We don´t need a forest to practice dharma
All what we need is in best case a authentic teacher and means
Bodhichitta (so serve all begins) is the enlightenend mind
This intention , this motivation and the other practices are all mind states.
Bodhichitta transform the impure mind in a buddha mind
to serve all beings is a mind state .. and we practice step by step and result´s will come !
hi thorsten,
I'm glad you're reading the book.
It's beautiful, I've read it too...
Maybe we look too much at outer things , Buddha shakyamuni had inner wealth....
There are many many stories about shakyamuni where he was not yet a buddha.
He had many teachers and he did not have it easy in many lives. When he saw the lotus pond or the forest, I think he saw things differently from us. Conditional arising or impermanence not the nature .. But I don´t know .. maybe not
Everything reads so beautifully in stories and we imagine ..
Try to take a holiday for 5 months in a forest , at some point it gets boring for our mind.
Because we don't change things inside, and then we always have to change things outside our whole life ... there will not be the last holiday ... People go on holiday all the time but there is never satisfaction... we always need a new holiday... a new good film, new nice conversations.... our spirit does not arrive at happiness ... People think when I have achieved THAT then I am happy ... but we always end up looking for further satisfaction ... shakyamuni Buddha realised that in his mind and he saw even though he had all that , woman wealth (maybe holiday in this palace) ... happiness is fleeting and every holiday ...
