to grips with it. Becoming weak all of a sudden, I now feel defeated.
Later, when life reaches a critical juncture – at the moment of death
as the body begins to break up and disintegrate – the onslaught of pain
will then crush down mercilessly on body and mind. Where shall I find
the strength to fight it so I can transcend this world and avoid being
outdone in death’s struggle?
With this solemn determination, he stopped taking all med-
icines and began earnestly focusing on meditation as the sole
remedy for all spiritual and bodily ailments. Discarding concern
for his life, he let his body follow its own natural course, turning
his attention to probing the citta – that essential ‘knowing nature’
which never dies, yet has death as its constant companion. He
set to work examining the citta, using the full powers of mindful-
ness, wisdom, faith and perseverance that he had been developing
within himself for so long. The seriousness of his physical condi-
tion ceased to interest him; concerns about death no longer arose.
He directed mindfulness and wisdom to investigate the painful
feelings he experienced, making them separate the body into its
constituent elements, and then thoroughly analyzing each one.
He examined the physical components of the body and the feel-
ings of pain within it. He analyzed the function of memory which
presumes that one or another part of the body is in pain.^22 And he
analyzed the thought processes which conceive the body as being
in pain.^23 All such vital aspects were targeted in the investiga-
tion conducted by mindfulness and wisdom as they continued to
probe into the body, the pain, and the citta, relentlessly exploring
their connections from dusk until midnight. Through this proc-
ess, he succeeded in fully disengaging the body from the severe
pain caused by his stomach disorder until he understood, with
jacob rumans
(Jacob Rumans)
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