I

September 3, 1965

Normally, illness is something we all have, but the type of illness where you can still do your work isn't recognized as illness. It's called the normal human state all over the world. Yet really, when the body is in its normal state, it's still ill in and of itself -- simply that people in general are unaware of the fact that it's the deterioration of physical and mental phenomena, continually, from moment to moment.

The way people get carried away with their thoughts and preoccupations while they're still strong enough to do this and do that: That's really complacency. They're are no match at all for people lying in bed ill. People lying in bed ill are lucky because they have the opportunity to do nothing but contemplate stress and pain. Their minds don't take up anything else, don't go anywhere else. They can contemplate pain at all times -- and let go of pain at all times as well.

Don't you see the difference? The "emptiness" of the mind when you're involved in activities is "play" emptiness. Imitation emptiness. It's not the real thing. But to contemplate inconstancy, stress, and not-selfness as it appears right inside you while you're lying right here, is very beneficial for you. Just don't think that you're what's hurting. Simply see the natural phenomena of physical and mental events as they pass away, pass away. They're not you. They're not really yours. You don't have any real control over them.

Look at them! Exactly where do you have any control over them? This is true for everyone in the world. You're not the only one to whom it's happening. So whatever the disease there is in your body, it isn't important. What's important is the disease in the mind. Normally we don't pay too much attention to the fact that we have diseases in our minds, i.e., the diseases of defilement, craving, and attachment. We pay attention only to our physical diseases, afraid of all the horrible things that can happen to the body. But no matter how much we try to stave things off with our fears, when the time comes for things to happen, no matter what medicines you have to treat the body, they can give you only temporary respite. Even the people in the past who didn't suffer from heavy diseases are no longer with us. They've all had to part from their bodies in the end.

So when you continually contemplate in this way, it makes you see the truth of inconstancy, stress, and not-selfness correctly within you. And you'll have to grow more and more disenchanted with things, step by step.

When you give it a try and let go, who's there? Are you the one hurting, or is it simply an affair of the Dhamma? You have to examine this very carefully to see that it's not really you that's hurting. The disease isn't your disease. It's a disease of the body, a disease of physical form. In the end, physical form and mental events have to change, to be stressful in the change, to be not-self in the change and the stress. But you must focus on them, watch them, and contemplate them so that they're clear. Make this knowledge really clear, and right there is where you'll gain release from all suffering and stress. Right there is where you'll put an end to all suffering and stress. As for the aggregates, they'll continue to arise, age, grow ill, and pass away in line with their own affairs. When their causes and conditions run out, they die and go into their coffin.

Some people, when they're healthy and complacent, die suddenly and unexpectedly without knowing what's happening to them. Their minds are completely oblivious to what's going on. This is much worse than the person lying ill in bed who has pain to contemplate as a means of developing disenchantment. So you don't have to be afraid of pain. If it's going to be there, let it be there -- but don't let the mind be in pain with it. And then look -- right now -- is the mind empty of "me" and "mine"?

Keep looking on in. Keep looking on in so that things are really clear, and that's enough. You don't have to go knowing anything anywhere else. When you can cure the disease, or the pain lightens, that's something normal. When it doesn't lighten, that's normal, too. But if the heart is simply empty of "me" and "mine," there will be no pain within it. As for the pain in the aggregates, don't give it a second thought.

So see yourself as lucky. Lying here, dealing with the disease, you have the opportunity to practice insight meditation with every moment. It doesn't matter whether you're here in the hospital or at home. Don't let there be any real sense in the mind that you're in the hospital or at home. Let the mind be in the emptiness, empty of all labels and meanings. You don't have to label yourself as being anywhere at all.

This is because the aggregates are not where you are. They're empty of any indwelling person. They're empty of any "me" or "mine." When the mind is like this, it doesn't need anything at all. It doesn't have to be here or go there or anywhere at all. This is the absolute end of suffering and stress....

The mind, when it doesn't get engrossed with the taste of pleasure or pain, is free in and of itself, in line with its own nature. But I ask that you watch it carefully, the behavior of this mind as it's empty in line with its own nature, not concocting any desires for anything, not wanting pleasure or trying to push away pain.

When the mind is empty in line with its nature, there's no sense of ownership in it; there are no labels for itself. No matter what thoughts occur to it, it sees them as insubstantial, as empty of self. There's simply a sensation that then passes away. A sensation that then passes away, and that's all.

