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GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE
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THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
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MASTERY
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THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 7
Chapter 5: Truth is that which is
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Dhammapada The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 7
IF YOU DETERMINE YOUR COURSE
WITH FORCE OR SPEED,
YOU MISS THE WAY OF THE LAW.
QUIETLY CONSIDER
WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG.
RECEIVING ALL OPINIONS EQUALLY,
WITHOUT HASTE, WISELY,
OBSERVE THE LAW.
WHO IS WISE,
THE ELOQUENT OR THE QUIET MAN?
BE QUIET,
AND LOVING AND FEARLESS.
FOR THE MIND TALKS,
BUT THE BODY KNOWS.
GRAY HAIRS DO NOT MAKE A MASTER.
A MAN MAY GROW OLD IN VAIN.
THE TRUE MASTER LIVES IN TRUTH,
IN GOODNESS AND RESTRAINT,
NONVIOLENCE, MODERATION AND PURITY.
FINE WORDS OR FINE FEATURES
CANNOT MAKE A MASTER
OUT OF A JEALOUS AND GREEDY MAN.
ONLY WHEN ENVY AND SELFISHNESS
ARE ROOTED OUT OF HIM
MAY HE GROW IN BEAUTY.
A MAN MAY SHAVE HIS HEAD
BUT IF HE STILL LIES AND NEGLECTS HIS WORK,
IF HE CLINGS TO DESIRE AND ATTACHMENT,
HOW CAN HE FOLLOW THE WAY?
THE TRUE SEEKER
SUBDUES ALL WAYWARDNESS.
HE HAS SUBMITTED HIS NATURE TO QUIETNESS.
HE IS A TRUE SEEKER
NOT BECAUSE HE BEGS
BUT BECAUSE HE FOLLOWS THE LAWFUL WAY,
HOLDING BACK NOTHING, HOLDING TO NOTHING,
BEYOND GOOD AND BEYOND EVIL,
BEYOND THE BODY AND BEYOND THE MIND.
The way of Gautama the Buddha is the way of let-go; it cannot be determined by willpower. Willpower is only a beautiful name for ego power. The existence of the will is nothing but a by-product of the ego. The ego itself is a shadow, hence willpower is a shadow of a shadow. The very idea of having a will of one's own is against existence. It creates a rift between you and the whole. The whole has will -- how can the part have a will of its own? The part can win, not against the whole but with the whole. The part can win, not by winning but by surrendering.
The path of Buddha is of total surrender: total surrender to the dhamma, to tao, to the universal law, to God. These are different names for the same phenomenon. We are living in a cosmos, not in a chaos. Everything is as perfect as it can be; nothing can be improved upon. The very idea of trying to improve upon things is sheer stupidity. Those who have known, they have known the absolute perfection of existence.
Then what is left? To dissolve in the whole and celebrate! This cannot be done as a determination on your part, because if YOU determine, then you remain there behind your determination hiding in disguise. If YOU determine, how can you dissolve? YOU cannot surrender -- if you surrender, it is not surrender.
Then what is surrender? How is it going to happen at all? Surrender is the understanding that the ego is false. In that very understanding, the ego evaporates -- is not found anymore -- and the surrender has happened. Not that it has been done by you; it happens without your doing. Only then is it true, authentic; it has immense beauty and tremendous power, because then you become a vehicle of the whole. You are no longer a part, you simply represent the whole.
You are the wave in the ocean -- and the wave in the ocean is the ocean itself! If the ocean contains the wave, the wave contains the ocean in a similar way. They are inseparable, they are one. The wave is the manifestation of the unmanifest, a finite expression of the infinite. So are you just a wave. The moment you start thinking yourself separate, the wave has gone insane.
The first sutra:
IF YOU DETERMINE YOUR COURSE
WITH FORCE OR SPEED,
YOU MISS THE WAY OF THE LAW.
The ego is always aggressive; it can exist only through aggression. It creates such fuss, such dust, such smoke, that you can't see. It makes you blind. It whirls you round and round, it makes you dizzy. That's why the ego is always hankering for more and more power, more and more force. It wants to do things with absolute force.
