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

346 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
go on discovering, there seems to be no end. There seem to be universes and universes unending. So it is in the
inner world: there are also many planes and many universes, but all are rooted in a single seed.
Out of a single seed a big tree can grow. You can’t see it in the seed, but if you put it in the soil soon a
tree starts growing. A small seed brings such a big tree with such thick foliage that thousands of people can sit
underneath it, thousands of birds can make their nests in it. And millions of seeds will grow in this tree and each
seed contains again millions of trees, and so on and so forth. The scientists say a single seed can make the whole
earth green; not only this earth but all the earths in the universe can be made green by a single seed. What
potential!
You are all carrying frozen seeds within you which are just waiting for their right opportunity. Maybe you
have forgotten completely about a certain desire because there has not been an opportunity to provoke it. That’s
why monks and nuns and the traditional sannyasins used to escape from the world, simply to deceive themselves
because when they went to the caves in the mountains they were going away from the opportunities where they
would have become aware of the seed, where the seed would have had a chance to grow.
But remember, the seed is there whether you give it a chance to grow or not, and the seed can remain there for
years; for lives it will wait. Give it an opportunity, an accidental opportunity, and immediately the seed becomes
alive. The seed can remain frozen, almost dead for millions of lives.
That’s why I am absolutely against escapism for the simple reason that if you want to burn the seed the best
place is in the world, in the marketplace, because there are all kinds of opportunities. You cannot avoid seeing
the seed and seeing it means you have to do something about it. If you stop seeing it, if you put a seed on a rock,
you will forget about the seed because it cannot grow on the rock.
That’s why monks and nuns used to move to the monasteries, nunneries; those were rocks. And they chose
to be in the mountains. Have you observed it? that all the monasteries of the world have been made in rocky
mountains, not beautiful mountains where there are great trees and animals and birds because there is danger:
even two birds making love is enough of an opportunity to give you the idea! Just two animals in foreplay, and the
monks and the nuns will have a great desire arising in them. Suddenly the seed will start sprouting. So they chose
to be in rocks, utter rocks where not a tree grows. Or the monasteries were built somewhere in the desert. All
Christian monasteries were made in the desert. The ancient Christians lived in the desert, for the simple reason
that, in a desert, life is so absent, so utterly absent, that you can forget all about it.
Jaina monks chose mountains, but ugly mountains, just rocks and nothing else, because anything beautiful can
create trouble. The distant call of a cuckoo can drive you cuckoo! because it has a sexuality of its own, it has a
sensuality of its own, it is a sensual call. Do you know? it is the male cuckoo who is calling; the female simply
waits. She simply waits for the male to come closer. Yes, she gives hints that ”I am available,” and yet keeps
herself very aloof, very proud available, but not so easily available either!
Have you seen in the animals one strange phenomenon? that it is always the male who is taking the initiative.
The peacock with beautiful feathers is the male; one should have thought otherwise, but it is the male not the
female. The female has no feathers; the female is ordinary, does not look so beautiful. The male looks very
beautiful and the male dances with great exhibition of all his feathers they are really beautiful feathers and he
dances a great dance. He tries to allure.
Something strange has happened in man only; it seems unnatural. In fact, ornaments should be used by men,
not by women. Men should use more colorful clothes than women. There is no need for women to bother about
anything else, just to be female is enough! That’s the whole story of nature if you look around: all the strategies
have been used by males.
The monks and nuns have to be protected, but this kind of protection is not going to help. Even if the seed
can remain protected for many lives it is there, it is not burnt yet.
An old maid had been going to sit in the park each day for years. As she fed the pigeons, which always roosted
and fluttered around the bronze statue of a young Apollo, her eyes would wander over his nude form and she
would dream of holding him alive in her arms.
One day as she sat there, a good fairy took pity on her.
Appearing by her side, the fairy offered her three wishes. Without delay the old maid began, ”First I want to
be young and very desirable.”
This was no sooner said than done.
”Second, I wish that the statue of Apollo would come to life.”
A wave of the fairy’s wand and instantly he sprang down from the pedestal, vibrantly alive. The new voluptuous
maid faltered and began to blush. Fluttering her eyelashes coyly she murmured, ”I would like to give the third
wish to Apollo.”