"From the moment of birth, every human being wants happiness

and does not want suffering.

Neither social conditioning nor education nor ideology affects this.

From the very core of our being, we simply desire contentment.

Therefore, it is important to discover what will bring about

the greatest degree of happiness."

- the Dalai Lama

 

People have said,

"There are three essentials to happiness in this life:

something to do,

something to love,

and something to hope for."

 

It all sounds so nice and neat;

but what if we do not know what to do,

who or what to love, or what to hope for?

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What are we supposed to do here? Are we supposed to make a family

to love and take care of

or devote ourselves to the good of the whole world? 

What is supremely important? Not just in your life but in life itself.

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Should we sacrifice for ideals beyond our friends and family?

Should we create a business to help others

or just make lots of money to buy things and experiences

for ourselves and our families? 

Some say life is about Truth or the Divine,

but what if someone threatens to kill our child

unless we tell a lie or renounce our God?

What will we do then? What is of supreme value?

 

If we are mistaken about what is important, if we are wrong about what we value, then we have not evaluated things correctly,

and if we can't do that, 

something about our life will not be right, and the pieces of our life

will not fit together;

we will develop a secret life cut off from public life; we will become hypocrites.

Most of all, if we are wrong about what is important in life

then we will waste our lives,

suffering a fate that is worse than death.

 

The Buddha said that suffering is the nature of life, presenting its unwanted face to the world as it always has and will. This was the 'First Noble Truth.'

Suffering is inescapable, which is another reason we must find what is truly important, what we should do, love, and hope for.

For if we do not know, then even our inevitable suffering

will be pointless and in vain.

 

When we were young, our parents told us how to act and what was important. As we grew older, we left our homes to adventure in a wider world, throwing ourselves into experiences that changed our values from the ones we were raised with. 

 

Youth was the time of idealism, when we felt something extraordinary for ourselves for the first time. Whether it was a teaching, a person, a romance, philosophy, or adventure, we either committed our lives to it, unaware of the limits of our devotion or the limits of the sought-after object, or blind to the fact that our commitment was not eternal and that we would one day break our vows.

Or we turned away, scared, frightened, and reactive. Adolescence was the beginning of rebelling against the authority that told us what was important, what we should do, and what life was all about.

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Before, we were ruled by our parents, but now we seek a higher authority or break with all authority as rebels sometimes do even 'without a cause.' Yet all the time (in obeying or rebelling), we were reacting to authority, tied by the umbilical cord of our own reactive, 'yes' or 'no,' belief or doubting nature.

We were not yet mature human beings. We were still adolescents in reaction.

 

The stories I share here are but fingers pointing at the moon of what lies beyond both belief and doubt. They contain what I feel is important, healing, beautiful, and good, but they are only fingers and not the moon. If you look in the direction to which they point, they may be as beneficial to you as they were to me.

But they may not.

 

Not all the stories I tell here agree with one another,  

and none of them are true all the time; there is always a limit, some occasion, some dilemma or paradox, some ‘Sophie’s choice’ in which there is no 'right way' to go . . . and those are the stories that interest me the most.

 

I am old enough to know I am full of prejudice and limitation (crap) and chastened enough to know that some of it I am aware of and some of it I am not . . . there is no need to believe what I relate here and it is not my purpose to make anyone do so.

 

I am reminded of the texts of the original Buddhist scriptures, the Pali Canon, where every sutra begins with the word ‘Ehvam,’ which means, ‘Thus I have heard.’

The Buddhists used ‘Ehvam’ as an introduction to what they were about to read from the scriptures. They wanted their listeners to know that what followed was hearsay, not the 'Truth,' but only something that had been heard and remembered. They meant to 'say' that these words of the Buddha are not some revelatory, absolute Truth like the Hindus consider the Vedas.

 

Rather, what follows should not be believed in; it must be experienced. They are saying we must evaluate what is heard using our own understanding and our own experience, and that is the proper attitude in which

to receive these teachings. 

 

So, as you read or listen to these tales, remember they are hearsay.

If you have not experienced them, enjoy them and leave them aside.

One day, you will become the authority for what you have been seeking all your life

. . . for at that time, like waking up, it does not matter what has gone on in the dream we have been dreaming; there is nothing to work out, achieve or believe regarding the dream. The sun has risen on a bright new world

, and the suffering of our dreams has vanished.

 

Such is the intended Rasa (taste) of the stories I tell here . . . 

 

Ehvam

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