The ego is a fascist, it is totalitarian, it is dictatorial. It does not want any rebellion against itself. It immediately destroys any possibility of you becoming free of it. Just the seed of a rebellion... and it starts destroying it. It is constantly watching. It is constantly trying to keep you so occupied that you never become aware of the great slavery you are living in. And the ego is very cunning: it convinces you that "I am you."
So whenever the idea of dropping the ego arises you start feeling as if you are losing your identity. The ego is not your identity. It is because of the ego that you are not able to know who you really are. The ego is the barrier. It keeps you running and it keeps you at such a speed, in such a hurry, that you don't have any time to think things over, to ponder, to meditate, to see what you are doing, why you are doing it.
It does not give you any time to see. It keeps you crazy, engaged, constantly engaged in one desire or other. Before one desire is spent it creates ten more. It keeps new desires ready so there is never a gap, never an interval left between two desires -- because in that gap you will be able to see and recognize the stupidity of your life, the utter madness of your life. And once you have seen it you cannot remain part of it anymore. You will jump out of it! You have seen that the house is on fire.
Buddha says: IF YOU DETERMINE YOUR COURSE WITH FORCE OR SPEED, YOU MISS THE WAY OF THE LAW. You miss the whole point of existence, because existence is available in all its beauty and benediction only to those who are living in a relaxed way -- not with force, not with any speed; who are not rushing, running, who are not ambitious, who are not at all engaged in some not-yet future. It is available to those who are at rest, at home with the present moment, so relaxed as if there is no other time. This moment is all.... In that relaxed state, tao opens its doors.
Buddha's name for tao is dhamma. In English there is no real synonym for tao or dhamma, hence it has been translated as 'the law'. It is a poor word. 'The law' does not really indicate the meaning of Buddha's word 'dhamma'. Dhamma means the nature of existence. Dhamma means the harmony of existence. Dhamma means that which holds the existence together. Dhamma means the universal interconnectedness. It is a multidimensional word, tremendously pregnant. To call it "the law" is to reduce it to a one-dimensional word.
And why do we miss the point of existence, the very point which can make us blissful, which can make us free from all misery? We miss because we are in such a hurry. Strange! Ordinarily we think the man who is moving with speed will reach sooner, and the man who works with great force is going to achieve. Yes, that's how it happens in the world; but in the deepest realm of existence just the reverse is the case.
If you go with speed you will miss; if you are in too much of a hurry you will not be able to see. Your eyes will remain clouded, you will remain tense. You will not be able to see that which is, because your mind is so full of desire, of ambition, of achievement, you can't see that which is. You are always hankering for that which should be.
Ordinarily, the "ought" has become more important than the "is," the "should be" has become more important than "that which is." And God is that which is, truth is that which is.
Hence, Buddha says: Relax, let go, rest.
QUIETLY CONSIDER
WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG.
RECEIVING ALL OPINIONS EQUALLY,
WITHOUT HASTE, WISELY,
OBSERVE THE LAW.
Much is missed in the translation: QUIETLY CONSIDER.... Buddha's word is not 'consider' -- he says meditate, quietly meditate. But in English, to meditate means to consider, to think concentratedly. To meditate means to meditate UPON something. There is an object, you have to contemplate about it. Meditation in English has the connotation of concentrated thinking on a certain object.
But the Buddhist meaning of meditation -- DHYANA -- is totally different. It has nothing to do with any object in particular; it has something to do, certainly, with you, but not with the object. It has something to do with the consciousness, not with the content. It is a totally different orientation. The content is outside, the object is outside, and consciousness is inside. The English word 'meditation' is extrovert; the Buddhist word 'meditation' is introvert.
When Buddha says meditate he means don't think -- it is just the opposite of the English meaning. He says: drop all thinking and see. That is the only way to know things as they are... because if you are thinking, you are bringing your prejudices in. If you are thinking, you are bringing your past conclusions in. If you are thinking, your mind is functioning -- and mind is past, and the past never allows you to see the present. Thinking has to stop for meditation to be. Thinking has to evaporate totally. In that state of no-thought you can see.
But to the Western mind, the state of no-thought seems as if you will fall asleep. What will you do if there is no thought? The Western mind is constantly DOING something. It can keep itself awake only if it is occupied, doing something. It is a doer. And that is the difference between the Eastern and the Western approach.
