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Book Name: The Buddha The Emptiness of the HeartPrevious     Next
 

IT IS WHEN THINKING COMES TO AN END AND MAKING DISTINCTIONS CEASES, WHEN WRONG VIEWS AND IDEAS DISAPPEAR OF THEMSELVES WITHOUT HAVING TO BE DRIVEN FORTH; WHEN, WITHOUT BEING SOUGHT, THE TRUE ACTION AND TRUE IMPULSE APPEAR OF THEMSELVES. IT IS WHEN ONE CAN KNOW WHAT IS THE TRUTH OF THE HEART.

In these few statements he has covered the whole journey from falsehood to truth, from darkness to light, from death to immortality. What he has said can be condensed, so that you can remember it not as knowledge but only as a finger indicating the moon -- just a few hints for your own inner journey.

The first thing is, twenty-four hours a day, to remember what you find in your meditations. You will forget again and again, but the gaps of forgetfulness will become less and the length of remembering will become longer. By and by the gaps of forgetting will disappear. There comes a time when you are a whole circle of remembrance, twenty-four hours. Even in your sleep you know you are a buddha.

A small story will explain it to you....

Ananda, Buddha's very intimate disciple, was almost forty-two years continuously serving Buddha, day and night, summer and winter. One night when Buddha was going to lie down, Ananda said, "I don't generally ask any questions, because every question that I could ask, others ask. And I am always here, so I listen to the answer. I know that any question I have is going to be asked by somebody or other; in these years this has become my experience. But there is one question I don't think anybody is going to ask. It is very situational."

Buddha said, "You can ask."

"The question," he said, "is not very great. But it has been troubling me for years."

Buddha said, "You could have asked at any time."

Ananda said, "I never wanted to trouble you. The whole day you are working on people, and in the night you are alone with me. The question is that I have been watching you for twenty years continuously... even in the night I get up once or twice to have a look at you to see whether you are all right. What has been puzzling me is that you keep the same posture the whole night. You don't change sides, you

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