Author: AEB

In the Samyutta Nikaya 56.41 we encounter a very strange story called the Lokacintā sutta. In this sutta a man relates how he went off and sat down by a lotus pond to reflect on the nature of the world. Sitting there he saw a very strange thing or vision. The result was that he thought that he must be going mad, must be insane. Read the sutta if you want to know what he thought he saw. He returned to the city and told his friends about his vision and they too concluded that he was mad. However the Buddha stated that he was not mad and that what he had seen was real. However the Buddha went on to point out that this kind of “reflection’ is quite fruitless and useless in the famous concluding remarks to the sutta.

We’re ridiculously over-stimulated in our lives these days. There is so much going on all the time. Your phone is pinging alerts to you – Ping! here are the latest COVID figures, Ping! missed call from an unknown number Ping! the PM is giving a press conference! Ping! Here’s a reminder about your doctor’s appointment – tell us now if you’re not coming! Ping! WA goes into lockdown tonight! Ping! Here’s a text from the Aust Tax Office! – they want you to contact them!

At home, we have a shrine room where Molly and I pray each day as well as the place to sit for a period of meditation. On the mantel above the fireplace are a number of Buddha statues together with prayer wheels and on the walls are tankas and embroidered Buddhist items sourced from a dozen countries where the Buddha has left his footsteps…

The Buddha pointed out that there are three paths of Pride which are: thinking I am better than the others; thinking I am less than the others; and thinking I am just as good as the others. Each of these leads to more suffering for myself and others. What then can we do? Where does this leave us? This is yet another example of the wonderful way in which the Buddha challenges us to “step outside the square” so to speak and find a new way of being and a new fruitful way of doing.