My dear friend, many miles have we travelled together,
many nights have you stayed up at home reading my clues
wondering what the treasure is and doubting if you will find it at all
Pay attention, while I unfold the treasure map,
one page at a time, saying all that I wanted to say
Tell me why, dear friend
you wear a frown all day
in this beautiful city that we call home
in this beautiful city that we find ourselves in?
“Just 3 reasons, dear monk…just 3
It’s complicated
It is stressful
It is unsatisfactory”
“It’s complicated”; you say
But didn’t you complicate it yourself?
Clinging to ideas and objects
imagining them to be separate, independent and permanent?
Seeing a man change his role all day – as a father, employee, husband, lover, friend and son
Can you really know the man at all? So it is with all ideas and objects
“It is stressful”; you say
But your own desire for THIS and THAT makes it so
Some impulse or other arising every second
Every desire brings the pain of desire with it
Every desire makes you feel incomplete
Making you weary and frustrated – that condition which you call stress
“It is unsatisfactory”; you say
But it is always so, whenever you act to fulfill a desire
What arises in the mind as desire,
How can it be satisfied
by something outside the mind?
Desire tries to fulfill itself through the body
By sheer will, it makes your stomach hungry
and moves your legs to the restaurant
Yet, when you eat and it can’t, how can there be satisfaction?
“Still…
I need to know more all the time
I need to pursue more all the time
I need to deliver more all the time
If I don’t, the city won’t forgive me
I will be called a failure”
“I need to know more”; you say
But there is not enough time to know it all
The objects and concepts you want to master,
will tease you every day
Today it is a cloud in the sky
Tomorrow it is water in a lake
and the day after, ice in the fridge
Playing hide-and-seek with you all the time
To know even 1 thing completely, you need to follow it eternally
“I need to pursue more”; you say
But if you don’t get what you want, you are sad
You feel incomplete, as if,
a desire unfulfilled is a promise unfulfilled
When you get what you want, you are sad
‘Cos it doesn’t feel like you wanted it to be
After you are done with what you want, you are still sad
“Is this all?”, you wonder! There must be something else
“I need to do more”; you say
When your mind is bewildered with incomplete knowledge
When your desires are forever pushing you into the next moment
When there are choices and distractions in front of you,
Can you wash even one plate after dinner?..with all your heart behind it?
“I hear what you say,
it may be too late and too hard
for me to change, but tell me…
Is there a better way?”
I know
I desire
I act
The above, we call human experience
Yet, the 3 are like blind mice
caught in the grand maze of opposites
I and World
This and That
Ideas and objects
Real and unreal
Changing and permanent
Inside and outside
Desirable and avoidable
Subject and object
Chaos and order
Big and small
I speak the truth when I say
It is the 3 of them that limit your world
Your own knowledge is the boundary of your world
Your own desires are the boundary of your world
Your own actions are the boundary of your world
Complexity, stress and dissatisfaction are their residue
The key to break free from these residues
is to break the 3 limits
Knowledge, desire and action
if we trace the source of all 3 – it is just thought!
So it is said – “our thoughts shape our world”
Shape your world, one thought at a time
starting now. It is that simple. Don’t wait
Don’t waste another breath
Just one thought. Every moment.
A wholesome thought. And watch the magic happen.
It is as simple as that.
Yet – the great Truth has more to offer
beyond the power of thought.
After you learn to shape your world
You are ready to master 3 more
They are the 3 great potentials we all have
regardless of family, country, character,
religion, age, wealth, political affiliations,
and all such invisible lines drawn by men and women
The 3 are – Enlightenment, bliss and effortless action
Enlightenment cuts through all knowledge like lightning in a dark sky!
It is an understanding of everything at once; not one at a time
Beyond doubt and beyond belief;
so it is beyond thought
Equanimity is its residue
Bliss cuts through all desire;
Fulfilling all of them in an instant;
It’s the relief at the end of desire and before the beginning of desire;
so it is beyond thought
Contentment is its residue
Effortless action flows like a river, rages like a fire, strikes with certainty
From the experience of enlightenment and bliss comes its power
With its power on your side,
everything is already done; even as it is being done
so it is beyond thought;
The joy of work is its residue
Yet – the great Truth has more to offer
beyond your own enlightenment, bliss and effortless action
After you have experienced the 3, and played with them to your heart’s content,
you face the great decision that all heroes who came before you, faced
Should you stay on and serve or should you return home?
If you choose to stay, you will do so out of love and nothing else
Your heart is moved by the suffering of all beings everywhere
those born of water, air, soil, fire, space and the mind
you don’t stay because of ignorance, though beware
delusion is only 1 thought away
If you chose to return home, you have to strive harder
To drop all the 8 chambers, and bid farewell to dear Maya
Once all maps are torn up, the seeds of desire burnt up,
all elements returned to their natural state, all perceptions ceased,
after travelling a million lives, a trillion years, waking up from a million dreams
something returns home; leaving nothing behind;
in an instant; completely refreshed
The Urban Monk diaries 