The Fifth Thought

We accept this food so that we may become enlightened.

We are taught in Zen not to waste food, not to throw it away, not to let it spoil or go bad.

In the Dhammapada there is this verse from the Old Age section:

Those who while still young
neither choose a life of renunciation
nor earn a good living,
will end up bemoaning the past,
falling like spent arrows
that have missed their mark.

Verse 156

At the turning of the year, walk on in faith. Eat your life wholeheartedly and above all do not waste it.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

5 thoughts on “The Fifth Thought”

  1. It always seems to me that maybe we could be saying ‘so that we reralise enlightenment’, since we are innately enlightened and don’t need to strive for it or ‘become enlightened’ – we need to ‘realise’ in both senses of the word.

    Thank you for this series on the five Thoughts, and all the postings this year. Happy New Year and best wishes for the Rains Retreat, from me and Tony.

  2. To just walk on…
    When all is gone, that is all there is left. So true.

    Happy New Year Rev.Master Mugo.

    With bows and gratitude,

    Norman

  3. Dear Virginia,
    So glad to see you leave a comment. Quit so, ‘so that we may _realize_ enlightenment. Many thanks to your vote of thanks too. It will be three years a bloggin’ in March.

    Dear (daddy) Miles,
    Thank you o loyal reader for your well wishes. And thank you to all the other loyal readers too. The number of people visiting went down markedly over the holidays. Perhaps many were out…eating!

  4. Thanks Norman,

    You managed to publish your comment just moments before mine. Thanks and happy New Year to you.

Leave a Reply to Mugo Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.