The East has stumbled upon a totally different kind of experience -- the experience of no-thought and yet being fully awake. This was the greatest revelation, one of the most important contributions to the world. The West knows thinking and sleep. You are doing something either with the body or with the mind; if you have nothing to do with the body or the mind you go to sleep, then sleep takes over.
Rest, in the West, becomes sleep; rest, in the East, is a state of wakefulness without thought. It is neither sleep nor thinking; it is a totally different thing from both. Thoughts have disappeared....
The Western psychologists say: If there is no thought, how can there be consciousness? Western psychology insists that consciousness is always consciousness OF something; it can't exist by itself. Logically it is appealing, convincing, but existentially it is absurd.
Consciousness can exist without any thought -- I say it by my own experience. It is not a question of my conclusion through a thought process, it is my experience. It is the experience of all the buddhas of the past: consciousness CAN exist without thought. That is the only possibility of liberation; otherwise there will be no possibility -- either you are occupied with thoughts or you fall asleep and become occupied with dreams.
And you go on moving in this vicious circle: dreams, thoughts, dreams, thoughts.... Dreams are pictorial thoughts, thoughts are verbal pictures; they are not much different. Dreams are a little primitive, thoughts are a little more sophisticated, but they do the same thing. They keep you focused on the outside, they never allow you to experience your own subjectivity.
That subjectivity is your truth. And the only way to know it is to be in total rest -- as one is in sleep -- and yet be totally aware, alert, and without any thoughts. This is samadhi, this is the ultimate state of dhyana -- meditation. This is what Buddha means when he says: QUIETLY CONSIDER WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG.
Now, if you consider what is right, what is wrong, you miss. You are bound to start thinking, "What is right and what is wrong?" And what will you think about? You will start chewing over many thoughts that have been provided to you by the society. The society has taught you, "This is right and that is wrong," and you will start chewing them again. Maybe you will make some new combinations, you will color and paint and decorate them, but basically, essentially, they will be impositions from others. It is not your own experience. Hence Buddha can't mean thinking.
He says: meditate quietly. Be silent and see. And in that seeing you will know -- without any logical process you will simply know: This is this. This is good and this is bad. Not that you have to decide it according to the Bible or the Koran or the Gita. If you have eyes you know where the wall is and where the door is. Do you have to think about it? Each time you go out of your room do you have to think again and again where the door is and where the wall is? You simply go out of the door without thinking at all, because you can see! But if you are blind, each time you will have to think again, "Where is the door?" You will have to grope for the door.
Thinking is a blind state, it is a groping in darkness. Meditation is a state of having eyes, you are capable of seeing. You simply see what is right and what is wrong. And when you see what is right and what is wrong you can't do the wrong, you can't go against the right.
A meditator naturally follows that which is good -- not that he decides to follow it -- and naturally avoids that which is bad. Not that he decides to avoid it; a meditator never takes any vows -- there is no need. A man with eyes never takes the vow that "I will always enter from the door, go out from the door. I promise you, God, that I will never try to enter from the wall. Believe me, I am a man of my word, I will keep it, although I know there will be many temptations." If somebody is saying that, you will laugh. "What nonsense he is talking! What temptations?" Have you ever been tempted by the wall to get in and out through it? No such temptation is there.
When one can see clearly, good results. It is so natural, it is so spontaneous, you can't say that you have decided it. You can't say that you have used your will. You can't even say that this is your act. All that you can say is that this is how things are happening, not that you are doing them, you are only allowing them to happen. Then life has such a relaxed joy, because no tension follows it, no strain. The achieving mind is no longer there, hence there is never any frustration.
QUIETLY CONSIDER WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG. But in the English translation it becomes just the opposite. If you simply cling to the English words it means think, ponder, consider, what is right and what is wrong.
RECEIVING ALL OPINIONS EQUALLY, WITHOUT HASTE, WISELY, OBSERVE THE LAW. Buddha says: Don't have any prejudice. And we are so full of prejudices, we are bundles of prejudices. And whenever we think that we have come to a conclusion, it is just a deception -- you have again come to a prejudice which has already been put inside you by the society, by the church, by the state. You are victims of so many vested interests, which are all sitting around you with greedy eyes to exploit you, to suck your blood and soul.
