Inner Strength - Access to Insight

Concepts, even if they deal with the Dhamma, are fabrications because theyfall in the area of mental concoction. There are three types of mental fabrications:(1) If we think in ways that are good, they’re called meritorious concoctions(puññ›bhisaºkh›ra). (2) If we think in ways that are evil, they’re calleddemeritorious concoctions (apuññ›bhisaºkh›ra). (3) If we think in ways that areneither good nor evil, they’re called impassive concoctions (aneñj›bhisaºkh›ra) oravy›kata—neutral and indeterminate. Actually, aneñj›bhisaºkh›ra has a highermeaning, because it refers to the four levels of absorption in formlessness (arÒpajh›na). Avy›kata refers to such things as thinking about eating a meal or taking abath, things that are completely unrelated to good and evil. All of thesefabrications come from unawareness and ignorance. If we’re really intelligentand aware, we shouldn’t go conceiving them.To cut off concepts means to let our mental fabrications disband, to let ourtrains of thought disband. We sit in meditation, making the body and mind quiet.When the body is still, the mind stays with the stillness. When the heart is atpeace, the mind stays with the peace. Concentration develops. The mind comesup to the forefront. Mental fabrications disappear, but the mind is still there.Goodness is still there. In nibb›na, nothing disappears anywhere or getsannihilated, except for unawareness.When mental fabrications and unawareness disband, awareness arises. Forexample, knowledge of past lives: We see the mind’s ancestry—its past lifetimes.Knowledge of death and rebirth: We know the good and bad actions of ourfellow beings, how they die and are reborn. A mind trained to maturity inconcentration develops quality, like a mature mango seed that’s capable ofcontaining all its ancestry, its parents and children, in itself. If anyone plants it, it’llbreak out into roots, stems, branches, leaves, flowers, and more fruits just likebefore. A mind not yet trained to maturity is like the seed of an unripe mangothat’s fallen from the tree. If you plant it, it won’t grow. It’ll just rot there in thedirt. Since it’s not yet ripe, it isn’t capable of containing its ancestry anddescendants.People aware of their own birth and death in this way are said not to belacking. Not lacking in what? Not lacking in birth. They’re acquainted with thebirths they’ve experienced through many lives and states of being in the past—so many that they’re weary of it all, to the point where they don’t want to takebirth again. As for people who don’t know, who don’t have this awareness, theyfeel that they’re lacking. They want to take birth again and so they keep oncreating birth over and over again. As for those who do have awareness, they’vehad enough. They’re smart enough. They won’t give rise to any more births orstates of being. Whatever is good, they keep within themselves, like putting aripe mango seed in a showcase to look at, or peeling off its hard outer shell andthen putting it in a storeroom. No one will be able to plant it again, and we cantake it out for a look whenever we want.To train the mind to a higher level is the apex of all that is good andworthwhile. To raise the level of our heart is like coming up and sitting here inthe meditation hall. Once we’ve gotten up off the level of the ground, we’veescaped from the rain, the heat of the sun, and from all sorts of dangers. Dogs,14