The human mind, the mind which the Buddha exhorted us to know and investigate, is something we can only know by its activity. The true “original mind” has nothing to measure it by, there’s nothing you can know it by. In its natural state it is unshaken, unmoving. When happiness arises all that happens is that this mind is getting lost in a mental impression, there is movement. When the mind moves like this, clinging and attachment to those things come into being.
The Buddha has already laid down the path of practice fully, but we have not yet practiced, or if we have, we’ve practiced only in speech. Our minds and our speech are not yet in harmony, we just indulge in empty talk. But the basis of Buddhism is not something that can be talked about or guessed at. The real basis of Buddhism is full knowledge of the truth of reality. If one knows this truth then no teaching is necessary. If one doesn’t know, even if he listens to the teaching, he doesn’t really hear. This is why the Buddha said, “The Enlightened One only points the way.” He can’t do the practice for you, because the truth is something you cannot put into words or give away.
All the teachings are merely similes and comparisons, means to help the mind see the truth. If we haven’t seen the truth we must suffer. For example, we commonly say “sanhāras”* when referring to the body. Anybody can say it, but in fact we have problems simply because we don’t know the truth of these sanhāras, and thus cling to them. Because we don’t know the truth of the body, we suffer.
Here is an example. Suppose one morning you’re walk- ing to work and a man yells abuse and insults at you from across the street. As soon as you hear this abuse your mind changes from its usual state. You don’t feel so good, you feel angry and hurt. That man walks around abusing you night and day. When you hear the abuse, you get angry, and even when you return home you’re still angry because you feel vindictive, you want to get even.
* In the Thai language the word “sungkahn,” from the Pali word sanhāras (the name given to all conditioned phenomena), is a commonly used term for the body. The Venerable Ajahn uses the word in both ways.
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