So you have to watch the phenomena that arise and pass away. In other words, you have to watch the phenomenon of the present continuously -- and the mind will be empty, in that it gives no meanings or labels to the arising and passing away. As for the arising and passing away, that's a characteristic of the aggregates that has to appear as part of their normal nature -- simply that the mind isn't involved, doesn't latch on. This is the point you can make use of.

You can't go preventing pleasure and pain, you can't keep the mind from labeling things and forming thoughts, but you can put these things to a new use. If the mind labels a pain, saying, "I hurt," you have to read the label carefully, contemplate it until you see that it's wrong. If the label were right, it would have to say that the pain isn't me, it's empty. Or if there's a thought that "I'm in pain," this type of thinking is also wrong. You have to take a new approach to your thinking, to see that thinking is inconstant, stressful, and not yours.

So whatever arises, investigate and let go of what's right in front of you. Just make sure that you don't cling, and the mind will keep on being empty in line with its nature. If no thoughts are bothering you, there may be strong pain, or the mind may be developing an abnormal mood, but whatever is happening, you have to look right in, look all the way in to the sensation of the mind. Once you have a sense of the empty mind, then if there's any disturbance, any sense of irritation, you'll know that the knowledge giving rise to it is wrong knowledge, in and of itself. Right knowledge will immediately take over, making the wrong knowledge disband.

In order to hold continuously to this foundation of knowing, you first have to start out by exercising restraint over the mind, at the same time that you focus your attention and contemplate the phenomenon of stress and pain. Keep this up until the mind can maintain its stance in the clear emptiness of the heart. If you can do this all the way to the end, the final disbanding of suffering will occur right there, right where the mind is empty.

But you have to keep practicing at this continuously. Whenever pain arises, regardless of whether it's strong or not, don't label it or give it any meaning. Even if pleasure arises, don't label it as your pleasure. Just keep letting it go, and the mind will gain release -- empty of all clinging or attachment to "selfness" with each and every moment. You have to apply all your mindfulness and energy to this at all times.

You should see yourself as fortunate, that you're lying here ill, contemplating pain, for you have the opportunity to develop the Path in full measure, gaining insight and letting things go. Nobody has a better opportunity than what you have right now. People running around, engaged in their affairs: Even if they say their minds are disengaged, they're really no match for you. A person lying ill in bed has the opportunity to develop insight with every in-and-out breath. It's a sign that you haven't wasted your birth as a human being, you know, because you're practicing the teachings of the Lord Buddha to the point where you gain clear knowledge into the true nature of things in and of themselves.

The true nature of things, on the outside level, refers to the phenomenon of the present, the changing of the five aggregates. You can decipher their code, decipher their code until you get disenchanted with them, lose your taste for them, and let them go. When the mind is in this state, the next step is to contemplate it skillfully to see how it's empty, all the way to the ultimate emptiness -- the kind of emptiness that goes clearly into the true nature lying most deeply inside where there is no concocting of thoughts, no arising, no passing away, no changing at all.

When you correctly see the nature of things on the outer level until it is all clear to you, the mind will let go, let go. That's when you automatically see clearly the nature of what lies on the inner level -- empty of all cycling through birth and death, with nothing concocted at all....The emptiest extreme of emptiness, with no labels, no meanings, no clingings or attachments. All I ask is that you see this clearly within your own mind.

The ordinary emptiness of the mind is useful on one level, but that's not all there is. True emptiness is empty until it reaches the true nature of things on the inner level -- something really worth ferreting out, really worth coming to know....

This is something you have to know for yourself....There are really no words to describe it...but we can talk about it by way of guidance, because it may happen that ultimately you let go of everything, in what's called disbanding without trace.

The mind's point of disbanding without trace, if you keep developing insight every day, every moment like this, will happen on its own. The mind will know on its own. So don't let the mind bother itself by getting preoccupied with pleasure or pain. Focus on penetrating into the mind in and of itself relentlessly.

Do you see how different this is from when you're running around strong and healthy, thinking about this, that, and the other thing?...This is why there's no harm in having lots of pain. The harm is in our stupidity in giving labels and meanings to things. People in general tend to reflect on the fleeting nature of life with reference to other people, when someone else grows sick or dies, but they rarely reflect on the fleeting nature of their own lives. Or else they reflect for just a moment and then forget all about it, getting completely involved in their other preoccupations. They don't bring these truths inward, to reflect on the inconstancy occurring within themselves with every moment.

