Page 119 - Dhamma Practice

When we listen to something and understand, our mind is dim or bright? When we listen and understand, we feel that our eyes are illuminated. Have we ever heard of this phrase: “We now understand—our eyes are illuminated”? I am amazed at the use of language of the people from the past generations. When someone has awareness, his eyes are illuminated. Consider this—when we have anger, is our mind bright or dark? Have we ever observed this? It feels opaque, heavy and tight. But, as soon as we have awareness, it relaxes and it begins to brighten up. I always say that people in the past generations used languages that conform to the phenomena. When they said—his eyes are illuminated, that he now understands—that is the characteristics of the mind that emerge.
Therefore, when we listen to dhamma, once we understand, we should memorize. Listen a lot and memorize as much as we need to use. When we listen to dhamma, we should check back to see which words match our natural conditions. Which words we previously did not understand but are beginning to understand and they enabled us to continue to practice vipassana. This is important, so that our vipassana practice can progress. After we listen to dhamma, we can use it to improve our vipassana practice. We should not listen to dhamma and then say it is good but continue to practice vipassana in the same way, without any progress. When we listen
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