More Dhamma Stories

okay..this may seems boring to you guys after posting a few dhamma stories here..but somehow, i find it nice because it always appears right in front of us and we are always trap in the same old circle..the cause of it?--our mind and wanting, the effects?--suffering..There are two types of suffering... Suffering that brings more suffering... and Suffering that brings an End of the suffering (Wisdom)!The Buddha only points the Way, we have to walk it by ourselves.

Three more stories by Achan Chah...
Fish Trap

If you see clearly the harm in the benefit of something, you won't have to wait for others to tell you about it. Consider the story of the fisherman who finds something in his fish trap. He knows something is in it because he can hear it flopping about inside. Thinking it's a fish; he reaches his hand into the trap, only to grab hold of a different kind of animal. He can't see it, so he's not sure what it is. It could be an eel, but it could also be a snake. If he throws it away, he may regret it, for if it turns out to be in eel, he'll have lost something nice for dinner. On the other hand, if he keeps on holding onto it and it turns out to be a snake, it may bite him. He's just not sure. But his desire is so strong that he holds on, just in case it's an eel. The minute he brings it out and sees that it's a snake, however, he doesn't hesitate to fling it away from himself. He doesn't have to wait for someone to call out, "Hey, it's a snake! Let go!" The site of the snake tells him what to do more clearly than words could ever do. Why? Because he sees the danger - snakes can bite and make you very sick or kill you. Who has to tell him about that? In the same way, if we practice until we see things as they are, we won't meddle with things that are harmful.


Snake

People want happiness, not suffering. But in fact happiness is just a refined form of suffering. Suffering itself is the coarse form. We can compare them to a snake. The snake's head is unhappiness. The snake's tail is happiness. The snake's head is really dangerous. It has the poisonous fangs. If we touch it, it'll bite right away. But never mind the head? Even if we go and hold onto the tail, it will turn around and bite us just the same, because both the head and tail belong to the one snake. Likewise happiness and unhappiness, pleasure and sadness, arise from the same snake: wanting. So when we're happy, the mind isn't really peaceful. For example, when we get the things we like, such as wealth, prestige, praise or happiness, we become pleased, but the mind remains uneasy for fear of losing them. That very fear isn't a peaceful state. Later we may really lose those things, then we truly suffer. So if we're not aware, even when happy, suffering is imminent. It's just like grabbing the snake's tail - if we don't let go, it'll bit. So be it the snake's conditions they're all just characteristics of the Wheel of Existence, of endless change.


Old Liar

Our habits try to deceive us over and over again, but if we remain aware of it, we will eventually be able to ignore them altogether. It's like having an old person come around and tell us the same old lies time after time. When we realize what he's up to, we won't believe him any longer. But it takes a long time before we realize it, because deception is always there.