Sunday Nov 03, 2024
FT
Sunday Nov 03, 2024
Saturday, 23 May 2020 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
“If one who enjoys a lesser happiness beholds a greater one, let him leave aside the lesser to gain the greater”
– The Buddha
The Buddha, the most practical of teachers, says that wisdom is essentially discrimination – the precious capacity to see what is important in the long run and then choose our course of action accordingly.
Most of us are vigilant when making big decisions but less so when dealing with little ones. We forget the cumulative effect of those missed ‘little’ opportunities. It is precisely on those thousand little occasions, and over a period of time that the mind is taught to be calm and kind – not instantaneously or by great leaps. In the ordinary choices of everyday we begin to change the direction of our lives.
(From ‘Words To Live By’ by Eknath Easwaran, founder of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, copyright 2005; reprinted by permission of Nilgiri Press, P.O. Box 256, Tomales, Ca 94971, www.bmcm.org.)
