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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 4 | Previous Next | |
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destroy it. Anger is there because you are unconscious, greed is there because you are unconscious, possessiveness and jealousy are there because you are unconscious.
So I am not interested in changing your anger; that will be like pruning leaves of a tree and hoping that the tree will disappear one day. It is not going to be so; on the contrary, the more you prune the tree the thicker will be the foliage.
Hence your so-called saints are the unholiest persons in the world, pretenders, pseudo. Yes, if you look from the outside they look very holy -- too much holy, saccharin, too sweet, sickeningly sweet, nauseating. You can only go and pay your respect to them and escape. You can't live with your saints even for twenty-four hours -- they will bore you to death! The closer you are to them, the more puzzled, perplexed, confused you will be, because you will start seeing that from one side they have forced anger: it has entered into another side of their life.
Ordinary people are angry once in a while, and their anger is very fleeting, very momentary. Then again they are laughing, again they are friendly; they don't carry wounds too long. But your so-called saints, their anger becomes almost a permanent affair; they are simply angry, not at anything in particular. They have repressed anger so much that now they are simply angry, in a state of rage. Their eyes will show, their noses will show, their faces will show, their very way of life will show....
Lu Ting ate at a Greek restaurant because Papadopoulos, the owner, made really good fried rice. Each evening he would come in he would order "flied lice."
This always caused Papadopoulos to fall down with laughter. Sometimes he would have two or three friends standing nearby just to hear Lu Ting order his "flied lice."
Eventually the Chinese's pride was so hurt that he took a special diction lesson just to be able to say "fried rice" correctly.
The next time he went to the restaurant he said very plainly, "Fried rice, please."
Unable to believe his ears, Papadopoulos asked, "What did you say?"
Lu Ting shouted, "You heard what I said, you fluckin' Gleek!"
It
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