Watch, the next time you feel that you have understood something, observed something. Go back and try to see: is it some past prejudice that has again popped up in a new form, in a new format, with new words? And you will be surprised: it is so.
The head doctor at the hospital was making his rounds and he passed before a group of newborn babies. "What's the matter with this little fellow? He seems awfully puny and underweight."
The nurse said, "He is one of those artificial insemination babies, and I am afraid he has been coming along rather slowly."
"Confirms a pet theory of mine," said the doctor. "Spare the rod and spoil the child!"
That's what you go on doing. Peter's principle says: If the facts do not conform to the theory they must be disposed of. He also says: If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
And that's what your great scholars go on doing. They cannot convince anybody, but they can certainly confuse. They have confused the whole world. That's what your theologians have done, your priests have done. The world lives in such confusion because of these great scholars, priests, professors, philosophers, pundits; and they have devoted their whole lives to confusing you. They are not convinced themselves of what they are saying, but when they become capable of confusing you they enjoy the ego trip. It is very satisfying to confuse somebody because you become superior. And there are always foolish people who are ready to become victims of words -- beautiful, fine words. And systems made of words are nothing but houses made out of playing cards.
George Bernard Shaw used to say: Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it.
Every religion tries to convince the lowest denominator, the ordinary man. They can't succeed in convincing, because they themselves are not convinced. Conviction comes out of truth, not out of thinking, not out of studying. Conviction comes out of experience. They are themselves not convinced, but they have become very very skillful, efficient, in using words, making great systems out of words. They can confuse people. And there are millions of fools who are ready -- ready to be confused, and they think that their confusion is their conviction.
That's why there are so many Christians -- all confused about Christ. Whenever somebody says, "I am a Christian," I immediately translate it that he is confused about Christ. When somebody says, "I am a Buddhist," I know that he is confused about Buddha. Because if you are NOT confused about Christ you will not be a Christian, you will be a christ! If you are convinced of the truth of Christ, you will be a christ not a Christian. If you are convinced of the truth of Buddha, if YOU have experienced it, you will be a buddha not a Buddhist.
Fools are many and they can be exploited by these clever, cunning people. Scholars are clever and cunning people. They are experts in using fine words with such skill that you cannot see the loopholes. Because you can't see the loopholes you start believing in their words. But no belief ever delivers you from your misery, no belief becomes salvation -- Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan. Belief as such is a bondage.
Buddha says: RECEIVING ALL OPINIONS EQUALLY.... Without any prejudice, without any opinion already arrived at, without any a priori.... Just listen to, and watch, all kinds of things. Be a pure mirror -- that is meditation. And without haste, because if you are in a hurry you will jump upon the conclusion. You are not really concerned with truth, you are more concerned with a conclusion, because the conclusion gives comfort, the conclusion gives you a security, the conclusion makes you feel that you know. It covers up your ignorance, it makes you feel sure and certain.
Hence people are so ready to become part of any church. They are not ready to become free. Even if sometimes they leave a church, they leave only to join another church. The Hindu becomes the Mohammedan, the Mohammedan becomes the Christian, the Christian becomes the Hindu. And this way they go on moving from one church to another, but they remain the same people because their approach remains the same.
There are only two approaches: one is of the mind, the other is of meditation. The approach of the mind remains confined to the world of beliefs, and the approach of meditation is the approach without thoughts, without beliefs, without prejudices.
WITHOUT HASTE, WISELY, OBSERVE THE LAW. Don't be in a hurry. In hurrying you may decide something which is not true. Just for the longing to make a decision, you may conclude, you may start believing. A real inquirer is ready to wait, he is very patient. Even if it takes lives he is ready to devote lives.
Truth is worth devoting as much time to as you can. One should not be in the mind in any way or have any hurry; otherwise he is bound to fall victim to some false commodity. In the name of truth, he will have something bogus.
Buddha says: ... WISELY, OBSERVE THE LAW. Again the problem arises: OBSERVE THE LAW makes it appear as if Buddha is saying, "Follow the Ten Commandments." No, he is not saying that. Again he is saying: Observe your nature, your self-nature, follow it. Be yourself, be authentically yourself. Risk everything for being yourself. It is comfortable not to be yourself, because when you are ready not to be yourself people are very happy with you. You follow them, you imitate them, they become your leaders -- religious, political, etcetera. But when you try to be yourself you are nobody's follower and nobody is your leader.
