|
Main Index
|
| |
| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3 | Previous Next | |
|
|
|
| |
to know, more available, more open to know." The full point never comes, the process continues.
Life is a process, not a thing, not a commodity. It is an unending river, no beginning, no end. Inexhaustible it is: AES DHAMMO SANANTANO. This is the very law of life, that everything goes on changing. Buddha has said: Except change, everything changes. Heraclitus would have agreed with Buddha, Buddha would have agreed with Heraclitus; they would have embraced each other. And they were contemporaries, almost contemporaries.
It has always happened in the world that whenever some insight happens in one part of the world it is always echoed all over the world in different parts, in different languages, by different people -- as if something triggered in one part invisibly affects other sensitive souls everywhere else.
When Buddha was alive in India, Greece was rich with Heraclitus, with Socrates, with Pythagoras. China was rich with Lao Tzu, Confucius, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu. And all these people have something very similar, although their languages are different.
Heraclitus says: You cannot step in the same river twice. Buddha will agree absolutely; in fact he will say you cannot even step in the same river once, because the river is constantly flowing. And it is not only the river that is flowing, you are also flowing.
One man came and insulted Buddha very much; Buddha listened to him silently. The next day he felt sorry, came to apologize. Buddha said, "Forget all about it, because I am not the same man whom you had insulted, and you are not the same man who had insulted me. So who is going to apologize to whom? And what can I do now? -- that man is no more, it is finished forever! You will never see that man again, so don't be worried. And you are not the same either! How can you be the same?"
Ananda, Buddha's disciple, who was sitting by the side, said, "Sir, this is too much! This is the same man -- I cannot forgive him ever! He insulted you so much, he said such ugly words, he abused you badly. It hurts still in my heart. I could not say anything because you wouldn't allow it. I had to swallow it all, otherwise I would have
|
|
|
|
| |