So in short, all I have to do is mindfully know everything that arises in my mind.
And even if I don't know anything else about the Dhamma, I'd be able to achieve Nirvana.
So maybe I should not bother with anything else but mindfulness.
Sounds good, no?
It could theoretically work.
The Buddha said, mindfulness is the one-way path or even the only path, depending how you interpret that.
but a simple answer is it only really works if you've got a very strong will to do that and I would say therefore a very strong wholesomeness already in your mind probably you're already enlightened let's say or you have a teacher who can guide you
through all the mistakes that you're going to make, all the times when you're actually not doing that.
But I would say for all intents and purposes that's a fairly good
outlook.
There's not anything really wrong with the idea.
If you fix that in your mind, that mindfulness is really the key here, you won't go that far wrong.
It's just that while you're not at a state of good mindfulness, you're going to make lots of mistakes.
So because you're not yet there, you're still potentially going to kill and steal and lie and cheat and even more likely engage in things that are going to lead you down the wrong path.
you're going to misinterpret mindfulness, you're going to not realize that you're not actually being mindful, think that you're being mindful and you're actually forcing, you're actually being partial and training the mind in a certain way and cultivating sankaras in the mind, artificial constructs, artificial habits.
You're doing all sorts of unwholesome things because you're not really mindful, you don't really know how to be mindful.
You can only truly be mindful once you've cultivated, once you understand, once you've come to, once you've practiced, become practiced and proficient, become proficient in it.
So until you get there the question is how are you going to get there on your own?
If you don't have a teacher, really the only way to do it is to read a lot and to make sure that you're not falling into any of the many pitfalls that are discussed
in the tapitika but if you have a teacher on the other hand you just do your mindfulness and they will remind you they'll tell you okay you have to keep these rules so you keep those rules and they'll tell you no you have to stop this you have to stop that are you being mindful of this
that's not really being mindful and so on and so on and then they'll be able to catch you and bring you back to being mindful but absolutely mindfulness is the key mindfulness is kind of like the thread through the um through a necklace so if the necklace is the brief one is just morality concentration and wisdom mindfulness is the thread that goes through them all it starts in the
Morality, so true morality comes through mindfulness.
Once you have morality then it cultivates concentration, your mind starts to get focused.
But that comes through even more mindfulness.
And through being mindful in a concentrated state leads to wisdom.
But mindfulness is what you use from beginning to end.
Really the most important one.
All the rest is just guidance to keep you on track when you fall off, when you stop really being mindful.