A baby learns how to walk for the first time and her mother watches as she walks and wobbles but steady walks. The baby makes a couple of steps and then falls flat on her belly. She cries and cries but her mother runs to her and picks her up and cleans off her little knees and praises her for her courage and progress. Her mother encourages her to get up and try again.
In life we are like the babies who are learning how to walk, even if we reach the point of a master, because no one is exempt from the attacks of mischief, that come from the mind when its unguarded.
Dhammapada – Mind Chapter 3
“Your worst enemy cannot harm you
As much as your your own thoughts unguarded.”
We walk and walk in our daily lives, seeking the good path, wanting nothing and needing nothing. We practice mindfulness, selflessness, but there comes a time when we get an urge and hear the whispers from Raja and Tamas.
Bhagavad Gita – Sattva, Rajas and Tamas: Chapter 14
“The body has three parts or three gunas called Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas.
These three tie the soul to the body.
We are made up of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas.
Sattva is good.
It is clean and shining.
it is healthy and has no faults.
Sattva is happy and calm.
Rajas is not good.
It is greedy and active
and causes strong feelings.
Tamas is bad because it comes from ignorance.
It is full of faults and mistakes.
Tama is lazy.
These three parts are mixed up in us,
but the strongest part makes us good or bad.
When Sattva is strongest, we are wise.
When Rajas is strongest, we are greedy
and we cannot keep calm or still.
When Tamas is strongest,
we are lazy, foolish and covered by darkness.”
When we listen to Rajas or Tamas, which are different names for “ego,” we start to lose focus and become wobbly and get off balance. Since we are human and not perfect creatures, we usually end up falling. At this stage ego has a field day, and throws all the guilt, hatred, anger, lust everything you can imagine to hold you down, when you fall. But the Spirit of truth, wisdom and understanding comes to rescue, remind and strengthen you again by telling you, get up and try again.
Life is like a boxing match. We are in the ring and we are boxing and boxing with desire, with Raja, Tamas, saying no to temptation, saying no to passions of self, but there are going to be times when you will get hit once or twice or more times than that, but the main thing is that you do not throw in the towel. Listen to your coach that yells out encouraging and strategic steps for you to take in order to fight better. You are a master, a warrior, a fighter, a lover, a peace maker, a wise person, a good person, a person that delights in the ways of goodness. But there will be times you will get hit, maybe offended by what someone told you, or face a difficult situation. But rejoice in your difficulties, because this is the time where we change. A monarch butterfly, becomes a butterfly after it changes from a monarch caterpillar.
The Post Office has great motto that is worthy to follow. “Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail,” we will continue to walk this path, love others, care for others, we will continue to think, talk, and walk purely. Let no circumstance stop you from continuing to walk this good path.
In the book “Zen Mind, Beginners Mind,” by Shunryu Suzuki, in the chapter Right Understanding – Transiency he says:
“We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence. We should find perfection in imperfection. For us, complete perfection is not different from imperfection. The eternal exists because of non-eternal existence. In Buddhism it is heretical view to expect something outside this world. We do not seek for something besides ourselves. We should find the truth in this world, through our difficulties, through our suffering. This is the basic teaching of Buddhism. Pleasure is not different from difficulty. Good is not different from bad. Bad is good; good is bad. They are two sides of one coin. So enlightenment should be in practice. That is the right understanding of practice, and the right understanding of our life. So to find pleasure in suffering is the only way to accept truth of transiency (change).”
So in difficult times you are going to get hit left and right, you may wobble and then fall, but the Master inside of you says get up and try again. God is the true Master inside of you, God tells you to get up and try again because God loves you. God gives you the understanding to fight every trial.
Dhammapada – Mind Chapter 3
“In every trial
Let understanding fight for you
To defend what you have won.”
God will always forgive you.
Are you forgiving yourself?
In the New Testament – Matthew 18:21–19:1
Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.”
In other words a lot of times. God forgives you all the time. You must forgive yourself. The master is forgiving. Be compassionate with yourself.
You are not perfect, only the Master within you is perfect.
Cut the bands of guilt and sorrow and get up and move on.
Dhammapada – The True Master Chapter 26
“Nothing binds him or her.
He or she is infinitely free.
So cut through
The strap and the thong and the rope.
Loosen the fastenings.
Unbolt the doors of sleep
And awake.
The master endures Insults, (difficulties, temptations) and ill treatment
Without reacting.
For his or her spirit is an army.
He or she is never angry.
He or she keeps his or her promises.
He or she never strays, he or she is determined.
This body is my last, he or she says!
Like the water on the leaf of a lotus flower
or a mustard seed on the point of a needle,
He or she does not cling.”
Look at the words I bolded and meditate on it, on what it means.
My favorite part is the last lines; This body is my last, he or she says! Lets try to do our best everyday, get rid of desire and sin, and say, I will do my best to live a pure life, so I do not come back to this earth, to be born again. I will merge with God, go into Nirvana, when I past this life, and give up my last breath, this body is my last! He or she does not cling; I will not cling to my problems, I will cling to nothing, I will be empty. Its only when I empty myself I find rest, I get to know the peace. When you cling to your issues, it will overwhelm your thinking, thus make you wobble and fall. Cut the ropes and unbolt the doors of sleep and awake to victory, O warrior, O master, awake, O hail to this great awakening!
