VBT – Meditation 17.1
The Mind Is Very Unmindful
Shrown became a beggar, a sannyasin. He became a BHIKKHU, a monk, and soon other disciples of Buddha observed that he was moving to the other extreme. Buddha never asked anyone to be naked, but Shrown became naked. Buddha was not for nakedness. He said, “That is just another extreme.”
There are persons who live for clothes as if that is their life, and there are other persons who become naked – but both believe in the same thing. Buddha never taught nakedness, but Shrown became naked. He was the only disciple of Buddha who was naked. He became very, very self-torturing.
Buddha allowed one meal every day for the sannyasins, but Shrown would take only one meal on alternate days. He became lean and thin. While all the other disciples would sit for meditation under trees, in the shade, he would never sit under any tree. He would always remain in the hot sun. He was a beautiful man and he had a very lovely body, but within six months no one could recognize that he was the same man. He became ugly, dark, black, burned.
Buddha went to Shrown one night and asked him, “Shrown, I have heard that when you were a prince, before initiation, you used to play on a VEENA, a sitar, and you were a great musician. So I have come to ask you one question. If the strings of the veena are very loose, what happens?”
Shrown said, “If the strings are very loose, then no music is possible.” And then Buddha said, “And if the strings are very tight, too tight, then what happens?” Shrown said, “Then too music cannot be produced. The strings must be in the middle – neither loose nor tight, but just exactly in the middle.” Shrown said, “It is easy to play the veena, but only a master can set these strings right, in the middle.”
So Buddha said, “This much I have to say to you, after observing you for the last six months – that in life also the music comes only when the strings are neither loose nor tight, but just in the middle. So to renounce is easy, but only a master knows how to be in the middle. So Shrown, be a master, and let these strings of life be just in the middle – in everything. Do not go to this extreme, do not go to that one. Everything has two extremes, but you remain just in the middle.”
But the mind is very unmindful. That is why the sutra says, UNMINDING MIND… You will hear this, you will understand this, but the mind will not take note. The mind will always go on choosing extremes.
The extreme has a fascination for the mind. Why? Because in the middle, the mind dies. Look at a pendulum: if you have any old clock, look at the pendulum. The pendulum can go on moving the whole day if it goes to the extremes. When it goes to the left it is gathering momentum to go to the right. When it goes toward the right, do not think that it is going toward the right – it is accumulating momentum to go toward the left. So the extremes are right-left, right-left.
Let the pendulum stay in the middle, then the whole momentum is lost. Then the pendulum has no energy, because the energy comes from one of the extremes. Then that extreme throws it toward another, then again, and it is a circle… the pendulum goes on moving. Let it be in the middle, and the whole movement will then stop.
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