..续本文上一页l, but you have to be intent on really doing it if you want to get real results. Even if it”s only for a short time — the wiggle of an elephant”s ears or the flicker of a snake”s tongue — it can give rise to amazing power, like the power of an elephant or a snake in being able to kill off people or other animals in the twinkling of an eye. All an elephant has to do is wiggle his ears just once, and people trip all over themselves trying to run away. But if you”re not really true in what you do, the power of truth won”t appear in the mind, and you won”t be able to use it to get any results — like the ear of a dog or a cat: It can wiggle all day long and yet it won”t cause anyone any fear.

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　　Mindfulness and alertness are the quality of the Buddha. The cool sense of happiness they give is the quality of the Dhamma. If you can maintain that coolness until it hardens into a block of ice — i.e., you make that goodness solid and strong in your heart — that”s the quality of the Sangha. Once you”ve got a solid block of goodness like this, you can pick it up and put it to any use that you like.

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　　Being a slave to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha is called being a slave to a noble family, the kind of people we can willingly be slaves to. But being a slave to our moods — cravings and defilements — is like being a slave to bandits and thieves. What sort of valuables are they going to have to give us

　　 But even though it”s proper to be a slave to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, it”s still no match for not having to be a slave to anyone, for the word "slave" means that we”re not yet free. So the Buddha teaches us to learn how to depend on ourselves — attahi attano natho, the self is its own mainstay. That”s when we”ll be able to rise up free, released from our slavery, with no need to have anyone order us around ever again.

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　　When we come to the monastery we come looking for peace and calm, so don”t go releasing tigers, crocodiles, and rabid dogs into the monastery grounds, endangering everyone who comes here. Tigers, crocodiles, and rabid dogs stand for our very own greed, anger, and delusion. We have to chain them and cage them and lock them up tight. Make absolutely sure that they don”t come escaping out your thoughts, words, and deeds in any way.

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　　People who don”t get ahead in life are the ones whose bodies are human but whose minds drop down to lower levels. In other words, they”re all right in physical terms, but not in terms of their minds. For instance, when we come to the monastery, we depend on our feet to walk us here, but then when we get here if we let our minds and manners fall into lower ways, we”re no different from bats that hook their feet up on high places and then let their heads hang down low.

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　　The Dhamma is an affair of the heart. The words spoken are Dhamma, the intention in speaking is Dhamma, and you have to make your heart into Dhamma if you want to hear it as Dhamma. When these three factors come together, listening to the Dhamma can give countless rewards.

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　　When we listen to the Dhamma it”s as if the monk is giving us each a knife; it”s up to us to accept it or not. When we get back home and run into problems or issues in our families, we can use the knife to cut right through them. But if we throw the knife down right here or hand it back to the monk, we won”t have any weapon to use when we meet up with issues at home.

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　　The study of the Dhamma is like reading a cookbook. The practice of the Dhamma is like fixing food. The attainment of the Dhamma is like knowing the taste of the food. If we simply read the texts without putting them into practice, it”s like knowing that there are such things as peppers, onions, and garlic, but without having them for a meal.

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　　If you study the Dhamma without …

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