..续本文上一页 on our part. Every religion, every tradition has something in it that is good. Every religion of the world accepts a moral life, a disciplined mind, a pure mind full of love and compassion. Give importance to these good qualities in other religions and ignore the differences. People would come to the Buddha to argue with him, but he would never argue. “When you start arguing and debating,” he said, “it is harmful, it is dangerous. Let us see not where we differ but rather where we agree, and let us give importance to those points. Let us leave aside our differences; there is no use in discussing them.”
Everyone agrees on the value of living a life of sīla, cultivating samādhi and purifying the mind by paññā; on these points there can be no disagreement. Buddha put his emphasis on these three only. The same thing applies to any old student: whenever you are discussing with others, don”t indulge in any arguments. Don”t try to find fault with others. Rather, encourage them: “You agree to sīla; we also practise sīla. You agree to concentration of mind; we also practise concentration of mind. You agree to purification of mind; we also practise purification of mind. If you want to know how we practise, come give this technique a try.” Don”t say, “Yours is bad and ours is good.” Instead simply say, “Come and see ehi passiko. If you find it really is good for you, for others, for everyone, then accept it and live this life.”
Buddha”s teaching takes you to the depths where you start realizing why you must live a life of sīla. Every tradition urges us to practise sīla; but then says that it is for the good of the society, for the good of others. But the Buddha said, “It is for your good, and also for the good of others. This is what a good Vipassana meditator starts realizing. Experiencing your sensations, you start understanding, “Whenever I break sīla, I have to generate some impurity or the other and I start suffering. If I don”t generate impurity, I don”t perform any unwholesome action. If my sīla is perfect, I save myself from all kinds of misery, and I help others because they don”t suffer on account of me.” One can understand this only by experience. It is not a subject of argument. When you start experiencing the truth of sensations and how you continue to suffer at the deeper levels of the mind, then you realize why you should live a life of sīla.
And why did Buddha teach us to develop samādhi by observing respiration
Partly because it is nonsectarian, anybody can practise it. But another reason is that this practice leads us to paññā at a deeper level. Observing breath not only concentrates the mind; it enables us to investigate the truth about the interaction of mind and matter according to our own experience, not merely to develop paññā intellectually. Many traditions agree that the entire universe is anicca (changing),that the cycle of birth and death is dukkha (suffering), and that the ego is a big obstacle that must be left behind. It is not something difficult for people to understand. But the Buddha taught the same thing experientially.
If you invite people to come and learn to meditate, they need not abandon their own beliefs. Rather, by practising, they start going deeper and they derive so much benefit by understanding the pure Dhamma of sīla, samādhi and paññā at a more profound level. The real substance of Dhamma lies in sīla, samādhi, and paññā. Let more and more people come and meditate and understand how it really works.
The volition should be to help people, not to try to prove that what we do is superior. It won”t help to say, “You don”t know the proper meaning of sīla, you don”t know what is real samādhi, you don”t know what is real…
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