The Eightfold Path for the Householder Jack Kornfield

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everything that Plato and the Chinese philosophers and all these other
people who are physicists have looked at. What is basic sense percep-
tion made of simply in the breath? There is no breath. There s coolness,
there s little tiny, very soft pressure; there s vibration and movement;
that s all. You know in the belly there s expansion, which is a different
shape of that same pressure, and hardness and softness. That s it! And
the whole world, instead of being solid, starts to reveal what its nature is,
which is the play of the physical elements.
Then you ll start to see the mind, the Mental Elements. This is
called nama and rupa. Rupa is the Physical Elements that you perceive,
and when you look closely they re all a dance, they re all changing.
There s no floor, there s no wall, there s just changing sensations. This
is using the mind as a microscope. When you start to look closely and
to experience it, it seems solid on this level, which it is, and you can use
your mind the same way someone uses a microscope. You look down
into the pond water and you see it s alive with things. And if you look at
anything closely with your concentration and awareness, it dissolves into
a changing dance of sensations. And then the Mental Elements, which
are feelings and reactions and the consciousness which knows it. I won t
go into that so much tonight, but you start to see the play of these two
things, of Physical and Mental events. That s all that there is, this dance
of light and shadow and the perception of it. You see more deeply the
arising and passing of things then, so you get to a deeper level of birth
and death, and you see that not only every breath, but every sense door,
every sound, every sight, becomes vibration. Everything that you look at
from that refined quality of the breath starts to teach you the movement
of life; Impermanence; The Dance.
You can learn so much just watching your dumb breath, really, and
there s a lot to be seen in it. And at times admittedly it s boring.You learn
about boredom when it s boring.
And finally, the last thing to say about it tonight, just to go into this
a little more, is that at that point one also has the possibility, besides the
discoveries of insight, of seeing that it s really changing, arising and
passing mental and physical states, empty of any person, no separateness
at all. All the kinds of wisdom that one reads about are available in just
94 Chapter 7. Right Concentration
observing the breath.
One can also enter all the realms of what are called jhanas or high
states of concentration. When the mind becomes so settled on the breath,
then there arises joy, rapture, tranquility and concentration, and the con-
centration is applied and it stays there; it s sustained. You can turn your
mind to space and just experience what it s like to be with space without
any wandering of mind, the formless jhanas. You can turn your mind to
a color, blue or green, and develop it until the whole mind becomes filled
with a particular color and the energy of that color. Then, when you do
this, and you cultivate it really well, you have Access Concentration. If
anyone is interested in this level stuff, most of which I have not done
I ve played with it a little bit, not the powers part in this book, The
Path of Purification, there are chapters on how to develop concentra-
tion, and then ones with all the psychic powers, because all the powers of
mind come from the power of concentration; how to read other people s
minds or how to walk on water or how to do all these things. I don t
know whether you can really do them. I haven t seen many of them done
except maybe reading of minds. But it s said that they all come through
this tremendous power of concentration.
The way to walk on water apparently, if you want to know, is to
develop concentration to this very high degree where the mind is totally
stable on the Earth Element until you become like the earth itself, and
then you focuson the water and you walk on it. One of the teacherswhere
I studied in the Sun Lun Monastery said:
In these days, although concentration of mind and some of the
insights and opening are very possible, many, many people can do
that, the level of concentration for the supernormal powers are
difficult to acquire.
Let us say that one practices the Earth Element exercise and gains a
mastery of it. To do the psychic power stuff, you not only have to be
able to attain these very high levels of stability of mind, but you have to
master it so you can go in and out of different ones in a moment s notice.
Suppose you ve mastered it, and I know a few people in Asia who have
mastered these things to some extent.
Let us say that such a yogi then goes to a pond and seating
himself near it, arouses in himself the element of the earth
meditation. Then looking upon the waters of the pond, he
endeavors to turn them into earth, so that he may walk across
95
them. He will find these days at most that the water thickens to
a slushy earth which cannot really uphold his feet when he
attempts to walk on it.
Perhaps yogis in other countries have done better than I,
but I believe the times not so opportune as they used to be.
This guy is furious.
I ll read one poem from Kabir to end, and you may have heard it
before. This is Kabir, a wonderful Indian poet. He s talking about a clay
jug, which means one s own body or a clay jug; it doesn t matter; they re
the same. He said:
Inside this clay jug, there are canyons and pine mountains
and the maker of canyons and pine mountains.
All seven oceans are inside, and hundreds
of millions of stars.
The acid that tests gold is there,
and the one who judges jewels,
and the music from the strings no one touches,
and the source of all water.
If you want the truth,
I will tell you the truth, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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