. This is something you really have to work at continuously 
  in this stage, something you have to do all the time. At the same 
  time, you have to arrange the external conditions of your life so that 
  you won't have any concerns to distract you....
  
       Now, of course, the practice is something you can do in any set 
  of circumstances -- for example, when you come home from work you can 
  sit and meditate for a while -- but when you're trying seriously to 
  make it continuous, to make it habitual, it's much more difficult than 
  that. " Making it habitual" means being fully mindful and aware with 
  each in-and-out breath, wherever you go, whatever you do, whether 
  you're healthy, sick, or whatever, and regardless of what happens 
  inside or out. //The mind has to be in a state of all-encompassing 
  awareness while keeping track of the arising and disbanding of mental 
  phenomena at all times// -- to the point where you can stop the mind 
  from forming thoughts under the power of craving and defilement the 
  way it used to before you began the practice.
  
                          January 14, 1964
  
  
                                 * * *
  
  
  
  
                        EVERY IN-AND-OUT BREATH
  
       Try keeping your awareness with the breath to see what the still 
  mind is like. It's very simple, all the rules have been laid out, but 
  when you actually try to do it, something resists. It's hard. But when 
  you let your mind think 108 or 1009 things, no matter what, it's all 
  easy. it's not hard at all. //Try and see if you can engage your mind 
  with the breath in the same way it's been engaged with the 
  defilements//. Try engaging it with the breath and see what happens. 
  See if you can disperse the defilements with every in-and-out breath. 
  Why is it that the mind can stay engaged with the defilements all day 
  long, and yet go for entire days without knowing how heavy or subtle 
  the breath is at all?
  
       So try and be observant. The bright, clear awareness that stems 
  from staying focused on the mind at all times: Sometimes a strong 
  sensory contact comes and can make it blur and fade away with no 
  trouble at all. But if you can keep hold of the breath as a reference 
  point, that state of mind can be more stable and sure, more insured. 
  It has two fences around it. If there's only one fence, it can easily 
  break.
  
                          January 29, 1964
  
  
                                 * * *
  
  
  
  
                            TAKING A STANCE
  
       Normally the mind isn't willing to stop and look, to stop and 
  know itself, which is why we have to keep training it continually so 
  that it will settle down from its restlessness and grow still. Let 
  your desires and thought-processes settle down. Let the mind take its 
  stance in a state of normalcy, not liking or disliking anything. To 
  reach a basic level of emptiness and freedom, you first have to take a 
  stance. If you don't have a stance against which to measure things, 
  progress will be very difficult. If your practice is hit-or-miss -- a 
  bit of that, a little of this -- you won't get any results. So the 
  mind first has to take a stance.      
  
       When you take a stance that the mind can maintain in a state of 
  normalcy, don't go slipping off into the future. Have the mind know 
  itself in the stance of the present: "Right now it's in a state of 
  normalcy. No likes or dislikes have arisen yet. It hasn't created any 
  issues. It's not being disturbed by a desire for this or that."
  
       Then look on in to the basic level of the mind to see if it's as 
  normal and empty as it should be. If you're really looking inside, 
  really aware inside, then //that which is looking and knowing is 
  mindfulness and discernment in and of itself//. You don't need to 
  search for anything anywhere else to come and do your looking for you. 
  As soon as you stop to look, stop to know whether or not the mind is 
  in a state of normalcy, then if it's normal, you'll know immediately 
  that it's normal. If it's not, you'll know immediately that it's not.
  
       Take care to keep this awareness going. If you can keep knowing 
  like this continuously, the mind will be able to keep its stance 
  continuously as well. As soon as the thought occurs to you to check 
  things out, you'll immediately stop to look, stop to know, without any 
  need to go searching for knowledge from anywhere else. You look, you 
  know, right there at the mind, and can tell whether or not it's empty 
  and still. Once you see that it is, then you investigate to see 
  //how// it's empty, //how// it's still.  It's not the case that once 
  it's empty, that's the end of the matter; once it's still, that's the 
  end of the matter. //That's not the case at all//. You have to keep 
  watch of things, you have to investigate at all times. Only then will 
  you see the changing -- the arising and disbanding -- occurring in 
  that emptiness, that stillness, that state of normalcy.
  
                          January 14, 1964
  
                                 * * *
  
  
  
  
                          THE DETAILS OF PAIN
  
       To lead your daily life by keeping constant supervision over the 
  mind is a way of learning what life is for. It's a way of learning how 
  we can act so as to rid ourselves more and more of suffering and 
  stress -- because the suffering and stress caused by defilement, 
  attachment, and craving are sure to take all sorts of forms. Only by 
  being aware with true mindfulness and discernment can we comprehend 
  them for what they are. Otherwise we'll simply live obliviously, going 
  wherever events will lead us. This is why mindfulness and discernment 
  are tools for reading yourself, for testing yourself within so that 
  you won't be careless or complacent, oblivious to the fact that 
  suffering is basically what life is all about.
  
       This point is something we really have to comprehend so that we 
  can live without being oblivious. The pains and discontent that fill 
  our bodies and minds all show us the truths of inconstancy, stress, 
  and not-selfness within us. If you contemplate what's going on inside 
  until you can get down to the details, you'll see the truths that 
  appear within and without, all of which come down to inconstancy, 
  stress, and not-selfness. But the delusion basic to our nature will 
  see everything wrongly -- as constant, easeful, and self -- and so 
  make us live obliviously, even though there is nothing to guarantee 
  how long our lives will last. 
  
       Our dreams and delusions make us forget that we live in the midst 
  of a mass of pain and stress -- the stress of defilements, the pain of 
  birth. Birth, ageing, illness, and death: All of these are painful and 
  stressful, in the midst of instability and change. They're things we 
  have no control over, for they must circle around in line with the 
  laws of //kamma// and the defilements we've been amassing all along. 
  Life that floats along in the round of rebirth is thus nothing but 
  stress and pain.
  
       If we can find a way to develop our mindfulness and discernment, 
  they'll be able to cut the round of rebirth so that we won't have to 
  keep wandering on. They'll help us know that birth is painful, ageing 
  is painful, illness is painful, death is painful, and that these are 
  all things that defilement, attachment, and craving keep driving 
  through the cycles of change.
  
