..续本文上一页life, doing fascinating things, getting enlightened quicker and more efficiently. California is much more advanced and with

　　it than the North-East of Thailand.” And then you receive letters from impatient Americans who have gone around the world, visited all the Ajahns. . . ”What am I doing here, sweating through my robes, being bitten by mosquitoes

　　”

　　And then you think: ”I”m developing patience. If I just learn to be patient in this lifetime, I”ve not wasted it. just to be a little more patient – it”s good enough. I won”t go to California, get caught up in those fascinating encounter groups, modern therapies and scientific experiments.... I”ll just sit here and learn to be patient with a mosquito biting my arm ... learn to be patient with an endless, dreary hot season that seems to go on for ever.”

　　I also used to think: ”My mind is too alert and bright; I”ve got so much restless movement in my mind.” Because I had always wanted to have an interesting personality, I trained myself in that direction and acquired all sorts of useless information and silly ideas, so I could be a charming, entertaining person. But it doesn”t really count – it”s useless in a monastery in North-East Thailand – that mental habit just goes around in your mind when you”re alone, with nobody to charm, and nothing”s fascinating any more. Instead of becoming fascinating and charming – I could see there was no point in that – I started looking at the water buffaloes, and wondering what went on in their minds. A Thai water buffalo is one of the most stupid

　　looking creatures in the whole world. It”s a big, clumsy thing, and it has the dullest-looking face. ”That”s what I need, to sit in my kuti, sweating through my robes, trying to imagine what a water buffalo is thinking.” So I”d sit there and create in my mind an image of a water buffalo, becoming more stupid, more dull, more patient, and less of a fascinating and clever, interesting personality.

　　Just learning to be more patient with things as they are, with oneself – one”s hang-ups, one”s obsessive thoughts, restless mind ... and with the way things are externally. Like here at Chithurst – how many of you are really patient with Chithurst

　　 I hear some of you complaining that you have to work too hard, or there”s not enough of this, or you want more time, or you want.... There are too many people, not enough privacy the mind goes on, doesn”t it

　　 There”s always some place that”s better. But patience means that you endure through the way things are right now. How many of you would be willing to sit through a hot season in North-East Thailand

　　 Or endure through a year of having some tropical disease, patiently, without wanting to go home and have mother take care of you

　　We still have the hope that eventually enlightenment will make us a more interesting, with-it person than an unenlightened being: if you could just get enlightened you could surely increase the feeling of self-importance. But the Buddha-wisdom is a very humbling wisdom, and it takes a great deal of patience to be wise like Buddha. Buddha-wisdom isn”t a particularly fascinating kind of wisdom – it”s not like being a nuclear physicist, or a psychiatrist or a philosopher. Buddha-wisdom is very humbling, because it knows that whatever arises passes away and is not-self. So it knows that whatever condition of the body and mind arises, it is conditioned, and whatever arises passes away. And it knows the Unconditioned as the Unconditioned.

　　But is knowing the Unconditioned very interesting or fascinating

　　 Try to think of knowing the Unconditioned – would that be interesting

　　 You might think, ”I”d like to know God or Dhamma: it”s going to be an incredibly fascinating thing to know, something blissful and ecstatic.” So you look in your meditation for…

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