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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 349
”Oh, I won the first prize,” said the farmer. ”Aren’t I lucky?”
”And who won second prize, farmer?” asked the cowhand.
”My wife won that. Wasn’t she lucky?”
”Arr, she were that. And what about third prize?”
”Oh, my daughter won that. Wasn’t she lucky? By the way, you haven’t paid me for your tickets yet, have
you?”
”No,” replied the cowman. ”Aren’t I lucky?”
Everybody is looking with his own world of desires, expectations, passions, lust, greed, anger. There are a
thousand and one things standing between you and your world; that’s why you don’t ever see it as it is.
Once your eye is completely clean, clean of all the dust, once it becomes a pure mirror, it reflects that which is.
And that is truth and truth liberates, but it has to be your own. My truth cannot liberate you, Buddha’s truth
cannot liberate you. There is only one possibility of liberation, that is your own truth. And all that you have to
do is to create a dispassionate eye.
AND WITH GREAT GLADNESS HE KNOWS THAT HE HAS FINISHED. HE HAS WOKEN FROM HIS
SLEEP.
The master is glad that he is finished with all the nonsense, with all the stupidity, with all the games of life.
He is glad that he is finished, he is out of it, he has transcended. HE HAS WOKEN FROM HIS SLEEP.
Willie D. left Harlem to visit friends in Mobile. On his second night there he met Laura Mae, a beautiful lady
whom he soon led out in the woods. As they prepared to make love, Willie removed his pants and hung them
neatly on a tree.
”You must be from the North,” said Laura Mae.
”Right on, baby,” said Willie, ”but how could you tell?”
”A Southern boy don’t hang up his clothes ’cause when we’re finished we’re gonna be three miles from here!”
And these games are there... and where are your pants and where are you? Three miles away! Where are your
senses? Where is your intelligence? You must have hung it up somewhere and you have completely forgotten
where.
The nurse took the gentleman standing by the bed of a woman in the maternity ward aside and asked, ”Would
you like to see the baby?”
The gentleman nodded. ”Looks just like you!” she enthused when they finally came out of the baby room.
Later the nurse told the woman about her husband’s delight at seeing the baby. The woman was horrified.
”Husband? My husband is on duty in the next town and hasn’t arrived yet to see the baby! That man was here
to collect the overdue installment on my refrigerator!”
People are asleep. What is happening to them is almost accidental. Why you have fallen in love with somebody
is accidental. Your birth is accidental, your death is going to be accidental.
Buddha says: The master looks at everything falling and rising, rising and falling. All are accidents. There
is only one thing which is not accidental, which is intrinsic, and that is your awareness of it all. That awareness
makes you awake.
The couple evolved a perfect plan for spending their time. One night a week he goes out with the boys, the
other six nights she does.
Here is a flash from Detroit: They have come up with a fast car with equally fast brakes you can come to a
standstill in just the car’s length from a hundred miles per hour. It is equipped with a device which automatically
wipes your remains from the windscreen.
Altie and Big Bertha stood before the altar. Big Bertha weighed two hundred pounds, her groom a mere one
hundred.
”Does you take dis woman for your lawful wedded wife?” asked the minister.
”Ah takes nothin’,” replied Altie. ”Ah’s bein’ took!”
Just watch your life, what is happening.
After a long, boring sermon, the minister asks Sandy, ”Well, how did you like my sermon, Sandy?”
Sandy replies, ”Oh, a bit like outer space, Minister.”
”What do you mean, ’a bit like outer space’?”
”Well,” says Sandy, ”plenty of it but not much in it!”
And that’s exactly what your life is: plenty of it, but nothing much in it. Just accidents and nothing else. You
have not yet known the intrinsic. That’s what Buddha calls sleep.