       So as long as we have the opportunity, we should study the truths 
  appearing throughout our body and mind -- and we'll come to know that 
  the elimination of stress and pain, the elimination of defilement, is 
  a function of our practice of the Dhamma. If we don't practice the 
  Dhamma, we'll keep floating along in the round of rebirth that is so 
  drearily repetitious -- repetitious in its birth, ageing, illness, and 
  death, driven on by defilement, attachment, and craving, causing us 
  repeated stress and pain. Living beings for the most part don't know 
  where these stresses and pains come from or what they come from, 
  because they've never studied them, never contemplated them, so they 
  stay stupid and deluded, wandering on and on without end....
  
       If we can stop and be still, the mind will have a chance to be 
  free, to contemplate its sufferings and let them go. This will give it 
  a measure of peace, because it will no longer want anything out of the 
  round of rebirth since it sees that there's nothing lasting to it, 
  that it's simply stress over and over again. Whatever you grab hold of 
  is stress. This is why you need mindfulness and discernment to know 
  and see things for yourself, so that you can supervise the mind and 
  keep it calm, without letting it fall victim to temptation.     
  
       This practice is something of the highest importance. People who 
  don't study or practice the Dhamma have wasted their birth as human 
  beings, because they're born deluded and simply stay deluded. But if 
  we study the Dhamma, we'll become wise to suffering and know the path 
  of practice for freeing ourselves from it....    
  
       Once we follow the right path, the defilements won't be able to 
  drag us around, won't be able to burn us, because //we're// the ones 
  burning //them// away. We'll come to realize that the more we can burn 
  them away, the more strength of mind we'll gain. If we let the 
  defilements burn us, the mind will be sapped of its strength, which is 
  why this is something you have to be very careful about. Keep trying 
  to burn away the defilements in your every activity, and you'll be 
  storing up strength for your mindfulness and discernment so that 
  they'll be brave in dealing with all sorts of suffering and pain.
  
       You must come to see the world as nothing but stress. There's no 
  real ease to it at all. The awareness we gain from mindfulness and 
  discernment will make us disenchanted with life in the world because 
  it will see things for what they are in every way, both within us and 
  without.
  
       The entire world is nothing but an affair of delusion, an affair 
  of suffering. People who don't know the Dhamma, don't practice the 
  Dhamma -- no matter what their status or position in life -- lead 
  deluded, oblivious lives. When they fall ill or are about to die, 
  they're bound to suffer enormously because they haven't taken the time 
  to understand the defilements that burn their hearts and minds in 
  everyday life.  Yet if we make a constant practice of studying and 
  contemplating ourselves as our everyday activity, it will help free us 
  from all sorts of suffering and distress. And when this is the case, 
  how can we //not// want to practice?
  
       Only intelligent people, though, will be able to stick with the 
  practice. Foolish people won't want to bother. They'd much rather 
  follow the defilements than burn them away. To practice the Dhamma you 
  need a certain basic level of intelligence -- enough to have seen at 
  least //some//thing of the stresses and sufferings that come from 
  defilement. Only then can your practice progress. And no matter how 
  difficult it gets, you'll have to keep practicing on to the end.
  
       This practice isn't something you do from time to time, you know. 
  You have to keep at it continuously throughout life. Even if it 
  involves so much physical pain or mental anguish that tears are 
  bathing your cheeks, you have to keep with the chaste life because 
  you're playing for real. If you don't follow the chaste life, you'll 
  get mired in heaps of suffering and flame. So you have to learn your 
  lessons from pain. Try to contemplate it until you can understand it 
  and let it go, and you'll gain one of life's greatest rewards. 
  
       Don't think that you were born to gain this or that level of 
  comfort. You were born to study pain and the causes of pain, and to 
  follow the practice that frees you from pain. This is the most 
  important thing there is. Everything else is trivial and unimportant. 
  What's important all lies with the practice.
  
                                * *  *
  
       Don't think that the defilements will go away easily. When they 
  don't come in blatant forms, they come in subtle ones -- and the 
  dangers of the subtle ones are hard to see. Your contemplation will 
  have to be subtle, too, if you want to get rid of them. You'll come to 
  realize that this practice of the Dhamma, in which we contemplate to 
  get to the details inside us, is like sharpening our tools so that 
  when stress and suffering arise we can weaken them and cut them away. 
  If your mindfulness and discernment are brave, the defilements will 
  have to lose out to them. But if you don't train your mindfulness and 
  discernment to be brave, the defilements will crush you to pieces.     
  
       //We were born to do battle with the defilements and to 
  strengthen our mindfulness and discernment//. We'll find that the 
  worth of our practice will grow higher and higher because in our 
  everyday life we've done continuous battle with the stresses and pains 
  caused by defilement, craving, and temptation all along -- so that the 
  defilements will grow thin and our mindfulness and discernment 
  stronger. We'll sense within ourselves that the mind isn't as troubled 
  and restless as it used to be. It's grown peaceful and calm. The 
  stresses and sufferings of defilement, attachment, and craving have 
  grown weaker. Even though we haven't yet wiped them out completely, 
  they've grown continually weaker -- because we don't feed them. We 
  don't give them shelter. We do what we can to weaken them so that they 
  grow thinner and thinner each time.
  
       And we have to be brave in contemplating stress and pain, because 
  when we don't feel any great suffering we tend to get complacent. But 
  when the pains and sufferings in our body and mind grow sharp and 
  biting, we have to use our mindfulness and discernment to be strong. 
  //Don't let your spirits be weak//. Only then will you be able to do 
  away with your sufferings and pains.     
  
       We have to learn our lessons from pain so that ultimately the 
  mind can gain its freedom from it, instead of being weak and losing 
  out to it all of the time. We have to be brave in doing battle with it 
  to the ultimate extreme -- until we reach the point where we can let 
  it go. Pain is something that's always present in this conglomerate of 
  body and mind. It's here for us to see with every moment. If we 
  contemplate it till we know all its details, we can then make it our 
  sport: seeing that the pain is the pain of natural conditions and not 
  //our// pain. This is something we have to research so as to get to 
  the details: //that it's not our pain,// it's the pain of the 
  aggregates [form, feeling, perception, thought-formations, and 
  consciousness]. Knowing in this way means that we can separate out the 
  properties -- the properties of matter and those of the mind -- to see 
  how they interact with one another, how they change. It's something 
  really fascinating....Watching pain is a way of building up lots of 
  mindfulness and discernment.
  
