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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 4 | Previous Next | |
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one has to do some public act, some public service, one has to do it. She was shouting and cursing and calling the policeman, but we were determined to do it and we did it!"
As far as Buddha is concerned, whatsoever you are doing is mischief because whatsoever you are doing is done out of unconsciousness. His definition of mischief is: any act done unconsciously. And any act done consciously is virtue.
Your life is almost a vicious circle: one mischief leads to another and that one leads to still another. Mischiefs grow out of mischiefs -- only mischiefs can grow out of mischiefs. And you go on living and moving in circles and you don't know what else to do. You do good -- at least you think you are doing good -- but the good never happens; otherwise the world would have been overflowing with good.
So many people are doing good -- parents doing good to children, and where are the good children? Husbands are doing good to wives -- and wives are really after husbands to transform them, to change them, to make them saints. But where are those husbands and where are those wives and where are those children? Everybody is trying to do good according to his own idea -- and he himself is living in deep darkness.
But the idea that "I am doing good" helps your ego to be strengthened, although you go on moving in the same circle -- because intelligence is needed to be original, to do something new. You know only a few things, a few tricks, and the older you get, the more difficult it becomes to learn new things.
They say you can't teach new tricks to old dogs....
Kramanakis immigrated to New York. He got a job through relatives who taught him to say "Apple pie and coffee" in English so he could order in a restaurant. The next day, Kramanakis walked into a diner.
"What'll you have?" asked the waitress.
"Apple-a pie anna coffee," said the immigrant.
Since that was all he could say he was forced to eat apple pie and coffee every day for a month. When he complained to his cousins, they taught him to say "ham sandwich."
Armed with the new addition to his vocabulary he said to the waitress, "Ham sandwich."
"White
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