..续本文上一页 in the world! Remember this! Actually, if you just say that really there”s no hen and no rooster then that”s the end of it. In the field of conventional reality one side is right and the other side it wrong, but there will never be complete agreement. Arguing till the tears fall has no use!

　　The Buddha taught not to cling. How do we practice non-clinging

　　 We practice simply to give up clinging, but this non-clinging is very difficult to understand. It takes keen wisdom to investigate and penetrate this, to really achieve non-clinging. When you think about it, whether people are happy or sad, content or discontent, doesn”t depend on their having little or having much — it depends on wisdom. All distress can be transcended only through wisdom, through seeing the truth of things.

　　So the Buddha exhorted us to investigate, to contemplate. This "contemplation" means simply to try to solve these problems correctly. This is our practice. Like birth, old age, sickness and death — they are the most natural and common of occurrences. The Buddha taught to contemplate birth, old age, sickness and death, but some people don”t understand this. "What is there to contemplate

　　" they say. They”re born but they don”t know birth, they will die but they don”t know death.

　　A person who investigates these things repeatedly will see. Having seen he will gradually solve his problems. Even if he still has clinging, if he has wisdom and sees that old age, sickness and death are the way of Nature, then he will be able to relieve suffering. We study the Dhamma simply for this — to cure suffering. There isn”t really much as the basis of Buddhism, there”s just the birth and death of suffering, and this the Buddha called the truth. Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, sickness is suffering and death is suffering. People don”t see this suffering as the truth. If we know truth, then we know suffering.

　　This pride in personal opinions, these arguments, they have no end. In order to put our minds at rest, to find peace, we should contemplate our past, the present, and the things which are in store for us. Like birth, old age, sickness and death. What can we do to avoid being plagued by these

　　 Even though we may still have a little worry, if we investigate till we know according to the truth, all suffering will abate, we will no longer cling to it.

《A Taste Of Freedom - Convention and Liberation》全文阅读结束。