       But if you focus on pleasure and ease, you'll simply stay deluded 
  like people in general. They get carried away with the pleasure that 
  comes from watching or listening to the things they like -- but then 
  when pain comes to their bodies and minds to the point where tears are 
  bathing their cheeks, think of how much they suffer! And then they 
  have to be parted from their loved ones, which makes it even worse. 
  But those of us who practice the Dhamma don't need to be deluded like 
  that, because we know and see with every moment that only stress 
  arises, only stress persists, only stress passes away. Aside from 
  stress, nothing arises; aside from stress, nothing passes away. This 
  is there for us to perceive with every moment. If we contemplate it, 
  we'll see it.
  
       So we can't let ourselves be oblivious. This is what the truth 
  is, and we have to study it so as to know it -- especially in our life 
  of the practice. We have to contemplate stress all the time to see its 
  every manifestation. The arahants live without being oblivious because 
  they know the truth at all times, and their hearts are clean and pure. 
  As for us with our defilements, we have to keep trying, because if we 
  continually supervise our mind with mindfulness and discernment, we'll 
  be able to keep the defilements from making it dirty and obscured. 
  Even if it does become obscured in any way, we'll be able to remove 
  that obscurity and make the mind empty and free.
  
       This is the practice that weakens all the defilements, 
  attachments, and cravings within us. It's because of this practice of 
  the Dhamma that our lives will become free. So I ask you to keep 
  working at the practice without being complacent, because if in 
  whatever span of life is left to you, you keep trying to the full 
  extent of your abilities, you'll gain the mindfulness and discernment 
  to see the facts within yourself, and be able to let go -- free from 
  any sense of self, free from any sense of self -- continuously.
  
                          December 28, 1972
  
  
                                 * * *
  
  
  
  
                        AWARE RIGHT AT AWARENESS
  
       The mind, if mindfulness and awareness are watching over it, 
  won't meet with any suffering as the result of its actions. If 
  suffering //does// arise, we'll immediately be aware of it and able to 
  put it out. This is one point of the practice we can work at 
  constantly. And we can test ourselves by seeing how refined and subtle 
  our all-around awareness is inside the mind. Whenever the mind slips 
  away and goes out to receive external sensory contact: Can it maintain 
  its basic stance of mindfulness or internal awareness? The practice we 
  need to work at in our everyday life is to have constant mindfulness, 
  constant all-around present awareness like this. This is something we 
  work at in every posture: sitting, standing, walking, and lying down. 
  Make sure that your mindfulness stays continuous.
  
       Living in this world -- the mental and physical phenomena of 
  these five aggregates -- gives us plenty to contemplate. We must try 
  to watch them, to contemplate them, so that we can understand them -- 
  because the truths we must learn how to read in this body and mind are 
  here to be read with every moment. We don't have to get wrapped up 
  with any other extraneous themes, because all the themes we need are 
  right here in the body and mind. As long as we can keep the mind 
  constantly aware all around, we can contemplate them.    
  
       If you contemplate mental and physical events to see how they 
  arise and disband right in the here and now, and don't get involved 
  with external things -- like sights making contact with the eyes, or 
  sounds with the ears -- then there really aren't a lot of issues. The 
  mind can be at normalcy, at equilibrium -- calm and undisturbed by 
  defilement or the stresses that come from sensory contact. It can look 
  after itself and maintain its balance. You'll come to sense that if 
  you're aware right at awareness in and of itself, without going out to 
  get involved in external things like the mental labels and thoughts 
  that will tend to arise, the mind will see their constant arising and 
  disbanding -- and won't be embroiled in anything. This way it can be 
  disengaged, empty, and free. But if it goes out to label things as 
  good or evil, as me or mine, or gets attached to anything, it'll 
  become unsettled and disturbed.  
  
       You have to know that if the mind can be still, totally and 
  presently aware, and capable of contemplating with every activity, 
  then blatant forms of suffering and stress will dissolve away. Even if 
  they start to form, you can be alert to them and disperse them 
  immediately. Once you see this actually happening -- even in only the 
  beginning stages -- it can disperse a lot of the confusion and turmoil 
  in your heart. In other words, don't let yourself dwell on the past or 
  latch onto thoughts of the future. As for the events arising and 
  passing away in the present, you have to leave them alone. Whatever 
  your duties, simply do them as you have to -- and the mind won't get 
  worked up about anything. It will be able, to at least some extent, to 
  be empty and still.
  
       This one thing is something you have to be very careful about. 
  You have to see this for yourself: //that if your mindfulness and 
  discernment are constantly in charge, the truths of the arising and 
  disbanding of mental and physical phenomena are always there for you 
  to see,// always there for you to know. If you look at the body, 
  you'll have to see it simply as physical properties. If you look at 
  feelings, you'll have to see them as changing and inconstant: 
  pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. To see these things is to 
  see the truth within yourself. Don't let yourself get caught up with 
  your external duties. Simply keep watch in this way inside. If your 
  awareness is the sort that lets you read yourself correctly, the mind 
  will be able to stay at normalcy, at equilibrium, at stillness, 
  without any resistance.
  
       If the mind can stay with itself and not go out looking for 
  things to criticize or latch onto, it can maintain a natural form of 
  stillness. So this is something we have to try for in our every 
  activity. Keep your conversations to a minimum, and there won't be a 
  whole lot of issues. Keep watch right at the mind. When you keep watch 
  at the mind and your mindfulness is continuous, your senses can stay 
  restrained.
  
       Being mindful to keep watch in this way is something you have to 
  work at. Try it and see: Can you keep this sort of awareness 
  continuous? What sort of things can still get the mind engaged? What 
  sorts of thoughts and labels of good and bad, me and mine does it 
  think up? Then look to see if these things arise and disband.
  
       The sensations that arise from external contact and internal 
  contact all have the same sorts of characteristics. You have to look 
  till you can see this. If you know how to look, you'll see it -- and 
  the mind will grow calm.
  
       So the point we have to practice in this latter stage doesn't 
  have a whole lot of issues. There's nothing you have to do, nothing 
  you have to label, nothing you have to think a whole lot about. Simply 
  look carefully and contemplate, and in this very lifetime you'll have 
  a chance to be calm and at peace, to know yourself more profoundly 
  within. You'll come to see that the Dhamma is amazing //right here in 
  your own heart//. Don't go searching for the Dhamma outside, for it 
  lies within. Peace lies within, but we have to contemplate so that 
  we're aware all around -- subtly, deep down. If you look just on the 
  surface, you won't understand anything. Even if the mind is at 
  normalcy on the ordinary, everyday level, you won't understand much of 
  anything at all.
  
       You have to contemplate so that you're aware all around in a 
  skillful way. The word "skillful" is something you can't explain with 
  words, but you can know for yourself when you see the way in which 
  awareness within the heart becomes special, when you see what this 
  special awareness is about. This is something you can know for 
  yourself.  
  
