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

76 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
Now, Marco’s dream is Marco’s dream; it has nothing to do with Jesus. But in your dreams, Jesus will take a
form that is really imposed by you, Buddha will take a form that is imposed by you. Rather than allowing them
to transform you, you would like to transform them according to your ideas. This has been happening down the
ages.
IF YOU ARE FILLED WITH DESIRE,
says Buddha,
YOUR SORROWS SWELL LIKE THE GRASS AFTER THE RAIN.
The more desires you have, the more misery you will create for yourself. Misery is a consequence of desiring
and you go on desiring. In fact, you think that if your desires are fulfilled your miseries will disappear. In the
first place they are never fulfilled; in the second place, if they are fulfilled, nothing is fulfilled by their fulfillment.
You remain as empty as you have always been or even more, because up to now you were occupied with a certain
desire; now even that is fulfilled. A deep, deep emptiness comes to you.
You wanted to have a beautiful house; now you have it. Suddenly, you don’t know what to do. You were so
much engaged in earning money, you were so mad after getting the house; now you have got it. For a moment
you feel good not because of the house, remember, but just because the whole tension, that mounting tension
has disappeared the house is yours. All that strain and tension is relaxed; it is the relaxation of that tension
that gives you a little experience of pleasure. That you could have experienced any time if you had relaxed; it has
nothing to do with the house.
See the mechanism of desire! But after that relaxation, after a few moments or a few hours or maybe a few
days... it depends how intelligent you are. If you are really intelligent, then within seconds that disappears you
can see the futility of it. If you are not that intelligent, then a few hours; if you are really stupid, then a few
days. It is in the proportion of your stupidity: you will remain happier for a longer period if you are more stupid
because you will not see the point. But sooner or later, howsoever stupid you are, it is bound to disappear. And
then you will be left with a great emptiness, hollowness, and you would like again to strive for something else.
Maybe you need more money now or a beautiful woman to suit the beautiful house. Again a new desire, and you
rush. Again you will attain... and for a few moments, the relaxation.
It is like the sexual experience. What pleasure you attain in sexuality is nothing but the pleasure of a mounting
excitement, tension, and then the relaxation. Your energies go on mounting higher and higher and higher, and
then you explode you ejaculate. And suddenly you fall back into a certain calmness; the excitement is gone. But
you don’t learn anything from it: that this is the whole secret of all your pleasures. Running, rushing, competing,
fighting for something creates great tension.
That’s why it happens that if you are involved into something really deeply you may not feel any interest in
sexuality. If you are involved deep in scientific endeavor you may not be interested in sex at all. You may be a little
puzzled, confused: ”Why are people so much interested in sex? What is there?” You have found a new sexuality
for yourself. Science is your wife; now you are running after science. Or you may be a politician; then politics is
your wife. But one day, when you become the prime minister of the country or the president of the country, you
have reached to the climax, and then after the climax there is nowhere to go... a certain calm falls over you. That
calm is misunderstood as if you have attained it through the experience, by becoming the president, the prime
minister, famous, respectable, a Nobel Prize winner. It is not that; it is because of relaxation.
If you relax right now without attaining anything, that same calm will fall over you even deeper because you
will be full of energy. But we never look into anything, and even if we look into anything we conclude very
superficially.
I have heard about a man who was passing through a forest, felt his bladder was full, stopped his car, went
behind a bush. As he was pissing, a wild bee stung his prick. He screamed the pain was too much and he did
not know what to do.
Then suddenly he remembered, twenty years back when he was just a child it had happened once and his
mother had a remedy for it. She had given him a glass of milk and told him to put his prick in the glass, and it
had soothed him, calmed him. But where to find the glass of milk? And the pain was excruciating! And tears
were coming down from his eyes as he started driving in the hope of finding somebody in the forest.
He was able to find a small hut. He knocked on the door. He was feeling very embarrassed how to say it and
what to say? A woman opened the door, but the pain was so much that he had to say something. So he said,
”Please don’t ask me why, just give me a glass of milk. I am in terrible pain, I am dying! Just give me a glass of
milk and please, don’t ask why because I cannot answer it. I am feeling so embarrassed!”
The woman could see the pain of the man. She rushed in, brought a glass of milk.
The man took the glass of milk, rushed towards the back of the house.