The fact that they can still do this and that, think this and that, say this and that, makes them lose all perspective. When you practice insight meditation, it's not something that you take a month or two off to do on a special retreat. That's not the real thing. It's no match for what you're doing right now, for here you can do it all day every day and all night, except when you sleep. Especially when the pain is strong, it's really good for your meditation, because it gives you the chance to know once and for all what inconstancy is like, what stress and suffering are like, what your inability to control things is like.

You have to find out right here, right in front of you, so don't try to avoid the pain. Practice insight so as to see the true nature of pain, its true nature as Dhamma, and then keep letting it go. If you do this, there's no way you can go wrong. This is the way to release from suffering.

And it's something you have to do before you die, you know, not something you wait to do when you die or are just about to die. It's something you simply keep on doing, keep on "insighting." When the disease lessens, you "insight" it. When it grows heavy, you "insight" it. If you keep on developing insight like this, the mind will get over its stupidity and delusion. In other words, things like craving and defilement won't dare hassle the mind the way they used to....

So you have to give it your all -- all your mindfulness, all your energy -- now that you have the opportunity to practice the Dhamma. Let this be your last lifetime. Don't let there be anything born again. If you're born again, things will come back again just as they are now. The same old stuff, over and over and over again. Once there's birth, there has to be ageing, illness, and death, in line with your defilements, experiencing the good and bad results they keep churning out. It's a cycle of suffering. So the best thing is to gain release from birth. Don't let yourself want anything any more. Don't let yourself want anything any more, for all your wants fall in with what's inconstant, stressful, and not-self.

Wanting is simply a form of defilement and craving. You have to disband these things right at the instigator: the wanting that's nothing but craving for sensuality, craving for becoming, or craving for no becoming -- the germs of birth in the heart. So focus in and contemplate at the right spot, seeing that even though craving may be giving rise to birth at sensory contact, you can set your knowing right at the mind, right at consciousness itself, and let there just be the knowing that lets go of knowing. This is something to work at until you have it mastered.

Setting your knowing at the mind, letting go of knowing like this, is something very beneficial. There's no getting stuck, no grabbing hold of your knowledge or views. If the knowledge is right, you let it go. If the knowledge is wrong, you let it go. This is called knowing letting go of knowing without going and getting entangled. This kind of knowing keeps the mind from latching onto whatever arises. As soon as you know something, you let it go. As soon as you know something, you've let it go. The mind just keeps on staying empty -- empty of mental formations and thoughts, empty of every sort of illusion that could affect the mind. It quickly sees through them and lets them go, knows and lets go, without holding onto anything. All it has left is the emptiness....

You've already seen results from your practice, step by step, from contemplating things and letting them go, letting go even of the thought that you are the one in pain, that you are the one who's dying. The pain and the dying are an affair of the aggregates, pure and simple. When this knowledge is clear and sure -- that it's not "my" affair, there's no "me" in there -- there's just an empty mind: an empty mind, empty of any label for itself. This is the nature of the mind free of the germs that used to make it assume this and that. They're dead now. Those germs are now dead because we've contemplated them. We've let go. We've set our knowing right at the mind and let go of whatever knowing has arisen, all along to the point where the mind is empty. Clear. In and of itself....

Consciousness, when you're aware of it inwardly, arises and passes away by its very own nature. There's no real essence to it -- this is what you see when you look at the elemental property of consciousness (viññana-dhatu), pure and simple. When it's not involved with physical or mental phenomena, it's simply aware of itself -- aware, pure and simple. That's called the mind pure and simple, or the property of consciousness pure and simple, in and of itself, and it lets go of itself. When you're told to know and to let go of the knowing, it means to know the consciousness that senses things and then lets go of itself.

As for the aggregate of consciousness (viññana-khandha), that's a trouble-making consciousness. The germs that keep piling things on lie in this kind of consciousness, which wants to hang onto a sense of self. Even though it can let go of physical pain, or of physical and mental events in general, it still hangs onto a sense of self. So when you're told to know the letting go of knowing, it means to let go of this kind of consciousness, to the point where consciousness has no label for itself. That's when it's empty. If you understand this, or can straighten out the heart and mind from this angle, there won't be anything left. Pain, suffering, stress -- all your preoccupations -- will become entirely meaningless. There will be no sense of good or bad or anything at all. Dualities will no longer be able to have an effect. If you know in this way -- the knowing that lets go of knowing, consciousness pure and simple -- it prevents any possible fashioning of the mind.