My sannyasins are not my followers, just friends, fellow-travelers. I am not their leader, I am not leading them towards anything. I am simply a poet singing my song, a musician playing on my sitar. You enjoy it! It is not a question of being convinced by me. When you listen to the birds in the morning you don't become convinced of the truth of their song... just the beauty.
My effort is to share my joy, my beauty, my experience with you. And I am grateful that you allow me to be with you. That you allow me to hold your hand in deep love, I am grateful. But you are not my followers, just my friends. I am not your leader, I am not your guide. I have become awakened, true -- and you are fast asleep. I can wake you up. But if somebody wakes you up in the morning he does not become your leader and does not become your guide. Just a friend! And a friend in need is a friend indeed. And that is the greatest need: that you are asleep and somebody is needed to wake you up.
"Follow the law," in Buddha's vision, means follow your self-nature, dhamma, tao.
WHO IS WISE,
THE ELOQUENT OR THE QUIET MAN?
Buddha asks: WHO IS WISE? The clever, the cunning, the man who is very skillful with words, the man who can make great systems of thoughts, great structures which have all the explanations for all the questions? Is that man wise? Or the one who is silent? Is that man wise who demystifies existence and supplies all the answers to you? Or the man who mystifies existence again through his silence, through his being, through his presence, through his love, through his sharing?
Certainly, that man is wise who mystifies existence again for you; with whom you again start looking at things with wonder, with awe, with whom you again start listening to the sermons of silence and songs of stones. That man is wise with whom you again become capable of being innocent like a child, with whom you again become capable of dancing in the wind, in the sun, in the rain. That man is wise, because he brings you closer to nature, and to be closer to nature is to be closer to yourself.
He does not give you a certain code, a morality, a pattern to live by. He does not impose a discipline upon you. He simply shares his vision, insight, clarity, and things start becoming clear to you. And out of your clarity you start living. Of course, your life is going to be unique, it is not going to be an imitation of the master. If it is an imitation, you miss the point, you miss the master. It is going to be unique; it will have its own flavor, its own fragrance.
WHO IS WISE, THE ELOQUENT OR THE QUIET MAN?
BE QUIET,
AND LOVING AND FEARLESS.
Three things Buddha says: Be quiet -- learn to be silent more and more -- AND loving, because if your silence is not loving it will make you insensitive. Then your silence will be that of a cemetery -- dull, dead. It will not be a silence which can celebrate, it will not be a silence which can sing and dance. It will not be a silence which can bloom in a thousand and one flowers. Hence, Buddha immediately says: it should be loving.
And love is possible only if you are fearless; if you are afraid you cannot be loving. The man who is afraid of anything -- death, the police, the magistrate, the government -- the man who is afraid of anything can't love.
And all fears are basically fears arising out of death. The fear of the policeman is also the same, because he can kill, he can shoot you. The fear of the government is nothing but the fear of violence -- the government can kill more powerfully than anybody else. What is the fear of the magistrate and the law? -- because the magistrate has the power to send you to the gallows or he can give you a life sentence. You are afraid. But deep down all fear is of death... and death is a myth. It has never happened, it never happens, it is never going to happen.
The meditator comes to know the falsity of death, and in that very moment all fear disappears; he becomes fearless.
Remember, Buddha is not saying be brave, he is saying be fearless. That is a totally different dimension. There are three words to be understood. One is the coward, who is continuously afraid; everything makes him fearful, whether valid, invalid, possible, impossible. He goes on living in the fears of his own imagination, he creates his own nightmares.
Then there is the brave man, who is the opposite of the coward. And we have praised the brave man very much, but the brave man is nothing but the coward standing on his head; he is the same type of man. It is not that the brave man has no fears -- he has fears, but in spite of them he goes on fighting, he goes on moving in a direction where he knows there is fear. But the fear gives him a challenge; to fight with the fear becomes his ego trip. He is the brave man.
