"...Our discontent is due to wrong view. Because we don”t exercise sense restraint we blame our suffering on externals... The right abiding place for monks, the place of coolness, is just Right View itself. We shouldn”t look for anything else..."

　　Right View — The Place of Coolness

　　The practice of Dhamma goes against our habits, the truth goes against our desires, so there is difficulty in the practice. Some things which we understand as wrong may be right, while the things we take to be right may be wrong. Why is this

　　 Because our minds are in darkness, we don”t clearly see the Truth. We don”t really know anything and so are fooled by people”s lies. They point out what is right as being wrong and we believe it; that which is wrong, they say is right, and we believe that. This is because we are not yet our own masters. Our moods lie to us constantly. We shouldn”t take this mind and its opinions as our guide, because it doesn”t know the truth.

　　Some people don”t want to listen to others at all, but this is not the way of a man of wisdom. A wise man listens to everything. One who listens to Dhamma must listen just the same, whether he likes it or not, and not blindly believe or disbelieve. He must stay at the half-way mark, the middle point, and not be heedless. He just listens and then contemplates, giving rise to the right results accordingly.

　　A wise man should contemplate and see the cause and effect for himself before he believes what he hears. Even if the teacher speaks the truth, don”t just believe it, because you don”t yet know the truth of it for yourself.

　　It”s the same for all of us, including myself. I”ve practiced before you, I”ve seen many lies before. For instance, "This practice is really difficult, really hard." Why is the practice difficult

　　 It”s just because we think wrongly, we have wrong view.

　　Previously I lived together with other monks, but I didn”t feel right. I ran away to the forests and mountains, fleeing the crowd, the monks and novices. I thought that they weren”t like me, they didn”t practice as hard as I did. They were sloppy. That person was like this, this person was like that. This was something that really put me in turmoil, it was the cause for my continually running away. But whether I lived alone or with others I still had no peace. On my own I wasn”t content, in a large group I wasn”t content. I thought this discontent was due to my companions, due to my moods, due to my living place, the food, the weather, due to this and that. I was constantly searching for something to suit my mind.

　　As a dhutanga 25 monk, I went traveling, but things still weren”t right. So I contemplated, "What can I do to make things right

　　 What can I do

　　" Living with a lot of people I was dissatisfied, with few people I was dissatisfied. For what reason

　　 I just couldn”t see it. Why was I dissatisfied

　　 Because I had wrong view, just that; because I still clung to the wrong Dhamma. Wherever I went I was discontent, thinking, "Here is no good, there is no good..." on and on like that. I blamed others. I blamed the weather, heat and cold, I blamed everything! Just like a mad dog. It bites whatever it meets, because it”s mad. When the mind is like this our practice is never settled. Today we feel good, tomorrow no good. It”s like that all the time. We don”t attain contentment or peace.

　　The Buddha once saw a jackal, a wild dog, run out of the forest where he was staying. It stood still for a while, then it ran into the underbrush, and them out again. Then it ran into a tree hollow, then out again. Then it went into a cave, only to run out again. One minute it stood, the next it ran, then it lay down, then it jumped up... That jackal had mange. When it stood the mange would eat into its skin, so it would run. Running it w…

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