Teachings of Upasika Kee Nanayon
There are lots of people who are ashamed to talk about their own defilements but who feel no shame at talking about the defilements of others. Those who are willing to report their own diseases—their own defilements—in a straightforward manner are few and far between. As a result, the disease of defilement is hushed up and kept secret, so that we don’t realize how serious and widespread it is. We all suffer from it, and yet no one is open about it. No one is really interested in diagnosing his or her own defilements.…
We have to find a skillful approach if we hope to wipe out this disease, and we have to be open about it, admitting our defilements from the grossest to the most subtle levels, dissecting them down to their minutest details. Only then will we gain from our practice. If we look at ourselves in a superficial way, we may feel that we’re already fine just as we are, already know all we need to know. But then when the defilements let loose with full force as anger or delusion, we pretend that nothing is wrong—and this way the defilements become a hidden disease, hard to catch hold of, hard to diagnose.…
We have to be strong in fighting off defilements, cravings, and illusions of all sorts. We have to test our strength against them and bring them under our power. If we can bring them under our power, we can ride on their backs. If we can’t, they’ll have to ride on our backs, making us do their work, pulling us around by the nose, making us want, wearing us out in all sorts of ways.
So are we still beasts of burden? Are we beasts of burden because defilement and craving are riding on our backs? Have they put a ring through our noses? When you get to the point when you’ve had enough, you have to stop—stop and watch the defilements to see how they come into being, what they want, what they eat, what they find delicious. Make it your sport—watching the defilements and making them starve, like a person giving up an addiction.…See if it gets the defilements upset. Do they hunger to the point where they’re salivating? Then don’t let them eat. No matter what, don’t let them eat what they’re addicted to. After all, there are plenty of other things to eat. You have to be hard on them—hard on your “self”—like this.…“Hungry? Well go ahead and be hungry! You’re going to die? Fine! Go ahead and die!” If you can take this attitude, you’ll be able to win out over all sorts of addictions, all sorts of defilements—because you’re not pandering to desire, you’re not nourishing the desire that exists for the sake of finding flavor in physical things. It’s time you stopped, time you gave up feeding these things. If they’re going to waste away and die, let them die. After all, why should you keep them fat and well fed?
No matter what, you have to keep putting the heat on your cravings and defilements until they wither and waste away. Don’t let them raise their heads. Keep them under your thumb. This is the sort of straightforward practice you have to follow. If you have endurance, if you put up a persistent fight until they’re all burned away, then there’s no other victory that can come anywhere near, no other victory that is anywhere near a match for victory over the cravings and defilements in your own heart.
This is why the Buddha taught us to put the heat on the defilements in all our activities—sitting, standing, walking, and lying down. If we don’t do this, they’ll burn us in all our activities.…
If you consider things carefully, you’ll see that the Buddha’s teachings are all exactly right, both in how they tell us to examine the diseases of defilement and in how they tell us to let go, destroy, and extinguish defilement. All the steps are there, so we needn’t go study anywhere else. Every point in his doctrine and discipline shows us the way, so we needn’t wonder how we can go about examining and doing away with these diseases. This becomes mysterious and hard to know only if you study his teachings without making reference to doing away with your own defilements. People don’t like to talk about their own defilements, so they end up completely ignorant. They grow old and die without knowing a thing about their own defilements at all.
When we start to practice, when we come to comprehend how the defilements burn our own hearts, that’s when we gradually come to know ourselves. To understand suffering and defilement and learn how to extinguish defilement gives us space to breathe.…
When we learn how to put out the fires of defilement, how to destroy them, it means we have tools. We can be confident in ourselves—no doubts, no straying of into other paths of practice, because we’re sure to see that practicing in this way, contemplating inconstancy, stress, and not-selfness in this way at all times, really gets rid of our defilements.
Source : Accesstoinsight.org