      And there's not really much to it: simply arising, persisting, 
  disbanding. Look until this becomes plain -- really, really plain -- 
  and everything disappears. All suppositions, all conventional 
  formulations, all those aggregates and properties get swept away, 
  leaving nothing but awareness pure and simple, not involved with 
  anything at all -- and there's nothing you have to do to it. Simply 
  stay still and watch, be aware, letting go with every moment.
  
       Simply watching this one thing is enough to do away with all 
  sorts of defilements, all sorts of suffering and stress. If you don't 
  know how to watch it, the mind is sure to get disturbed. It's sure to 
  label things and concoct thoughts. As soon as there's contact at the 
  senses, it'll go looking for things to latch onto, liking and 
  disliking the objects it meets in the present and then getting 
  involved with the past and future, spinning a web to entangle itself.
  
       If you truly look at each moment in the present, there's really 
  nothing at all. You'll see with every mental moment that things 
  disband, disband, disband -- really nothing at all. The important 
  point is that you don't go forming issues out of nothing. The physical 
  elements perform their duties in line with their elementary physical 
  nature. The mental elements keep sensing in line with their own 
  affairs. But our stupidity is what goes looking for issues to cook up, 
  to label, to think about. It goes looking for things to latch onto and 
  then gets the mind into a turmoil. This point is all we really have to 
  see for ourselves. This is the problem we have to solve for ourselves. 
  If things are left to their nature, pure and simple, there's no "us," 
  no "them." This is a singular truth that will arise for us to know and 
  see. There's nothing else we can know or see that can match it in any 
  way. Once you know and see this one thing, it extinguishes all 
  suffering and stress. The mind will be empty and free, with no 
  meanings, no attachments, for anything at all.
  
       This is why looking inward is so special in so many ways. 
  Whatever arises, simply stop still to look at it. Don't get excited by 
  it. If you become excited when any special intuitions arise when the 
  mind is still, you'll get the mind worked up into a turmoil. If you 
  become afraid that this or that will happen, that too will get you in 
  a turmoil. So you have to stop and look, stop and know. The first 
  thing is simply to look. The first thing is simply to know. And don't 
  latch onto what you know -- because whatever it is, it's simply a 
  phenomenon that arises and disbands, arises and disbands, changing as 
  part of its nature.
  
       So your awareness has to take a firm stance right at the mind in 
  and of itself. In the beginning stages you have to know that when 
  mindfulness is standing firm, the mind won't be affected by the 
  objects of sensory contact. Keep working at maintaining this stance, 
  holding firm to this stance. If you gain a sense of this for yourself, 
  really knowing and seeing for yourself, your mindfulness will become 
  even more firm. If anything arises in any way at all, you'll be able 
  to let it go -- and all the many troubles and turmoils of the mind 
  will dissolve away.
  
       If mindfulness slips and the mind goes out giving meanings to 
  anything, latching onto anything, troubles will arise, so you have to 
  keep checking on this with every moment. There's nothing else that's 
  so worth checking on. You have to keep check on the mind in and of 
  itself, contemplating the mind in and of itself. Or else you can 
  contemplate the body in and of itself, feelings in and of themselves, 
  or the phenomenon of arising and disbanding -- i.e., the Dhamma -- in 
  and of itself. All of these things are themes you can keep track of 
  entirely within yourself. You don't have to keep track of a lot of 
  themes, because having a lot of themes is what will make you restless 
  and distracted. First you'll practice this theme, then you'll practice 
  that, then you'll make comparisons, all of which will keep the mind 
  from growing still.
  
       If you can take your stance at awareness, if you're skilled at 
  looking, the mind can be at peace. You'll know how things arise and 
  disband. First practice keeping awareness right within yourself so 
  that your mindfulness can be firm, without being affected by the 
  objects of sensory contact, so that it won't label things as good or 
  bad, pleasing or displeasing. You have to keep checking to see that 
  when the mind can be at normalcy, centered and neutral as its primary 
  stance, then -- whatever it knows or sees -- it will be able to 
  contemplate and let go.
  
       The sensations in the mind that we explain at such length are 
  still on the level of labels. Only when there can be //awareness right 
  at awareness// will you really be able to know that the mind that is 
  aware of awareness in this way doesn't send its knowing outside of 
  this awareness. There are no issues. Nothing can be concocted in the 
  mind when it knows in this way. In other words,
  
       An inward-staying
            unentangled knowing,
       All outward-going knowing
            cast aside.
  
       The only thing you have to work at maintaining is the state of 
  mind at normalcy -- knowing, seeing, and still in the present. If you 
  don't maintain it, if you don't keep looking after it, then when 
  sensory contact comes it will have an effect. The mind will go out 
  with labels of good and bad, liking and disliking. So make sure you 
  maintain the basic awareness that's aware right at yourself. And don't 
  let there be any labeling. No matter what sort of sensory contact 
  comes, you have to make sure that this awareness comes first.
  
       If you train yourself correctly in this way, everything will 
  stop. You won't go straying out through your senses of sight, hearing, 
  etc. The mind will stop and look, stop and be aware right at 
  awareness, so as to know the truth that all things arise and disband. 
  There's no real truth to anything. Only our stupidity is what latches 
  onto things, giving them meanings and then suffering for it -- 
  suffering because of its ignorance, suffering because of its 
  unacquaintance with the five aggregates -- form, feelings, 
  perceptions, thought-formations, and consciousness-- all of which are 
  inconstant, stressful, and not-self.
  
       Use mindfulness to gather your awareness together, and the mind 
  will stop getting unsettled, stop running after things. It will be 
  able to stop and be still. Then make it know in this way, see in this 
  way //constantly// -- at every moment, with every activity. Work at 
  watching and knowing the mind in and of itself: That will be enough to 
  cut away all sorts of issues. You won't have to concern yourself with 
  them.
  
       If the body is in pain, simply keep watch of it. You can simply 
  keep watch of feelings in the body because the mind that's aware of 
  itself in this way can keep watch of anything within or without. Or it 
  can simply be aware of itself to the point where it lets go of things 
  outside, lets go of sensory contact, and keeps constant watch on the 
  mind in and of itself. That's when you'll know that this is what the 
  mind is like when it's at peace: It doesn't give meanings to anything. 
  It's the emptiness of the mind unattached, uninvolved, unconcerned 
  with anything at all.
  
