Your essence of wisdom

The Watercooler
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Suppose you are about to wander into homelessness, where there is no internet or thousands of suttas and books on Buddhism.

You can take the notes with the texts with you, by cultivating contentment, dispassion and kindness

What would it be?

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For an intermediate/advanced practitioner the situation itself would be used to reinforce positive factors. Difficulties would be encountered involving desire or anger and if they could be overcome, wholesome qualities are implanted/reinforced in the mind, thereby utilizing a power of uncertainty greater than in normal life, which reveals how impermanence is constantly underlying events. Care would be exercised to maintain sufficient solitude time. In Thailand there is a practice where monks deliberately go wandering for a period of time, they don’t take texts because there is clarity about what has to be done. The Buddha spent most of his life travelling in that way.

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“This too shall pass.”

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There’s only one sutta that I consider my all time favourite:

Then, late at night, the glorious god Kakudha, lighting up the entire Añjana Wood, went up to the Buddha, bowed, stood to one side, and said to him, “Do you delight, ascetic?”

“What have I gained, sir?”

“Well then, ascetic, do you sorrow?”

“What have I lost, sir?”

“Well then, ascetic, do you neither delight nor sorrow?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I hope you’re untroubled, mendicant, I hope that delight isn’t found in you. I hope that discontent doesn’t overwhelm you as you sit alone.”

“I’m genuinely untroubled, spirit, and no delight is found in me. And also discontent doesn’t overwhelm me as I sit alone.”

“How are you untroubled, mendicant? How is delight not found in you? How does discontent not overwhelm you as you sit alone?”

“Delight is born from misery, misery is born from delight; sir, you should know me as a mendicant free of delight and misery.”

In short, don’t expect to gain anything, don’t worry about loss. If gain happens, know it’s impermanent and unpredictable, which would temper your expectations. If loss happens, know it’s impermanent, and predictable, which would temper your sorrow. Thus allowing you to just be content with what is.

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Thank you, very good text. I am writing to my elite collection of the best sutt for me.

While watching the Ajahan Brahma ceremony, I saw how much he tried not to get carried away by the joys that poured out on him at once with praise. I think he was aware of this wisdom.

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We might consider the depth, practice implications, and benefits of

SN 22.86 - Dukkhameva uppajjamānaáč uppajjati, dukkhaáč nirujjhamānaáč nirujjhatÄ«

“What arises is only suffering arising, what ceases is only suffering ceasing.”

This can appear pessimistic and kind of negative, but it can be fundamental to letting go, for sense restraint, the deepening of wisdom, and for metta /compassion – when everything in conditional experience is understood as suffering the heart directly experiences equanimity and compassion because: it’s all suffering. What’s not to help?

And the way out becomes clearer since it’s directly understood that conditional existence is an ongoing gomaya-show: so stop clinging and perpetuating the endless round of rebirths and suffering.

Just saying


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That life is inherently bad, the world a prison, and that it always gets us unless we walk the eightfold path.