When you wash your mind so that it’s clean and pure, it’s bound to become bright within itself with knowledge and understanding. Things you never knew or thought of before will appear to you. The Buddha thus taught that the brightness of the mind is discernment. When this discernment arises, it can give us knowledge about ourselves—of how the body got to be the way it is and how the mind got to be the way it is. This is called knowledge of form and name or of physical and mental phenomena.
Discernment is like a sail on a sailboat: The wider it’s spread, the faster the boat will go. If it’s tattered and torn, it won’t catch the wind, and the boat will have to go slowly or might not even reach its goal at all.
But if the sail is in good shape, it will take the boat quickly to its destination.
The same holds true with our discernment. If our knowledge is only in bits and pieces, it won’t be able to pull our minds up to the current of the Dhamma. We may end up sinking or giving up because we aren’t true and sincere in what we do. When this is the case, we won’t be able to get any results. Our good qualities will fall away and sink into our bad ones.
Why will they sink? Because our sails don’t catch the wind. And why is that? Because they’re torn into shreds. And why are they torn? Because we don’t take care of them, so they wear out fast and end up tattered and torn.
This is because the mind spends all its time entangled with thoughts and ideas. It doesn’t settle down into stillness, so its discernment is tattered and torn. When our discernment is in bits and pieces like this, it leads us down to a low level—like a log or post that we leave lying flat on the ground, exposed to all sorts of dangers: Termites may eat it or people and animals may trample all over it, because it’s left in a low place. But if we stand it up on its end in a posthole, it’s free from these dangers, apart from the minor things that can happen to the part buried in the ground.
The same holds true with the mind. If we let it drift along in its ideas, instead of catching hold of it and making it stand firmly in one place—i.e., if we let it make its nest all the time in concepts and thoughts—it’s bound to get defiled and sink to a low level.
This is why the Buddha taught us to practice centering the mind in concentration so that it will stand firm in a single object. When the mind is centered, it’s free from turmoil and confusion, like a person who has finished his work. The body is soothed and rested, the mind is refreshed—and when the mind is refreshed, it becomes steady, still, and advances to a higher level, like a person on a high vantage point—the top of a mountain, the mast of a boat, or a tall tree—able to see all kinds of things in every direction, near or far, better than a person in a low place like a valley or ravine. In a low place, the sun is visible for only a few hours of the day, and there are corners where the daylight never reaches at all.
A mind that hasn’t been trained to stand firm in its goodness is sure to fall to a low level and not be bright.
But if we train our minds to a higher and higher level, we’ll be sure to see things both near and far, and to meet up with brightness.
These are some of the rewards that come from centering the mind in concentration. When we start seeing these rewards, we’re bound to develop conviction. When we feel conviction, we become inspired to pull our minds even further—in the same way that a sail that isn’t torn can take a boat to its destination without any trouble. This is one point I want to make.
Another point is that discernment can also be compared to an airplane propeller. When we sit here stilling our minds, it’s as if we were flying an airplane up into the sky. If the pilot is sleepy, lazy, or in a blur, we’re not safe. No matter how fantastic the plane may be, it can still crash us into a mountain or the forest wilds, because the pilot doesn’t have any mindfulness or presence of mind. So when we sit meditating, it’s like we’re flying an airplane. If our mindfulness is weak and our mind keeps wandering off, our airplane may end up crashing.
So we have to keep observing the body to see where at the moment it feels painful or tense; and keep check on the mind to see whether or not it’s staying with the body in the present. If the mind isn’t with the body, it’s as if the pilot isn’t staying with his airplane. The Hindrances will have an opening to arise and destroy our stillness.
So when we sit and meditate, we have to make sure that we don’t get absentminded. We have to be mindful and self-aware at all times and not let the mind slip away anywhere else. When we can do this, we’ll develop a sense of comfort and ease, and will begin to see the benefits that come from mental stillness.
This insight is the beginning of discernment. This discernment is like an airplane propeller. The more we practice, the more benefits we’ll see. We’ll be able to take our plane as high as we want, land it whenever we feel like it, or try any stunts that occur to us. In other words, when we develop discernment within ourselves we can have control over our mind.
If we want it to think, it’ll think. If we don’t want it to think, it won’t think. We know how to keep our own mind in line. If we can’t keep ourselves in line, there’s no way we can expect to keep anyone else in line. So if we’re intelligent, it’s like being a pilot who can keep a plane under his full control. We can keep the mind in line.
For example, if it thinks of something bad, we can order it to stop and rest, and the thought will disappear.
This is called keeping the mind in line. Or if we want it to think, it will be able to think and to know. Once it knows, that’s the end of the matter, and so it will then stop thinking.
Whatever we want it to do, it can do for us.
According to the Buddha, people like this are called sages because they have discernment:
Whatever they do, they really do. They know what is harmful and what isn’t. They know how to put a stop to their thinking and as a result they very rarely meet with suffering.
As for stupid people, they simply fool around and drag their feet, pulling themselves back when they should go forward, and forward when they should go back, spending their days and nights thinking about all kinds of nonsense without any substance. Even when they sleep, they keep thinking. Their minds never have any chance to rest at all. And when their minds are forced to keep working like this, they’re bound to run down and wear out, and won’t give any good results when they’re put to use. When this happens, they suffer.
But if we have the discernment to be alert to events, we can let go of what should be let go, stop what should be stopped, and think about what needs to be thought about. We can speak when we should speak, act when we should act—or simply stay still if that’s what’s called for.
People who work day and night without sleeping, without giving their bodies a chance to rest, are killing themselves. In the same way, thoughts and concepts are things that bring on the end of our life and destroy our mind—because they keep the mind working whether we’re sitting, standing, walking, or lying down.
Sometimes, even when we’re just sitting alone, we keep thinking—which means we’re killing ourselves, because the mind never gets a chance to rest.
Its strength keeps eroding away; and eventually, when its strength is all gone, its good qualities will have to die.
So when we sit here centering our minds, it’s like eating our fill, bathing ourselves till we’re thoroughly clean, and then taking a good nap. When we wake up, we feel bright, refreshed, and strong enough to take on any job at all.
This is why the Buddha was able to develop such strength of mind that he was able to do without food, for example, for seven full days and yet not feel tired or weak. This was because his mind was able to rest and be still in the four levels of absorption. His concentration was strong and gave great strength to his body, his speech, and his mind. The strength it gave to his body is what enabled him to wander about, teaching people in every city and town throughout Northern India. Sometimes he had to walk over rough roads through destitute places, but he was never tired in any way.
As for the strength of his speech, he was able to keep teaching, without respite, from the day of his Awakening to the day of his final passing away—a total of 45 years.
And as for the strength of his mind, he was very astute, capable of teaching his disciples so that thousands of them were able to become arahants. He was able to convince large numbers of people who were stubborn, proud, and entrenched in wrong views, to abandon their views and become his disciples. His heart was full of kindness, compassion, and sincerity, with no feelings of anger, hatred, or malice toward anyone at all. It was a pure heart, without blemish.
All of these qualities came from the Dhamma he had practiced—not from anything strange or mysterious—the same Dhamma we’re practicing right now. The important thing is that we have to be intent on really doing it if we want to get results. If, when we center the mind, we really do it, we’ll get real results. If we don’t really do it, we’ll get nothing but playthings and dolls. That’s how it is with the practice.
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From Food for Thought: Eighteen Talks on the Training of the Heart, by Phra Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
https://www.dhammatalks.org/ebook_index.html#food_for_thought
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