       These words - unattached, uninvolved, and unconcerned -- are 
  things you have to consider carefully, because what they refer to is 
  subtle and deep. "Uninvolved" means uninvolved with sensory contact, 
  undisturbed by the body or feelings. "Unconcerned" means not worried 
  about past, future, or present. You have to contemplate these things 
  until you know them skillfully. Even though they're subtle, you have 
  to contemplate them until you know them thoroughly. And don't go 
  concerning yourself with external things, because they'll keep you 
  unsettled, keep you running, keep you distracted with labels and 
  thoughts of good and bad and all that sort of thing. You have to put a 
  stop to these things. If you don't, your practice won't accomplish 
  anything, because these things keep playing up to you and deceiving 
  you -- i.e., once you see anything, it will fool you into seeing it as 
  right, wrong, good, bad, and so forth.
  
       Eventually you have to come down to the awareness that everything 
  simply arises, persists, and then disbands. //Make sure stay focused 
  on the disbanding//. If you watch just the arising, you may get 
  carried off on a tangent, but if you focus on the disbanding you'll 
  see emptiness: Everything is disbanding every instant. No matter what 
  you look at, no matter what you see, it's there for just an instant 
  and then disbands. Then it arises again. Then it disbands. There's 
  simply arising, knowing, disbanding.
  
       So let's watch what happens of its own accord -- because the 
  arising and disbanding that occurs by way of the senses is something 
  that happens of its own accord. You can't prevent it. You can't force 
  it. If you look and know it without attachment, there will be none of 
  the harm that comes from joy or sorrow. The mind will stay in relative 
  normalcy and neutrality. But if you're forgetful and start latching 
  on, labeling things in pairs in any way at all -- good and bad, happy 
  and sad, pleasing and displeasing -- the mind will become unsettled: 
  no longer empty, no longer still. When this happens you have to probe 
  on in to know why.    
  
       All the worthless issues that arise in the mind have to be cut 
  away. Then you'll find that you have less and less to say, less and 
  less to talk about, less and less to think about. These things grow 
  less and less on their own. They stop on their own. But if you get 
  involved in a lot of issues, the mind won't be able to stay still. 
  //So we have to keep watching things that are completely worthless and 
  without substance,// to see that they're not-self. Keep watching them 
  repeatedly, because your awareness, coupled with the mindfulness and 
  discernment that will know the truth, has to see that, "This isn't my 
  self. There's no substance or worth to it at all. It simply arises and 
  disbands right here. It's here for just an instant and then it 
  disbands."
  
       All we have to do is stop and look, stop and know clearly in this 
  way, and we'll be able to do away with many, many kinds of suffering 
  and stress. The normal stress of the aggregates will still occur -- we 
  can't prevent it -- but we'll know that it's the stress of nature and 
  won't latch onto it as ours.
  
       So we keep watch of things that happen on their own. If we know 
  how to watch, we keep watching things that happen on their own. Don't 
  latch onto them as being you or yours. Keep this awareness firmly 
  established in itself, as much as you can, and there won't be much 
  else you'll have to remember or think about.
  
       When you keep looking, keep knowing like this at all times, 
  you'll come to see that there are no big issues going on. There's just 
  the issue of arising, persisting, and disbanding. You don't have to 
  label anything as good or bad. If you simply look in this way, it's no 
  great weight on the heart. But if you go dragging in issues of good 
  and bad, self and all that, then suffering starts in a big way. The 
  defilements start in a big way and weigh on the heart, making it 
  troubled and upset. So you have to stop and look, stop and investigate 
  really deep down inside. It's like water covered with duckweed: Only 
  when we take our hand to part the duckweed and take a look will we see 
  that the water beneath it is crystal clear.
  
       As you look into the mind, you have to part it, you have to stop: 
  stop thinking, stop labeling things as good or bad, stop everything. 
  You can't go branding anything. Simply keep looking, keep knowing. 
  When the mind is quiet you'll see that there's nothing there. 
  Everything is all still. Everything has all stopped inside. But as 
  soon as there's labeling, even in the stillness, the stopping, the 
  quiet, it will set things in motion. And as soon as things get set 
  into motion, and you don't know how to let go right from the start, 
  issues will arise, waves will arise. Once there are issues and waves, 
  they strike the mind and it goes splashing all out of control. This 
  splashing of the mind includes craving and defilement as well, because 
  //avijja// -- ignorance -- lies at its root....
  
       Our major obstacle is this aggregate of perceptions, of labels. 
  If we aren't aware of the arising and disbanding of perceptions, these 
  labels will take hold. Perceptions are the chief instigators that 
  label things within and without, so we have to be aware of their 
  arising and disbanding. Once we're aware in this way, perceptions will 
  no longer function as a cause of suffering. In other words, they won't 
  give rise to any further thought-formations. The mind will be aware in 
  itself and able to extinguish these things in itself.
  
       So we have to stop things at the level of perception. If we 
  don't, thought-formations will fashion things into issues and then 
  cause consciousness to wobble and waver in all sorts of ways. But 
  these are things we can stop and look at, things we can know with 
  every mental moment....If we aren't yet really acquainted with the 
  arising and disbanding in the mind, we won't be able to let go. We can 
  talk about letting go, but we can't do it because we don't yet know. 
  As soon as anything arises we grab hold of it -- even when actually 
  it's already disbanded, but since we don't really see, we don't 
  know....
  
       So I ask that you understand this basic principle. Don't go 
  grasping after this thing or that, or else you'll get yourself all 
  unsettled. The basic theme is within: look on in, keep knowing on in 
  until you penetrate everything. The mind will then be free from 
  turmoil. Empty. Quiet. Aware. So keep continuous watch of the mind in 
  and of itself, and you'll come to the point where you simply run out 
  of things to say. Everything will stop on its own, grow still on its 
  own, //because the underlying condition that has stopped and is still 
  is already there,// simply that we aren't aware of it yet.
  
                          November 3, 1975
  
  
                                 * * *
                                          
                                          
                                          
                                          
                            THE PURE PRESENT
  
       We have to catch sight of the sensation of knowing when the mind 
  gains knowledge of anything and yet isn't aware of itself, to see how 
  it latches onto things -- physical form, feeling, perceptions, 
  thought-formations, and consciousness. We have to probe on in and look 
  on our own. We can't use the teachings we've memorized to catch sight 
  of these things. That won't get us anywhere at all. We may remember, 
  "The body is inconstant," but even though we can say it, we can't see 
  it.
  
