[Buddha-l] Re: Greetings from Oviedo

[Chan Fu]

On 10/4/05, Benito Carral <bcarral at kungzhi.org> wrote:


> It's  my  experience as a Buddhist teacher that many
> people  in our world practice what they call "Buddhism"
> in  order to attain enlightenment, to see the void, and
> a lot of more of strange things. Nowadays I always ask,
> "Why do you want to study Buddhism?" If they don't tell
> me  that  they  want to stop dukkha, I ask them to look
> for another teacher.

Do they even know what that means?

Disturbance, irritation, dejection, worry, despair, fear, dread,
anguish, anxiety; vulnerability, injury, inability, inferiority;
sickness, aging, decay of body and faculties, senility; pain/pleasure;
excitement/boredom; deprivation/excess; desire/frustration,
suppression; longing/aimlessness; hope/hopelessness; effort, activity,
striving/repression; loss, want, insufficiency/satiety;
love/lovelessness, friendlessness; dislike, aversion/attraction;
parenthood/childlessness; submission/rebellion;
decision/indecisiveness, vacillation, uncertainty?

If they do ask, do you tell them that it's like trying to stop
time? Do you tell them that impermanence is, itself,
impermanent? That without it, they would just be a
handful of gravel? That with it, they are still no better
than the same handful of gravel? What do you tell them,
Benito? How do you stop dukkha?