THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 The ...
THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 The ...
THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 The ...
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<strong>THE</strong> <strong>DHAMMAPADA</strong>: <strong>THE</strong> <strong>WAY</strong> <strong>OF</strong> <strong>THE</strong> <strong>BUDDHA</strong>, <strong>VOL</strong>. 9-<strong>12</strong> 277<br />
the same coin. It brings pain in the same proportion; the greater the pleasure, the greater the pain. So when you<br />
are enjoying something, be aware: soon the pain will follow; it is inevitable. Just as the day follows the night and<br />
the night follows the day, pain and pleasure follow each other. <strong>The</strong>y are not separate, they are inseparable.<br />
First, pleasures are momentary, they are just soap-bubbles. To waste your precious life for them is simply<br />
stupid, unintelligent. Second, every pleasure brings pain. But people are so foolish that they never look at the<br />
association. <strong>The</strong>y think pain has come from some other source, they think pleasures can be forever. Again and<br />
again they are ditched by their pleasures into pain; again and again they go on thinking that there were some<br />
reasons why this pleasure was destroyed.<br />
Whether reasons were there or not is irrelevant; every pleasure is momentary, it is going to disappear, and in<br />
its wake the pain.... You can rationalize it; that rationalization will only help you to continue in the same old rut.<br />
But see the fact. Seeing the truth is a great liberation; seeing that every pleasure is inevitably a bringer of pain,<br />
you will be freed from both.<br />
And third: it is the same energy that is involved in pleasure which has to move towards bliss. Pleasure is<br />
dependent on others; bliss is totally independent, it is your own. It arises within your being, it is your self-nature;<br />
hence you are not dependent on anybody. And because it is your self-nature it is forever. <strong>The</strong>re is no contrary,<br />
there is no opposite to bliss.<br />
Happiness is just in between pleasure and bliss. In happiness something is independent and something is<br />
dependent; it is a mixture of both. Hence the man who lives in sheer pleasure is in a better condition in a way; he<br />
is healthy, as healthy as animals are. Animals live in sheer pleasure: when the pain comes they suffer, when the<br />
pleasure comes they enjoy. <strong>The</strong>y go on rotating between pleasure and pain. <strong>The</strong> man who lives only in pleasures<br />
a Don Juan he is in a way healthy, normal, because he is part of the animal world; he is not yet human. In a<br />
way his life is clear, it has no complexity.<br />
But the man who lives in happiness or tries to find happiness, lives for happiness, is far more confused because<br />
he is nowhere. He is neither the animal nor yet the divine; he is in a limbo. He is riding on two horses; he will be<br />
in very great difficulty. And that’s where almost all human beings are. It is very rare to find a human being who<br />
lives purely in pleasure it is rare to find a Zorba the Greek who lives purely in pleasure. He is clear, there is no<br />
confusion in him. He simply walks on the earth; he has no idea of flying in the sky. He has accepted the law of<br />
gravitation and he knows no other law.<br />
<strong>The</strong> man who lives for happiness, who knows the beauty of music, who knows the beauty of paintings, art, who<br />
knows something higher than the animals can know, is far more confused; he is in far more of a mess... because<br />
while you are listening to great music something is contributed by the music which is outside and something is<br />
contributed by the music which is inside; it is a meeting of two polarities. You are hanging in the middle and<br />
both are pulling you in separate directions. You will find more anxiety in your life.<br />
That’s why poor people are less in anguish than rich people. Rich countries live in anguish because they have<br />
enough pleasure; they are fed up with it. Now they want something higher, and with the higher the problems<br />
arise.<br />
<strong>The</strong> animal part is well settled because it is your heritage of millions of years. It is in your chemistry, in your<br />
biology, in your physiology. Everything is settled, instinctive. You need not be aware, you need not do anything.<br />
But if you seek and search for happiness then you are going into a more shadowy world which is less substantial<br />
higher but more shadowy.<br />
And the third goal is bliss, which again is very clear, as clear as the first, in fact far more clear than the first<br />
because the first has a clarity, but the clarity is of a much lower kind. <strong>The</strong> third has a clarity of the highest<br />
quality. Only the awakened one knows the clarity of the third.<br />
Buddha says: RESIST <strong>THE</strong> PLEASURES <strong>OF</strong> LIFE.... Become a little more mature. Don’t be childish, don’t<br />
remain animals. Put your energies towards the highest goal in life let bliss be your goal.<br />
And people who live in pleasures also have one thing more in their life, and that is the desire to hurt others,<br />
because pleasures create competition. If you want more money, of course you have to snatch it from somebody<br />
else. If you want power, then somebody else will lose power. If you want to be the president, then somebody else<br />
will not be the president. Hence it is a constant struggle. You have to hurt many to succeed. You have to be very<br />
destructive, inhumanly destructive.<br />
It is only the goal of bliss which can be nonviolent; otherwise pleasures are going to be violent.<br />
Buddha says: RESIST <strong>THE</strong> PLEASURES <strong>OF</strong> LIFE AND <strong>THE</strong> DESIRE TO HURT TILL SORROWS<br />
VANISH. Be alert. He is not saying repress, he cannot say that. Be aware so that pleasures don’t pull you<br />
downwards, so that slowly, slowly you are freed from your animal heritage, so that slowly, slowly you can transcend<br />
your biology.