Understanding and Wisdom
136. No one and nothing can free you but your own understanding.
137. A madman and an arahant both smile, but the arahant knows why while the madman doesn’t.
138. A clever person watches others, but he watches with wisdom, not with ignorance. If one watches with wisdom, one can learn much. But if one watches with ignorance, one can only find faults.
139. The real problem with people nowadays is that they know but still don’t do. It’s another matter if they don’t do because they don’t know, but if they already know and still don’t do, what’s the problem?
140. Outward scriptural study is not important. Of course, the Dhamma books are correct, but they are not right. They cannot give you right understanding. To see the word "anger" in print is not the same as experiencing anger. Only experiencing for yourself can give you true faith.
141. If you see things with real insight, then there is no stickiness in your relationship to them. They come - pleasant and unpleasant - you see them and there is no attachment. They come and they pass. Even if the worst kinds of defilement come up, such as greed or anger, there’s enough wisdom to see their impermanent nature and allow them to just fade away. If you react to them, however, by liking or disliking, that isn’t wisdom. You’re only creating more suffering for yourself.
142. When we know the truth, we become people who don’t have to think much, we become people with wisdom. If we don’t know, we have more thinking than wisdom or no wisdom at all. A lot of thinking without wisdom is extreme suffering.
143. These days people don’t search for the Truth. People study simply in order to find the knowledge necessary to make a living, raise their families and look after themselves, that’s all. To them being smart is more important than being wise.
Giới hạnh
144. Be careful about observing our precepts. Virtue is a sense of shame. What we have doubts about, we should not do or say. This is virtue. Purity is being beyond all doubts.
145. There are two levels of practice. The first level forms the foundation, which is the development of virtue, the precepts, in order to bring happiness and harmony among people. The second level is the practice of Dhamma with the sole goal of liberating the heart. This liberation is the source of wisdom and compassion and is the true reason for the Buddha’s teaching. Understanding these two levels is the basis of true practice.
146. Virtue and morality are the mother and father of the Dhamma growing within US. They provide it with the proper nourishment and guidance.
147. Virtue is the basis for a harmonious world in which people can live truly as humans and not as animals. Developing virtue is at the heart of our practice. Keep the precepts. Cultivate compassion and respect for all life. Be mindful in your actions and speech. Use virtue to make your life simple and pure. With virtue as a basis for everything you do, your mind will become kind, clear, and quiet. Meditation will grow easily in this environment.
148. Look after your virtue as a gardener takes care of his plants. Do not be attached to big or small, important or unimportant. Some people want shortcuts. They say, "Forget concentration, we’ll go straight to insight; forget virtue, we’ll start with concentration." We have so many excuses for our attachments.
149. Right effort and virtue are not a question of what you do outwardly but of constant inner awareness and restraint. Thus, charity, if given with good intention, can bring happiness to oneself and to others. But virtue must be the root of this charity for it to be pure.
150. The Buddha taught us to refrain from what is bad, to do good, and to purify the heart. Our practice, then, is to get rid of what is worthless and keep what is valuable. Do you still have anything bad or unskillful in your heart? Of course!
So why not clean house? But true practice is not only getting rid of what is bad and cultivating the good. This is only part of it. In the end we must go beyond both good and bad. Finally there is a freedom that includes all and a desirelessness from which love and wisdom naturally flow.
151. We must start right here where we are, directly and simply. When the first two steps, virtue and right view, have been completed, then the third step of uprooting defilement will natưrally occur without deliberation. When light is produced, we no longer worry about getting rid of darkness, nor do we wonder where the darkness has gone. We just know that there is light.
152. Following the precepts has three levels. The first is to undertake them as training rules given to US by our teachers. The second arises when we undertake and abide in them by ourselves. But for those at the highest level, the Noble Ones, it is not necessary to think of pre-cepts, of right and wrong. This true virtue comes from wisdom that knows the Four Noble Truths in the heart and acts from this understanding.
153. Some monks disrobe to go to the front where bullets fly past them every day. They prefer it like that. They really want to go. Danger surrounds them on all sides and yet they’re prepared to go. Why don’t they see the danger? They’re prepared to die by the gun but nobody wants to die developing virtue. This is really amazing, isn’t it?
MISCELLANEOUS
154. One of Ajahn Chah’s disciples had a knee problem that could only be corrected by surgery. Although the doctors had assured him his knee would be well in a couple of weeks, months went by and it still hadn’t healed properly. When he saw Ajahn Chah again, he complained saying, "They said it wouldn’t take this long. It shouldn’t be this way." Ajahn Chah laughed and said, "If it shouldn’t be this way, it wouldn’t be this way."
155. If someone gives you a nice fat, yellow banana that’s sweet and fragrant but poisonous, will you eat it? No. Why is it, then, when the Buddha tells US that sensuous pleasure is "poisonous," we go ahead and "eat" it anyway?
156. See your defilements, know them like you know a cobra’s poison. You won’t grab the cobra because you know it can kill you. See the harm in things harmful and the use in things useful.
157. We are always dissatisfied. In a sweet fruit, we miss the sour; in a sour fruit, we miss the sweet.
158. If you have something bad smelling in your pocket, wherever you go it will smell bad. Don’t blame it on the place.
159. Buddhism in the East today is like a big tree which may look majestic, but can only give small and tasteless fruit. Buddhism in the west is like a sapling, not yet able to bear fruit, but having the potential to give large, sweet ones.
160. People nowadays think too much. There are too many things for them to get interested in, but none of them lead to any true fulfillment.
161. Just because you go and call alcohol "perfume" doesn’t make it become perfume, you know. But, you people, when you want to drink alcohol, you say it’s perfume, then go ahead and drink it. You must be crazy!
162. People are always looking outwards, at people and things. They look at this hall, for example, and say, "Oh, it’s so big!" Actually it’s not big at all. Whether or not it seems big, depends on your per-ception of it. In fact this hall is just the size it is, neither big nor small. People, however, run after their feelings all the time. They are so busy looking around and having opinions about what they see that they have no time to look at themselves.
163. Some people get bored, fed up, tired of the practice and lazy. They can’t seem to keep the Dhamma in mind. Yet, if you go and scold them, they’ll never forget that. Some may remember it for the rest of their lives and never forgive you for it. But when it comes to the Buddha’s teaching, telling US to be moderate, to be restrained, to practise conscientiously, why do they keep forgetting these things? Why don’t people take these things to heart?
164. Seeing that we are better than others is not right. Seeing that we are equal to others is not right. Seeing that we are inferior to others is not right. If we think we are better than others, pride arises. If we think we are equal to others, we fail to show respect and humility at the proper times. If we think we are inferior to others, we get depressed thinking we are inferior, born under a bad sign and so on. Just let all of that go!
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