This body of ours: Actually there's not the least bit of it that's
  really ours at all. We've gotten it from animals and plants -- the
  pigs, prawns, chickens, fish, crabs, cows, etc., and all the various
  vegetables, fruits, and grains that have been made into the food we've
  eaten, which the body has chewed and digested and turned into the
  blood that nourishes its various parts. In other words, we've taken
  cooked things and turned them back into raw things: ears, eyes, hands,
  arms, body, etc. These then become male or female, they're given ranks
  and titles, and so we end up falling for all of these conventions.
  Actually these heads of ours are lettuce heads, our hair is pigs'
  hair, our bones are chicken bones and duck bones, our muscles are
  cows' muscles, etc. There's not one part that's really ours, but we
  lay claim to the whole thing and say it's this and that. We forget the
  original owners from whom we got it all and so become possessive of
  it. When the time comes for them to come and take it back, we're not
  willing to give it back, which is where things get messy and
  complicated and cause us to suffer when death comes near.

    If all the various animals we've eaten were to come walking out of
  each of us right now (here I'm not talking about the really big ones,
  like cows and steers; say that just all the little ones -- the
  shrimps, fish, oysters, crabs, chickens, ducks, and pigs -- came
  walking out) there wouldn't be enough room for them all in this
  meditation hall. None of us would be able to live here in this
  monastery any more. How many pigs, ducks, chickens, and shrimp have
  each of us eaten? How many bushels of fish? If we were to calculate it
  all, who knows what the figures would be -- all the animals we
  ourselves have killed for food or that we've gotten from others who've
  killed them. How do you think these animals won't come and demand
  repayment? If we don't have anything to give them, they're sure to
  repossess everything we've got. Right when we're at death's door:
  That's when they're going to crowd around and demand that we repay our
  debts. If we don't have anything to give them, they're going to knock
  us flat. But if we have enough to give them, we'll come out unscathed.

    In other words, if we develop a lot of inner goodness, we'll be able
  to contend with whatever pains we suffer, by giving back the body with
  good grace -- in other words, by letting go of our attachment to it.
  That's when we'll be at peace. //We should realize that the body
  leaves us and lets us go, bit by bit, every day.// But we've never
  left it, never let it go at all. We're attached to it in every way,
  just as when we eat food: We're attached to the food, but the food
  isn't attached to us. If we don't eat it, it'll never cry even once.
  All the attachment comes from our side alone.

    The pleasure we get from the body is a worldly pleasure: good for a
  moment and then it changes. It's not at all lasting or permanent.
  Notice the food you eat: At what point is it good and delicious? It
  looks good and inviting only when it's arranged nicely on a plate.
  It's delicious only for the brief moment it's in your mouth. After it
  goes down your throat, what is it like then? And when it gets down to
  your intestines and comes out the other end, what is it like then? It
  keeps changing all the time. When you think about this sort of thing,
  it's enough to make you disillusioned with everything in the world.

    Worldly pleasure is good only when it's hot and fresh, like
  fresh-cooked rice piled on a plate when it's still hot and steaming.
  If you leave it until it's cold, there's no taste to it. If you let it
  go until it hardens, you can't swallow it; and if you let it sit
  overnight, it spoils and you have to throw it away.

    As for the pleasure of the Dhamma, it's like the brightness of stars
  or the color of gold. The brightness of stars is clear and glittering.
  Whoever sees it feels calmed and refreshed. When depressed people look
  at the stars, no matter when, their depression disappears. As for the
  color of gold, it's always gleaming and golden. No matter what the
  gold is made into, its color doesn't change. It's always gleaming and
  golden as it always was.

    In the same way, the pleasure of the Dhamma is lasting and gives
  delight throughout time to those who practice it. For this reason,
  intelligent people search for pleasure in the Dhamma by giving up
  their worthless, meaningless worldly pleasures, to trade them in for
  lasting pleasure by practicing meditation until their minds and
  actions reach the level of goodness, beauty, and purity that goes
  beyond all action, all suffering and stress.

                            * * * * * * * *
 
 

                        NIGHTSOIL FOR THE HEART
                              July 6, 1959

  Beautiful things come from things that are dirty, and not at all from
  things that are pleasant and clean. Crops and trees, for instance,
  grow to be healthy and beautiful because of the rotten and smelly
  compost and nightsoil with which they're fertilized. In the same way,
  a beautiful mind comes from meeting with things that aren't pleasant.
  When we meet with bad things, the mind has a chance to grow.

