..续本文上一页cattle by the herd, rice by the ton, and yet never be full for a second. You have to keep finding things to stuff in it all the time, which is a burden to the heart. We”ve been shoring up this body ever since we were little and red so that it will stay with us, and yet it won”t stay. What does stay is nothing more than scraps. What”s good leaves us completely. Don”t go thinking that it”ll stay. The part that”s left loads us down, creating stress and pain. So we”re taught to let go. Caga: Relinquish what”s outside, i.e., the body; and let go of what”s in the mind, i.e., its various preoccupations that follow along with the world. If we can let go of these things, we”ll be light in body and mind. And when we”re light in this way, we can be at our ease.

　　Then we can consider further that all these things fall under the truths of the world. That is, they”re inconstant, stressful, and not-self. They make us misconstrue everything, just as when we let ourselves get duped into spending our money. There are people, for instance, who make sugar water with various colors for us to drink at 10, 20, or 30 cents a glass. Actually, it”s no different from the ordinary water we drink, but we have it all misconstrued and think that it”s something special — so we”ll come back to spend more money to drink it again. This is inconstancy. It”s like waves that keep rising and falling, causing us to waver, keeping us from being still and at peace. When we see this, we should incline our hearts toward being trained in the Dhamma.

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　　A person who lets the mind be defiled is like someone who lets his children play in the mud: They”re bound to cause hardships for their parents, and not only that, they”re bound to cause hardships for themselves, because they have no livelihood, no basis for setting themselves up in life. So we should train our hearts to be adults in order to outgrow our defilements and corruptions.

　　We shouldn”t let ourselves get tied up in worldly affairs, because they”re good only from age 20 to 40. From that point on, our mouth gets smaller and smaller, our eyes get so small we can scarcely open them. Whatever we say doesn”t get past our lips. Our hands get so small that we have to give them a one-meter extension called a ”cane.” Our back gets crooked — and with the body sure to run down like this, what are we going to want out of it

　　 It”s enough to make you heartsick. So we should develop what”s good and becoming within ourselves. Develop goodness into a Noble Treasure. In other words, relinquishment (caga) and virtue (sila) are two things we should foster in our hearts so that we can begin to grow up, unfold, and go beyond being children...

　　Once we”ve reached the middle of life, things start getting shorter and shorter, so we”re taught not to be complacent. Whatever will give rise to knowledge, we should stir ourselves to pursue, like a child who studies math without playing truant or thinking only of fun and games. Such a child is sure to have a high level of knowledge in the future.

　　People in this world — even though they may be 80 years old — if they stay sunk in worldly matters, are still children. Relinquishment and virtue: Once we give rise to these things, we”re headed for adulthood. Otherwise, we”re still children. So we shouldn”t let the heart settle on things that aren”t good for it. Sometimes there are both good and bad things. The good things are hard to latch onto; the bad are easy. If we give our children free rein to go playing, they”ll for the most part bring us nothing but trouble. Sometimes they hang around doing nothing at all and yet come back with other people”s belongings in their pockets. In other words, sometimes other people do something, and yet we let it get stuck in our hearts. This is being infantile.…

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