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

278 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
And avoid the desire to hurt others. There is a certain joy in hurting others. We go on hurting people; it gives
you the feeling of power. It helps you to feel that you are powerful when you can hurt somebody. It is a very ugly
desire, egoistic, but everybody does that. Watch yourself, in how many ways you hurt people. You may not be
doing anything in particular to hurt them, but your gesture may be enough. People walk in such a way, talk in
such a way, that others are hurt. And nobody can blame them because what they are doing is so subtle. They
use words which can hurt, and they use them with such skill that you cannot blame them. They can always find
a way to rationalize.
A black gentleman was arrested for shooting a man. The next morning he was brought into court.
”Why did you shoot that man?” asked the judge.
”Because he called me a black sonofabitch!”
”You didn’t have any business shooting a man for that!”
”Well, Your Honor, what would you have done if he called you that?”
”Oh, he wouldn’t have called me that!”
”I know, Judge, but suppose he had called you the kind of a sonofabitch you are, then? Of course he cannot
call you ’a black sonofabitch’ you are not black but the kind of a sonofabitch you are, if he had called you that,
what then?”
People can go on finding ways skillfully.... One has to remain aware until all sorrows vanish.
NEVER OFFEND BY WHAT YOU THINK OR SAY OR DO.
That does not mean, remember, that people will not be offended. They may still be offended, but it should
not be an intention on your part. Buddha is not saying that nobody will be offended by the master, because
thousands were offended by Buddha himself. Certainly many were offended by Jesus; otherwise why should he
have been crucified?
Buddha is saying: NEVER OFFEND BY WHAT YOU THINK OR SAY OR DO. It should not be your
intention. Still, it is going to happen: whenever the master speaks it is almost inevitable that many will be
offended because they will understand in their own way what he is saying. They will not hear what he is saying;
they will hear only what they can hear. They are going to misunderstand him. That is absolutely inevitable, it
cannot be avoided.
It was late afternoon in a small town. Joe, the owner of the local beer parlor, was lazily polishing glassware
when his friend, Mickey, came running in.
”Joe,” he shouted, ”get over to your house real quick. I just stopped off to see if you were home and I heard a
stranger’s voice in your bedroom. So I looked in the window and, gosh, I hate to tell you this, but your wife is in
bed with another man!”
”Is that so?” said Joe, matter-of-factly. ”What does this guy look like?”
”Oh, he is tall and completely bald.”
”And did he have a thick red mustache?” asked Joe.
”Right! Right!” yelled Mickey.
”Did you notice if he had a gold front tooth?”
”Damn it, man, you’re right!”
”Must be that jackass, Dick Roberts,” said Joe. ”He’ll screw anything!”
Now, when you are talking to a husband about his wife it is a totally different matter. He does not care, he
is no longer interested, he is fed up, he is finished. You may be excited that something has to be done, but the
husband will hear through his experience of being a husband to the woman; he cannot put that experience aside.
I am saying something to you; you will hear it through your experiences, through your memories, through your
ways of interpreting things. Nobody knows what you are going to gather out of it; that will be more your own
than mine. I may have triggered the process, that’s all, but you will be the creator of the whole phenomenon.
Hence, remember, the master never offends, still people are offended.
Buddha says:
HONOR THE MAN WHO IS AWAKE.
That has been one of the most beautiful things in the East that flower has bloomed in the East the East can
be proud of it: we have always honored the man who is awake. In other parts of the world, particularly in the
West, the expert is honored, the technician is honored, the scientist is honored, the man who can do many things
is honored. But the man who is conscious is not considered at all just for his consciousness.
Gurdjieff was not honored at all. In the East he would have been a buddha; in the West he was not honored
at all insulted in every possible way, for the simple reason that the West has no idea how to honor the awakened
man, because the awakened man fulfills no utilitarian purpose. If your machine is broken he cannot be of any