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

70 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
wants to be reduced into a thing. Your look has no respect in it. If your look has respect, if your excitement has
beauty, grace, there is no problem.
Yes, it has to be transcended one day because this is also a duality man/woman the same duality as between
positive and negative, birth and death, summer and winter. It has to be transcended. One has to come to a point
from where nothing disturbs your coolness, nothing distracts you from your center.
But the way to come to it is not repression, Nanda Kishor. The first step is acceptance: it is natural. Accept
it as part of your nature, as part of your biology. And then try to understand it, watch it, observe it, witness
it. Slowly, slowly as your witnessing will grow, you will go beyond it. One day you will not find any difference
between a man and a woman: you have gone beyond sexuality. That is true brahmacharya, true celibacy, but it
is not what has been told to you.
In the name of celibacy, sex has been repressed for centuries and you have become just full of sexuality. Rather
than transcending it you are boiling within.
In order to find out whether his wife was cheating on him, a man bought a parrot. The parrot was an amazing
bird, but in a fight had lost both legs and had to balance itself on its pelvis.
One day the man questioned the parrot and found out that his wife was, in fact, cheating on him. Quickly he
asked the parrot, ”What happened?”
The parrot said, ”First your wife was kissing a strange man, and then she started to take off her clothes....”
”And then?” interrupted the man.
”And then they both got on the bed....”
”And then?” cried the man.
”Then she pulled on the blankets....”
”And then, and then?”
”I don’t know,” said the parrot. ”I fell over!”
Enough for today.
The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 9
Chapter 9 The monkey in the forest
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IF YOU SLEEP, DESIRE GROWS IN YOU LIKE A VINE IN THE FOREST.
LIKE A MONKEY IN THE FOREST YOU JUMP FROM TREE TO TREE, NEVER FINDING THE FRUIT
FROM LIFE TO LIFE, NEVER FINDING PEACE.
IF YOU ARE FILLED WITH DESIRE, YOUR SORROWS SWELL LIKE THE GRASS AFTER THE RAIN.
BUT IF YOU SUBDUE DESIRE, YOUR SORROWS FALL FROM YOU LIKE DROPS OF WATER FROM
A LOTUS FLOWER.
THIS IS GOOD COUNSEL AND IT IS FOR EVERYONE: AS THE GRASS IS CLEARED FOR THE FRESH
ROOT, CUT DOWN DESIRE LEST DEATH AFTER DEATH CRUSH YOU AS A RIVER CRUSHES THE
HELPLESS REEDS.
FOR IF THE ROOTS HOLD FIRM, A FELLED TREE GROWS UP AGAIN. IF DESIRES ARE NOT
UPROOTED, SORROWS GROW AGAIN IN YOU.
Gautama the Buddha’s most fundamental message to humanity is that man is asleep. Man is born asleep. He
is not talking about the ordinary sleep; he is talking about a metaphysical sleep, a deep, deep unconsciousness
within you. You are acting out of that unconsciousness, so whatsoever you do goes wrong. It is impossible to
do right with this unconsciousness within you. This unconsciousness perverts all of your efforts, it leads you into
wrong directions. It is bound to be so.
Even if a buddha is with you, you will misunderstand him for the mere reason that you are not conscious. If
you are really asleep and a buddha is sitting by the side of you, you cannot recognize him, you cannot see him,
you cannot feel him. You will go on dreaming in your own way; you will remain confined to your own private
world of dreams.
The most private thing in life is your dreaming. When the dreaming disappears you enter into the world of the
universal. Then you enter into truth, into God, into nirvana. But with all your dreams, that is impossible; you
are lost in your own dreams. And it is not only one dream within you; millions of them are constantly growing...
one is being replaced by another. You think that now you are awake because one dream has left you, but another
has taken its place. You can even dream that you are awake. Buddhas go on shouting, but you don’t hear.
Jesus says: If you have eyes to see, see. If you have ears to hear, hear. He is not talking with deaf and blind
people, he is talking with people like you. He is saying exactly the same thing that Buddha is saying: that you
are asleep.