Still, Flowing Water¹

Now please pay attention, not allowing your mind to wander off after other things. Create the feeling that right now you are sitting on a mountain or in a forest somewhere, all by yourself. What do you have sitting here right now? There are body and mind, that's all, only these two things. All that is contained within this frame sitting here now is called ''body.'' The ''mind'' is that which is aware and is thinking at this very moment. These two things are also called ''nāma'' and ''rūpa.'' ''Nāma'' refers to that which has no ''rūpa,'' or form. All thoughts and feelings, or the four mental khandhas of feeling, perception, volition and consciousness, are nāma, they are all formless. When the eye sees form, that form is called rūpa, while the awareness is called nāma. Together they are called nāma and rūpa, or simply body and mind.

Understand that sitting here in this present moment are only body and mind. But we get these two things confused with each other. If you want peace you must know the truth of them. The mind in its present state is still untrained; it's dirty, not clear. It is not yet the pure mind. We must further train this mind through the practice of meditation.

Some people think that meditation means to sit in some special way, but in actual fact standing, sitting, walking and reclining are all vehicles for meditation practice. You can practice at all times. Samādhi literally means ''the firmly established mind.'' To develop samādhi you don't have to go bottling the mind up. Some people try to get peaceful by sitting quietly and having nothing disturb them at all, but that's just like being dead. The practice of samādhi is for developing wisdom and understanding.

Samādhi is the firm mind, the one-pointed mind. On which point is it fixed? It's fixed onto the point of balance. That's its point. But people practice meditation by trying to silence their minds. They say, ''I try to sit in meditation but my mind won't be still for a minute. One instant it flies off one place, the next instant it flies off somewhere else... How can I make it stop still?'' You don't have to make it stop, that's not the point. Where there is movement is where understanding can arise. People complain, ''It runs off and I pull it back again; then it goes off again and I pull it back once more...'' So they just sit there pulling back and forth like this.

They think their minds are running all over the place, but actually it only seems like the mind is running around. For example, look at this hall here... ''Oh, it's so big!'' you say... actually it's not big at all. Whether or not it seems big depends on your perception of it. In fact this hall is just the size it is, neither big nor small, but people run around after their feelings all the time.

Footnotes

...¹

Given at Wat Tham Saeng Phet, during the rains retreat of 1981.

... precepts²

The basic moral code for practicing Buddhists: To refrain from intentional killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and imbibing of intoxicants.