六妙法門 1.40

1.40

Why is this? When ordinary practitioners of dull faculties count the breath, they only know how to count from one to ten to make the mind settled, hoping by this to enter dhyāna and experience various pleasures. This is called giving rise to māra's activities within counting the breath, because of craving for saṃsāra. Furthermore, as for non-Buddhists of sharp faculties, their speculative minds are fierce, and due to causes and conditions, when counting the breath, they not only regulate the mind and count the breath from one to ten seeking dhyāna absorption, but they can also discriminate whether the present breath exists, does not exist, both exists and does not exist, or neither exists nor does not exist; whether the past breath has gone as such, has not gone as such, has both gone as such and not gone as such, or has neither gone as such nor not gone as such; whether the future breath has an end, has no end, both has an end and has no end, or neither has an end nor has no end; and whether the present breath is permanent, impermanent, both permanent and impermanent, or neither permanent nor impermanent. The mind is also like this. Following whatever their minds perceive, they grasp it as real and claim that what others say is entirely false speech. Such persons do not understand the characteristics of the breath, and generating discriminations based on false views is the conceptual proliferation of counting the breath. Burning with the fires of the four extremes, a site where defilements arise, through the long night they cravenly cling to wrong views, commit various wrong deeds, sever their roots of goodness, and do not accord with the unarisen. Because their mental activities are outside the truth, they are called non-Buddhists. Although these two persons differ in dullness and sharpness, they are no different in their transmigration through the saṃsāra of the three realms.