..续本文上一页cured and can”t see itself. So, whatever appears in the mind, just say: "This isn”t my business. It”s impermanent, unsatisfactory and not-self."

　　Thinking you”d like to go on living for a long time will make you suffer. But thinking you”d like to die right away or die very quickly isn”t right either; it”s suffering, isn”t it

　　 Conditions don”t belong to us, they follow their own natural laws. You can”t do anything about the way the body is. You can prettify it a little, make it look attractive and clean for a while, like the young girls who paint their lips and let their nails grow long, but when old age arrives, everyone”s in the same boat. That”s the way the body is, you can”t make it any other way. But what you can improve and beautify is the mind.

　　Anyone can build a house of wood and bricks, but the Buddha taught that that sort of home is not our real home, it”s only nominally ours. It”s a home in the world and it follows the ways of the world. Our real home is inner peace. An external material home may well be pretty, but it is not very peaceful. There”s this worry and then that, this anxiety and then that. So we say it”s not our real home, it”s external to us, sooner or later we”ll have to give it up. It”s not a place we can live in permanently because it doesn”t truly belong to us, it”s part of the world. Our body is the same; we take it to be self, to be "me" and "mine," but in fact it”s not really so at all, it”s another worldly home. Your body has followed its natural course from birth until now it”s old and sick and you can”t forbid it from doing that, that”s the way it is. Wanting it to be different would be as foolish as wanting a duck to be like a chicken. When you see that that”s impossible, that a duck has to be a duck, that a chicken has to be a chicken and that bodies have to get old and die, you will find strength and energy. However much you want the body to go on and last for a long time, it won”t do that.

　　The Buddha said:

　　Anicca vata sankhara

　　Uppada vayadhammino

　　Uppajjhitva nirujjhanti

　　Tesam vupasamo sukho.

　　Conditions are impermanent,

　　subject to rise and fall.

　　Having arisen they cease --

　　their stilling is bliss.

　　The word "sankhara" refers to this body and mind. Sankharas are impermanent and unstable, having come into being they disappear, having arisen they pass away, and yet everyone wants them to be permanent. This is foolishness. Look at the breath. Having come in, it goes out; that”s its nature, that”s how it has to be. The inhalation and exhalation have to alternate, there must be change. Sankharas exist through change, you can”t prevent it. Just think: could you exhale without inhaling

　　 Would it feel good

　　 Or could you just inhale

　　 We want things to be permanent, but they can”t be, it”s impossible. Once the breath has come in, it must go out; when it”s gone out, it comes in again, and that”s natural, isn”t it

　　 Having been born, we get old and sick and then we die, and that”s totally natural and normal. It”s because sankharas have done their job, because the in-breaths and out-breaths have alternated in this way, that the human race is still here today.

　　As soon as we”re born, we”re dead. Our birth and death are just one thing. It”s like a tree: when there”s a root there must be twigs. When there are twigs there must be a root. You can”t have one without the other. It”s a little funny to see how at a death people are so grief-stricken and distracted, tearful and sad, and at a birth how happy and delighted. It”s delusion, nobody has ever looked at this clearly. I think if you really want to cry, then it would be better to do so when someone”s born. For actually birth is death, death is birth, the root is the twig, the twig is the root. If you”ve got to cry, cry at the root, cry at the birth. Look cl…

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