Description
This book contains a translation of the Dhammapada and the Mother ‘s commentaries on this important Buddhist scripture. During her classes at the Ashram Playground in 1957 – 58, she read from a French translation of the text and explained some of the essential truths expounded by the Buddha in these verses, such as the control and mastery of the mind and the need for constant awareness and a central sincerity on the spiritual path. Her purpose, as she told the class, was to teach them mental control.
“One of these verses is very beautiful. We could translate it like this: “Happy is he who possesses nothing, he will partake of the delight of the radiant gods.” To possess nothing does not at all mean not to make use of anything, not to have anything at one’s disposal. “Happy is he who possesses nothing”: he is someone who has no sense of possession, who can make use of things when they come to him, knowing that they are not his, that they belong to the Supreme, and who, for the same reason, does not regret it when things leave him; he finds it quite natural that the Lord who gave him these things should take them away from him for others to enjoy. Such a man finds equal joy in the use of things as in the absence of things. When you have them at your disposal, you receive them as a gift of Grace and when they leave you, when they have been taken away from you, you live in the joy of destitution. For it is the sense of ownership that makes you cling to things, makes you their slave, otherwise one could live in constant joy and in the ceaseless movement of things that come and go and pass, that bring with them both the sense of fullness when they are there and, when they go, the delight of detachment.”
– The Mother, Commentaries on the Dhammapada
Read online, Questions and Answers 1929-1931, which contains Commentaries on the Dhammapada
SABDA catalog listing for Commentaries on the Dhammapada
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