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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 109
mistakes, because that is the only way to learn and to mature. But even in old age, people behave as if they have
not grown up at all.
Remember, you grow only in the proportion that you become aware. You grow only in the proportion that you
become unidentified with all the games that life makes available for you.
O SLAVE OF DESIRE, FLOAT UPON THE STREAM. LITTLE SPIDER, STICK TO YOUR WEB. OR
ELSE ABANDON YOUR SORROWS FOR THE WAY.
Buddha calls people who are just slaves of their desires... they are nothing but driftwood, victims of blind forces.
They don’t know their destiny, they don’t know any meaning. They are just accidental; they don’t experience
any intrinsic significance in life. From one game they move to another game. Their whole life is a series of
keeping themselves occupied somehow so that they don’t become aware of the fact that they have wasted a great
opportunity of growing up, of coming home, of becoming a conscious being, of becoming that which they were
meant to be. They go on missing.
LITTLE SPIDER, Buddha says, STICK TO YOUR WEB.
It is your own creation. The world in which you live is your own creation, just like the spider creates its web
out of itself and then is caught in the web and cannot leave it. You project your world out of your own mind,
you project thousands of desires. That’s how you create the web and then you are caught in it. Somebody is
caught in the desire for money, somebody is caught in the desire for power, somebody is caught in the desire for
renunciation, somebody is caught in the desire for paradise all desires!
A real man of understanding has no desire. He lives in the moment and whatsoever is available, he enjoys it to
its totality. He squeezes each moment, he drinks each moment! He eats whatsoever is available. He sleeps, but
he is total in whatsoever he is doing.
A Zen monk, Rinzai, was asked, ”What is your meditation?”
He said, ”When I feel hungry I eat and when I feel sleepy I sleep, that’s all. I have no other meditation.”
He is a real follower of Buddha! But you will miss the point if you are not told that when he says, ”When I
feel hungry I eat,” he eats with total awareness.
In fact, a man who lives in awareness also sleeps in awareness.
Krishna, in the Gita, says: The real seeker is awake even while others are fast asleep. When it is night for
others it is still day for him. Something deep inside him remains constantly alert.
That which is a night for everybody else is not a night for the one who is aware, who is alert, who is meditative,
who is balanced, who lives in equilibrium, who lives in silence. Something deep inside him keeps awake. The body
sleeps, the mind sleeps, but the soul is always alert. It is never tired so it need not sleep at all. It is awareness
itself; it is made of awareness.
LITTLE SPIDER, STICK TO YOUR WEB.
Hilda and Herman were spending a quiet evening at home. That is to say, Herman was quietly engrossed in a
book, but Hilda was in a talkative mood.
”Honey,” she began, ”if I should die before you do, will you promise me something important?”
”Yeah,” grunted Herman, without lifting his eyes from the page he was reading.
”Promise me you’ll always keep my grave green.”
”Aw, don’t be so morbid,” he replied. ”What’s the use of talking about dying? You look pretty healthy to
me.”
He buried his nose in the book, completely absorbed once more, hoping he would not again be distracted.
”Well, yes, I feel healthy, dear,” Hilda interrupted again after a minute of blessed silence, ”but I want to be sure
my final resting place won’t be neglected. You might want to remarry or something, and forget all about me.”
”Look, Hilda, I’ll remember you forever. Stop shopping around for an undertaker and let me read!”
This time he was rewarded with three whole minutes of peace and quiet, when his wife again took up the thread
of conversation exactly where it had broken off.
”I’d hate to be forgotten by my own husband. I suppose it is because I’m so sensitive because I have so much
emotion. Darling, are you positive that you’ll keep my grave green?”
”Yeah, I’m positive,” he growled, his eyes glued to the page.
”Well, that’s a great consolation. Only, I’d like for you to say it with more feeling.... Precious, are you absolutely,
positively sure you’ll keep my....”
”Hilda,” shouted the pestered man, casting his book aside, ”I will keep that damn grave of yours green if I have
to paint it myself!”
First we create these relationships wife and husband... and then they start hankering for children, great desire
for children arises... and it goes on and on. Then they want their children to get married; then they want their