Two Englishmen on Foot in Buddhism's Holy Land
Posted by sky | Tags: Buddha, Buddhism, awareness, meditation, mind, peace, pilgrimage
From Rude Awakenings: Two Englishmen on Foot in Buddhism's Holy Land by Ajahn Sucitto and Nick Scott.
Download the free eBook (in PDF | EPUB | MOBI) at Amaravati Publications.
.. Meanwhile, modern Nepal was too involved with getting on its feet to be supporting inner tranquillity. Money needs to be made, and that means servicing tour parties. Business was hardly booming in the snack bar by the lodging where the afternoon's heat confined me, but the radios certainly were. I tried a couple of times to get whoever was lodging in the room beneath us to turn the racket down so that I could sit peacefully in my room in the hot afternoon.
Inner mutterings about "this being a holy place" and "why don't people meditate" and "serious pilgrims (like me)" got me pacing up and down the room. Then I stopped and sat down with my squalling and took it into my heart.
"When you go to practise in the place of the Buddha, you must not find fault with anyone; if you find fault, it is because you have not made peace with the world. If you have not made peace with the world, it is because you have not made peace in your heart." Master Hua, a Chinese Buddhist master who was visiting Amaravati a month before the pilgrimage began, had come out with that comment when addressing the assembled Sangha. It appeared as a general exhortation directed to nobody in particular, but it stuck in my mind like an arrow in a target, and now the recognition shivered in my mind. And as the radio jangled and blared and the wave of irritation collapsed, I remembered Bernie.
..
It struck me that wherever we went on the pilgrimage, the life of this journey was not going to be in the ruins and the temples, it was going to be conceived and nurtured wherever my mind flailed or fumed.
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