       We have to focus on in to see exactly //how// the body is 
  inconstant, to see how it changes. And we have to focus on feelings -- 
  pleasant, painful, and neutral -- to see how they change. The same 
  holds true with perceptions, thought-formations, and so forth: We have 
  to focus on them, investigate them, contemplate them to see their 
  characteristics //as they actually are//. Even if you can see these 
  things for only a moment, it'll do you a world of good. You'll be able 
  to catch yourself: The things you thought you knew, you didn't really 
  know at all....This is why the knowledge we gain in the practice has 
  to keep changing through many, many levels. It doesn't stay on just 
  one level.
  
       So even when you're able to know arising and disbanding with 
  every moment right in the present: If your contemplation isn't 
  continuous, it won't be very clear.
  
       You have to know how to contemplate the bare sensation of arising 
  and disbanding, simply arising and disbanding, without any labels of 
  "good" or "bad." Just keep with the pure sensation of arising and 
  disbanding. When you do this, other things will come to intrude -- but 
  no matter how they intrude, it's still a matter of arising and 
  disbanding, so you can keep your stance with arising and disbanding in 
  this way.
  
       If you start labeling things, it gets confusing. All you need to 
  do is keep looking at the right spot: the bare sensation of arising 
  and disbanding. Simply make sure you really keep watch of it. Whether 
  there's awareness of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or tactile 
  sensations, just stay with the sensation of arising and disbanding. 
  Don't go labeling the sight, sound, smell, taste, or tactile 
  sensation. If you can keep watch in this way, you're with the pure 
  present -- and there won't be any issues.
  
       When you keep watch in this way, you're keeping watch on 
  inconstancy, on change, as it actually occurs -- because even the 
  arising and disbanding changes. It's not the same thing arising and 
  disbanding all the time. First this sort of sensation arises and 
  disbands, then that sort arises and disbands. If you keep watch on 
  bare arising and disbanding like this, you're sure to arrive at 
  insight. But if you keep watch with labels -- "That's the sound of a 
  cow," "That's the bark of a dog" -- you won't be watching the bare 
  sensation of sound, the bare sensation of arising and disbanding. As 
  soon as there's labeling, thought-formations come along with it. Your 
  senses of touch, sight, hearing, and so forth will continue their bare 
  arising and disbanding, but you won't know it. Instead, you'll label 
  everything: sights, sounds, etc., and then there will be attachments, 
  feelings of pleasure and displeasure, and you won't know the truth.
  
       The truth keeps going along on its own. Sensations keep arising 
  and then disbanding. If we focus right here -- at the consciousness of 
  the bare sensation of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile 
  sensations, then we'll be able to gain insight quickly....
  
       If we know how to observe things in this way, we'll be able to 
  see easily when the mind is provoked by passion or greed, and even 
  more easily when it's provoked by anger. As for delusion, that's 
  something more subtle...something you have to take a great interest in 
  and investigate carefully. You'll come to see all sorts of hidden 
  things -- how the mind is covered with many, many layers of film. It's 
  really fascinating. But then that's what insight meditation is for -- 
  to open our eyes so that we can know and see, so that we can destroy 
  our delusion and ignorance.
  
                            June 3, 1964
  
  
                                 * * *
  
  
  
  
                         THE DECEITS OF KNOWING
  
       You have to find approaches for contemplating and probing at all 
  times so as to catch sight of the flickerings of awareness, to see in 
  what ways it streams out to know things. Be careful to catch sight of 
  it both when its knowing is right and when it's wrong. Don't mix 
  things up, taking wrong knowledge for right, or right knowledge for 
  wrong. This is something extremely important for the practice, this 
  question of right and wrong knowing, for these things can play tricks 
  on you.
  
       When you gain any new insights, don't go getting excited. You 
  can't let yourself get excited by them at all, because it doesn't take 
  long for your insight to change -- to change right now, before your 
  very eyes. It's not going to change at some other time or place. It's 
  changing right now. You have to know how to observe, how to acquaint 
  yourself with the deceits of knowledge. //Even when it's correct 
  knowledge, you can't latch onto it//.
  
       Even though we may have standards for judging what sort of 
  knowledge is correct in the course of our practice, don't go latching 
  onto correct knowledge -- because correct knowledge is inconstant. It 
  changes. It can turn into false knowledge, or into knowledge that is 
  even more correct. You have to contemplate things very carefully, 
  very, very carefully so that you won't fall for your knowledge, 
  thinking, "I've gained right insight; I know better than other people" 
  -- so that you won't start assuming yourself to be special. The moment 
  you assume yourself, your knowledge immediately turns wrong. Even if 
  you don't let things show outwardly, the mere mental event in which 
  the mind labels itself is a form of wrong knowing that obscures the 
  mind from itself in an insidious way.
  
       This is why meditators who tend not to contemplate things, who 
  don't catch sight of the deceits of every form of knowledge -- right 
  and wrong, good and bad -- tend to get bogged down in their knowledge. 
  The knowledge that deceives them into thinking, "What I know is 
  right," gives rise to strong pride and conceit within them, without 
  their even realizing it.
  
       This is because the defilements are always getting into the act 
  without our realizing it. They're insidious, and in their insidious 
  way they keep getting into the act as a matter of course, for the 
  defilements and mental effluents are still there in our character. Our 
  practice is basically a probing deep inside, from the outer levels of 
  the mind to the inner ones. This is an approach that requires a great 
  deal of subtlety and precision....//The mind has to use its own 
  mindfulness and discernment to dig everything out of itself, leaving 
  just the mind in and of itself, the body in and of itself, and then 
  keep watch of them//.
  
  *  *  *
  
       The basic challenge in the practice is this one point and nothing 
  else: //this problem of how to look inward so that you see clear 
  through//. If the mind hasn't been trained to look inward, it tends to 
  look outward, simply waiting to receive its objects from outside -- 
  and all it gets is the confusion of its sensations going in and out, 
  in and out. And even though this confusion is one aspect of change and 
  inconstancy, we don't see it that way. Instead, we see it as issues, 
  good and bad, pertaining to the self. When this is the case, we're 
  back right where we started, not knowing what's what. This is why the 
  mind's sensations, when it isn't acquainted with itself, are so 
  secretive and hard to perceive. If you want to find out about them by 
  reading a lot of books, you end up piling more defilements onto the 
  mind, making it even more thickly covered than before.
  
