Itâs great when people share their perceptions of the doodles on the thread. Everyone sees different things in them.
I didnât think of an afro when I made it. It was supposed to be a black cloud of delusion. Kind of the counterpart to the yellow aura of the arahants.
Um⌠⌠yes, sorry, Ven. Yodha, I was being naughty. The real idea was, in fact, quite clear⌠what can I say, my afro took over when seeing the opportunity to be silly.
A few months ago, someone asked me to make a doodle of the noble eightfold path that they can tattoo on their neck. In the end, that never happened, so I thought Iâd share the doodle here:
Noble Eightfold Path
I just love that! One of my most favourite doodles to date. I wonât be tattooing it on my neck either though!
Love it. I wonder if just a smile in the mirror on the non-I side might reflect the positives of the being free of the views of separate self?
Let me go!!
Ven @Vimala commented that this doodle reminded them of an Ajahn Brahm story about being in prison and trying to dig a tunnel to get out, but other people keep you busy with decorating their cells.
Iâve never heard this story ( surprising, considering how many times they are usually repeated ⌠). Does anyone know where to find it?
Three companions is a rabble
A monk alone is like BrahmÄ;
A pair of monks are like devas;
Three are like a village;
And more than that is a rabble.â
Thag 3.9
The fascination of suffering
All the suffering that arises is rooted and sourced in desire. For desire is the root of suffering.
SN 42.11
âŚhmmmâŚI donât remember hearing that versionâŚbut then Iâve noticed Ajahn tends to be quite responsive to his audience, perhaps he changes it up!
The story Iâve heard is the one where a prison is used as a similie for samsara and we go around trying to make it happy; visiting each otherâs cells and decorating our own cells and having counselling sessions (okay, I added that, I donât think Ajahn said thatâŚactually, maybe he didâŚI canât remember anymore!!!) for each other to make prison a more meaningful and beautiful experience⌠etc. etcâŚ
Only, somebody (the Buddha) found a key, opened a gate and left. And he left the gate open. We can get out whenever we want to, but most of us donât even know that weâre in jail, let alone that thereâs a way out.
Thatâs, in a nutshell, the tale I remember. But you may be referring to another one. Perhaps what youâre referring to is here:
Thanks for sharing, Iâll listen to the talk this afternoon!
Thatâs funny that you chose this particular simile because itâs the same one I used just the other day to explain consciousness to my significant other!
This is such a cool way of representing the stream: individual dominoes that are discrete, yet still relate to each other. When my mind gets fractious it wants to engage in some pattern matching and rearrange the dominoes; but whatâs the point? They are receding into the infinite past and the only one I can see clearly is the present one. Thank you .
Stitching the âselfâ together
After I made this doodle, I remembered the sutta about the seamstress, Snp 5.3. It kind of fits the doodle, so I share it here:
âHe who is chaste in regard to sense pleasures, Metteyya,â said the Gracious One,
âfree from craving, always mindful,
having discernment the monk is emancipated, for him there is no turmoil.âHe is the wise man, who has known both ends, and is undefiled in the middle.
He, I say, is a Great Man, he has gone beyond the seamstress here.â
The meaning is quite cryptic, so there is a discussion among the monastics about this verse, and an explanation by the Buddha at AN 6.61. Enjoy!
Please show us a ânon-addictâ.