Marcel Legros - Play the Game of Life

Almost Home - I Get to Sleep in a Bed Tonight!

I have decided to head for the hills this week and live in a dirty tent with my family for a few days. I’ll have lots of ideas when I return and in the meantime I decided to include a few random passages from a few awesome books. Here is Day 5 of “Random Holiday Thoughts” taken from “The Way of the Bodhisattva”. It was written by Shantideva in 8th century India. Cool! See you when I return.

“Those who wish to keep a rule of life
Must guard their minds in perfect self-possession
Without this guard upon the mind,
No discipline can ever be maintained.

Wandering where it will, the elephant of mind,
Will us down to pains of deepest hell.
No worldly beast, however wild,
Could bring upon us such calamities.

If, with mindfulness’ rope,
The elephant of the mind is tethered all around,
Our fears will come to nothing,
Every virtue drop into our hands.

Tigers, lions, elephants, and bears,
Snakes and every hostile beast,
Those who guard the prisoners in hell,
All ghosts and ghouls and every evil phantom,

By simple binding of this mind alone,
All these things are likewise bound.
By simple taming of this mind alone,
All these things are likewise tamed.

Source: “The Way of the Bodhisattva” - Shantideva - Chapter 5