Mindfullness.......Budha

Mindfulness should be the most natural thing in the world-without any unnecessary strain or effort. But for us, habitually unmindful beings, being mindful might be a daunting task. The more unmindful we become, the more habitual it becomes, and attaining mindfulness soon feels near impossible. How scary! Let's all guard our minds more carefully from now on.

I was walking to the subway station in the near noon sun. I remembered my promise to myself to be as mindful as I could the whole day. The sun felt hot. I caught myself screwing up my face, frowning in its glare. This, I realise, only when I realised I was having mild dizziness. The mindfulness came this "late." Suddenly, I wasn't sure whether it was the heat of the sun that made me dizzy or that it was me feeling contempt for the sun that made me dizzy. Funny. I think the latter that is true. The sun meant no harm. It was me to be blame ultimately. I should have experienced the heat mindfully without attachment-that's all-no need to grumble about it inside.

Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You

Blind Men And The Elephant....

A number of disciples went to the Buddha and said, "Sir, there are living here in Savatthi many wandering hermits and scholars who indulge in constant dispute, some saying that the world is infinite and eternal and others that it is finite and not eternal, some saying that the soul dies with the body and others that it lives on forever, and so forth. What, Sir, would you say concerning them?"

The Buddha answered, "Once upon a time there was a certain raja who called to his servant and said, 'Come, good fellow, go and gather together in one place all the men of Savatthi who were born blind... and show them an elephant.' 'Very good, sire,' replied the servant, and he did as he was told. He said to the blind men assembled there, 'Here is an elephant,' and to one man he presented the head of the elephant, to another its ears, to another a tusk, to another the trunk, the foot, back, tail, and tuft of the tail, saying to each one that that was the elephant.

"When the blind men had felt the elephant, the raja went to each of them and said to each, 'Well, blind man, have you seen the elephant? Tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?'


"Thereupon the men who were presented with the head answered, 'Sire, an elephant is like a pot.' And the men who had observed the ear replied, 'An elephant is like a winnowing basket.' Those who had been presented with a tusk said it was a ploughshare. Those who knew only the trunk said it was a plough; others said the body was a grainery; the foot, a pillar; the back, a mortar; the tail, a pestle, the tuft of the tail, a brush.

"Then they began to quarrel, shouting, 'Yes it is!' 'No, it is not!' 'An elephant is not that!' 'Yes, it's like that!' and so on, till they came to blows over the matter.

"Brethren, the raja was delighted with the scene.

"Just so are these preachers and scholars holding various views blind and unseeing.... In their ignorance they are by nature quarrelsome, wrangling, and disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus."




Lovely Thoughts for Lovely People Just Like You