They watched the sunset on TV — the real one was at the window

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• The newspaper hiding the most beautiful view

  In brief: Walking a remote coast road in north-west Scotland on a perfect summer day — moors and mountains, cliffs, glistening green islands,…

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  As a student, again I was a Buddhist and I gravitated during the vacation periods to quiet places of the world. mostly to the Scotland to the North of Scotland to the moors where you could just wonder around without seeing anybody for a few days. On this one occasion I was on the Northwest coast of Scotland It was one of these beautiful summer days very often it is cold, wet and rainy but every so often in the summer time you get this perfect days and in the Northwest coast of Scotland in the summer time is paradise. you couldn't really conjure up a more beautiful scenery just so quiet, remote and unspoiled. just walking along the coast road with moors and mountains to one side beautiful cliffs, little islands dotted in the ocean as far as you could see bright green and glistening in the sun shine and all the sea birds were just reeling what I call euphoria at the time and seeing all this beautiful scenery and having all the time in the world to enjoy it because I had no place to really go plenty of time to walk just to my destination no mobile phones, no duties just walking, enjoying every moment of a beautiful part of our world. And of course I was totally silent. Until I saw a car parked up ahead of me on the road side. There was a car park there and I assumed, because I was stupid I assumed that someone who have been driving along that road and had also noticed the incredible beauty of this day in the summer time in this place and also just stopped to enjoy the scenery but when I got close I found the person wasn't looking at the scenery was reading a newspaper. This big newspaper was right in front covering up the beautiful seascape, mountains, grass, sunshine and all he could see was the news I thought what a wonderful metaphor that is of life Because what we read with our minds is all the words and the descriptions what do they have in newspapers? I know they have the cartoons that's what I always read first when I get a newspaper I really recommend the cartoons first of all. They also have; they have the wars, they have the fraud of this government or that government. they have terrorist attacks; they have all those other nasty news about life And that's what you see in the newspaper and I thought 'what a shame this is ' just on the other side of that newscript it only may be one or two millimeters you had the beauty of the world on such a gorgeous day! And at the time being quite a cheeky person; I haven't stopped being cheeky I thought of getting a pair of scissors out of my backpack I only need to cut a small hole in this newspaper so you can see what's on the other side I was very thin in those days I was an underfed poor student and this guy was a big heavy Scotsman I didn't fancy my chances if he got aggressive with me. so I just passed him by to read his newspaper, while I enjoyed the day

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• I could only see the names of the stars

  In brief: In the Cambridge Astronomical Society he learns the names of stars and constellations. In Thailand the night sky is so labelled in his…

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  when I was at University there was many societies I joined and one was the Astronomical Society always love stuff like that and I had learned the names of the stars and the constellations that you know whether it was a Galaxy or supernova or I knew all those words and when I went to Thailand and I saw the sky at night I couldn't see the Stars anymore all I could see were the names and everyone else was saying how beautiful it was and I couldn't see the beauty all I could see was like little labels next to every Star and it took me years you know I had to do this deliberately to forget the names to an act of it was an act of will so now I can look at the stars at night I don't know which one is which and I can see how beautiful they are

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• Lao Tzu and the beautiful sunset

  In brief: A disciple walking with Lao Tzu breaks the rule of silence to exclaim at a sunset and is never taken walking again; the master explains…

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  That's why there's this old simile, it's an old meditation story of Lao Tzu. Every evening he would go on a walk and he'd choose one of his disciples, only one could go on a walk with the great master. There was a golden rule, if you went on a walk with the great Taoist master you have to be quiet, you weren't allowed to speak, not even one word. One day this young man was going on a walk with the master and they got to a ridge in mountains at sunset and it was one of these amazing gorgeous sunsets and the young man couldn't help himself but say, "Wow, what a beautiful sunset." He broke the rule. Lao Tzu turned around, went back to the monastery, would never allow that young man to go on a walk ever again. The young man's friend pleaded for him, said "Look, it was only one sentence, give him a break, cut him some slack what's the big deal anyway, of keeping silent?" And that's when the master said this very profound explanation. He said, "When that young man said 'what a beautiful sunset,' he wasn't watching the sunset anymore, he was only watching the words, he wasn't watching the sunset, he was only watching the words."

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• Stupid feet

  In brief: In Ajahn Chah's monastery the monks went barefoot through the jungle, and the Western monks were always stubbing toes and piercing their…

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  as a monk with ajanta we didn't wear shoes or sandals a lot of the time and so walking through the jungles we were always stubbing our toes or piercing our souls of our feet with the the roots and other stuff in the forest we always had our our feet bandaged with so many Band-Aids saw this he said why on Earth are westerners always cutting themselves on the forest floor because they didn't wear any shoes and he said it's because you westerners have got stupid feet I never realized you could apply the word stupid to a foot but it was actually absolutely accurate always up in our head thinking about the meaning of life while we're training on thorns and stuff and and piercing our feet and making them bleed it was stupid feet

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