..續本文上一頁nd to be unsure and haven”t yet found fulfillment in their practice. They haven”t yet reached the goal. It”s as if we have left our home to travel to many different places. Whether we get into a car or board a boat, no matter where we go, we still haven”t reached our home. As long as we still haven”t reached home we don”t feel content, we still have some unfinished business to take care of. This is because our journey is not yet finished, we haven”t reached our destination. We travel all over the place in search of liberation.

　　All of you bhikkhus and samaneras here want peace, every one of you. Even myself, when I was younger, searched all over for peace. Wherever I went I couldn”t be satisfied. Going into forests or visiting various teachers, listening to Dhamma talks, I could find no satisfaction. Why is this

　　We look for peace in peaceful places, where there won”t be sights, or sounds, or odors, or flavors... thinking that living quietly like this is the way to find contentment, that herein lies peace.

　　But actually, if we live very quietly in places where nothing arises, can wisdom arise

　　 Would we be aware of anything

　　 Think about it. If our eye didn”t see sights, what would that be like

　　 If the nose didn”t experience smells, what would that be like

　　 If the tongue didn”t experience flavors what would that be like

　　 If the body didn”t experience feelings at all, what would that be like

　　 To be like that would be like being a blind and deaf man, one whose nose and tongue had fallen off and who was completely numb with paralysis. Would there be anything there

　　 And yet people tend to think that if they went somewhere where nothing happened they would find peace. Well, I”ve thought like that myself, I once thought that way...

　　When I was a young monk just starting to practice, I”d sit in meditation and sounds would disturb me, I”d think to myself, "What can I do to make my mind peaceful

　　" So I took some beeswax and stuffed my ears with it so that I couldn”t hear anything. All that remained was a humming sound. I thought that would be peaceful, but no, all that thinking and confusion didn”t arise at the ears after all. It arose at the mind. That is the place to search for peace.

　　To put it another way, no matter where you go to stay, you don”t want to do anything because it interferes with your practice. You don”t want to sweep the grounds or do any work, you just want to be still and find peace that way. The teacher asks you to help out with the chores or any of the daily duties but you don”t put your heart into it because you feel it is only an external concern.

　　I”ve often brought up the example of one of my disciples who was really eager to "let go" and find peace. I taught about "letting go" and he accordingly understood that to let go of everything would indeed be peaceful. Actually right from the day he had come to stay here he didn”t want to do anything. Even when the wind blew half the roof off his kuti he wasn”t interested. He said that that was just an external thing. So he didn”t bother fixing it up. When the sunlight and rain streamed in from one side he”d move over to the other side. That wasn”t any business of his. His business was to make his mind peaceful. That other stuff was a distraction, he wouldn”t get involved. That was how he saw it.

　　One day I was walking past and saw the collapsed roof.

　　"Eh

　　 Whose kuti is this

　　"

　　Someone told me whose it was, and I thought, "Hmm. Strange..." So I had a talk with him, explaining many things, such as the duties in regard to our dwellings, the senasanavatta. "We must have a dwelling place, and we must look after it. "Letting go" isn”t like this, it doesn”t mean shirking our responsibilities. That”s the action of a fool. The rain comes in on one side so you move over …

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