Opposing LustIf the lay life were the most suitable for practice, the Buddha would not have had us become monks. Our bodies and minds are a gang of thieves and murderers, constantly pulling us toward the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion. In lay life, it is so much more difficult, with constant sense contact, as if someone were calling in welcoming tones from a house, "Oh, come here, please come here." and as you approached, they were to open the door and shoot you. You can do ascetic practices, such as using worn out unattractive things or doing the corpse meditation, looking at everyone you see, including yourself as a corpse or a skeleton. Yet these practices are not easy. As soon as you see a pretty young girl, you stop seeing corpses.Body meditation is an example of opposition. We normally consider the body good and beautiful; the Path is to contemplate its impermanent and unpleasant aspects. When we are young and strong, not yet afflicted with serious illness, it is easy to think wrongly and act unskilfully. Death seems far away, one fears no one and nothing. If one does not meditate, a taste of illness and a realization of aging may be necessary to change one's outlook. Why wait for this? Just be as one who has died. Your desires have not yet died, it is true, but behave as if they had. Sometimes it is necessary to go to extremes, such as living near dangerous beasts. If you know there are tigers and wild elephants about and fear for your life, you will not have time to think about sex. Or you can reduce your food or fast to temporarily reduce energy.Some monks live in cemeteries and make death and decay their constant object of meditation. As a young monk, I liked to live with old men, asking them what it was like to get old, seeing them and realizing we all must go the same way. Constantly keeping death and decay in mind, dispassion and disappointment in the world of senses arise, leading to rapture and concentration. One sees things as they are and is free of them. Later, when meditation is firmly established, there are no difficulties. We are only driven by lust because meditation is not yet unshakable.When we come to live in the forest as monks, we are no longer letting the defilements be content in their own way, so we find they kick at us quite hard. Patience and endurance are the only remedy. In fact, at times in our practice there is nothing else, only endurance. Yet of course it will all change.People outside may call us mad to live in the forest like this, sitting like statues. But how do they live? They laugh, they cry, they are so caught up that, at times, they kill themselves or one another out of greed and hatred. Who are the mad ones?Remember to keep in mind why we ordain. Anyone who comes to a practice like ours and does not taste enlightenment has wasted his time. Lay people with families, possessions, and responsibilities have attained it. One who is ordained should certainly be able to do the same.
The Dalai Lama's Solution to OverpopulationOrdination as one answer to managing overpopulation? What thinkest thou?
Ordination is not celibacy.
"When we see Hindus worshiping Siva lingas it looks strange to us, but actually everyone in the world worships the Siva linga — i.e., they worship sex, simply that the Hindus are the only ones who are open about it. Sex is the creator of the world. The reason we're all born is because we worship the Siva linga in our hearts."
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Topic: The Dalai Lama's Solution to Overpopulation (Read 400 times)