Buddha is not talking about the brave man. He is saying simply: Be fearless. When you are fearless you are neither a coward nor brave, because both are rooted in fear. The coward has succumbed to fear and the brave is trying to win over fear, but both are concerned with fear. And the fearless one has simply dropped the whole thing. He is neither brave nor cowardly. He knows there is no death, there is nothing to be afraid of and there is nothing to be brave about.
This is a different dimension, a transcendence of the duality of cowardice and bravery.
Be fearless, be loving, be silent, and you will be wise. This is his definition of wisdom.
FOR THE MIND TALKS,
BUT THE BODY KNOWS.
The word 'body' can give you a wrong connotation again. What Buddha means is: the mind talks -- the mind is a part. And when he says the body knows, he means the WHOLE knows. Buddha always used the word 'body' for the whole; it is not the same as when YOU use the word 'body'. When you use the word 'body' it is a part; body, mind, soul, these are three parts in your mind, in your thought processes. This is how you have divided yourself. When Buddha says the body he means your wholeness: "This very body the Buddha, this very earth the Lotus Paradise." When he uses the word 'body' he means your wholeness, your totality. The mind talks, your totality knows.
The mind is useful if you have known. Then the mind can be used as a beautiful instrument to convey, to communicate. After all, Buddha himself is using these words through the mind, but when you have known, mind is a beautiful instrument. Without knowing, you may have studied much from the scriptures... and your mind becomes a gramophone record. You go on repeating others. Avoid that.
It is better to be ignorant and be yourself than to be very knowledgeable, because all knowledge that is not yours is far worse than ignorance -- it keeps you unaware of your ignorance. If you become aware, something can be done. If you become aware, ignorance can be dissipated.
GRAY HAIRS DO NOT MAKE A MASTER.
A MAN MAY GROW OLD IN VAIN.
Just becoming old does not mean that you have become a wise man. Age in itself does not make anybody wise. One may grow old; that does not mean that one has become a grown-up. Growing old and becoming grown-up are totally different phenomena.
A young reporter was interviewing old Harry Blackwell on his one hundred and first birthday.
"Tell me, Mr. Blackwell, if you had your life to live over again, would you still make the same mistakes?"
"Sure as hell would!" came his emphatic reply.
"You mean you would not do ANYTHING differently?"
"Sure would. I would start sooner."
This man must have been at least sincere. Otherwise old people become cunning, insincere, dishonest.
Sunday was to be the day of Joe's wedding, and he and his father were enjoying a nightcap together. Lifting his glass in a toast to his father, Joe asked, "Any advice before I take the big step, Dad?"
"Yes," the father said, "two things. First: insist on having one night out a week with the boys. Second: don't waste it on the boys."
People go on growing in age but not in maturity. They don't become really ripe; they remain as childish as anybody else. And when you are a child and are childish it is not so embarrassing, but when you have become old and you are childish it is very embarrassing. They hide it, but deep down they are the same person, nothing has happened -- because nothing ever happens without meditation. Just accumulating experience of the outside world does not transform you. It makes you very well informed about many things, but information is information, it is not transformation.
THE TRUE MASTER LIVES IN TRUTH,
IN GOODNESS AND RESTRAINT,
NONVIOLENCE, MODERATION AND PURITY.
The true master is not one who knows about truth; the true master is one who lives in truth, who IS truth. The Upanishads say, "AHAM BRAHMASMI -- I am God." al-Hillaj declares, "ANA'L HAQ -- I am God!" They are saying, "We are not talking about truth, we have BECOME it." Unless you become the truth your wisdom is not true wisdom, it is only mere knowledge. You can go on exhibiting it as wisdom, but you are not fooling anybody except yourself.
THE TRUE MASTER LIVES IN TRUTH.... And when you live in truth, when truth is your very breath, then goodness follows as a shadow.
And the word 'restraint' is again not a right translation. Buddha means discipline: a discipline not imposed by others, a discipline that arises out of your own being, out of your own understanding, out of your own truth.
The wise man lives as truth, as goodness; his whole life is that of discipline. He does not try to live in any controlled way; he simply lives according to his nature -- and that is his discipline. He lives in nonviolence. He cannot hurt anybody, because to hurt anybody is to hurt oneself. Now he knows all is one. He lives in moderation.
