..續本文上一頁ant lightness. We carry the log, and someone sees us doing this and tells us to drop it. We say we can”t, because what would we have then

　　 But the other person says that if we drop it, then we can get something better. The two have a hard time communicating.

　　If we make offerings and practice good deeds in order to get something, it doesn”t work out. What we get is becoming and birth. It isn”t a cause for realizing Nibbana. Nibbana is giving up and letting go. If we are trying to get, to hold on, to give meaning to things, that isn”t a cause for realizing Nibbana. The Buddha wanted us to look here, at this empty place of letting go. This is merit. This is skillfulness.

　　When we practice any sort of merit and virtue, once we have done that, we should feel that our part is done. We shouldn”t carry it any further. We do it for the purpose of giving up defilements and craving. We don”t do it for the purpose of creating defilements and craving and attachment. Then where will we go

　　 We don”t go anywhere. Our practice is correct and true.

　　Most of us Buddhists, though we follow the forms of practice and learning, have a hard time understanding this kind of talk. It”s because Mara, meaning ignorance, meaning craving, the desire to get, to have, and to be, enshrouds the mind. We only find temporary happiness. For example, when we are filled with hatred towards someone, it takes over our minds and gives us no peace. We think about the person all the time, thinking what we can do to strike out at him. The thinking never stops. Then maybe one day we get a chance to go to his house and curse him and tell him off. That gives us some release. Does that make an end of our defilements

　　 We found a way to let off steam, and we feel better for it. But we haven”t gotten rid of the affliction of anger, have we

　　 There is some happiness in defilement and craving, but it”s like this. We”re still storing the defilement inside, and when the conditions are right, it will flare up again even worse than before. Then we will want to find some temporary release again. Do the defilements ever get finished in this way

　　It”s similar when someone”s spouse or children die, or when people suffer big financial loss. They drink to relieve their sorrow. They go to a movie to relieve their sorrow. Does it really relieve the sorrow

　　 The sorrow actually grows; but for the time being they can forget about what happened, so they call it a way to cure their misery. It”s like if you have a cut on the bottom of your foot that makes walking painful. Anything that contacts it hurts, and you limp along complaining of the discomfort. But if you see a tiger coming your way, you”ll take off and start running without any thought of your cut. Fear of the tiger is much more powerful than the pain in your foot, so it”s as if the pain is gone. The fear made it something small.

　　You might experience problems at work or at home that seem so big. Then you get drunk, and in that drunken state of more powerful delusion, those problems no longer trouble you so much. You think it solved your problems and relieved your unhappiness. But when you sober up, the old problems are back. So what happened to your solution

　　 You keep suppressing the problems with drink, and they keep on coming back. You might end up with cirrhosis of the liver, but you don”t get rid of the problems; and then one day you are dead.

　　There is some comfort and happiness here; it”s the happiness of fools. It”s the way that fools stop their suffering. There”s no wisdom here. These different confused conditions are mixed in the heart that has a feeling of well-being. If the mind is allowed to follow its moods and tendencies, it feels some happiness. But this happiness is always storing unhappiness within it. Each time it erupt…

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