..续本文上一页as no desire from that, coming from, ignorance. There was the ability to respond, to teach out of compassion for other beings, but there was no self to do it: there was just the remaining of what was left of that lifetime. He lived over forty years after his enlightenment, for the welfare of others beings. Language gets very confusing, because cessation sounds like annihilation to us-but it isn”t. It”s the ceasing of ignorance, the cessation of ignorance.

　　**Khandhas - body or form (rupa) and mind, which is made up of feeling (vedana), perception or recognition (sanna), mind creations (sankhara), and consciousness dependent on the six senses (vinnana)

　　Q: If there is no desire, if there”s parinibbana, doesn”t that mean everything ceases

　　A: That”s it. There”s the nibbana of non-grasping while the bodies still living, and then there”s the parinibbana the final relinquishment; there”s nothing to get reborn. You see, when people die still unenlightened they desire to be reborn again. If you identify with the body, then you try to hold onto it as long as possible or there”s the desire to be reborn into something else. You can see it just in a day here when you want something to stimulate you - that”s rebirth actually. There”s all this desire that will always take us to doing something, absorbing into something else. Well, apply that to when the body is dying. If you”re frightened of death, and you”ve not really contemplated life and you”re still attached to all these views about yourself, then there”s a lot of desire going to come for rebirth. What you”re attached to you tend to absorb into - the things you”re used to, what you like, what you find attractive. You tend to go for that all the time; seeking people that you like, or seeking the place or the things, the thoughts and memories which are familiar. People will even hang on to misery and pain, because they”re used to it.

　　As I said last night, when you”re miserable at least you feel alive. To feel persecuted makes you feel really alive. Hating people makes you feel alive, doesn”t it

　　 If you really hate somebody, then you know you”re really alive and you feel energised. Some people get very dull when they don”t hate people, when they don”t have any lust or greed for something, or any ambition to get somewhere. Why do people want to climb Mount Everest, or be the first one to sit the longest in a tub of baked beans

　　 (There is actually someone - it”s in the Guiness Book of Records. Imagine the danger of being reborn from that one!) Taking revenge, seeking vengeance, is sometimes what keeps people alive. I”ve never been in an English pub because all my life in England I”ve lived as a monk -but in American ones, I remember you”d go and you”d argue. You can get very heated about political things that you really don”t care about very much-, it makes you feel alive to win an argument, or to support and defend a particular viewpoint.

　　Now contrast that to what we”re doing here where the attention is on such ordinary things. There”s nothing much: the passions are let go of - greed, hatred, delusion. You”re conscious of breathing now, conscious of feeling - neutral feeling - Conscious of causes. You”re bringing into consciousness the way things are. Now one doesn”t feel this desire: the desire to go after extremes falls away. Most of us would really not want to argue about political views, or go to pubs, or climb Mount Everest, or sit in a tub of baked beans. So this is where most of our life is: it”s the same for everyone really. The extremes are brief moments, but most of our life is like this: it”s eating, walking, sitting, lying down, feeling, waiting for the bus, waiting for somebody to telephone, waiting for the bell to ring, waiting for the next event. And all that time we”re b…

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