Getting Acquainted Inside
September 28, 1958
The four properties of the body—the way it feels from the inside, i.e., earth (solidity), water (liquidity), wind (motion), and fire (heat)—are like four people. If you keep trying to acquaint yourself with them, after a while they’ll become your friends.
At first they aren’t too familiar with you, so they don’t trust you and will probably want to test your mettle. For instance, when you start sitting in meditation, they’ll take a stick and poke you in your legs so that your legs hurt or grow numb. If you lie down, they’ll poke you in the back. If you lie on your side, they’ll poke you in the waist. If you get up and sit again, they’ll test you again. Or they may whisper to you to give up. If you give in to them, the King of Death will grin until his cheeks hurt.
What you have to do is smile against the odds and see things through. Keep talking with all four properties. Even though they don’t respond at first, you have to keep talking with them, asking them this and that. After a while they’ll give you a one-word answer. So you keep talking and then their answers will start getting longer until you eventually become acquaintances and can have real conversations. From that point they become your friends. They’ll love you and help you and tell you their secrets. You’ll be a person with friends and won’t have to be lonely. You’ll eat together, sleep together, and wherever you go, you’ll go together. You’ll feel secure. No matter how long you sit, you won’t ache. No matter how long you walk, you won’t feel tired—because you have friends to talk with as you walk along, so that you enjoy yourself and reach your destination before you realize it.
This is why we’re taught to practice meditation by keeping mindfulness immersed firmly in the body. Contemplate your meditation themes—body, feelings, mind, and mental qualities—without letting your mind wander astray in outside thoughts and preoccupations. Contemplate the body so as to know how its properties are getting along, where it feels pleasant, painful, or neutral. Notice how the mind moves around in the various things you know until you reach the mental quality that is still, solid, and true.
This way it’s like having friends go with you wherever you go and whatever you do. In other words, when the body walks, the mind walks with it. When the body lies down, the mind lies down with it. When the body sits, the mind sits with it. Wherever the body stops, the mind stops, too. But most of us aren’t like this. The body takes two steps, but the mind takes four or five—so how can it not get tired? The body lies in a mosquito net surrounded by a railing and seven thick walls, but the mind can still go running outside. When this is the case, where will it get any happiness? It’ll have to wander around exposed to the sun, wind, rain, and all sorts of dangers because it has no protection. If there’s no concentration to act as a shelter for the heart, it’ll always have to meet with misery and pain.
For this reason, you should train your heart to stay firm in concentration and to develop full strength within yourself so that you can be your own person. This way you’ll be bound to meet with all things pure and good.
