Published Sunday, 05 July 2020
Come, view this world.
See it as an ornate festive carriage.
See how fools are entranced by their visions,
yet for the wise there is no clinging.Dhammapada v.171
The Buddha is encouraging us to look at the world we live in and not be fooled by it; to see beyond the way it merely appears to be. When considering the many challenges we have to face, it is wise to pay attention to not just the surface level of appearance, but also to the way we view things. Certainly a photograph of a sunny beach with white sand and palm trees is appealing, but perhaps we shouldn’t forget the mosquitoes and jellyfish. So long as our awareness is untrained, our perceptions will be somewhat biased; we tend to only see that which we want to see and not that which actually is. And let’s remember, there is a difference between carefully holding and clinging. The wise haven’t stopped seeing the beauty of the world, but because they are no longer clinging they have stopped spoiling the beauty.