Heave yourself from the quicksand of treacle
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George Clark, Oct 2001 [Source}

I am as I am. Circumstances dictate. 

There is, however, the part option of choosing today’s circumstances so as to influence those of tomorrow. It is a part option because old habits die hard. Clean breaks on the road to Damascus are not the norm. 

The task is to heave yourself from the quicksand of treacle, and he who hesitates is sucked back.

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think.

The origin of a thought train is the life force – that totally unknowable and thus unspeakable something-or-other. It obviously exists as the source but it is impossible to describe in other than vague generalisations.

Suffering follows and evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it.

Remaining forever in your village you do not know the source of the river that runs though it. You are aware of water flowing. Why concern yourself with where it comes from and why? When thirsty, drink.

Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.

So long as I live there will be thought trains and each will have an ‘object’ as its engine. But neither the thought nor its object has substance. Both appear spontaneously and briefly in my mind. OK there may be some ‘concrete referent’ upon which the ‘object’ is based: but I cannot know the concrete referent as it is in itself, only as an object in my mind.

As rain seeps through an ill-thatched hut, passion will seep through an untrained mind.

The map (object) is not the territory (concrete referent). 

I live in a world of home made maps. 

I am free to draw and redraw those maps at will. I am also free to ignore them. 

So much freedom when you think about thinking!

Those who recite many scriptures but fail to practice their teaching are like the cowherd counting another’s cows. They do not share in the joys of the spiritual life.

Source of quotes: Easwaran, Eknath (1986) The Dhammapada; Arkana; 
ISBN 0 14 019014 7 [Chapter One]

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