..續本文上一頁your teacher, to gather as friends in Dharma, so I am offering some teaching about the path of practice. The practice of respect is a supreme dharma. There can be no disharmony, people will not fight and kill each other, when there is true respect. Paying respects to a spiritual master, to our preceptors and teachers, causes us to flourish; the Buddha spoke of it as something auspicious.

　　A city person may like to eat mushrooms. He asks, where do the mushrooms come from

　　 Someone tells him, “They grow in the earth.” So he picks up a basket and goes walking out into the countryside, expecting the mushrooms will be lined up along the side of the road for him to pick. But he walks and walks, climbing hills and trekking through fields, without seeing any mushrooms. A village person has gone picking mushrooms before, and he will know where to look for them; he knows which part of which forest to go to. But the city person only has the experience of seeing mushrooms in his plate. He heard they grow in the earth and got the idea that they would be easy to find, but it didn”t work out that way.

　　Training the mind in samadhi is like this. We get the idea it will be easy. But when we sit, our legs hurt, our back hurts, we feel tired, we get hot and itchy. Then we start to feel discouraged, thinking that samadhi is as far away from us as the sky from the earth. We don”t know what to do and become overwhelmed by the difficulties. But if we can receive some training, it will get easier little by little.

　　So you who come here to practice samadhi feel it”s difficult. I had my troubles with it, too. I trained with an Ajahn, and when we were sitting I”d open my eyes to look: “Oh! Is Ajahn ready to stop yet

　　” I”d close my eyes again and try to bear a little longer. I felt like it was going to kill me, and I kept opening my eyes, but he looked so comfortable sitting there. One hour, two hours, I would be in agony but the Ajahn didn”t move. So after a while I got to fear the sittings. When it was time to practice samadhi, I”d feel afraid.

　　When we are new to it, training in samadhi is difficult. Anything is difficult when we don”t know how to do it. This is our obstacle. But training at it, this can change. That which is good can eventually overcome and surpass that which is not good. We tend to become fainthearted as we struggle—this is a normal reaction, and we all go through it. So it”s important to train for some time. It”s like making a path through the forest. At first it”s rough going, with a lot of obstructions, but returning to it again and again, we clear the way. After some time, we have removed the branches and stumps, and the ground becomes firm and smooth from being walked on repeatedly. Then we have a good path for walking through the forest.

　　This is what it”s like when we train the mind. Keeping at it, the mind becomes illumined. For example, we country people grow up eating rice and fish. Then when we come to learn Dharma, we are told to refrain from harming: we should not kill living creatures. What can we do then

　　 We feel we are really in a bind. Our market is in the fields. If the teachers are telling us not to kill, we won”t eat. Just this much and we are at our wits” ends. How will we feed ourselves

　　 There doesn”t seem to be any way for us rural people. Our marketplace is the field and the forest. We have to catch animals and kill them in order to eat.

　　I”ve been trying to teach people ways to deal with this issue for many years. It”s like this: farmers eat rice. For the most part, people who work in the fields grow and eat rice. So what about a tailor in town

　　 Does he eat sewing machines

　　 Does he eat cloth

　　 Let”s just consider this first. You are a farmer so you eat rice. If someone offers you another job, will you refuse, sayi…

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