Home » Posts tagged 'buddha'

Tag Archives: buddha

Taking Stock

Posted on by

An All-But-Abandoned Park in Santa Monica

This was for me a day of taking stock and meditating. It all started with a fortune cookie I received at lunch from Siam Chan: “You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

When I got home, I decided to take a walk to a little park at 26th Street and Broadway in Santa Monica. I grabbed my copy of Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha and set out. It’s a nice little park which is all but abandoned on weekends. (On weekdays, the surrounding office buildings are crowded with folk.)

Arriving there, I grabbed a chair and started to read. As usual, Buddha hit the nail on the head:

And yet it is not good conduct
That helps you on the way,
Nor ritual, nor book learning,
Nor withdrawal into the self,
Nor deep meditation.
None of these confers mastery or joy.

O seeker!
Rely on nothing
Until you want nothing.

Again and again, it is he stifling of desire that is the key:

Death overtakes the man
Who gathers flowers
When with distracted mind and
     thirsty senses
He searches vainly for happiness
In the pleasures of the world.
Death fetches him away
As a flood carries off a sleeping village.

			

	
	



				
					


	


		
		
The Master

				

			Posted on  by 								

			


		

		






Gautama Buddha





The following is a section from the Shambhala Pocket Classics edition of Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha as translated by Thomas Byrom. It is called “The Master.”





At the end of the way
The master finds freedom
From desire and sorrow—
Freedom without bounds.

Those who awaken
Never rest in one place.
Like swans, they rise
And leave the lake.

On the air they rise
And fly an invisible course,
Gathering nothing, storing nothing.
Their food is knowledge.
They live upon emptiness.
They have seen how to break free.

Who can follow them?
Only the master.
Such is his purity.

Like a bird,
He rises on the limitless air
And flies an invisible course.
He wishes for nothing.
His food is knowledge.
He lives upon emptiness.
He has broken free.

He is the charioteer.
He has tamed his horses,
Pride and the senses.
Even the gods admire him.

Yielding like the earth,
Joyous and clear like the lake,
Still as a stone at the door,
He is free from life and death.

His thoughts are still.
His words are still.
His work is stillness.
He sees his freedom and is free.

The master surrenders his beliefs.
He sees beyond the end and the beginning.

He cuts all ties.
He gives up all his desires.
He resists all temptations.
And he rises.

And wherever he lives,
In the city or in the country,
In the valley or in the hills,
There is great joy.

Even in the empty forest
He finds joy 
Because he wants nothing.

			

	
	



				
					


	


		
		
Thirty-Six Streams

				

			Posted on  by 								

			


		

		






The following selection on desire is taken from the sayings of Gautama Buddha known as The Dhammapada:





If you sleep
Desire grows in you
Like a vine in the forest.

Like a monkey in the forest
You jump from tree to tree,
Never finding the fruit—
From life to life,
Never finding peace.

If you are filled with desire
Your sorrows swell
Like the grass after the rain.

But if you subdue desire
Your sorrows fall from you
Like drops of water from a lotus flower.

This is good counsel
And it is for everyone:
As the grass is cleared for the fresh root,
Cut down desire
Lest death after death crush you
As a river crushes the helpless reeds.

For if the roots hold firm,
A felled tree grows up again.
If desires are not uprooted,
Sorrows grow again in you.

Thirty-six streams are rushing toward you!
Desire and pleasure and lust ...
Play in your imagination with them
And they will sweep you away.
Powerful streams!
They flow everywhere.