The dualities that fashion good and bad: There's really nothing to them. They arise, and that's all there is to them; they disband, and that's all there is to them. So now we come to know the affairs of the dualities that fashion the mind into spirals, that fashion the mind or consciousness into endless cycles. When you know the knowing that lets go of knowing, right at consciousness in and of itself, dualities have no more meaning. There's no more latching onto the labels of good and bad, pleasure and pain, true and false, or whatever. You just keep on letting go....

Even this knowing that lets go of knowing has no label for itself, saying, "I know," or "I see." But this is something that lies a little deep, that you have to make an effort to see clearly and rightly. You have to keep looking in a shrewd way. The shrewdness of your looking: That's something very important, for only that can lead to Awakening. Your knowledge has to be shrewd. Skillful. Make sure that it's shrewd and skillful. Otherwise your knowledge of the true nature of things -- on the inner or outer levels -- won't really be clear. It'll get stuck on only the elementary levels of emptiness, labeling and latching onto them in a way that just keeps piling things on. That kind of emptiness simply can't compare with this kind -- the knowing that lets go of knowing right at consciousness pure and simple. Make sure that this kind of knowing keeps going continuously. If you slip for a moment, just get right back to it. You'll see that when you don't latch onto labels and meanings, thoughts of good and bad will just come to a stop. They'll disband. So when the Buddha tells us to see the world as empty, this is the way we see.

The emptiness lies in the fact that the mind doesn't give meaning to things, doesn't fashion things, doesn't cling. It's empty right at this kind of mind. Once you're correctly aware of this kind of empty mind, you'll no longer get carried away by anything at all. But if you don't really focus down like this, there will only be a little smattering of emptiness, and then you'll find yourself getting distracted by this and that, spoiling the emptiness. That kind of emptiness is emptiness in confusion. You're still caught up in confusion because you haven't contemplated down to the deeper levels. You simply play around with emptiness, that's all. The deeper levels of emptiness require that you focus in and keep on looking until you're thoroughly clear about the true nature of things in the phenomenon of the present arising and disbanding right in front of you. This kind of mind doesn't get involved, doesn't latch on to meanings or labels.

If you see this kind of emptiness correctly, there are no more issues, no more labels for anything in this heap of physical and mental phenomena. When the time comes for it all to fall apart, there's nothing to get excited about, nothing to get upset about, for that's the way it has to go by its nature. Only if we latch onto it will we suffer....

The Dhamma is right here in our body and mind, simply that we don't see it -- or that we see it wrongly, latching on and making ourselves suffer. If we look at things with the eyesight of mindfulness and discernment, what is there to make us suffer? Why is there any need to fear pain and death? Even if we do fear them, what do we accomplish? Physical and mental phenomena have to go their own way -- inconstant in their own way, stressful in their own way, beyond our control in their own way. So what business do we have in reaching out and latching on and saying that their stress and pain is our stress and pain? If we understand that the latching on is what makes us suffer over and over again, with each and every breath, then all we have to do is let go and we'll see how there is release from suffering right before our very eyes....

So keep on looking in to know, in the way I've described, right at the mind. But don't go labeling it as a "mind" or anything at all. Just let there be things as they are, in and of themselves, pure and simple. That's enough. You don't need to have any meanings or labels for anything at all. That will be the end of all suffering....When things disband in the ultimate way, they disband right at the point of the elemental property of consciousness free of the germs that will give rise to anything further. That's where everything comes to an end, with no more rebirth or redeath of any kind at all....

The practice is something you have to do for yourself. If you know things clearly and correctly with your own mindfulness and discernment, that's your tool, well-sharpened, in hand. If the mind is trained to be sharp, with mindfulness and discernment as its tool for contemplating itself, then defilement, craving, and attachment will keep getting weeded out and cleared away. You can look and see, from the amount you've already practiced: Aren't they already cleared away to some extent? The mind doesn't have to worry about anything, doesn't have to get involved with anything else. Let go of everything outside and then keep letting go until the mind lets go of itself. When you do this, how can you not see the great worth of the Dhamma?...

So I ask that this mind empty of attachment, empty of any sense of self whatsoever, be clear to you until you see that it's nothing but Dhamma. Get so that it's nothing but Dhamma, perfectly plain to your awareness. May this appear to you, as it is on its own, with each and every moment.