Perspectives on Satipatthana by Analayo

Author:Analayo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Windhorse Publications Ltd

• turn to something wholesome instead;

• realize the danger of what is going on;

• set aside the issue at hand;

• gradually relax the motivational force behind it;

• use forceful restraint as an emergency brake.

VIII.4 A GRADUAL STILLING OF THOUGHTS

The notion of a gradual approach finds illustration in a simile that compares dealing with thoughts to the gradual refining of gold. In what follows I translate the Saṃyukta-āgama version of this simile:15

Is is just as someone who is casting gold and who places a hoard of sand and earth into a trough and then rinses it with water, [so that] the rough [pieces] emerge and the contamination by solid stones and hard chunks flows away with the water. Yet there remains gross sand that is interspersed among [the gold]. By rinsing it again with water, the gross sand flows out with the water. After this the gold manifests.16

Yet there is fine sand interspersed with black soil. By rinsing it again with water, the fine sand and the black soil flow out with the water. After that there is true gold that is pure, clean, and without admixture. Yet there still appears fine dross in the gold. After that the goldsmith places it into the furnace, heats it up, beating it and blowing on it, until it melts, in order to remove all dross and filth.

Because the gold that has manifested is not light, not soft, does not send forth brilliance and would break if bent or straightened, the goldsmith or the disciple of the goldsmith places it again into the furnace, heats it up, beating it, blowing on it, turning it around on its sides, casting it, and smelting it. After that the gold that manifests is light, soft, and brilliant, and it will not break if bent or straightened. According to one’s wish it can be made into a hairpin, an earring, a ring, a bracelet, into any type of ornament.

In the same way … one gradually removes the entanglement of gross defilements, evil and unwholesome deeds as well as any evil and wrong view, so that they cease. This is like the gold that manifested when the solid stones and hard chunks had been washed away …17

One in turn gets rid of gross dirt: thoughts of sensual desire, thoughts of ill will, and thoughts of harming. This is like the gold that manifested when the gross grit had been got rid of …

One in turn gets rid of fine dross, that is, thoughts about relatives and one’s home country, thoughts about people, thoughts about being reborn in heaven. One gives attention to getting rid of them, so that they cease. This is like the gold that manifested when the filth and dross, the fine sand and the black soil, had been removed …18

Having [still] wholesome thoughts about the Dharma, one gives attention to getting rid of them, so that they cease, in order for the mind to become pure. Just as the gold that manifested when the dross that

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