Part II Correcting Our Views
Right Understanding
One develops right understanding by seeing impermanence, suffering, and non-self in everything, which leads to detachment and loss of infatuation. Detachment is not aversion. An aversion to something we once liked is temporary, and the craving for it will return.
Imagine some food that you like --- bamboo shoots or sweet curry, for example. Imagine having it everyday for five or six years; you would be tired of bamboo shoots. If someone were to offer you some, you would not get excited. In the same way, we should see impermanence, suffering, and emptiness in all things at all times; bamboo shoots!
We seek not for a life of pleasure, but to find peace. Peace is within oneself, to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on the hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. To try to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it. Investigate suffering, see its causes, and put an end to them right now, rather than merely dealing with their effects.
One develops right understanding by seeing impermanence, suffering, and non-self in everything, which leads to detachment and loss of infatuation. Detachment is not aversion. An aversion to something we once liked is temporary, and the craving for it will return.
Imagine some food that you like --- bamboo shoots or sweet curry, for example. Imagine having it everyday for five or six years; you would be tired of bamboo shoots. If someone were to offer you some, you would not get excited. In the same way, we should see impermanence, suffering, and emptiness in all things at all times; bamboo shoots!
We seek not for a life of pleasure, but to find peace. Peace is within oneself, to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on the hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. To try to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it. Investigate suffering, see its causes, and put an end to them right now, rather than merely dealing with their effects.