That is Buddha's very specific contribution: the middle path. Buddha says: Avoid the extreme, because it is on the extreme that anxiety arises. You can indulge in an extreme way and you will suffer. You can renounce the world, become another kind of extremist, and you will suffer. Extreme always brings suffering. To be in the middle is to be beyond suffering.
When the traveling salesman's car broke down, he stopped at a farmhouse and was invited to sleep with the farmer's daughter. They went to bed and he made a pass.
She said, "Stop. Stop that or I will call my father."
He tried again. She said, "Stop, or I will call my father." But she moved closer.
Finally he succeeded.
Shortly after, she tugged on his pajama sleeve and said, "Could we do that again?" He obliged.
A little later she woke him up and asked if they could do it again. He obliged.
The third time she woke him up and asked if they could do it again he said, "Stop that or I will call your father."
Indulge to the extreme and you will suffer. Or renounce to the extreme and you will suffer. Buddha is a very down-to-earth man; he says remain in the middle, exactly in the middle is the way. There you become balanced.
... NONVIOLENCE, MODERATION AND PURITY. All these things follow naturally if you are wise -- not knowledgeable, remember, but wise. Mind becomes knowledgeable, meditation brings wisdom.
FINE WORDS OR FINE FEATURES
CANNOT MAKE A MASTER
OUT OF A JEALOUS AND GREEDY MAN.
ONLY WHEN ENVY AND SELFISHNESS
ARE ROOTED OUT OF HIM
MAY HE GROW IN BEAUTY.
You may have a beautiful face, fine features; you may have a very articulate way of expressing yourself, of communicating your ideas, you may be very good with words. These things do not make a master; cannot, because if you are jealous and greedy you remain the same.
ONLY WHEN ENVY AND SELFISHNESS ARE ROOTED OUT OF HIM MAY HE GROW IN BEAUTY. A real master is truly beautiful, but that beauty is not of the body. It is something inner that starts radiating out of the body. Yes, his body has a certain aura, a light around itself, a coolness, a grace -- but they arise from his innermost core. They arise from his center and spread towards the circumference. But just having a beautiful body does not mean that you are wise.
Yes, a man of truth is bound to find some way to communicate it, he has to. It is inevitable, because when truth is known, a deep urge is felt to share it. When you have the truth you will find words, but just having beautiful words does not mean that you have found the truth.
A MAN MAY SHAVE HIS HEAD
BUT IF HE STILL LIES AND NEGLECTS HIS WORK,
IF HE CLINGS TO DESIRE AND ATTACHMENT,
HOW CAN HE FOLLOW THE WAY?
One can become a renounced beggar, one can become a monk, a nun -- that is not going to help. Unless something in your inner being changes... a radical change is needed. Superficial changes won't do.
THE TRUE SEEKER
SUBDUES ALL WAYWARDNESS.
What is waywardness? Your mind moving to the past and to the future, your mind going in all directions, your mind never being herenow: that is waywardness. A TRUE SEEKER SUBDUES ALL WAYWARDNESS.
HE HAS SUBMITTED HIS NATURE TO QUIETNESS.
He surrenders everything to the present moment and its silence.
HE IS A TRUE SEEKER
NOT BECAUSE HE BEGS
BUT BECAUSE HE FOLLOWS THE LAWFUL WAY....
Remember again: by lawful he means the natural.
HOLDING BACK NOTHING, HOLDING TO NOTHING....
The true seeker holds back nothing, he gives everything that he has. He shares totally his love, his joy, his experience -- and he holds to nothing, he clings to nothing. He need not cling to anything: the whole universe belongs to him, the whole kingdom of God is his.
BEYOND GOOD AND BEYOND EVIL,
BEYOND THE BODY AND BEYOND THE MIND.
He lives a transcendental life, in the world and yet not of the world; lives in the body but is not identified with it; lives in the mind but never for a moment finds himself deluded that he is the mind. He is neither the mind nor the body.
Living in the world, doing all that is needful, he remains transcendental. He is like a lotus leaf or a lotus flower -- in the water and yet untouched by it.
Next: Chapter 6: Don't take enlightenment seriously, Question 1
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Dhammapada The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 7
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