..續本文上一頁 on the pile of rice grain. It”s sleeping on a pile of food but it knows nothing of it. When it gets hungry it”s got to jump off and go trotting around elsewhere for food. It”s a shame, isn”t it

　　Now this is the same: there is rice grain but what is hiding it

　　 The husk hides the grain, so the dog can”t eat it. And there is the Transcendent. What hides it

　　 The Apparent conceals the Transcendent, making people simply "sit on top of the pile of rice, unable to eat it," unable to practice, unable to see the Transcendent. And so they simply get stuck in appearances time and again. If you are stuck in appearances suffering is in store, you will be beset by becoming, birth, old age, sickness and death.

　　So there isn”t anything else blocking people off, they are blocked right here. People who study the Dhamma without penetrating to its true meaning are just like the dog on the pile of unthreshed rice who doesn”t know the rice. He might even starve and still find nothing to eat. A dog can”t eat unthreshed rice, it doesn”t even know there is food there. After a long time without food it may even die... on top of that pile of rice! People are like this. No matter how much we study the Dhamma of the Buddha we won”t see it if we don”t practice. If we don”t see it then we don”t know it.

　　Don”t go thinking that by learning a lot and knowing a lot you”ll know the Buddha Dhamma. That”s like saying you”ve seen everything there is to see just because you”ve got eyes, or that you”ve got ears. You may see but you don”t see fully. You see only with the "outer eye," not with the "inner eye”; you hear with the "outer ear," not with the "inner ear."

　　If you upturn the apparent and reveal the Transcendent you will reach the truth and see clearly. You will uproot the Apparent and uproot clinging.

　　But this is like some sort of sweet fruit: even though the fruit is sweet we must rely on contact with and experience of that fruit before we will know what the taste is like. Now that fruit, even though no-one tastes it, is sweet all the same. But nobody knows of it. The Dhamma of the Buddha is like this. Even though it”s the truth it isn”t true for those who don”t really know it. No matter how excellent or fine it may be it is worthless to them.

　　So why do people grab after suffering

　　 Who in this world wants to inflict suffering on themselves

　　 No-one, of course. Nobody wants suffering and yet people keep creating the causes of suffering, just as if they were wandering around looking for suffering. Within their hearts people are looking for happiness, they don”t want suffering. Then why is it that this mind of ours creates so much suffering

　　 Just seeing this much is enough. We don”t like suffering and yet why do we create suffering for ourselves

　　 It”s easy to see... it can only be because we don”t know suffering, don”t know the end of suffering. That”s why people behave the way they do. How could they not suffer when they continue to behave in this way

　　These people have micchaditthi [65] but they don”t see that it”s micchaditthi. Whatever we say, believe in or do which results in suffering is all wrong view. If it wasn”t wrong view it wouldn”t result in suffering. We couldn”t cling to suffering, nor to happiness or to any condition at all. We would leave things be their natural way, like a flowing stream of water. We don”t have to dam it up, just let it flow along its natural course.

　　The flow of Dhamma is like this, but the flow of the ignorant mind tries to resist the Dhamma in the form of wrong view. And yet it flies off everywhere else, seeing wrong view, that is, suffering is there because of wrong view -- this people don”t see. This is worth looking into. Whenever we have wrong view we will experience suffering. If we don”t experience it in the p…

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