Luang Por Liem: The Ways of the Peaceful - Wat Pah Nanachat

that they are happiness or suffering isn’t true, so we neither agree
nor disagree with them. These symptoms arise if a person’s
mental immunity is still insufficient – if it has weak spots.
Agreeable feelings (or “happiness”) and disagreeable feelings (or
“suffering”) occur.
This is why the Buddha wanted us to maintain a state that is
neither happiness nor suffering, where feelings are simply
feelings, with no-one owning them. He encouraged us to see
feelings from the perspective of emptiness. When one is empty of
feelings, empty of happiness and suffering, there is neither
happiness nor suffering. There is simply nature. Neutral feelings
like these are what is meant with upekkha-dhamma, the quality of
equanimity.
We try to observe ourselves in this way – particularly as we
need to constantly keep track of ourselves, with focus and
awareness, so as not to be overwhelmed by the power of
sensuality, or the power of our desires and defilements. This is
how we practice regarding feelings.
It is similar concerning the mind. We need to watch over our
mental activities, whether they are wholesome and skilful
(kusala), or unwholesome and unskilful (akusala). We observe
the wholesome mind with its positive emotions and the
unwholesome mind that can take our lives towards defilement,
depression, aversion and enmity, when it comes under the sway of
biased views or wrong courses of perception (agati).
We need to focus on our mind and observe it. We investigate
and look at the mind well grounded in the vipassana-ñanas, the
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