..續本文上一頁ink that you won”t suffer from that fire. The heat of the fire will make you miserable. If you want peace, then don”t do anything at the physical level or at the vocal level which will disturb the peace and harmony of others, which will harm and hurt others. Wonderful! Wonderful!
People keep listening to such discourses, but they listen with this ear, and it goes out the other ear. This happens with everyone”s teaching. We are not here to condemn the teaching of other religions but to understand the difference. A drunkard knows very well that drinking is not good for him. He wants to come out of it. A gambler understands that gambling is not good for him. He would like to come out of it; and yet when the time comes, he or she can”t control himself or herself. He or she commits the same thing. One understands that one should not do it, and yet one is a slave of one”s own mind, because one does not have mastery over the mind.
So the next step is to develop samadhi, mastery over the mind. Again, the teaching of samadhi was not just the monopoly of the Buddha. The contemporary teachers at the time of the Buddha were teaching samadhi. Before the Buddha became Buddha, he himself went to two teachers, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta from whom he learned the technique of deep samadhi up to the seventh jhana (absorbed concentration) and the eighth jhana. So samadhi was being taught. Different types of practices of samadhi were there, and yet the teaching of the Buddha is wonderfully different. There can be no comparison between the samadhi that was practiced in those days, the lokiya-jhana (mundane absorption), and what he developed and taught others, the lokuttara-jhana (supramundane absorption).
It is the same with the teaching of panna, wisdom. This mind, this body, which includes the entire sensorium, is impermanent, anicca, anicca. This cannot be a source of happiness for us. This is only a source of misery, dukkha, dukkha. This phenomenon is not "I," is not "mine," is not "my soul." Anatta. To many people it seems that this was the contribution of the Buddha. But this is not so. Even at the time of the Buddha we find instances when people who were not his disciples came to him and he questioned them, "Kim mannasi
What do you believe about this mind-matter sensorium
Is it nicca or anicca, permanent or impermanent
" And the listener answered, "Anicca." "Is this sukha or dukkha
" and he said, "Dukkha". "Is this I, me, mine, myself, or no I, no me, no myself
" "It is no I, no me, no myself - anatta". He was Bahiya (an outsider), not a follower of Buddha, and yet he gave these answers. Then what was the wonderful contribution of Buddha
First he questioned this person, "Kim mannasi
What do you believe
Is it anicca
Is it dukkha
Is it anatta
" And this person replied, "Yes, this is anicca. It is dukkha. It is anatta." And then the Buddha said, "Evam passa (by observing it so, one becomes liberated from misery). Mere believing won”t help you. Passa: you observe the reality; and with your own observation, jana: direct experience, then you understand this is anicca, this is dukkha, this is anatta." Herein lies the beauty of the Buddha”s teaching.
It is very easy to give sermons and easier still to listen to sermons. "Let”s talk about Dhamma and listen to words of Dhamma.
Oh wonderful! Buddha”s teaching is wonderful." With this approach, one becomes an admirer of the Buddha, one becomes a good devotee of the Buddha, but one does not become a follower of Buddha. To follow the Buddha, passa-yana: by Vipassana you experience for yourself the truth, the law of nature. And then you understand. Then it is your wisdom. Otherwise it is the wisdom of the Buddha, a borrowed wisdom, not your wisdom.
Each inpidual has to develop his or her o…
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