BE A GOOD DRIVER
| If
our life is a journey, the vehicle is our body. The
journey is through pathways of movement - the four
postures: walking, standing, sitting and lying down. It
is a circuit we make everyday. To be a good driver, one has to avoid accidents, as toddlers, we have had many accidents before we learnt to walk upright. But to walk the Buddha's Noble eightfold path upright, we need more mindfulness and awareness. We tend to be careless in our driving especially at the 'posture-junctions'. To avoid 'accidents' of slipping into unmindfulness, we have to be aware at the 'posture-junctions' though it is easy to be mechanical and impulsive in the change of postures. This calls for slowing down and keener attention. 'Walking, he knows, I am walking; Standing, he knows I am standing; Sitting, he knows, I am sitting; lying down, he knows 'I am lying down' In whatever way his body is disposed, so he is aware of it. Driving recklessly along the perilous routes of Samsara in our vehicle, we have met with many accidents and deaths. So now we have to take at least a 'retreat' as often as we can, to learn driving slowly, carefully and mindfully through the four postures, paying attention to the posture-junctions. That way, we grow in heedfulness (appamada) which, the Buddha says is the path to the Deathless. 'Heedfulness is the Deathless Path and heedlessness - the Path of Death. The heedful do not meet with Death. The heedless are as good as dead'. - Dhp.v.21 - SatipatthanaS., M.N. |