..續本文上一頁 of that unconditional love - that which wants to help, to sacrifice even our own comfort for the sake of another being. This is a way we can regard our inner being, our heart. Forgiving its faults, we dwell upon its nobility, its purity, its kindness. We can do the same with other people, we can dwell upon their goodness and watch it grow.

　　This is what we call kamma - actions; the way we think about life, the way we speak about life, what we do with life. And really it is up to us what we do, it is not up to some supernatural being up there who says whether you will be happy or not. Your happiness is completely in your hands, in your power. This is what we mean by kamma. It”s like baking a cake: kamma defines what ingredients you have, what you have got to work with. So a person with unfortunate kamma, maybe as a result of their past actions, has not got many ingredients. Maybe they have just got some old stale flour, one or two raisins, if that, and some rancid butter, and - what else goes in cakes

　　 - some sugar... and that is all they have got to work with. And another person might have very good kamma, all the ingredients you could ever wish for: whole wheat flour, brown sugar and all types of dried fruit and nuts. But as for the cake that is produced in the end... Even with very meagre ingredients some people can bake a beautiful cake. They mix it all up, put it into the oven - delicious! How do they do it

　　 And then other people might have everything, but the cake they make tastes awful.

　　So kamma defines the ingredients, what we have got to work with; but that does not define what we make with it. So if a person is wise, it does not matter what they have got to work with. You can still make a beautiful cake - as long as you know how.

　　Of course the first thing to know is that the last way to make a good cake is to complain all the time about the ingredients you have. Sometimes in the monastery, if there is an ingredient missing the people who are cooking look in the pantry and just use whatever is there. They have to be quite versatile and you get some very strange cakes, but they are all delicious, because people have learned the art of using what they have and making something of it.

　　So where is kamma heading

　　 What are we actually making of it

　　 Is it to be wealthy or to be powerful

　　 No. This meditation, this Buddhism, the direction we are going in, is towards enlightenment. We are using the ingredients we have to become enlightened. But what does enlightenment actually mean

　　 Enlightenment means there is no anger left in your heart. There is no personal desire or delusion left in your heart.

　　At one time there was a Russian teacher called Gurdjief who had a community in France. In his community there was one fellow who was just absolutely obnoxious. He was always annoying people and giving them a really hard time. So the community would meet together and they would ask Gurdjief to send him away, to get rid of the fellow, because he was always creating arguments and making people unhappy. But Gurdjief never would. However later on, after he died, they found out that he had actually been paying the fellow to stay there! Everyone else would have to pay for board and lodging. But Gurdjief was actually paying the fellow to be there -- to teach the people a lesson. If you can only be happy when you live with the people you like, your happiness is not worth anything, because you are not being stirred up. It is like a glass of muddy water, when it is not stirred up it looks clear, doesn”t it

　　 But as soon as it is agitated, the mud comes from the bottom and is stirred up. It is good to stir up your glass just to see what is in there really. So Gurdjief used to pay this fellow to stir up everybody to see what was there.

　　A ve…

《On Making a Mistake》全文未完，請進入下頁繼續閱讀…