Inner Strength - Access to Insight

hitting each other, so that we itch in front and itch in back—scritch scritch, scratchscratch: The worms have gotten into a gang war. They cruise around in our bodythe way we do outside. The blood vessels are like roads, so there are littleanimals cruising down the blood vessels. This one comes this way, that onecomes that, they meet each other and start talking. Sometimes they have realconversations that know no end, so they spend the night there, eating rightthere and excreting right there until a swelling starts: That’s a little shack for thebeings, the consciousnesses in our body. This is how things keep happening.Our body is like a world. Just as the world has oceans, mountains, trees,vines, land, so it is with the body. Each blood vessel is a road for living beings.They travel down our blood vessels, down our breath channels. Some vesselsget closed off, like a dead end road. Others stay open. When they’re open, theblood flows, the breath flows, like the water in rivers and streams. When theyflow, boats can travel along them. When there are boats, there are beings in theboats. Sometimes the boats crash into one another. That’s why we have achesand pains in our legs and arms and along our breath channels.So go ahead: keep rubbing them and massaging them—it’s all an affair of theconsciousnesses inhabiting our bodies. Some of them live in our eye sockets,some live in our earholes, some in our nostrils, some in our mouth, our throat,our gums. They’re just like people, only we can’t understand their language.They have jobs and careers, families and homes, and places to vacation all overour body.These consciousnesses in our bodies sometimes get into battles and wars, justlike red ants and black ants. Sometimes lizards and toads get into battles—I’veseen it happen. It’s the same in our body, so where are we going to go to escapefrom it all? The beings in our eyes lay claim to our eyes as their home. The onesin our ears claim our ears as their home. The ones in our blood vessels claimthose as their home. Sometimes their claims overlap, so they get into feuds. Asthe texts say, there are feelings that arise from consciousness. This is why thereare so many things that can happen to the body. Some kinds of consciousnessgive rise to disease, some are just waiting their chance. For instance, some kindsof consciousness without bodies hang around our blood vessels waiting forwounds and boils to develop. That’s their chance to take on bodies as worms andgerms. As for the ones who don’t yet have bodies, they travel around as chillsand thrills and itches and aches all over our body. It’s all an affair ofconsciousnesses.In short, there are three classes in all—three clans, and all of them great bigones. The first are the living beings with bodies that live in our body. Then thereare the consciousnesses that don’t have bodies of their own, but inhabit ourbody. Then there’s our own consciousness. So all in all there are three. Thesethree types of consciousness get all mixed up together, so we don’t know whichkinds of consciousness belong to animals with bodies, which kinds belong tobeings that don’t yet have bodies, and which kind of consciousness is our own.We don’t know. When we don’t know this, how can we know the fiveaggregates? “Viññ›˚akkhandho” that we chant every morning—how can weknow it? All we know is “consciousness, consciousness,” but our own93