..续本文上一页otal blankness, but an infinite potential for creation to arise and to pass, without your being deluded by it. The idea of me as a creator, my artistic talents, expressing myself -- it”s an incredible egotistical trip, isn”t it
”This is what I”ve done, this is mine.” They say, ”Oh, you”re very skilled, aren”t you
You”re a genius!” Yet so much of creative art tends to be regurgitations of people”s fears and desires. It”s not really creative; it”s just recreating things. It”s not coming from an empty mind, but from an ego, which has no real message to give other than that it”s full of death and selfishness. On a universal level it has no real message other than ”Look at me!” as a person, as an ego. Yet the empty mind has infinite potential for creation. One doesn”t think of creating things; but creation can be done with no self and nobody doing it -- it happens.
So we leave creation to the Dhamma rather than think that that”s something to be responsible for. All we have to do now, all that”s necessary for us -- conventionally speaking, as human beings, as people -- is to let go; or not attach. Let things go. Do good, refrain from doing evil, be mindful. Quite a basic message.
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Reflection
The Need for Wisdom in the World
We are here with one common interest among all of us. Instead of a room of inpiduals all following their own views and opinions, tonight we are all here because of a common interest in the practice of the Dhamma. When this many people come together on Sunday night, you begin to see the potential for human existence, a society based on this common interest in the truth. In the Dhamma we merge. What arises passes, and in its passing is peace. So when we begin to let go of our habits and attachments to the conditioned phenomena, we begin to realise the wholeness and oneness of the mind.
This is a very important reflection for this time, when there are so many quarrels and wars going on because people cannot agree on anything. The Chinese against the Russians, the Americans against the Soviets, and on it goes. Over what
What are they fighting about
About their perceptions of the world. ”This is my land and I want it this way. I want this kind of government, and this kind of political and economic system,” and it goes on and on. It goes on to the point where we slaughter and torture until we destroy the land we are trying to liberate, and enslave or confuse all the people we are trying to free. Why
Because of not understanding the way things are.
The way of the Dhamma is one of observing nature and harmonising our lives with the natural forces. In European civilisation we never really looked at the world in that way. We have idealised it. If everything were an ideal, then it should be a certain way. And when we just attach to ideals, we end up doing what we have done to our earth at this time, polluting it, and being at the point of totally destroying it because we do not understand the limitations placed on us by the earth”s conditions. So in all things of this nature, we sometimes have to learn the hard way through doing it all wrong and making a total mess. Hopefully it is not an insoluble situation.
Now, in this monastery the monks and nuns are practising the Dhamma with diligence. For the whole month of January we are not even talking, but dedicating our lives and offering the blessings of our practice for the welfare of all sentient beings. This whole month is a continuous prayer and offering from this community for the welfare of all sentient beings. It is a time just for realisation of truth, watching and listening and observing the way things are; a time to refrain from indulging in selfish habits, moods, to giv…
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