       So when you turn to look inward, you shouldn't use concepts and 
  labels to do your looking for you. If you use concepts and labels to 
  do your looking, there will be nothing but concepts arising, changing, 
  and disbanding. Everything will get all concocted into thoughts -- and 
  then how will you be able to watch in utter silence? The more you take 
  what you've learned from books to look inside yourself, the less 
  you'll see.
  
       So whatever you've learned, when you come to the practice you 
  have to put all the labels and concepts you've gained from your 
  learning to one side. You have to make yourself an innocent beginner 
  once more. Only then will you be able to penetrate in to read the 
  truths within you. If you carry all the paraphernalia of the concepts 
  and standards you've gained from your learning to gauge things inside 
  you, you can search to your dying day and yet won't meet with any real 
  truths at all. This is why you have to hold to only one theme in your 
  practice. If the mind has lots of themes to concern itself with, it's 
  still just wandering around -- wandering around to know this and that, 
  going out of bounds without realizing it and not really wanting to 
  know itself. This is why those with a lot of learning like to teach 
  others, to show off their level of understanding. And this is 
  precisely how the desire to stand out keeps the mind obscured.
  
       Of all the various kinds of deception, //there's none as bad as 
  deceiving yourself//. When you haven't yet really seen the truth, what 
  business do you have making assumptions about yourself, that you've 
  attained this or that sort of knowledge, or that you know enough to 
  teach others correctly? The Buddha is quite critical of teachers of 
  this sort. He calls them "people in vain." Even if you can teach large 
  numbers of people to become arahants, while you yourself haven't 
  tasted the flavor of the Dhamma, the Buddha says that you're a person 
  in vain. So you have to keep examining yourself. If you haven't yet 
  really trained yourself in the things you teach to others, how will 
  you be able to extinguish your own suffering?
  
       Think about this for a moment. Extinguishing suffering, gaining 
  release from suffering: Aren't these subtle matters? Aren't they 
  completely personal within us? If you question yourself in this way, 
  you'll be on the right track. But even then you have to be careful. If 
  you start taking sides with yourself, the mind will cover itself up 
  with wrong insights and wrong opinions. If you don't observe really 
  carefully, you can get carried off on a tangent -- because the 
  awareness with which the mind reads itself and actually sees through 
  itself is something really extraordinary, really worth developing -- 
  and it really eliminates suffering and defilement. This is the real, 
  honest truth, not a lot of propaganda or lies. It's something you 
  really have to practice, and then you'll really have to see clearly in 
  this way. When this is the case, how can you //not// want to practice?
  
       If you examine yourself correctly in this way, you'll be able to 
  know what's real. But you have to be careful to examine yourself 
  correctly. If you start latching on to any sense of self, thinking 
  that you're better than other people, then you've failed the 
  examination. No matter how correct your knowledge, you have to keep 
  humble and respectful above all else. You can't let there be any pride 
  or conceit at all, or it will destroy everything.
  
       This is why the awareness that eliminates the sense of self 
  depends more than anything else on your powers of observation -- to 
  check and see if there's still anything in your knowledge or opinions 
  that comes from the force of pride in any sense of self....You have to 
  use the full power of your mindfulness and discernment to cut these 
  things away. It's nothing you can play around at. If you gain a few 
  insights or let go of things a bit, don't go thinking you're anything 
  special. The defilements don't hold a truce with anyone. They keep 
  coming right out as they like. So you have to be circumspect and 
  examine things on all sides. Only then will you be able to benefit in 
  ways that make your defilements and sufferings lighter and lighter.
  
       When we probe in to find the instigator -- the mind, or this 
  property of consciousness -- that's when we're on the right rack, and 
  our probing will keep getting results, will keep weakening the germs 
  of craving and wiping them out. In whatever way craving streams out, 
  for "being" or "having" in any way at all, we'll be able to catch 
  sight of it every time. To catch hold and examine this "being" and 
  "having" in this way, though, requires a lot of subtlety. If you 
  aren't really mindful and discerning, you won't be able to catch sight 
  of these things at all, because the mind is continually wanting to be 
  and to have. The germs of defilement lie hidden deep in the seed of 
  the mind, in this property of consciousness. Simply to be aware of 
  them skillfully is no mean feat -- so we shouldn't even //think// of 
  trying to wipe them out with our mere opinions. We have to keep 
  contemplating, probing on in, until things come together just right, 
  in a single moment, and then it's like reaching the basic level of 
  knowing that exists on its own, with no willing or intention at all.
  
       //This is something that requires careful observation: the 
  difference between willed and unwilled knowing//. Sometimes there's 
  the intention to look and be aware within, but there come times when 
  there's no intention to look within, and yet knowledge arises on its 
  own. If you don't yet know, look at the intention to look inward: What 
  is it like? What is it looking for? What does it see? This is a basic 
  approach you have to hold to. This is a level you have to work at, and 
  one in which you have to make use of intention -- the intention to 
  look inward in this way....But once you reach the basic level of 
  knowing, then as soon as you happen to focus down and look within, the 
  knowledge will occur on its own.
  
                          January 29, 1964
  
                                 * * *
                                          
                                          
                                          
                                          
                          SABBE DHAMMA ANATTA
  
       One night I was sitting in meditation outside in the open air -- 
  my back straight as an arrow -- firmly determined to make the mind 
  quiet, but even after a long time it wouldn't settle down. So I 
  thought, "I've been working at this for many days now, and yet my mind 
  won't settle down at all. It's time to stop being so determined and to 
  simply be aware of the mind." I started to take my hands and feet out 
  of the meditation posture, but at the moment I had unfolded one leg 
  but had yet to unfold the other, I could see that my mind was like a 
  pendulum swinging more and more slowly, more  and more slowly -- until 
  it stopped.
  
       Then there arose an awareness that was sustained by itself. 
  Slowly I put my legs and hands back into position. At the same time, 
  the mind was in a state of awareness absolutely and solidly still, 
  seeing clearly into the elementary phenomena of existence as they 
  arose and disbanded, changing in line with their nature -- and also 
  seeing a separate condition inside, with no arising, disbanding, or 
  changing, a condition beyond birth and death: something very difficult 
  to put clearly into words, because it was a realization of the 
  elementary phenomena of nature, completely internal and individual.
  
       After a while I slowly got up and lay down to rest. This state of 
  mind remained there as a stillness that sustained itself deep down 
  inside. Eventually the mind came out of this state and gradually 
  returned to normal.
  
