Living in Peace
by AJAHN LEE
“Our human minds rarely have any time to rest and relax. We all have things we keep thinking about. You could say that ever since we’ve learned human language, we’ve kept on thinking without any time to stop and rest. The mind keeps itself busy until it dies. If our bodies were this industrious, we’d all be millionaires. But when the mind doesn’t have any time to rest, it’s filled with the hindrances. That’s why it knows no peace. So we’re taught to practice concentration, letting go of thoughts about sensuality. In other words, we close off our sense doors, so that the mind isn’t involved with anything external, and we set our mind still and tall in the qualities of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha. We don’t let it fall down into any sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or tactile sensations, which are sensual objects.
As for sensual defilements, we don’t let the mind fall into passion, aversion, or delusion. Sometimes our concentration practice goes as we want it to, and we get pleased and oblivious.
Sometimes it doesn’t go as we’d like it to, and we get irritated and annoyed. These are cases of passion and aversion. As for delusion, sometimes when we sit we lose track of what we’re doing or where we are.
We get distracted or absentminded and don’t know what’s going on, good or bad, right or wrong. This causes the mind to become dark and obscure. Sometimes we drift off into thoughts of the past and think about people who have done us wrong, so that we fall into ill will, wanting to get revenge and to settle an old score. In this way we harm ourselves by spoiling our practice. All three of these defilements—passion, aversion, and delusion—are piles of dried timber just waiting to catch fire, so we have to clear them completely out of the heart.
Mindfulness and alertness are the quality of the Buddha. The cool sense of happiness they give is the quality of the Dhamma. If you can maintain that coolness until it hardens into a block of ice—in other words, you make that goodness solid and strong in your heart—that’s the quality of the Saṅgha. Once you’ve got a solid block of goodness like this, you can pick it up and put it to any use you like. Whatever you say will give good results. Whatever you do will give good results. Your solid block of goodness will turn into a wish-fulfilling gem, bringing all sorts of happiness your way.”
Source: Living in Peace
by AJAHN LEE
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