[Buddha-l] Re: What are the "joys of living"?

[Benito Carral]

On Monday, June 26, 2006, Vicente Gonzalez wrote:

> In  this  way, everybody should taste the pleasure of
> the  world  to  understand  impermanence  of  worldly
> happiness. It is what Gautama life show to us.

   That's  quite  absurd.  One doesn't need to become a
crack  addict  to  understand that it's unwholesome--in
fact,  smart  people  try to avoid it. In the same way,
one  doesn't  need  to  betray  his  spouse and break a
family  in  order to understand the involved suffering.
Fortunately,  we  don't need to learn everything by own
experience,  specially  after  the  Buddha  turned  the
Dharma  wheel.  That's  why many people like Hanshan or
Xuyun started to practice Dharma since an early age and
become  great  masters  without  harming others much in
their  learning. Unfortunately, some times people learn
by  the  hard  way  causing  a  lot  of  suffering  for
themselves   and   others.  We  don't  need  to  follow
Angulimala's  or  Milarepa's  steps,  we  can  learn by
others'  experiences,  we  can  learn  from the Dharma.
There  is a wonderful passage in the Torah that express
this  idea  quite  well: "Trust in Hashem [we could say
"Dharma"  here] with all your heart, and do not rely on
your own understanding" (Proverbs 3:5).

   Best wishes,

--
Benito Carral
  Asturias, Sepharad (Spain)