THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 The ...

108 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
”Listen,” said Mrs. Goldfarb, ”you should see me when I haven’t been crying!”
In a single moment things change. In this world, all your relationships are just made of the stuff poetry is made
of; they are not even prose, they are fictions. People are living in fictions, and they go on painting, repainting
their fictions; they go on keeping the fiction alive.
Mrs. Saperstein had just sent the children off to school when the phone rang.
”Is your husband’s name Philip Saperstein?” asked a sepulchral voice at the other end of the line.
”What else?” replied the lady.
”This is the coroner’s office. I am sorry to tell you this, but we have a traffic death here. We found your
telephone number in his pocket. Would you please come down here to the morgue and identify the body?”
Mrs. Saperstein arrived within half an hour and an attendant escorted her to a figure covered with a white
sheet. The attendant then lifted a corner of the sheet and uncovered the victim’s face. ”Was this man your
husband?” he asked.
Mrs Saperstein eyes widened. ”Ai-ai-ai! How did you yes, that is my husband ever get your sheets so white?”
Don’t believe in fictions. Your wife, your husband, your children, your parents, all are beautiful fictions. And
I am not saying to renounce them; I am saying, simply, understand the fictitiousness of them all. Live wherever
you are, but don’t get identified with these imagined roles. Act, but don’t get identified with your acting role.
That’s exactly what Buddha means:
SOFT FETTERS, YET THEY HOLD YOU DOWN. CAN YOU SNAP THEM?
They are not very strong fetters, very soft, but CAN YOU SNAP THEM? You cannot snap them if you are
not conscious; and if you are conscious you need not snap them they are no longer there. You simply see the
point that in this world we come alone, we live alone and we go alone. Yes, we play many games games of being
a husband or a wife, being a friend or an enemy.
We play many games because we have to fill the time with something, or else we have to ”kill time,” as they
say, by playing cards, by chess.... And these are all the same kinds of things, nothing more serious. You have seen
playing cards kings and queens and when you are playing cards they become very real. You can fight, people
have even killed each other; just in playing cards they became so serious!
We become so much identified because we are not conscious at all. It is consciousness that helps you to become
unidentified.
Then you can go on playing all kinds of games I am not against games. Play them as artfully as you can. Let
your life be fun! I don’t want you to be serious, I don’t want you to have long faces. Enough of that! Religious
people have suffered much; there is no need. You can laugh and you can enjoy, but remember one thing: that all
is just a game. Death will come and the curtain falls and the game disappears and the play is finished.
THERE ARE THOSE WHO CAN, WHO SURRENDER THE WORLD, FORSAKE DESIRE, AND FOLLOW
THE WAY.
Who are those who can snap out of these identities? They are the courageous people, the meditators: the
people who try to bring awareness to their life, to their acts, to their thoughts, to their feelings.
Buddha’s persistent effort was one: to make you aware in everything that you are doing. If you are walking,
walk with awareness. If you are eating, eat with awareness. Don’t simply go on stuffing yourself in a mechanical
way. De-automatize yourself. Don’t be a machine, be a man.
And then you will be surprised to know that desires start fleeing away from you and the way opens.
Moe and Ike, aged ninety and ninety-two respectively, had been widowers for many, many years. Both were
healthy and handsome-looking despite their years. The Florida climate agreed with them, and many lovely widows
were still after them despite their age.
One day Moe said to Ike, ”Ike, I’m really lonely. It’s been years since I lost my Becky and I’ve never remarried.
But I think now is the time and I’m willing to take another chance at marriage even at my age.”
”It sounds like a good idea,” said Moe. ”In fact, maybe I, too, should take a new wife.”
Soon thereafter, Moe and Ike both married lovely ladies eighty-nine and ninety respectively and they both
went on honeymoons.
A few days later, Moe and Ike met on the boardwalk.
”Well,” asked Moe, ”how was your honeymoon?”
”To tell you the truth, Moe, I couldn’t consummate our marriage.”
”Well,” said Moe, ”to tell you the truth, I didn’t even think of it!”
But even at the age of ninety, people want to continue to play the old, childish games. Children can be
forgiven. They need to play, they need to get identified, they need to go astray, they need to commit errors,