Dukkha sticks on the skin and goes into the flesh; from the flesh, it gets into the bones. It's like an insect on a tree that eats through the bark, into the wood, and then into the core, until finally the tree dies.
As we grow up, it gets buried deep inside. Our parents teach us grasping and attachment, giving meaning to things, believing firmly that we exist as a self-entity and that things belong to us. From our birth that's what we are taught. We hear this over and over again, and it penetrates our hearts and stays there as our habitual feeling. We're taught to get things, to accumulate and hold on to them, to see them as important and as ours. This is what our parents know, and this is what they teach us. So it gets into our minds, into our bones.
When we take an interest in meditation and hear the teaching of a spiritual guide, it's not easy to understand. It doesn't really grab us. We're taught not to see and do things the old way, but when we hear this, it doesn't penetrate our hearts.
So we sit and listen to teachings, but it's often just sound entering the ears. It doesn't get inside and affect us. It's like we're boxing, and we keep hitting the other guy but he doesn't go down. We remain stuck in our self-view. The wise have said that moving a mountain from one place to another is easier than moving the conceit of self-view, this solid feeling that we really exist as some special individual.
We can use explosives to level a mountain and then move the earth. But the tight grasping of self-conceit—oh man! Our wrong ideas and bad tendencies remain so solid and unbudging, and we're not aware of them. So the wise have said that removing this view and turning wrong understanding into right understanding is about the hardest thing to do.
For us who are worldly beings (putthujana) to progress on to being virtuous beings(kalyanajana) is not easy. A putthujana is one who is thickly obscured, who is dark, who is stuck deep in this darkness and obscuration. The kalyanajana has made things lighter. We teach people to lighten, but they don't want to do that, because they don't understand their situation, their condition of obscuration. So they keep on drifting in their confused state.
If we come across a pile of buffalo dung, we won't think it's ours and we won't want to pick it up. We will just leave it where it is, because we know what it is.
Such is what's good in the way of the impure. That which is evil is the food of bad people. If you teach them about doing good, they're not interested, but prefer to stay as they are because they don't see the harm in it. Without seeing the harm, there's no way things can be rectified. If you recognize it, then you think, "Oh! My whole pile of dung doesn't have the value of a small piece of gold!" and you will want gold instead; you won't want the dung anymore. If you don't recognize this, you remain the owner of a pile of dung.
That's the "good" of the impure. Gold, jewels, and diamonds are considered something good in the realm of humans. The foul and rotten are good for flies and other insects. If you gather fresh flowers, the flies won't be interested in them. Even if you tried to pay them, they wouldn't come. But wherever there's a dead animal, wherever there's something rotten, that's where they'll go. Wrong view is like that. It delights in that kind of thing. What's sweet-smelling to a bee is not sweet to a fly.
There were once two close friends. After they died, one was reborn among the gods of sensual enjoyment, while the other was born as a maggot in a pit of excrement.
The god was endowed with various powers, and recalling his dear friend from the past life, he used his clairvoyance to find him. He transported himself to the excrement pit and was able to get his friend to recognize him. They were joyful at meeting again.
The maggot asked the god, "So what's it like where you were reborn?"
The god said, "It's great! Nothing but pure enjoyment! Everything is clean and delightful. Whatever you wish for, it appears instantly. I hope you can go there with me."
But the maggot started crying, because he pitied his friend. "Listen," he said. "Life is so much fun right here. I play all day in this pit. I don't even have to wish for what I want to appear, because it's all right here. You really ought to stay."
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There is difficulty in practice, but in anything we undertake, we have to pass through difficulty to reach ease. In Dharma practice, we begin with the truth of dukkha, the pervasive unsatisfactoriness of existence. But as soon as we experience this, we lose heart. We don't want to look at it. Dukkha is really the truth, but we want to get around it somehow. It's similar to the way we don't like to look at old people, but prefer to look at the young and attractive.
If we don't want to look at dukkha, we will never understand dukkha, no matter how long we live. Dukkha is truth. If we allow ourselves to face it, then we will start to seek a way out of it. If we're trying to go somewhere and the road is blocked, we will think about how to make a pathway. Working at it day after day, we can get through. When we encounter problems, we develop wisdom like this. Without seeing dukkha, we don't really look into and resolve our problems; we just bear with them or pass them by indifferently.
