Inner Strength - Access to Insight

More documents

Recommendations

Info

67The Demons of DefilementIt’s the nature of the world that nothing is totally bad. Everything has to haveat least some good to it. The same holds true with the various forms of M›ra, orthe demons of temptation, that get in the way of our practice. It’s not the casethat they always obstruct us. Sometimes they turn into our friends andcompanions; sometimes into our workers and supporters; sometimes into ourslaves, helping us and caring for us. This is why, if you’re discerning, you have towalk a middle course. On one hand, you have to focus on their bad side. On theother, you have to focus on their good. Their good and bad sides are realitiesthat have to exist together. As for us, we have to take a stance in the middle,examining things so that we don’t act out of suspicion or prejudice. Once we seethe good side of these things, we can get more familiar with them. We can getintimate. When we get familiar and intimate, we develop a sense of kinship withthem. As the Buddha said, viss›s› param› ñ›tı: Familiarity is the highest form ofkinship.Even our enemies, when we become familiar with them, can become ourfriends. Our companions. Our servants. Our slaves. When we can look at thingsin this way, both sides benefit. We benefit and our M›ras benefit as well. In thetime of the Buddha, for instance, the Buddha got so familiar with M›ra thateventually M›ra got converted and felt favorably inclined to the merit andskillfulness the Buddha had developed. Once M›ra had no more power over theBuddha, he paid homage to the Buddha and found himself transported toheaven. And that’s not all. He became a bodhisattva. In the future he’ll gainAwakening as a fully self-awakened Buddha. So he benefited and the Buddhabenefited. This is the nature of people with discernment: They can take badthings and turn them into good.As for us, we still lie under the sway of M›ras of various kinds. Theseintimidating M›ras are called Kilesa-M›ras, the demons of defilement. The bigones, the really infamous ones, are greed, aversion, and delusion. These are thefamous ones. As for the ones that stay more in the background, behind thescenes, those are k›ma-ta˚h›, craving for sensuality, struggling to get things inways that are offensive to the Dhamma; bhava-ta˚h›, craving for things to be thisway or that; and vibhava-ta˚h›, craving that things not happen. For instance, oncewe’ve gained wealth, we don’t want to lose it; once we’ve gained status, wedon’t want anyone to wipe out the edge we have over others. This is vibhavata˚h›.These three forms of craving are also demons of defilement, but they’renot very well known. Only once in a long, long while do you hear anyonemention their names.As for greed, aversion, and delusion, they’re very big, very powerful, verywell known. The mother of all these M›ras is ignorance (avijj›). Everything
comes out of ignorance. Goodness comes from ignorance. Evil comes fromignorance. To call things by their proper names, ignorance is the requisitecondition for fabrications (saºkh›ra), and fabrications, when they arise, come inthree sorts:meritorious fabrications: intentions and considerations that head in thedirection of giving rise to goodness;demeritorious fabrications: thoughts that head in the direction of what’s evil,corrupt, and improper, defiling the mind and making it lose its luster; andneutral fabrications: thoughts that are neither meritorious nor evil. Forinstance, when we think about going to the market tomorrow, or about going towork in our field, or about taking a bath or eating a meal. When thoughts likethis arise in the mind, they’re called neutral fabrications: thinking that isn’t yeteither good or bad.These forms of fabrication are also demons of defilement. They’re thechildren of M›ra, but they rarely show their faces in public. They’re like thechildren of nobility, children in the royal palace. They hardly ever show theirfaces outside, so very few people know their names, very few people have seentheir faces. Unless you develop the mind in concentration you won’t get to seethese beauties. If you develop concentration, you can peer inside, using yourdiscernment to part the curtains, and then you’ll get to see these children ofM›ra.The mother of M›ra, ignorance, lies even deeper inside. Ignorance means notbeing acquainted with your own