Inner Strength - Access to Insight

Stick with whichever way of breathing is comfortable. Adjust whichever way ofbreathing isn’t comfortable or easy until it’s just right, using your owndiscrimination—dhamma-vicaya-sambojjhaºga—as your standard of judgment.(When you’re making adjustments in this way, you don’t have to do any mentalrepetition. You can let ‘buddho’ go.)You have to keep an eye on your mind to make sure that it doesn’t wander,waver, or fly out after any external concepts. Keep the mind still, equanimousand unconcerned, as if there were only you sitting alone in the world. Let thebreath spread throughout every part of the body, from the head to the tips ofthe fingers and toes, in front, in back, in the middle of the stomach, all the waythrough the intestines, along the blood vessels, and out through every pore.Breathe long and deep until the body feels full. The body will feel light, open andspacious, just like a sponge full of water: When we squeeze the water out, it allcomes out easily without any interference.At this point, the body will feel light and at ease. The mind will feel as cool asthe water that permeates the soil, seeping into the roots of trees, keeping themnourished and fresh. The mind will be set straight and upright, not leaning to theleft or right, forward or back. In other words, it doesn’t stretch out to anyconcepts or outside preoccupations at all.Concepts lie at the essence of mental fabrication. The mind thinks of matterseither past or future, and then starts elaborating on them as good or bad, likingor disliking them. If we see them as good, we get pleased and taken with them:This is delusion. If we see them as bad, we get displeased, which clouds anddefiles the mind, making it irritated, restless and annoyed: This is ill will. Thethings that give rise to unrest and disturbance in the mind are all classed ashindrances (nıvara˚a)—fabrications that fashion the mind, destroying whatever isgood in our practice of concentration. So we have to do away with them all.Mental fabrications, if we think in terms of the world, are world-fabrications.If we think in terms of dhamma, they’re dhamma-fabrications. Both sorts comefrom avijj›, unawareness. If this unawareness disbands, awareness will arise in itsstead. So we have to try to increase the strength of our concentration to thepoint where fabrications disband—and at that point, unawareness will disband aswell, leaving only awareness.This awareness is identical with discernment, but it’s a discernment that arisesfrom within. It doesn’t come from anything our teachers have taught us. Itcomes from the stillness of mind focused on events in the present. It’s anawareness that’s very profound, but it’s still mundane—not transcendent—discernment, because it comes from labels and concepts. It’s still tied up withaffairs of being and birth.Perhaps we may become aware of matters of the past, knowing and seeingthe states of being and birth we’ve been through. This is called knowledge ofpast lives. Perhaps we may become aware of the future, knowing the affairs ofother people, how they die and are reborn. This is called knowledge of death andrebirth. Both these forms of knowledge still have attachment infiltrating them,causing the mind to waver in line with its likes and dislikes. This is what corruptsour insight.28