Ajaan Lee’s image is of the difference between letting go like a pauper and letting go like a wealthy person. If you haven’t learned about the practice through the practice, then all you have to share with others is what you’ve read or heard.

"Ajaan Lee’s image is of the difference between letting go like a pauper and letting go like a wealthy person. The pauper says “I have no wealth, I’ll let go of it and say I have no desire for wealth.” But then the pauper doesn’t have anything to eat, doesn’t have anything to use. Whereas the wealthy person, having made a fortune, can let it go, and the fortune’s still there. It doesn’t run away anywhere. You don’t have to carry it around with you all the time, but the good things are there to use, for your own purposes and the purposes of others. If you don’t have a Cadillac, there’s no way you can lend a Cadillac to somebody else. If you haven’t learned about the practice through the practice, then all you have to share with others is what you’ve read or heard."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Hold on for All You're Worth"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wise about Pleasure (extract)

"The Buddha was not down on pleasure, it’s simply that he was a real connoisseur. He said, "Why settle for second best when there’s best? And it’s available.” Now, we may decide that it seems awfully far away, and that we’re going to starve in the meantime unless we get the pleasures we want. But that’s taking the wrong attitude toward your pleasures. You can ask yourself, “Which pleasures are conducive to getting to the ultimate, and which ones are going to get in the way?” You focus on encouraging the ones that are conducive, letting go of the ones that’ll get in the way. That’s the real sign of wisdom. After all, the quest for wisdom begins with that question, "What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” This applies to how you deal with pleasures, how you deal with pains: pleasures of the senses and pleasures of the practice; pains of the senses, pains of the practice. So you want to be wise about pleasure, wise about your feelings. That way,...
Read more

You treat the world knowing it will die, but the quality of your mind as something that doesn't die

"This path does offer a way out. In the meantime, you’re not harming anybody and you’re providing yourself with definite wealth, definite strength, definite treasures — as we often say in Thailand — that last beyond death. In other words, you treat the world around you in full knowledge that it’s going to die, but you treat the quality of your mind as something that doesn’t die. That’s what gives honor to what you’re doing. It’s what makes this a noble path." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Living Honorably" (Meditations8)
Read more

If you were guaranteed awakening at the end of a hundred years of physical agony, it’d be a deal worth making. The happiness of awakening is *that* intense, *that* overwhelming, *that* total.

"You know that comparison where the Buddha said that if you could make a deal where they would stab you with a hundred spears early in the morning, a hundred spears at noon, and a hundred spears in the evening — every day for a hundred years — but if you were guaranteed awakening at the end of those hundred years, it’d be a deal worth making. And when you finally did gain awakening you wouldn’t consider that you’d achieved it through pain. It was achieved through joy. The happiness of awakening is that intense, that overwhelming, that total. And the way to get started and the way to continue toward that happiness is having an attitude of giving, which teaches you to watch the happiness of your mind and learn how to grade the levels of happiness. Watch your mind in action, watch the results, and judge the results as to which is better than what. And developing those habits of observation and judgment will carry you all the way through." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "One Thing ...
Read more