SHARPENING THE RAZOR

  There is a special technique in sharpening a razor on a whetstone. One must hold the razor in such a way that there is some flexibility at one’s wrist. The razor-blade is held between the thumb and the fore-finger as if one is ready to throw it away at any time. If the grip is tight and the wrist is tense, any attempt to sharpen will only make the razor-edge blunt.

So, holding the razor in that ‘let go’ fashion, one sharpens it on the oiled surface of the whetstone to the rhythm.

Up - up - up
down - down - down
up - down
up - down

This dynamic up and down process is the most decisive phase of the sharpening. At this stage, a wrong grasp of the blade would have made it blunt.

Now the same technique has to be followed in sharpening the razor of one’s insight on the whetstones of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness - the contemplations of body, feelings mind and mind-objects. One must not grasp or cling to any of these foundations but develop a ‘let go’ attitude towards them. Setting up mindfulness on some aspect or other of one’s body, for instance, (say, breathing), one sweeps one’s full awareness over it, to sharpen the razor edge of insight into impermanence. The rhythm is the same:

rising - rising - rising
falling - falling - falling
rising - falling
rising - falling

Here too, the last dynamic phase of contemplating both rise and fall, is decisive. It sharpens one’s penetrative insight into impermanence, leading to disenchantment, dispassion, detachment and deliverance.