..续本文上一页lf, hurting yourself, killing yourself. And when we can do this sort of thing to ourselves, what”s to keep us from doing it to others

　　 This is why we shouldn”t let ourselves harbor thoughts of envy, jealousy, or anger. If any of these five Hindrances arise in the heart, then trouble and suffering will come flooding in like a torrential downpour, and we won”t be able to hold our own against them. All of this is because of the unawareness that keeps us from having any inner quality as a mainstay. Even though we may live in a seven- or nine-storey mansion and eat food at $40 a plate, we won”t be able to find any happiness.

　　People without any inner quality are like vagrants with no home to live in. They have to be exposed to sun, rain, and wind by day and by night, so how can they find any relief from the heat or the cold

　　 With nothing to shelter them, they have to lie curled up until their backs get all crooked and bent. When a storm comes, they need to scurry to find shelter: They can”t stay under trees because they”re afraid the trees will be blown down on top of them. They can”t stay in open fields because they”re afraid lightning will strike. At midday the sun is so hot that they can”t sit for long — like an old barefooted woman walking on an asphalt road when the sun is blazing: She can”t put her feet down because she”s afraid they”ll blister, so she dances around in place on her tiptoes, not knowing where she can rest her feet.

　　This is why the Buddha felt such pity for us, and taught us to find shelter for ourselves by doing good and developing concentration as a principle in our hearts, so that we can have an inner home. This way we won”t have to suffer, and other people will benefit as well. This is called having a mainstay.

　　People with no mainstay are bound to busy themselves with things that have no real meaning or worth — i.e., with things that can”t protect them from suffering when the necessity arises. A person without the wisdom to search for a mainstay is sure to suffer hardships. I”ll illustrate this point with a story. Once there was a band of monkeys living in the upper branches of a forest, each one carrying its young wherever it went. One day a heavy wind storm came. As soon as the monkeys heard the sound of the approaching wind, they broke off branches and twigs to make themselves a nest on one of the bigger branches. After they had piled on the twigs, they went down under the nest and looked up to see if there were still any holes. Wherever they saw a hole, they piled on more twigs and branches until the whole thing was piled thick and high. Then when the wind and rain came, they got up on top of the nest, sitting there with their mouths open, shivering from the cold, exposed to the wind and rain. Their nest hadn”t offered them any protection at all, simply because of their own stupidity. Eventually a gust of wind blew the nest apart. The monkeys were scattered every which way and ended up dangling here and there, their babies falling from their grasp, all of them thoroughly miserable from their hardship and pain.

　　People who don”t search for inner worth as their mainstay are no different from these monkeys. They work at amassing money and property, thinking that these things will give them security, but when death comes, none of these things can offer any safety at all. This is why the Buddha felt such pity for all the deluded people in the world, and went to great lengths to teach us to search for inner quality as a mainstay for ourselves.

　　People who have inner quality as their mainstay are said to be kind not only to themselves but also to others as well, in the same way that when we have a house of our own, we can build a hut for other people to live in, too. If we see that another person”s hut is going …

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