       From this I was able to observe how practice consisting of 
  nothing but fierce desire simply upsets the mind and keeps it from 
  being still. But when one's awareness of the mind is just right, an 
  inner awareness will arise naturally of its own accord. Because of 
  this clear inner awareness, I was able to continue knowing the facts 
  of what's true and false, right and wrong from that point on, and it 
  enabled me to know that the moment when the mind let go of everything 
  was a clear awareness of the elementary phenomena of nature, because 
  it was an awareness that knew within and saw within of its own accord 
  -- not something you can know or see by wanting.
  
       For this reason the Buddha's teaching, //"Sabbe dhamma anatta// 
  -- All phenomena are not-self," tells us not to latch onto //any// of 
  the phenomena of nature, whether conditioned or unconditioned. From 
  that point on I was able to understand things and let go of 
  attachments step by step.
  
                            July 9, 1971
  
  
                                 * * *
                                          
                                          
                                          
  
                             GOING OUT COLD
  
       It's important to realize how to focus on events in order to get 
  special benefits from your practice. //You have to focus so as to 
  observe and contemplate, not simply to make the mind still//. Focus on 
  //how// things arise, how they disband. Make your focus subtle and 
  deep.
  
       When you're aware of the characteristics of your sensations, then 
  -- if it's a physical sensation -- contemplate that physical 
  sensation. There will have to be a feeling of stress. Once there's a 
  feeling of stress, how will you be aware of it simply as a feeling so 
  that it won't lead to anything further? Once you can be aware of it 
  simply as a feeling, it stops right there without producing any taste 
  in terms of a desire for anything. The mind will disengaged right 
  there -- right there at the feeling. If you don't focus on it in this 
  way, craving will arise on top of the feeling -- craving to attain 
  ease and be rid of the stress and pain. If you don't focus on the 
  feeling in the proper way right from the start, craving will arise 
  before you're aware of it, and if you then try to let go of it, it'll 
  be very tiring....
  
       The way in which preoccupations take shape, the sensations of the 
  mind as it's aware of things coming with every moment, the way these 
  things change and disband: These are all things you have to focus on 
  to see clearly. This is why we make the mind disengaged. We don't 
  disengage it so that it doesn't know or amount to anything. That's not 
  the kind of disengagement we want. //The more the mind is truly 
  disengaged, the more it sees clearly into the characteristics of the 
  arising and disbanding within itself//. All I ask is that you observe 
  things carefully, that your awareness be all-around at all times. Work 
  at this as much as you can. If you can keep this sort of awareness 
  going, you'll find that the mind or consciousness under the 
  supervision of mindfulness and discernment in this way is different 
  from -- is opposite from -- unsupervised consciousness. It will be the 
  opposite sort of thing continually.
  
       If you keep the mind well supervised so that it's sensitive in 
  the proper way, it will yield enormous benefits, not just small ones. 
  If you don't make it properly sensitive and aware, what can you expect 
  to gain from it?
  
       When we say that we gain from the practice, we're not talking 
  about anything else: We're talking about gaining disengagement. 
  Freedom. Emptiness. Before, the mind was embroiled. Defilement and 
  craving attacked and robbed it, leaving it completely entangled. Now 
  it's disengaged, freed from the defilements that used to gang up to 
  burn it. Its desires for this or that thing, its concocting of this or 
  that thought, have all fallen away. So now it's empty and disengaged. 
  It can be empty in this way right before your very eyes. Try to see it 
  right now, before your eyes, right now as I'm speaking and you're 
  listening. Probe on in so as to know.
  
       If you can be constantly aware in this way, you're following in 
  the footsteps or taking within you the quality called //"buddho,"// 
  which means one who knows, who is awake, who has blossomed in the 
  Dhamma. Even if you haven't fully blossomed -- if you've blossomed 
  only to the extent of disengaging from the blatant levels of craving 
  and defilement -- you still benefit a great deal, for when the mind 
  really knows the defilements and can let them go, it feels cool and 
  refreshed in and of itself. This is the exact opposite of the 
  defilements which, as soon as they arise, make us burn and smoulder 
  inside. If we don't have the mindfulness and discernment to help us 
  know, the defilements will burn us. But as soon as mindfulness and 
  discernment know, the fires go out -- and they go out cold.
  
       Observe how the defilements arise and take shape -- they also 
  disband in quick succession, but when they disband on their own in 
  this way, go out on their own in this way, they go out hot. If we have 
  mindfulness and discernment watching over them, they go out cold. Look 
  so that you can see what the true knowledge of mindfulness and 
  discernment is like: It goes out; it goes out cold. As for the 
  defilements, even when they arise and disband in line with their 
  nature, they go out hot -- hot because we latch onto them, hot because 
  of attachment. When they go out cold, look again -- it's because 
  there's no attachment. They've been let go, put out.
  
       This is something really worth looking into: the fact that 
  there's something very special like this in the mind -- //special in 
  that when it really knows the truth, it isn't attached//. It's 
  unentangled, empty, and free. This is how it's special. It can grow 
  empty of greed, anger, and delusion, step after step. It can be empty 
  of desire, empty of mental processes. The important thing is that you 
  really see for yourself that the true nature of the mind is that it 
  can be empty....This is why I said this morning that //nibbana// 
  doesn't lie anywhere else. It lies right here, right where things go 
  out and are cool, go out and are cool. It's staring us right in the 
  face.
  
                            May 26, 1964
  
                                          
                                 * * *
  
  
  
  
                           READING THE HEART
  
       The Buddha taught that we are to know with our own hearts and 
  minds. Even though there are many, many words and phrases coined to 
  explain the Dhamma, we need focus only on the things we can know and 
  see, extinguish and let go right in each moment of the immediate 
  present -- better than taking on a load of other things. Once we can 
  read and comprehend our inner awareness, we'll be struck deep within 
  us that the Buddha awakened to the truth right here in the heart. His 
  truth is truly the language of the heart.
  
       When they translate the Dhamma in all sorts of ways, it becomes 
  something ordinary. But if you keep close and careful watch right at 
  the heart and mind, you'll be able to see clearly, to let go, to put 
  down your burdens. If you don't know right here, your knowledge will 
  send out all sorts of branches, turning into thought-formations with 
  all sorts of meanings in line with conventional labels -- and all of 
  them way off the mark.
  
       If you know right at your inner awareness and make it your 
  constant stance, there's nothing at all: no need to take hold of 
  anything, no need to label anything, no need to give anything names. 
  Right where craving arises, right where it disbands: That's where 
  you'll know what //nibbana// is like...."//Nibbana// is simply this
  disbanding of craving." That's what the Buddha stressed over and over 
  again.
  
                                March 15, 1974
  
  
[end]
