We have always been saying how we must cleanse and purify our soul and how to prevent your soul from the contamination of 'cleanliness'.
One who has obsessive disorder loves things to be clean and free from germs. It would pose as an emotion 'obstacle' for them whenever there's some dirt. Especially, when they put on white outfits they would be afraid to touch every single thing around them because they are 'afraid' to dirty their clothes. You might say they are really clean, but don't you think their 'heart' has been contaminated by 'cleanliness'?
Once there's a Brahman believer who went to the Ganges River to bathe early in the morning. The Brahman believes that the Ganges River can cleanse and purify him. After bathing, he headed to the market for breakfast, while walking he accidentally bumped into a beggar. He was disgusted and shrieked, "See where you're heading to! I need to go all the way back to the Ganges River to bathe again because you made me dirty!"
The beggar replied, "All I did was briefly brushing up against you as I walked by. If the Ganges River can cleanse and purify you and I am able to de-cleanse you, then I supposed I'm even greater and more powerful than your great Ganges River."
The Sakyamuni Buddha says, "There's nothing absolutely contaminated or neither pure." The differences are made up by mankind. Bear in mind that the pristine water lily raises from the depths of a murky pond.
Many who seek to live a perfect life tend to live in an imperfect life because they want every single thing in their lives to be perfect.
They put too much emphasis on the matter to be cleansed and purified at all times hence their soul is severely polluted by everything.
A master monk and his apprentice monk are meditating in a room. Suddenly a visitor accidentally barged into the mediation room, the apprentice said, "Why did you act so heedlessly? You have interrupted our tranquil meditation." However, the master didn't move an inch when the visitor came and left. After the meditation, the master asked the apprentice, "Who interrupted you just now?" He replied, "An imprudent visitor:. The master said, "I assume it's not the visitor who has interrupted your peacefulness, instead it was the tranquility of the environment that has interrupted you."
True peacefulness can never be interrupted. There are two types of peacefulness, one is the 'environment" and another is the 'state of mind'. The appearance of the visitor proves the true peacefulness within you.
There were two monks at the river bank. One of the monks is tall and well-built whereas the other is short and petite. While they were about to cross the river, there was a young lady struggling to cross the river due to the rapid water current. The young lady noticed the well-built monk and requested the monk to help her over. The well-built monk lifted the young lady and crossed the river without any hesitation. The young lady showed her appreciation and left. For the remaining of the journey, the petite monk glared at the well-built monk in disgust. On the following day, the petite monk couldn't hold it in anymore and questioned him, "Master told us that we're not supposed to have any contact with woman! But you just lifted the lady without much thought and crossed the river yesterday!"
The well-built monk smiled and said, "My little junior! I have already 'put down' the lady once I crossed the river. But why are you still holding on to it after a whole night? I suppose your 'heart' is still not able to 'put down' the lady.
You can only seek for true tranquility by changing your state of mind.
The soul doesn't know how to differentiate; the differences come within your heart.
Being attached to everything in life itself is contamination. Because all pains in life root from attachment, when there's attachment there's the thought of gaining and losing in life, when there are gains and losses there's when pain entails.
Let's get back to the point, pain stems from gains and losses, gains and losses stem from attachment and why are we attached? Precisely! Attachment stems from differentiation.
To be frank, the culprit behind human pain is the 'mentality of differentiation'.
Since young we were being brought up to differentiate what's good and what's bad; what's long and short, what's big or small and what's good or evil.
Our society and culture have implanted the concept of women being fully responsible on household chores whereas husbands and male are responsible to make a living. The Chinese society still practices the same old belief where they perceive men to be more superior than women. When the husband cheat on the wife, she would be asked to be more open and embrace the fact because it is acceptable for man to go cheating around. However when the wife is caught cheating on the husband, the consequences are daunting. She would not only suffer from being called names, such as immodest woman, slut, whore, and countless other terrible names, besides she also suffers from being discriminated by the society due to the standard of perceiving woman.
When man checked-in to a hotel it is known as socializing, however when woman do so they would become a total immodest whore. Above all the irony, man is good for nothing if they're unsuccessful in their career, but it is a virtue when women is unsuccessful in their career.
