Understanding and Overcoming Defilements in Meditation : หน้า 43/164

Suzanne Jeffrey from defilement are manifested within the mind since we are born. It forces the mind to think, speak, and act imperfectly and it allows us to slide into bad habits. Finally, defile- ments do not die with us, but remain within our mind and that, along with our bad habits, follow us into the next life. “We must, then, do two things. First we must have right understanding. We cannot blame others for the habits that we have formulated for ourselves! We are fighting against the wrong enemy if we allow ourselves to think this way. Second, we must control our mind. We cannot get ‘hooked’ by external materialism – jewelry, perfume, material gar- bage – and we cannot look outside of the body, but stay inside with meditation. That is why the method of meditation is so important, and we need to use internal focus, rather than external focus when we meditate. “All of the suffering that human beings experience is caused by defilements. We give up resisting the defilements that stay with us from lifetime to lifetime. When we give up, our mind is not within our body anymore. We become hooked on the material things because we desire them, and that leads us to perform some inappropriate action, and then we suffer. Therefore, destroying all defilements is the solution for real happiness and should be the ultimate goal of each and every human being. “And how, Suzanne, do we destroy defilements? You know!” “Yes! By giving up bad habits, performing good actions, and meditating!” I say. “And the more we meditate, the more boon we will have, and the more boon we have, the more successful we will become because we are creating good energy to be used in the world. And the more good energy we create for the world, the more we want to meditate! And so, on and on and on… until we ‘water down’ our defilement!” And with that, we all smile at one another as if to say, “Well, isn’t this the best chat we have had in a long time!”