My way of training people involves some suffering, because understanding suffering is the Buddha's path to enlightenment. He wanted us to see suffering, and to see its origination, its cessation, and the path that brings about cessation. This is the way out for all the awakened ones. If you don't go this way, there is no way out.
If we know dukkha, we will see it in everything we experience. Some people feel that they don't really suffer much. But practice in Buddhism is for the purpose of freeing ourselves from suffering, the unsatisfactoriness that pervades ordinary experience. What should we do not to suffer anymore? When dukkha arises, we should investigate to see the causes of its arising. Knowing that, we can practice to remove those causes. Then once we travel the path to fulfillment, dukkha will no longer arise. In Buddhism, this is the way out.
Opposing our habits creates some suffering. But generally, we are afraid of suffering, and if something will make us suffer, we don't want to do it. We are interested in what appears to be good and beautiful, and we feel that anything involving suffering is bad. But it's not like that. If there is suffering in the heart, it becomes the cause that makes you think about escaping. It leads you to contemplate. You will be intent on investigating to find out what is really going on, trying to see causes and their results.
Happy people don't develop wisdom. They're asleep. It's like a dog that eats its fill. After that it doesn't want to do anything. It can sleep all day. It won't bark if a burglar comes—it's too full and too tired. But if you only give it a little food, it will be alert and awake. If someone comes sneaking around, it will jump up and start barking. Have you seen that?
We humans are trapped and imprisoned in this world and have troubles in such abundance, and we are always full of doubt, confusion, and worry. This is no game. So there's something we need to get rid of. According to the way of spiritual cultivation, we should give up our bodies, give up ourselves. We have to resolve to give our lives to the pursuit of liberation.
If we speak the subtle Dharma, most people will be frightened by it. They won't dare to enter it. Even saying, "Don't do evil," most people can't follow this. So I've sought all kinds of means to get this across, and one thing I often say is, no matter if we are delighted or upset, happy or suffering, shedding tears or singing songs, never mind—living in this world, we are living in a cage. We don't get beyond this condition of being in a cage. Even if you are rich, you are living in a cage. If you are poor, you are living in a cage. If you sing and dance, you're singing and dancing in a cage. If you watch a movie, you're watching it in a cage.
What is this cage? It's the cage of birth, the cage of aging, the cage of illness, the cage of death. In this way, we are imprisoned in the world. "This is mine." "That belongs to me." We don't know what we really are or what we're doing. Actually all we are doing is accumulating suffering for ourselves. It's not something far away that causes our suffering, but we don't look at ourselves. However much happiness and comfort we may have, having been born we cannot avoid aging, we must fall ill, and we must die. This is dukkha itself, here and now.
The time we can be afflicted with pain or illness is always. It can happen at any moment. It's like we've stolen something: we could be arrested at any time because we've done that. That's our situation. We exist among harmful things, among danger and trouble; aging, illness, and death reign over our lives. We can't go elsewhere and escape them. They can come catch us at any time—it's always a good opportunity for them. So we have to cede this to them and accept the situation. We have to plead guilty. If we do, the sentence won't be so heavy. If we don't, we suffer enormously. If we plead guilty, they'll go easy on us—we won't be incarcerated too long.
When the body is born, it doesn't belong to anyone. It's like our meditation hall. After it's built, spiders come to stay in it. Lizards come to stay in it. All sorts of insects and crawling things come to stay in it. Snakes may come to live in it. Anything may come to live in it. It's not only our hall; it's everything's hall.
These bodies are the same. They aren't ours. We come to stay in and depend on them. Illness, pain, and aging come to reside in them, and we are merely residing along with them. When these bodies reach the end of pain and illness and finally break up and die, that is not us dying. So don't hold on to any of this, but contemplate clearly, and your grasping will gradually be exhausted.
By Ajahn Chah
Best cousins ever!!
All cousins around.. im the eldest.. but... i look younger! lolz.. :P
Szemin Grad.. Cousin group photo...
Kevin grad was on the week before Szemin...
Morib Beach
Legal Along!