    'Bad things' here refers to loss of wealth, loss of status,
  criticism, and pain. When these things happen to a person whose mind
  is rightly centered in concentration, they turn into good things.
  Before, they were our enemies, but eventually they become our friends.
  What this means is that when these four bad things occur to us, we can
  come to our senses: 'Oh. This is how loss of wealth is bad. This is
  how loss of status, how pain and criticism are bad. This is how the
  ways of the world can change and turn on you, so that you shouldn't
  get carried away with their good side.'

    When meditators meet with these four kinds of bad things, their
  minds develop. They become more and more dispassionate, more and more
  disenchanted, more and more detached from the four opposites of these
  bad things -- wealth, status, pleasure, and praise -- so that when
  these good things happen, they won't be fooled into getting attached
  or carried away with them and can instead push their minds on to a
  higher level. When they hear someone criticize or gossip about them,
  it's as if that person were taking a knife to sharpen them. The more
  they get sharpened, the more they grow to a finer and finer point.

    Loss of wealth is actually good for you, you know. It can teach you
  not to be attached or carried away with the money or material benefits
  other people may offer you. Otherwise, the more you have, the deeper
  you sink -- to the point where you drown because you get stuck on
  being possessive.

    Loss of status is also good for you. For instance, you may be a
  person, but they erase your good name and call you a dog -- which
  makes things even easier for you, because dogs have no laws. They can
  do what they like without any constraints, without anyone to fine them
  or put them in jail. If people make you a prince or a duke, you're
  really in bad straits. All of a sudden you're big: Your arms, hands,
  feet, and legs grow all out of size and get in your way wherever you
  try to go or whatever you do.

    As for wealth, status, pleasure, and praise, there' s nothing the
  least bit constant or dependable about them. The more you really think
  about them, the more disaffected and disenchanted you become, to the
  point where you find that you're indifferent, neither pleased nor
  displeased with them. This is where your mind develops equanimity and
  can become firm in concentration so that it can grow higher and higher
  in the practice -- like the lettuce and cauliflower that Chinese
  farmers plant in rows: The more they get fertilized with nightsoil,
  the faster, more beautiful, and more healthy they grow. If they were
  fed nothing but clean, clear water, they'd end up all sickly and
  stunted.

    This is why we say that when people have developed mindfulness and
  concentration, they're even better off when the ways of the world turn
  ugly and bad. If the world shows you only its good side, you're sure
  to get infatuated and stuck, like a seed that stays buried in its
  shell and will never grow. But once the seed comes out with its shoot,
  then the more sun, wind, rain, and fertilizer it gets, the more it
  will grow and develop -- i.e., the more your discernment will branch
  out into knowledge and wisdom, leading you to intuitive insight and on
  into the transcendent, like the old Chinese vegetable farmer who
  becomes a millionaire by building a fortune out of plain old
  excrement.

                            * * * * * * * *
 
 

                            THE HONEST TRUTH
                     June 23, 1958; August 23, 1958

  When we first meet with the fires of greed, aversion and delusion, we
  find them comforting and warm. We're like a person sitting by a fire
  in the cold season: As he sits soaking up the warmth, he gets more and
  more sleepy and careless until he burns his hands and feet without
  realizing it, and eventually falls head-first into the flames.

                                *  *  *

  The pleasures felt by people in the world come from looking at things
  only on the surface. Take a plateful of rice, for instance. If. you
  ask people what's good about rice, they'll say, 'It tastes good and
  fills you up, too.' But the Buddha wouldn't answer like that. He'd
  answer by talking about rice both when it goes in your mouth and when
  it comes out the other end. This is why his view of things covered
  both cause and effect. He didn't look at things from one side only.

    The Buddha saw that the ease and happiness of ordinary pleasures is
  nothing lasting. He wanted an ease and happiness that didn't follow
  the way of the worldly pleasures that most people want. This was why
  he left his family and friends, and went off to live in seclusion. He
  said to himself, 'I came alone when I was born and I'll go alone when
  I die. No one hired me to be born and no one will hire me to die, so
  I'm beholden to no one. There's no one I have to fear. In all of my
  actions, if there's anything that is right from the standpoint of the
  world, but wrong from the standpoint of the truth -- and wrong from
  the standpoint of my heart -- there's no way I'll be willing to do
  it.'

    So he posed himself a question: 'Now that you've been born as a
  human being, what is the highest thing you want in this world?' He
  then placed the following conditions on his answer: 'In answering, you
  have to be really honest and truthful with yourself. And once you've
  answered, you have to hold to your answer as an unalterable law on
  which you've affixed your seal, without ever letting a second seal be
  affixed on top. So what do you want, and how do you want it? You have
  to give an honest answer, understand? I won 't accept anything false.
  And once you've answered, you have to keep to your answer. Don't be a
  traitor to yourself.'

