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story:
Once upon a time there lived a working man who detested coffee. His wife did not know this, however. He had never told her. She loved coffee very much and took great delight in packing a thermos of the stuff in his lunch box every morning.
He always carried the box and the thermos to work, but being a frugal man brought them home again in the evening, the thermos of coffee still untouched. Then, to save a penny, and because his wife loved coffee as much as he detested it, he poured the java back into the coffee pot when she wasn't looking. He was excused the evening coffee on the grounds that it kept him from sleeping well.
One night the wife dreamt that her husband was unfaithful to her. The next night she had the same dream. It angered her, but she said nothing. A week or so later, the dream happened a third time, causing her much jealousy and anguish.
"It is true," she thought. "It must be true. The worm is unfaithful to me!" So she set out to avenge herself. This she did by putting a pinch of arsenic in his thermos every morning until she killed herself.
At the husband's trial of acquittal, the judge said, "It is always the same: those who believe the dream murder themselves."
The greatest dream is that "I am" -- and that has become our suicide. Now it will look very paradoxical. The idea that "I am" has proved very suicidal. And if you disappear as a self, if you commit that spiritual suicide, for the first time you will start living. For the first time you will be born to eternal life. For the first time you will know something which is not of time.
And then there is nothing good, nothing bad. Then a man eats when he is hungry, sleeps when he is tired, answers when a question is raised. Then a person has no idea how to live -- then a person lives without mind. Then a person lives with nothingness in him, and this is the goal of Buddhism. To live as nothingness is nirvana.
Take It Easy, Vol 1
Chapter #2
Chapter title: Death in the Ego is Life in Love
12 April 1978 am in Buddha Hall
Archive code: 7804120
ShortTitle: EASY102
Audio: Yes
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