é™æ€è¯ Readings For Silent Reflection
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Dhammapada Verse 35. Restrained Mind Leads To Happiness
The mind is very hard to check
and swift, it falls on what it wants.
The training of the mind is good,
a mind so tamed brings happiness.
An explanation: The mind is exceedingly subtle and is difficult to be seen. It attaches on whatever target it wishes. The wise guard the mind. The guarded mind brings bliss.
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Dhammapada Verse 33.
The Wise Person Straightens The Mind
... 33 - "Mind agitated, wavering,
hard to guard and hard to check,
one of wisdom renders straight
as arrow-maker a shaft".
Explanation: In the Dhammapada there are severail references to the craftsmanship of the fletcher. The Buddha seems to have observed the process through which a fletcher transforms an ordinary stick into an efficient arrow-shaft. The disciplining of the mind is seen as being a parallel process. In this stanza the Buddha says that the wise one straightens and steadies the vacillating mind that is difficult to guard, like a fletcher straightening an arrow-shaft.
- The Illistrated Dhammapada;Treasury of Truth -
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Whose mind is like a rock, determined, unwavering, immovable, without a trace of lust of urging towards all the attractions, without a trace of aversion of pushing away all the repulsive, from what, can such a refined mind ever suffer?
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When is one wrapped up in blinding Ignorance?
Once a certain not very well-known Bhikkhu asked the Blessed Buddha:
Venerable Sir, ignorance, ignorance, is it said! What is ignorance? Venerable Sir, in what way is one wrapped up in ignorance?
The Blessed Gotama Buddha then pointed out:
Not Knowing Suffering is ignorance;
Not Knowing The Cause of Suffering is ignorance;
Not Knowing The End of Suffering is ignorance;
Not Knowing The Way to end Suffering is ignorance...
All this absence of understanding is ignorance and it is by that blindness,
that dark state of blocked insight, that one is wrapped up in ignorance!
Therefore, Bhikkhu, an effort should be made much of to understand:
This is Suffering; an effort should be made much of to comprehend:
Such is the Cause of Suffering; an effort should be made so to realize:
That is the End of Suffering; An effort should be made to penetrate, recognize, and develop, The Noble Way leading to the End of all Suffering. -
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