[quote] venerable sheng-yen

	吹	也	不	风	风
	过	不	要	已	过
	就	必	老	经	疏
	吹	怀	是	吹	竹
	过	念	埋	过	,
	了	和	怨	了	风
	，	风	风	，	过
	心	习	把	还	而
	里	惯	我	有	竹
	不	的	吹	什	不
	留	时	成	么	留
圣	痕	候	这	声	声
严	迹	；	样	音
法	:		，	呢
师	:			？

When the Buddha was a Bodhisattva

 

“Bhikkhus [Monks], before my enlightenment, while I was still only an unenlightened Bodhisattva, I too, being myself subject to birth, sought what was also subject to birth; being myself subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, I sought what was also subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement.

Then I considered thus: “Why, being myself subject to birth, do I seek what is also subject to birth? Why, being myself subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement, do I seek what is also subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement?

Suppose that, being myself subject to birth, having understood the danger in what is subject to birth, I seek the unborn supreme security from bondage, Nibbana [Nirvana]. Suppose that, being myself subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement, having understood the danger in what is subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement, I seek the unaging, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, and undefiled supreme security from bondage, Nibbana.’”

.

Ariyapariyesana Sutta, in The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, trans. by Bhikkhu Bodhi

Ego as a Room of One’s Own

 

Ego is like a room of your own, a room with a view with the temperature and the smells and the music that you like. You want it your own way. You’d just like to have a little peace, you’d like to have a little happiness, you know, just “gimme a break.”

But the more you think that way, the more you try to get life to come out so that it will always suit you, the more your fear of other people and what’s outside your room grows. Rather than becoming more relaxed, you start pulling down the shades and locking the door. When you do go out, you find the experience more and more unsettling and disagreeable. You become touchier, more fearful, more irritable than ever. The more you try to get it your way, the less you feel at home.

—————— Pema Chodron, Start Where You Are