Mesg from Ashish

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Message from Ashish

" Ashish Gupta " <asar_gupta

<vivekananda

 

 

Buddha on the ignorance and futility of attraction to

the human body

 

He is instructing a maiden called Prakriti who was

infatuated by Ananda.

 

The Buddha: You consider Ananda's body to be

beautiful. But, if his skin is bruised, he bleeds. If

it is not treated, it gets swollen. It begins to ache.

Pus will ooze out. If we were to strip off the skin of

any individual, no one would even want to look at that

person. If what is inside the body is turned outside,

one would have to take a cudgel to prevent the dogs

and crows from attacking. This body is made up of

bones, skin, veins, flesh, blood, spittle, excrement,

etc. When you consider its nature it is repulsive. It

is as impermanent as froth and bubble, as temporary as

a flash of lightning, as illusory as magic, or as a

figure seen in a dream. The body is ephemeral,

uncertain, false. It is like a vessel full of

waste-matter. If a person was to forgo meals for one

day, if one were not to bathe for one day, if one were

not to brush one's teeth for one day, one would tend

to find one's own self repulsive. All forms of

repulsive things ooze out of the body. The body is a

repository of diseases, of sorrows, of fears, of

disasters. One's own bodily waste is repulsive to

one's own self. This body has millions of minute

pores. Waste matter oozes out of this body like fat

from a grease-pot. It is the dwelling place of

millions of worms. It is a place where weeping,

mourning and lamentation take shelter.

 

Once the life-breath leaves this body, people are

frightened even to touch it. In a couple of days it

becomes a putrid dead body with waste matter oozing

out of it. There is only very little difference

between the love of one dead body and the love of

another dead body. Love springs entirely because of

craving. Where there is no craving, there is no

affection. Where there is affection, there is sorrow

too. From the day you started loving Ananda until now,

you experienced sorrow, weeping, lamentation, agony,

sleeplessness, starving, exhaustion, emaciation and

fatigue. None of this is happiness. You must consider

now, with your wisdom, whether Ananda's body is an

entity that should be loved.