|
Main Index
|
| |
| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3 | Previous Next | |
|
|
|
| |
and pain....
And this will happen continuously, because in one thing you may look superior to somebody, and in another thing you may look inferior to somebody else. Somebody is taller than you and somebody else is smaller than you. Somebody is more beautiful, although you are more knowledgeable. But somebody is stronger, has a more muscular body, is more athletic -- and you look a very poor specimen in front of him. Somebody is so ugly that you feel great compared to him, and somebody is so beautiful that you start feeling ugly. Now you will be pushed and pulled between these two; these two rocks will crush you.
Harlemite Huckley was driving his big blue Cadillac through Mississippi. He pulled up at a gas station and honked his horn.
"What do you want, boy?" asked the attendant.
"Give me ten gallons of gas," said Huckley. "Check my oil and wipe off the windshield. And look, man, I am in a hurry."
Immediately the attendant pulled out a big .38, picked up an empty oil can and said, "You must be one of them smart ones from up north. I am gonna show you, boy, how we expect your kind to behave around here."
He threw the oil can into the air and emptied his gun at it. When the can came down, it had five bullet holes in it. The attendant tossed it to Huckley saying, "Now, you look that over and think about it."
Huckley looked at it, then got out of the Caddy and picked up an apple he had lying on the seat. He threw the apple in the air, whipped out a knife and as the apple came down, he made a few passes at it. The apple landed at the attendant's feet, peeled, cored, and quartered.
The attendant said, "How many gallons of gas did you want, sir?"
This will happen every day, this will happen every moment. There are millions of people and each individual is unique. Drop that nonsense of comparing. But you cannot drop it unless you drop the past -- the past LIVES on comparison, the ego FEEDS on comparison.
Buddha says: GATHERING NOTHING, STORING NOTHING. THEIR FOOD IS KNOWLEDGE. 'Knowledge' is not a right translation of what Buddha means. It would have been more true to translate it as 'knowing', not
|
|
|
|
| |