(Audio) Dhammapada stanzas by Ven. W. Sarada Maha Thero - weekly update

SINGAPORE BUDDHIST MEDITATION CENTRE

                         

The Power of Mind                                                           A lone seer, from a tropic land,                  Sent forth rays of radiant love,                 Intense and immeasurable.                  Below, around, above.                  And far away, where snowflakes fell,                 Death knocked, and round a bed folk sighed.                   He past hope, starts, and whispers - "Look!                    Look! Love's rose-light!"-and smiling died.  Kassapa Thero   Mind is power, just as electricity is power.  Nobody will deny the power of electricity, but people tend to doubt the power of mind because as yet there is no instrument whereby it can be measured.  But to those who have had such actual experience of its operation, the power of mind is a very real thing.  Sometimes it can be a starling thing.       Since time immemorial the East has recognised the power of mind.  While the West has progressed for in studying and exploiting the power of matter, the East has progressed far in studying and exploiting this subtler power.  Phenomena such as telepathy, hypnotism, clairvoyance and clairaudience, have for ages past been regarded as almost commonplace in the East, whereas in the countries of the West they are still excitingly new.  Mind power, like destroy as well as create.  And again like all forces, it operates in accordance with certain natural laws.  Many have been those who studied these laws in order that they might use this silent, unseen force.  Some used it for evil, and reaped the deadly harvest that it yielded.  Others used it for good, and their names are still remembered with reverence.         Greatest of all teachers of mental laws in accordance with which mind power operates, He taught His followers how to develop and use it for the highest good, the attainment of final deliverance.  The first step on the road to mental  culture, according to the Buddha - Dhamma, is sila or virtue.  The man who would control his mind must first learn to control his mind must first learn to control his speech and deed.         The next step is bhavana, the practice of concentration and the cultivation thereby of a calm, steady "one-pointed" mind.  It is not easy.  The Buddha has prescribed forty subjects of meditation for the cultivation of this one-pointed mind.  In the absence of an experienced teacher, the aspirant to mental culture must analyse his own nature (always a difficult feat) and choose a subject that suits him.     One of the subjects of meditation that may with benefit be chosen by anybody is metta, selfless love, and sympathetic kindness towards all beings.  it may be practised with safety, and indeed with definite advantage, even by those whose sila is as yet imperfect.  It is wholesome and good, bringing bodily health, mental calm and rapid attainment of concentration.  To the hurrying bodily multitude, a person seated quietly in the practice of metta bhavana may appear to be doing nothing.  But those who are aware of the nature of mind-power would know better, such a person is a human dynamo, generating thoughts of love in a world that has almost forgotten how to love.  Were there many such, their untied power might yet save the world from self-destruction:     For not by hatreds are hatreds ever quenched here in this world.  by love rather are they quenched.  This is an eternal.    Excerpt from SBMC publication "Are You Grown Up?"

 

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