Page 126 - Dhamma Practice

120
not have wants, we would not be sitting here, correct? We want to practice vipassana, we want to have awareness and we want to have discriminative wisdom. What is the use of having awareness, having wisdom? That is something that we must ask ourselves. Awareness and wisdom relate to what? They relate to infinite things. They have enormous benefits.
When we have awareness and wisdom, we understand that these physical and mental phenomena; this corporeality; and this mind do not have owners. They are forever changing, forever emerging and ceasing. They emerge then cease, exist then disappear. When we walk, we will observe that even one small step has periodic emergence-cessation—it is not permanent. In that case, what can we attach to? When we say that we are not attached to the physical and mental phenomena, it does not mean that we do not rely on them. The physical and mental phenomena are our abodes, but we do not own them. However, we always claim ownership, claim them as ours, although we are just residents.
When asked: “Who are we?” We do not know. We only know that there are our minds to experience. When we are deluded and claim everything as “us”—the eyes are us, the minds are us. But when we contemplate wilfully, does the mind proclaim itself to be “us”? No, it does not. It only does its duties. Think about it. When we are deep asleep, if there are loud noises, our mind