Moreover, you expect and hope your daughter to be treated well by the in-laws after marriage, in contrary, when you have a daughter-in-law, all you think of is how she can treat you well and how must she fulfill her task as a daughter-in-law. Besides, you would expect your son to live under the same roof with you after his marriage but the irony is when you have a son-in-law, you would also wished that he would stay with you after marriage.
When your friend fell out of love, you would console them to move on; when you yourself fell out of love, everything seems to fall apart and it's like the end of the world to you. You like butterfly but you're afraid of the hairy caterpillar. You would complain how messy and filthy it is to eat ice-cream, but still you can't resist it. The very same candy looks disgusting when it's spitted out by someone else, but it is nothing close to disgusting when you salivate while eating the candy. Other's booger is extremely gross but at times you'd swallow your own booger. Why would all food become disgusting when it comes in contact with the saliva? Is it because saliva is filthy? If that's so, what are those slimy liquid in your mouth? I reckon you're filthier.
Stool sickens and disgusts you, but before it was excreted, it is inside your body and wouldn't that make you even more sickening and disgusting? Visiting the gastrologist is fine, but visiting the urologist or gynecologist makes you feel all embarrassed. Both are body organs but why would you feel this way?
I threw my fist to you in order to protect my family, consequently I became a bad person to you; but if you are one of my family members, I would become a good person. In other words, if you to become one of my family members, I would be the person who gives someone else a lesson.
Why? Precisely! All of these are all because of your 'mentality of differentiation'.
At this moment, can you feel your soul is imprisoned in your body? Your physical body has nerves, arteries, feelings, and preconceived notions that you have accumulated throughout your life that misled your soul and eventually causing you to have the 'mentality of differentiation'.
Once you have the 'mentality of differentiation', all trouble and pain would entail naturally. I like this person, I hate that person, this is delicious and that tastes awful. Even a mere outbreak of a pimple could affect your day.
Why is it so difficult for human to live through a day? This is because the world is filled with 'temptations'. 'Temptations' can only take effect when there's 'feelings' and 'feelings's stems from the 'mentality of differentiation'. If we couldn't tell the difference, we would have the same feeling at all times, hence 'temptations' can't take effect on us.
Normally when we mention about 'evil', our 'mentality of differentiation' would naturally tell us that these are bad things that bring bad luck.
Conversely, if there's no encounter of any 'evil' ordeal in life, what are the things that you can do to transform your soul? If the jerk didn't dump you, how would you have the chance to enjoy happiness as it is right now? What is good; what is bad; what is right and what is wrong?
For instance, when you're meeting someone sincerely and in terms of faithfulness you felt like you have invested all our feelings into it. However after some time, the significant other realized that there are differences in belief and perspective between both and decided to end the relationship. At this instant, you might be able to take it easily as you might swear and call him a jerk of thought of revenge and create nonsensical dramas.
But have you ever thought of putting yourself in someone else's shoes? One day if you would have to experience the same exact thing when you realized there are so many dissimilarities that you can't take the relationship anymore or if you have met a better and more suitable person and decided to end the relationship. Cast all dramas that you would have done when you were dumped to yourself, I bet you wouldn't think that you are a jerk instead you would reply by saying "You're crazy" "You're ridiculous" or "That's the reason why I want to end this relationship". this is how ridiculous human are, when they're dumped they'd call someone a jerk, when they dump someone they'd call it as a a choice.
Here's another example. A driver ran over one of your family members which caused your loved one to be paralyzed or in worst case scenario, passed away. At this very moment, you might be agitated like how those family members would do on television as you might swear, curse or beat the person up. But what if you or one of your family members is the one who did the mistake? Would you stand from the victim's family point of view and apologize by saying, "I'm sorry! I'm truly sorry about what has happened! It wasn't my intention" Although your family might be apologizing earnestly from the bottom of their heart and repent for what they have done, the victim's family still insist in swearing, cursing, or applying brutal threats. How would you feel? Wouldn't you feel the other party was being too much and you were being treated unfair? Wouldn't you feel aggrieved for you and your family members?
There's no way to clearly determine what's yes or no and what's right or wrong in life. There are two sides to every coin. If you could have used your soul to calmly and correctly to view these two sides without being influenced by any of it and embrace everything with love, you would achieve the ultimate self-cultivation and you would see the cultivated practitioner in you.
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