Unexpected Freedom

Prayer and Devotiontravelled from village to village, performing tricks as a way ofearning a living. As part of their act the older of the twowould hold a ladder on his shoulders while the youngerscampered up and performed. They were obviously awarethat they needed to maintain close attention; otherwise itcould have been dangerous. One day the older one spoke,saying that he thought for the sake of keeping their act on theroad the younger one needed to pay closer attention to whathe was doing down below on the ground. He in turn wouldapply closer attention to what was going on at the top of theladder. The younger one respectfully listened, but then saidhe felt it would be more effective if instead of watching eachother they paid closer attention to what each one wasthemselves doing. That way, he said, there would be benefit.The Buddha’s comment on this was that the younger one hadit right. If we are each more careful about what is ours to beresponsible for, then we actually benefit each other.At the end of each day I find it wonderfully rewarding todedicate the merit of my practice. It is not my place to worryabout whether by making these wishes anyone else feelsbetter. I am focused on doing what I can to reduce thetendencies of greed, aversion and delusion in my own heart.So I dwell on the thought, ‘May this act of dedication bringbenefit to my teachers – to Ajahn Tate, Ajahn Chah, and allthose teachers I’ve lived with; Ajahn Sumedho, withoutwhom the monasteries in Britain wouldn’t exist; the monksthat I’ve lived with, my mother, my father and the peoplethat I care about, and those that I don’t particularly careabout; everybody who’s ever lived here at Ratanagiri, who isliving here now and will ever live here in the future.’ Thecontents of the prayer can differ from day to day but theimportant thing is generating a genuine sense of wellwishingor loving-kindness to all people and all beings,137