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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 8 | Previous Next | |
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thing is your own projection -- this is not reality.
Reality can only be known when you have nothing to project. That state of nonprojection Buddha calls clarity. Clarity means you have no desire, you don't want things to be in a certain way, you are ready to see them as they are. You are simply a mirror, not a projector.
When you are a mirror, this is samadhi, this is satori. You simply reflect like the silent, clear, cool water of a lake reflects the full moon and the stars. When you are absolutely clear, no dreams, no desires, no imaginations, no memories, the whole mind put aside -- the mind is a mechanism to project -- then there is clarity and things are reflected as they are. And for the first time you know what is the case; otherwise: "EXISTENCE IS ILLUSION."
Understand this: that whatsoever you think as existence is illusion. Understand it, and go beyond. THIS IS THE WAY OF CLARITY.
YOU ARE STRONG, YOU ARE YOUNG.
IT IS TIME TO ARISE.
SO ARISE!
LEST THROUGH IRRESOLUTION AND IDLENESS
YOU LOSE THE WAY.
In ancient India, when Buddha was delivering these sutras to his disciples, this was the accepted tradition, that a man should become a seeker only in the last stage of his life. If you assume life to be a hundred-year span, then the Hindu idea is to divide life in four parts of twenty-five years each.
The first twenty-five years are for education, BRAHMACHARYA. You go to the university, you live with a master to learn the skills of the world, the arts, the craft, the science. And after twenty-five years you come back into the world, you get married. And for twenty-five years now -- the second stage -- you live as a householder, as a husband, as a father, fulfilling the duties of life.
And then comes the third stage, twenty-five years again: you prepare to renounce the world. The third stage is called VANPRASTHA. First is brahmacharya -- celibacy -- so that you can devote your whole mind to your studies, no distractions. Your whole sexual energies have to be concentrated in studies. Then the second stage is called GARHASTHYA -- the stage of the householder. You devote your whole energies
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