..续本文上一页e probably experienced this, I”d say. This is where you have to look. People concentrate on cleaning the dishes, but they let their minds go dirty. This is not good. They”re forgetting themselves.
Jackal
The Buddha and his disciples once saw a jackal run out of the forest they were staying in. It stood still for a while, then it ran into the underbrush, and then out again. Then it ran into a tree hollow, then out again. One minute it stood, the next it ran, then it lay down, then it jumped up. The jackal had the mange. When it stood, the mange would eat into its skin, so it would run. Running, it was still uncomfortable, so it would stop. Standing, it was still uncomfortable, so it would lie down. Then it would jump up again, running to the underbrush, the tree hollow, never staying still.
The Buddha said, "Monks, did you see that jackal this afternoon
Standing, it suffered. Lying down, it suffered. It blamed standing for its discomfort. It blamed sitting. It blamed running and lying down. It blamed the tree, the underbrush, and the cave. In fact, the problem was with none of those things. The problem was with his mange." We are just the same as the jackal. Our discontent is due to wrong view. Because we don”t exercise sense restraint, we blame our suffering on externals. Whether we live in Thailand, America or England, we aren”t satisfied. Why not
Because we still have wrong view. Just that! So wherever we go, we aren”t content. But just as that jackal would be content wherever it went as soon as its mange was cured, so would we be content wherever we went once we cured ourselves of wrong view.
Knife
A knife has a blade, a spine and a handle. Can you lift up only the blade
Can you lift up only the handle
The handle, the spine and the blade are all parts of the same knife. When you pick up the knife, all three parts come up at the same time. In the same way, if you pick up that which is good, the bad must follow. People search for goodness and try to throw away evil, but they don”t study that which is neither good nor evil. If you don”t study this, then you won”t have real understanding. If you pick up goodness, badness follows. If you pick up happiness, suffering follows. Train the mind until it is above good and evil. That”s when the practice is finished.
Knot
We contemplate happiness and unhappiness as uncertain and impermanent and understand that all the various feelings we experience are not lasting and not to be clung to. We see things in this way, because we have wisdom. We understand that things are impermanent according to their own nature. If we have this kind of understanding, it”s like taking hold of one strand of a rope that makes a knot and pulling it in the right direction. The knot will then loosen and begin to untangle. It”ll no longer be so tight and tense.
This is similar to understanding that things don”t always have to be the way they”ve always been. Before, we felt that things had to be a certain way, and in so doing, we pulled the knot tighter and tighter. This tightness is suffering. Living that way is very tense. So we loosen the knot a little and relax. Why do we loosen it
Because it”s tight! If we don”t cling to it, then we can loosen it. It”s not a condition that must always be that way. We use the teaching of impermanence as our basis. We see that both happiness and unhappiness are not permanent. We see them as not dependable. There”s absolutely nothing that is permanent. With this kind of understanding, we gradually stop believing in the various moods and feelings that come up in our mind. Wrong understanding will decrease in the same degree that we stop believing in them. This is what is meant by undoing the knot. It continues to become looser. Attachment will be gradually uprooted…
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