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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

60 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 Life has become phony because of us, because we are living in a very cowardly way. We are not living arduously. We are not trying to climb new mountains, new peaks. We are not trying to explore. We have become more concerned with comfort, with security, safety. Buddha says: IT IS SWEET TO LIVE ARDUOUSLY. Have you ever enjoyed climbing to the peak of a mountain? It is hard. You perspire, breathing becomes difficult, you become tired. And then you reach to the sunlit peak and then you lie down on the grass, and what relaxation and what joy arises in your being! The silence of the peak and the arduous climb, and you have reached, and the joy of reaching! You could have been dropped by a helicopter, but then there would have been no joy. It would have been comfortable. Edmund Hillary could have reached to the peak of Everest by a helicopter it was easier but he tried the hard way. And he writes, ”I have never known such bliss. When I reached to the peak I was all alone, the first man on Everest.” Nobody had seen the sky from that point, nobody had seen the world from that point. It was sheer ecstasy. He danced. Sooner or later buses will be going there and hotels will be there and cinema houses, and it will become very comfortable. But don’t hope that you will have the same ecstasy as Edmund Hillary had, although you will be standing on the same spot. You will look a little silly and stupid, that’s all. And you will not believe why this Hillary danced; you don’t see any point. All around there are hotels and tourist centers and guides and everything is available; the whole world is there. You don’t see why he laughed, why he enjoyed, why he danced, because you don’t feel any dance. Life is joy only when you live it raw, when you live it in all its wildness, when you live it naturally, spontaneously. Yes, there are bound to be difficulties, there are bound to be dangers, but they are part of life, and without them life will not be life at all. And this is the only way to master yourself. OH HOW SWEET IT IS TO ENJOY LIFE, LIVING IN HONESTY AND STRENGTH! Strange words from the mouth of Buddha. They would be perfectly right from the mouth of Zorba the Greek, but from the mouth of Buddha? OH HOW SWEET IT IS TO ENJOY LIFE, LIVING IN HONESTY AND STRENGTH! Just the other day I received a very angry letter from someone who was here for a few days. He is the librarian in Dharmashala of the Dalai Lama’s library must be a scholar! He writes to me, ”You are saying things which are not Buddhist at all. In Mahayana sutras,” he quotes, ”Mahayana scriptures, it is perfectly and clearly stated that one has to live life ascetically. And you are changing the whole color of Buddha you are making him look as if he is a hedonist!” I don’t care about the Mahayana sutras and the scriptures, but I know Buddha, I know his heart. I know that space from my own experience. I am not a scholar; in fact I have never read these sutras before! Every day I have to look at them and start talking to you. I am not concerned much with what Buddha said, but I know what Buddha would have said. I cannot believe that he was a pessimist. He believes, of course, in a totally different kind of life. He does not believe in the ordinary, unconscious life dishonest, inauthentic, unloving, unmeditative. He calls that life misery, but only a certain kind of life he calls misery. True life cannot be misery, true life is bliss. OH HOW SWEET IT IS TO ENJOY LIFE, LIVING IN HONESTY AND STRENGTH! We have forgotten all honesty. Out of fear we have become dishonest, out of fear we have become false. Out of fear we follow the crowd and become phony. Out of fear we wear masks so that we look like everybody else and we are not like everybody else. Everybody is unique; nobody is like anybody else. We have fallen below the animals as far as honesty is concerned. Kaflin was planning a vacation and did not know what to do with his collie. He wrote to the resort hotel and asked if dogs were allowed. He received this answer from the manager: ”Dear sir, I have been in the hotel business for over thirty years. Never yet have I had to call in the police to eject a disorderly dog in the small hours of the morning. No dog has ever attempted to pass off a bad check on me. Never has a dog set the bedclothes afire through smoking. I have never found a hotel towel in a dog’s suitcase. Certainly, your dog is welcome. P.S. If he will vouch for you, you can come too.” Of course, a dishonest life cannot be a life of bliss. You think you are deceiving others; you are simply destroying yourself and destroying all possibilities of growth, because growth comes through sincerity, honesty, authenticity. Growth comes through accepting your truth in its total nudity. And then life is certainly a joy, then life is certainly a bliss.
THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 61 But you cannot expect anything else from a scholar. A scholar is bound to be stupid, otherwise why should he be a scholar in the first place? An intelligent person will seek and search for truth. He will not bother about Mahayana sutras and scriptures. I have no respect for scholarship. And this man became very much disturbed, so much so that he has left already. If he had been here I would have hammered him a little more, but I received his letter just the other day when he had left. I hope that sometime again he will come, because to me the space of Buddha is a totally different space from what Buddhist scholars think it is. He said, ”Whatsoever you are saying is illogical and against the scriptures.” So far so good! If it is against the scriptures it must have some truth in it. If it is illogical then it must be closer to truth, because truth is illogical. Life is illogical. Those who think that life