    When he was sure of his answer, he said to himself, 'I want only the
  highest and most certain happiness and ease: the happiness that won't
  change into anything else. Other than that, I don't want anything else
  in the world.'

    Once he had given this answer, he kept to it firmly. He didn't allow
  anything that would have caused the least bit of pain or distraction
  to his heart to get stuck there as a stain on it. He kept making a
  persistent effort with all his might to discover the truth, without
  retreat, until he finally awakened to that truth: the reality of
  Liberation.

    If we search for the truth like the Buddha -- if we're true in our
  intent and true in what we do -- there's no way the truth can escape
  us. But if we aren't true to ourselves, we won't find the true
  happiness the Buddha found. We tell ourselves that we want to be happy
  but we go jumping into fires. We know what things are poison, yet we
  go ahead and drink them anyway. This is called being a traitor to
  yourself.

                                *  *  *

  Every person alive wants happiness -- even common animals struggle to
  find happiness -- but our actions for the most part aren't in line
  with our intentions. This is why we don't get to realize the happiness
  we want, simply because there's no truth to us. For example, when
  people come to the monastery: If they come to make offerings, observe
  the precepts, and sit in meditation for the sake of praise or a good
  reputation, there's no real merit to what they're doing. They don't
  gain any real happiness from it, so they end up disappointed and
  dissatisfied. Then they start saying that offerings, precepts, and
  meditation don't give any good results. Instead of reflecting on the
  fact that they weren't right and honest in doing these things, they
  say that there's no real good to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, that
  the Buddha's teachings are a lot of nonsense and lies. But actually
  the Buddha's teachings are an affair of the truth. //If a person isn't
  true to the Buddha's teachings, the Buddha's teachings won't be true
  to that person// -- and that person won't be able to know what the
  Buddha's true teachings are.

                                *  *  *

  When we practice virtue, concentration, and discernment, it's as if we
  were taking the jewels and robes of royalty and the Noble Ones to
  dress up our heart and make it beautiful. But if we aren't true in our
  practice, it's like taking robes and jewels and giving them to a
  monkey. The monkey is bound to get them dirty and tear them to shreds
  because it has no sense of beauty at all. Whoever sees this kind of
  thing happening is sure to see right through it, that it's a monkey
  show. Even though the costumes are genuine, the monkey inside isn't
  genuine like the costumes. For instance, if you take a soldier's cap
  and uniform to dress it up as a soldier, it's a soldier only as far as
  the cap and uniform, but the monkey inside is still a monkey and not a
  soldier at all.

    For this reason, the Buddha teaches us to be true in whatever we do
  -- to be true in being generous, true in being virtuous, true in
  developing concentration and discernment. Don't play around at these
  things. If you're true, then these activities are sure to bear you the
  fruits of your own truthfulness without a doubt.

                            * * * * * * * *
 
 

                             SELF-RELIANCE
                              May 22, 1959

  In Christianity they teach that if you've done wrong or committed a
  sin, you can ask to wash it away by confessing the sin and asking for
  God's forgiveness. God will then have the kindness to hold back
  punishment, and you'll be pure. But Buddhism doesn't teach this sort
  of thing at all. If you do wrong, //you// are the one who has to
  correct the error so as to do away with the punishment on your own
  behalf. What this means is that when a defilement -- greed, anger, or
  delusion -- arises in your heart, you have to undo the defilement
  right there so as to escape from it. Only then will you escape from
  the suffering that would otherwise come as its natural consequence.

    We can compare this to a man who drinks poison and comes down with
  violent stomach cramps. If he then runs to a doctor and says, 'Doctor,
  doctor, I've drunk poison and my stomach really hurts. Please take
  some medicine for me so that the pain will go away,' there's no way
  that this is going to cure the pain. If the doctor, instead of the
  sick man, is the one who takes the medicine, the sick man can expect
  to die for sure.

    So I ask that we all understand this point: that we have to wash
  away our own defilements by practicing the Dhamma -- the medicine of
  the Buddha -- in order to gain release from any evil and suffering in
  our hearts; not that we can ask the Buddha to help wash away our
  mistakes and sufferings for us. The Buddha is simply the doctor who
  has discovered the formula for the medicine and prepared it for us.
  Whatever disease we have, we need to take the medicine and treat the
  disease ourselves if we want to recover.

                            * * * * * * * *