Inner Strength - Access to Insight

32the point where it flows evenly without faltering, so that it’ s comfortable in slowand out slow, in fast and out fast, long, short, heavy, or refined. Get so that boththe in-breath and the out-breath are comfortable no matter what way youbreathe, so that—no matter when—you immediately feel a sense of ease themoment you focus on the breath. When you can do this, physical results willappear: a sense of ease and lightness, open and spacious. The body will bestrong, the breath and blood will flow unobstructed and won’t form an openingfor disease to step in. The body will be healthy and awake.As for the mind, when mindfulness and alertness are the causes, a still mind isthe result. When negligence is the cause, a mind distracted and restless is theresult. So we must try to make the causes good, in order to give rise to the goodresults we’ve referred to. If we use our powers of observation and evaluation incaring for the breath, and are constantly correcting and improving it, we’lldevelop awareness on our own, the fruit of having developed our concentrationhigher step by step.* * *When the mind is focused with full circumspection, it can let go of concepts ofthe past. It sees the true nature of its old preoccupations, that there’s nothinglasting or certain about them. As for the future lying ahead of us, it’s like havingto sail a small boat across the great wide sea: There are bound to be dangers onall sides. So the mind lets go of concepts of the future and comes into the present,seeing and knowing the present.The mind stands firm and doesn’t sway.Unawareness falls away.Knowledge arises for an instant and then disappears, so that you can knowthat there in the present is a void.A void.You don’t latch on to world-fabrications of the past, world-fabrications of thefuture, or dhamma-fabrications of the present. Fabrications disappear. Avijj›—counterfeit, untrue awareness—disappears. ‘True’ disappears. All that remains isawareness: ‘buddha… buddha…’Bodily fabrication, i.e., the breath; verbal fabrication, i.e., thoughts thatformulate words; and mental fabrication, i.e., thinking, all disappear. Butawareness doesn’t disappear. When bodily fabrication moves, you’re aware of it.When verbal fabrication moves, you’re aware of it. When mental fabricationmoves, you’re aware of it, but awareness isn’t attached to anything it knows. Inother words, no fabrications can affect it. There’s simply awareness. At athought, the mind appears, fabrications appear. If you want to use them, therethey are. If not, they disappear on their own, by their very nature. Awareness isabove everything else. This is release.Meditators have to reach this sort of awareness if they’re to get good results.In training the mind, this is all there is. Complications are a lot of fuss and bother,and tend to bog down without ever getting to the real point.