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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 6 | Previous Next | |
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his definition of right. DO WHAT IS RIGHT.
BE PURE.
And by purity he always means innocence: a state of not-knowing, a state of functioning like a child. He perfectly agrees with Christ, that: Unless you are like a small child you will not enter into my kingdom of God.
Be a child again. Your knowledgeability is a great obstruction in the way -- remove it. Be innocent.
AT THE END OF THE WAY IS FREEDOM.
And if you can fulfill these simple things -- awareness, rightness, innocence -- which are just three faces of the same phenomenon of being conscious, of being meditative, then: AT THE END OF THE WAY IS FREEDOM. Then you will attain to absolute freedom. His word is nirvana. Nirvana means absolute freedom: not freedom for the ego, but freedom FROM the ego; not freedom for you, but freedom from yourself. Freedom to Buddha is equivalent to God. He never uses the word 'God', because God has become a bondage to many people. He uses the word 'freedom' -- moksha or nirvana.
Nirvana means cessation of the ego; literally it means blowing out a candle. Just as you blow out a candle and it disappears and cannot be found anywhere -- it disappears into the whole -- so disappears the ego of the awakened one. And in that disappearance of the ego you become unlimited. The dewdrop falling into the ocean becomes the ocean itself; then there is no limit to you. That is freedom.
TILL THEN, PATIENCE.
But it may not happen today. You may not be immediately ready to take the jump. Till then, patience is needed. Buddha says: YET THE TEACHING IS VERY SIMPLE. He has reduced it to a few words: DO WHAT IS RIGHT. That is, do everything consciously. BE PURE... innocent, childlike... and be patient. Don't be in a hurry. At the end, freedom is inevitable; it is a by-product of total awareness.
IF YOU WOUND OR GRIEVE ANOTHER,
YOU HAVE NOT LEARNED DETACHMENT.
Detachment is also one of the by-products of awareness. If you are alert you cannot wound or grieve another, because you know there is no other; it is all one reality. Wounding somebody else... is as if you are wounding yourself -- maybe your right hand wounding your
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