Enrolled: Taking Instruction From the Heart

One night, as I was sitting in a state of misery, it occurred to me (although I can’t remember why) to look up, A Tree in a Forest (Dhamma Garden, Chungli, Taiwan, R.O.C.: Yuan Kuang Publishing House, 1994).

The first thing that struck me was how, when asked to recommend a book on Buddhism, Ajahn Chah replied, “only one,” and pointed to his heart (vii).

And so, I decided to try reading that ‘book’ instead.

Almost at once, I began to fantasize in a way that made me feel very good, but then I remembered how whenever I get blissed out this is often followed by bouts of rage.

And then, my heart ‘said,’ “well then, don’t do that!”

“So, what do I do then?” I asked.

“Is there a middle way?”

After considering for a moment, I let go of the ‘bliss making,’ brought my attention to my breath and watched violet coloured clouds of bliss drifting off through the mind’s sky, and what was left was calm, steadiness of mind and clarity.

Uh huh! So now I see that contrary to popular opinion, we really do come with instruction manuals!

It’s like, when you buy a computer and you take it out of the box and you can’t find the instruction manual. And then somebody suggests you check the hard drive, and so you plug it in, turn it on and check the documents folder, and there it is.

So, perhaps what Ajahn Chah was saying, was that all we have to do is read the manual (which, of course, is unique to each make and model ;) ), and then we’ll know what to do.