Page 130 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

(a) Preventing the Arising of Unarisen Unskillful Mental States

As we saw before, unskillful means contaminated by craving or
selfish desire, by hatred, and by delusion or mental confusion,
bewilderment, and lack of perspective. A thought is said to be

unskillful when it arises in association with one or more of these
unskillful mental factors or mental states. Should it be asked

where these unskillful thoughts come from, and we have to
know where they come from if we want to eradicate them, the
answer is that their immediate source — we are not concerned

at the moment with their ultimate source — is the senses: This
mind is the ordinary mind with which we carry on our lives.

Unskillful mental states arise when, for example, you are walking
along a street and, happening to notice something bright and
colourful in a shop window, you at once think, 'I'd like to have

that!' In this way through the organ of the eye there arises greed
or craving. Sometimes we just remember something. As we sit

quietly by ourselves a recollection of something we once had, or
enjoyed, or thought floats — we know not whence — into our
mind, and before we realize what is happening we have been

ensnared by craving, hatred or fear. Therefore in order to
prevent the unarisen unskillful thoughts from entering the mind,

and even taking possession if it and dominating it, it is necessary
to have recourse to what is known in Buddhism as watchfulness
or awareness with regard to the senses, especially the mind. This

is traditionally known as 'guarding the doors of the senses'. Here
the senses are pictured as being like the doors of a house. If you

want to stop someone getting into the house you post a

130