Day Eight: 29 November 2005

Deeper the craving, deeper the aversion,
Deeper the aversion, deeper the suffering.

17.46
Already near the end, can you imagine?
More scanning of the body, from head to feet, feet to head. More sensations tobe felt and more practice in being equanimous.

I can more or less sit corss-legged, hands together, eyes closed for almost two hours without moving. Much less pain now, more confidence and endurance.
But still troubled by thoughts of family, future and miscellaneous cloud me from moment to moment. Especially the first one jerked more tears today.

20.08
"The Buddha said that there are four types of people in the world: those who are running from darkness towards darkness, those who are running from brightness towards darkness, those who are running from darkness towards brightness, and those who are running from brightness towards brightness. "

Who do you want to be?

--
The Discourse Summaries--talks from a ten-day course in Vipassana Meditation, S.N. Goenka

" Understand what Dhamma is: nature, truth, universal law. "

"The processes that one observes within oneself also occur throughout the universe. For example, someone sows the seed of a banyan tree. From that tiny seed a huge tree develops, which bears innumerable fruit year after year, as long as it lives. And even after the tree dies, the process continues, because every fruit that the tree bears contains a seed or a number of seeds, which have the same quality as the original seed from which the tree grew. Whenever one of these seeds falls on fertile soil it sprouts and grows into another tree which again produces thousands of fruit, all containing seeds. Fruit and seeds, seeds and fruit; an endless process of multiplication. In the same way, out of ignorance one sows the seed of a sankhara, which sooner or later gives a fruit, also called sankhara, and also containing a seed of exactly the same type. If one gives fertile soil to the seed it sprouts into a new sankhara, and one's misery multiplies. However, if one throws the seeds on rocky soil, they cannot sprout; nothing will develop from them. The process of multiplication stops, and automatically the reverse process begins, the process of eradication."

"The Buddha was once asked what real welfare is. He replied that the highest welfare is the ability to keep the balance of one's mind in spite of all the vicissitudes, the ups and downs, of life. One may face pleasant or painful situations, victory or defeat, profit or loss, good name or bad name; everyone is bound to encounter all these. But can one smile in every situation, a real smile from the heart? If one has this equanimity at the deepest level within, one has true happiness. "