is logical are simply befooling themselves. Life is absolutely illogical because life contains contradictions and logic cannot contain contradictions. Logic is stupid. A cyclist was stopped on the road by a policeman. He was no ordinary man he was a professor of logic. ”Ah so! No light, that is twenty marks. No brakes, that is fifty marks. No bell, that is ten marks.” The cyclist turned round and looked at the row of traffic lined up behind him. He pointed at the man behind him and said, ”all right, that is eighty marks. But the poor man behind me, what will he have to pay? He has no bicycle even!” Logically, that’s true. If no bells, ten marks, no brakes, fifty marks, no light, twenty marks no bicycle, how much will he have to pay? A male scorpion was walking along the bank of a river. At a certain point he saw on the other bank a most beautiful female scorpion dancing erotically to attract him. He desired very much to cross the river, but he could not swim. Suddenly he saw a big red frog and called to him, but the frog, being afraid of the scorpion’s poison, started to hop away. The scorpion, however, was a philosopher, and he said to the frog, ”Come on, don’t be afraid. Look at it logically. I am not interested in you, I am interested in her. I just want you to get me across the river. Everything will be okay. I am obviously not going to sting you because if I do, not only will you die, but I will die too because I can’t swim. So come on, be logical and help me get across.” The red frog reluctantly agreed. The scorpion jumped on his shoulders and they began to cross the river. The frog swam very carefully, always looking towards the approaching shore. Suddenly the frog felt a shooting pain in his ass and shortly after he felt the coolness of death slowly overtaking him. He turned to the scorpion and said, ”Shit! This is not logic at all!” ”Yes,” the scorpion agreed. ”It is not logic, it is my nature.” Logic is one thing, life is totally another. My concern here is not logic but life. My statements may not be logical they cannot be but they are alive; they have the flavor of life. Buddha says: OH HOW SWEET IT IS TO ENJOY LIFE, LIVING IN HONESTY AND STRENGTH! AND WISDOM IS SWEET, AND FREEDOM. Buddha says: Meditation brings two things. It brings wisdom, it brings freedom. These two flowers grow out of meditation. When you become silent, utterly silent, beyond the mind, two flowers bloom in you. One is of wisdom: you know what is and what is not. And the other is of freedom: you know now there are no more any limitations on you, either of time or of space. You become liberated. Meditation is the key to liberation, to freedom, to wisdom. Enough for today. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 9 Chapter 8 The nature of things Audio:Yes Video:No Length:0 mins The first question: Question 1 BELOVED MASTER, I UNDERSTAND YOU TO SAY THAT THE INTELLECT IS A BARRIER TO SELF- REALIZATION. PLEASE EXPLAIN FURTHER WHAT YOU MEAN BY THIS. I HAVE BEEN VERY IN- TERESTED TO LISTEN TO YOUR LECTURES DURING THE PAST FEW DAYS. FAR FROM BEING UNINTELLECTUAL, THEY COULD BE DESCRIBED AS AN INTELLECTUAL TOUR DE FORCE. FUR- THERMORE, A SCIENTIST CANNOT DISCARD HIS SHARE OF KNOWLEDGE ON WHICH HE BASES HIS JUDGMENTS: SURELY HIS JUDGMENTS MUST BE OBJECTIVE. I FEEL THAT I MUST HAVE MIS- UNDERSTOOD YOU.
Page 1 and 2:
THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDD
Page 3 and 4:
Page 5 and 6:
Page 7 and 8:
Page 9 and 10: THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDD
Page 59: THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDD
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134:
Page 135 and 136:
Page 137 and 138:
Page 139 and 140:
Page 141 and 142:
Page 143 and 144:
Page 145 and 146:
Page 147 and 148:
Page 149 and 150:
Page 151 and 152:
Page 153 and 154:
Page 155 and 156:
Page 157 and 158:
Page 159 and 160:
Page 161 and 162:
Page 163 and 164:
Page 165 and 166:
Page 167 and 168:
Page 169 and 170:
Page 171 and 172:
Page 173 and 174:
Page 175 and 176:
Page 177 and 178:
Page 179 and 180:
Page 181 and 182:
Page 183 and 184:
Page 185 and 186:
Page 187 and 188:
Page 189 and 190:
Page 191 and 192:
Page 193 and 194:
Page 195 and 196:
Page 197 and 198:
Page 199 and 200:
Page 201 and 202:
Page 203 and 204:
Page 205 and 206:
Page 207 and 208:
Page 209 and 210:
Page 211 and 212:
Page 213 and 214:
Page 215 and 216:
Page 217 and 218:
Page 219 and 220:
Page 221 and 222:
Page 223 and 224:
Page 225 and 226:
Page 227 and 228:
Page 229 and 230:
Page 231 and 232:
Page 233 and 234:
Page 235 and 236:
Page 237 and 238:
Page 239 and 240:
Page 241 and 242:
Page 243 and 244:
Page 245 and 246:
Page 247 and 248:
Page 249 and 250:
Page 251 and 252:
Page 253 and 254:
Page 255 and 256:
Page 257 and 258:
Page 259 and 260:
Page 261 and 262:
Page 263 and 264:
Page 265 and 266:
Page 267 and 268:
Page 269 and 270:
Page 271 and 272:
Page 273 and 274:
Page 275 and 276:
Page 277 and 278:
Page 279 and 280:
Page 281 and 282:
Page 283 and 284:
Page 285 and 286:
Page 287 and 288:
Page 289 and 290:
Page 291 and 292:
Page 293 and 294:
Page 295 and 296:
Page 297 and 298:
Page 299 and 300:
Page 301 and 302:
Page 303 and 304:
Page 305 and 306:
Page 307 and 308:
Page 309 and 310:
Page 311 and 312:
Page 313 and 314:
Page 315 and 316:
Page 317 and 318:
Page 319 and 320:
Page 321 and 322:
Page 323 and 324:
Page 325 and 326:
Page 327 and 328:
Page 329 and 330:
Page 331 and 332:
Page 333 and 334:
Page 335 and 336:
Page 337 and 338:
Page 339 and 340:
Page 341 and 342:
Page 343 and 344:
Page 345 and 346:
Page 347 and 348:
Page 349 and 350:
Page 351 and 352:
Page 353 and 354:
Page 355 and 356:
Page 357 and 358:
Page 359 and 360:
Page 361 and 362:
Page 363 and 364:
Page 365 and 366:
Page 367 and 368:
Page 369 and 370:
Page 371 and 372:
Page 373 and 374:
Page 375 and 376:
Page 377 and 378:
show all

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

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?