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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 145
and Mark, and your daughter, Penny. Now what kind of a life is that! Well, there’s only one place for people like
you. You’ll have to go downstairs down to hell!”
The Smiths wept and fell at his feet, but the verdict was final.
”Next!” shouted Saint Peter, as the guardian angels were hauling the Smiths away.
The next husband turned to his wife and said, ”Come on, Fanny... I’m not gonna stand here and be insulted!”
SEEK RATHER THE OTHER SHORE.
Buddha says: Don’t be too much concerned with this shore; it is momentary. Tomorrow you have to go. Even
seventy years is not a long time; compared to eternity it is just a moment. Your life lasts only as long as a
soap bubble. You think it is long enough seventy years because you compare your life with the life of flies or
mosquitoes; then it looks long enough. But ask the mosquitoes and they think they are doing perfectly well: they
are doing everything that you are doing and in a short span. They are born, they fall in love, they get married,
they have children and many more than you can ever have and they sing and they dance. Maybe they have their
own religion and priests and politicians. And then they become old and then they die. Maybe it lasts only for a
few weeks, but in those few weeks they have done everything!
There are insects that will live only for a few hours, but in those few hours is condensed your whole life:
boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, and all the fights.... I have heard they go even to marriage
counselors, they consult sexologists!
One woman had a cat and the cat was creating much trouble in the neighborhood. He was a playboy and the
whole night he was going from this house to that, and they were making so much noise because cats don’t believe
in making love silently. They are not Hindus, not Indians! They are all hippies!
So the whole neighborhood told the woman, ”Do something. It’s too much we can’t sleep! This lovemaking of
your cat he’s driving us mad!”
Finally the woman took her cat to the vet and he was operated on. But the neighborhood was in as much
trouble as before.
People asked the woman, ”What is the matter? What kind of operation is this? Your cat has been operated
on, you say, but we still see him coming.”
The woman said, ”Yes, he still goes now as a consultant.”
Time does not matter. In a few hours you can live seventy years or seven hundred years in a condensed way.
Into seven minutes seventy years can be condensed. And seven minutes look very small compared to seventy years,
but what are seventy years compared to the age of the sun or the moon or the earth or the stars? And what are
seventy years compared to eternity?
This shore consists of momentary phenomena. Don’t waste your total energy in that which is momentary. Go
on remembering the other shore. By ”the other shore” Buddha means that which is beyond time and beyond
space. This shore is outside you and the other shore is within you. This shore consists of money, sex, power,
prestige, and that shore consists only of awareness, silence, peace, prayer.
SEEK RATHER THE OTHER SHORE.
WEEDS CHOKE THE FIELD. PASSION POISONS THE NATURE OF MAN, AND HATRED, ILLUSION
AND DESIRE.
But you are full of weeds, hence you cannot grow roses. Before you can grow roses you will have to remove all
the weeds, you will have to prepare the ground, you will have to prepare the soil. You will have to remove the
weeds, the stones, and all that can be a hindrance for the roses. WEEDS CHOKE THE FIELD.
And about weeds, one thing has to be understood: you need not grow them, they grow on their own accord.
Even if you pull them out they will grow again.
Mulla Nasruddin has a very beautiful lawn. A new neighbor moved recently next door to Mulla’s house and he
became very interested in Mulla’s garden, particularly his lawn. He also wanted to make a beautiful lawn and a
garden. He planted seeds, he planted plants, but so many weeds started growing.
He asked Mulla, ”How to distinguish which is grass and which are weeds?”
Mulla said, ”Simple. You pull them both out. The grass will not grow again and the weeds will grow again.
That’s how one knows, that’s how one can distinguish.”
Weeds have a quality the same quality as the fools: they persist, they insist, they don’t want to be removed.
Everything great in this life is fragile and everything ugly is rocklike, very strong. Weeds grow on their own accord.
You have not cultivated anger and you have not cultivated lust. There are no schools where you are taught how
to be jealous and how to be greedy. No teachers, no masters are needed to teach you how to be unconscious.
These things grow on their own accord.
Falling downwards is easy; rising upwards is difficult it goes against gravitation.