The Vajra Parrot Squawks!

"I am really shocked and amazed at many religious people - Christian or Buddhist or whatever - who seem to be ignorant regarding the practice of their religion. ... They are still trying to describe the indescribable, limit the unlimited, know the unknowable, and not many look at the way they are. They believe what someone else has told them.

Gotama the Buddha was one whose wisdom came from observing Nature, the conditions of mind and body. Now that's not impossible for anyone of us to do. We have minds and bodies; all we have to do is watch them. It's not as if we have to have special powers to do that or that, somehow, this time is different from that of Gotama the Buddha... People in the time of of Gotama the Buddha were not any different from the way they are now - they had greed, hatred and delusion, egos, conceits and fears just like people nowadays.

People say to me, "I can't do all that. I'm just an ordinary person, a layman; when I think of doing all that, I realise I can't do it, it's too much for me." I say,"If you think about it, you can't do it; that's all. Don't think about it, just do it." Thought only leads you to doubt. People who think about life can't do anything. If it's worth doing, do it.

When you get depressed, learn from your depression; when you get sick, learn from your sickness; when you're happy, learn from happiness - these are all opportunities to learn in the world. Keep silently listening and watching as a way of life ... then you begin to understand the conditions of mind. There's nothing to fear. There's nothing you have to get that you don't have. There's nothing to get rid of."

Ajahn Sumedo - "The Way It Is", Amaravati Publications, 1991