mind—mistaking your thinking for your mind;mistaking your knowledge for the mind; thinking that your thoughts of the pastor future are the mind; thinking that the body is the mind or the mind is thebody; that feeling is the mind or the mind is feeling; that mental qualities are themind, or that the mind is mental qualities; that the mind is the self or the self isthe mind; not being able to separate these things from yourself, getting yourselfall entangled: That’s called ignorance. In short, ignorance means getting caughtup in the present.All of the things I’ve mentioned so far are called the demons of defilement.They bother us all the time, get in our way all the time, which is why they’recalled the demons of defilement. How are they demons? When you get reallygreedy, for instance, it gets in the way of your being generous and givingdonations. You simply want to get and don’t want to give. That’s how greed is ademon. When we get possessive of things, holding on tight, and someonedestroys what we’re holding onto, we get upset and feel mistreated. This putsour mind into a turmoil and gets it all stirred up. This is how greed is a demon.The same holds true for anger. Once it arises, you don’t give a damn aboutanything. You see other people as nothing more than red or black ants: All youhave to do is step on them and they’re finished. The explosive power of anger ismore violent than anything else. Whether or not you’ll actually be able to getyour way, you don’t care. You’re brazen and foolhardy. But if anyone comesalong at that time and tries to persuade you to act in a skillful way, you don’twant anything of what they have to say. The anger has to go its course until itruns out on its own. This is why it’s called a demon, because you can’t do68
Page 2 and 3:
Inner Strength&Parting GiftsTalks b
Page 4 and 5:
3InnerStrength
Page 6 and 7:
5they reveal their true meanings on
Page 8 and 9:
have a sense of our own good and ba
Page 10 and 11:
9A Mind of Pure GoldJuly, 1958The m
Page 12 and 13:
11sunk in worldly matters, are stil
Page 14 and 15:
13not their owner will have you thr
Page 16:
for instance, can’t jump up to cl
Page 20 and 21: say, or what our teachers tell us.
Page 22 and 23: 21II. Inner SkillThe ABC’s of the
Page 24 and 25: persons running: They’ll have a h
Page 27 and 28: 26warm the fires of digestion, just
Page 29 and 30: Stick with whichever way of breathi
Page 31 and 32: 30Observe & EvaluateJuly 24, 1956In
Page 33 and 34: 32the point where it flows evenly w
Page 35 and 36: air inside seems still, and yet the
Page 37 and 38: 36self-sufficient, the body is self
Page 39 and 40: 38When these five strengths appear
Page 41 and 42: 40This is called knowing the moment
Page 43 and 44: Once you can focus comfortably on t
Page 45 and 46: pervades every thread in the mantle
Page 47 and 48: whose minds are certain and sure, b
Page 49 and 50: people with only partial knowledge
Page 51 and 52: emedy it—keeping at it with our e
Page 53 and 54: 52Dhamma of study and practice with
Page 55 and 56: 54say. They can say ‘stress,’ b
Page 57 and 58: 56PartingGiftsIntroductionOnly in t
Page 59 and 60: as word of this gathering passed by
Page 61 and 62: We depend on our minds that are swi
Page 63 and 64: As for caulking the mind, that stan
Page 65 and 66: coarse breathing, you know. When it
Page 67: So, all of you who have gathered to
Page 71 and 72: merit. Now suppose that those thoug
Page 73 and 74: we can use to develop goodness with
Page 75 and 76: All four of these types of defileme
Page 77 and 78: 76KnowledgeOctober 4, 1960Vijj›-c
Page 79 and 80: through not thinking. The first lev
Page 81 and 82: there’s too much evaluation, thou
Page 83 and 84: eally causing stress. These are nob
Page 85 and 86: 84Wherever we go, people will be gl
Page 87 and 88: are the ones made of skin. The inne
Page 89 and 90: 88ConsciousnessesIn all our activit
Page 91 and 92: Buddha tells us not to go joining i
Page 93 and 94: probably our enemies in past lives.
Page 95 and 96: consciousness is so slack and limp
Page 97 and 98: why we keep losing out to them. We
Page 99 and 100: 98as, “That’s the consciousness
Page 101 and 102: 100GlossaryI. TermsThe definitions
Page 103 and 104: 102m›ra: The personification of d
Page 105: 104sabbe satt› sad› hontuaver
show all

Inner Strength - Access to Insight

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?