..續本文上一頁y don”t people take these things to heart

　　164

　　Seeing that we are better than others is not right. Seeing that we are equal to others is not right. Seeing that we are inferior to others is not right. If we think that we”re better than others, pride arises. If we think that we are equal to others, we fail to show respect and humility at the proper times. If we think that we are inferior to others, we get depressed thinking about it and try to blame our inferiority on having been born under a bad sign, and so on. Just let all of that go!

　　165

　　We must learn to let go of conditions and not try to oppose or resist them. And yet we plead with them to comply with our wishes. We look for all sorts of means to organize them or make a deal with them. If the body gets sick and is in pain, we don”t want it to be so, so we look for various suttas to chant. We don”t want to control it. These suttas become some form of mystical ceremony, getting us even more entangled in clinging. This is because we chant them in order to ward off illness, to prolong life and so on. Actually The Buddha gave us these teachings in order to help us know the truth of the body, so that we can let go and give up our longings, but we end up chanting them to increase our delusion.

　　166

　　Know your own body, heart, and mind. Be content with little. Don”t be attached to the teachings. Don”t go and hold on top emotions.

　　167

　　Some people are afraid of generosity. They feel that they will be exploited or oppressed. In cultivating generosity, we are only oppressing our greed and attachment. This allows our true nature to express itself and become lighter and freer.

　　168

　　If you reach out and grab a fire in your neighbor”s house, the fire will be hot. If you grab a fire in your own house, that, too, will be hot. So don”t grab at anything that can burn you, no matter what or where it is.

　　169

　　People outside may call us mad to live in the fore4st like this, sitting like statues. But how do they live

　　 They laugh, they cry, and are so caught up in greed and hatred that at times they kill themselves or one another. Now, who are the mad ones

　　170

　　More than merely teaching people, Ajahn Chah trained them by creating a general environment and specific situations where they could learn about themselves. He would say things like, "Of what I teach you, you understand maybe 15%," or "He”s been a monk for five years, so he understands 5%." A junior monk said in response to the latter. "So I must have 1% since I”ve been here one year." "No," was Ajahn Chah”s reply. "The first four years you have no percent, then the fifth year, you have 5%."

　　171

　　One of Ajahn Chah”s disciples was once asked if he was ever going to disrobe, if he was going to die in the yellow robes. The disciple said that it was hard to think about, and that although he had no plans to disrobe, he couldn”t really decide that he never would. When he looked into it, he said, his thoughts seemed meaningless. Ajahn Chah then replied by saying, "That they are meaningless is the real Dhamma."

　　172

　　When someone asked Ajahn Chah why there was so much crime in Thailand, a Buddhist country, or why Indochina was such a mess, he said, "Those aren”t Buddhists who are doing those unwholesome things. That isn”t Buddhism. Buddha never taught anything like that. People are doing those things!"

　　173

　　Once a visitor asked Ajahn Chah if he was an arahant. He said, "I am like a tree in a forest. Birds come to the tree; they sit on its branches and eat its fruit. To the birds the tree may be sweet or sour or whatever. But the tree doesn”t know anything about it. The birds say sweet or they say sour, but from the tree”s point of view, this is just the chattering of birds."

　　174

　　Someone commented, "I can observe desi…

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