..续本文上一页ntil they”re seventy or eighty or even ninety years old. I ask them. "From the day you were born you”ve been working. Now it”s almost time to go, what are you going to take with you

　　" They don”t know what to say. All they can say is, "Beats me!" We have a saying in these parts, "Don”t tarry picking berries along the way ... before you know it, night falls." Just because of this "Beats me!" They”re neither here nor there, content with just a "beats me"... sitting among the branches of the berry tree, gorging themselves with berries... "Beats me, beats me..."

　　When you”re still young you think that being single is not so good, you feel a bit lonely. So you find a partner to live with. Put two together and there”s friction! Living alone is too quiet, but living with others there”s friction.

　　When children are small the parents think, "When they get bigger we”ll be better off." They raise their children, three, four, or five of them, thinking that when the children are grown up their burden will be lighter. But when the children grow up they get even heavier. Like two pieces of wood, one big and one small. You throw away the small one and take the bigger one, thinking it will be lighter, but of course it”s not. When children are small they don”t bother you very much, just a ball of rice and a banana now and then. When they grow up they want a motorcycle or a car! Well, you love your children, you can”t refuse. So you try to give them what they want. Problems...Sometimes the parents get into arguments over it..."Don”t go and buy him a car, we haven”t got enough money!" But when you love your children you”ve got to borrow the money from somewhere. Maybe the parents even have to go without to get the things their children want. Then there”s education. "When they”ve finished their studies, we”ll be right." There”s no end to the studying! What are they going to finish

　　 Only in the science of Buddhism is there a point of completion, all the other sciences just go round in circles. In the end it”s real headache. If there”s a house with four or five children in it the parents argue every day.

　　The suffering that is waiting in the future we fail to see, we think it will never happen. When it happens, then we know. that kind of suffering, the suffering inherent in our bodies, is hard to foresee. When I was a child minding the buffaloes I”d take charcoal and rub it on my teeth to make them white. I”d go back home and look in the mirror and see them so nice and white...I was getting fooled by my own bones, that”s all. When I reached fifty or sixty my teeth started to get loose. When the teeth start falling out it hurts so much, when you eat it feels as if you”ve been kicked in the mouth. It really hurts. I”ve been through this one already. So I just got the dentist to take them all out. Now I”ve got false teeth. My real teeth were giving me so much trouble I just had them all taken out, sixteen in one go. The dentist was reluctant to take out sixteen teeth at once, but I said to him, "Just take them out, I”ll take the consequences." So he took them all out at once. Some were still good, too, at least five of them. Took them all out. But it was really touch and go. After having them out I couldn”t eat any food for two or three days.

　　Before, as a young child minding the buffaloes, I used to think that polishing the teeth was a great thing to do. I loved my teeth, I thought they were good things. But in the end they had to go. The pain almost killed me. I suffered from toothache for months, years. Sometimes both my gums were swollen at once.

　　Some of you may get a chance to experience this for yourselves someday. If your teeth are still good and you”re brushing them everyday to keep them nice and white...watch out! They may start playing trick…

《Why Are We Here

　　》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…