When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick
Interpretation
This quote suggests that pursuing fleeting thoughts is futile, similar to a dog mindlessly chasing a stick.
Milarepa's quote compares the mind's tendency to chase after thoughts to a dog chasing a stick, illustrating the idea that this pursuit can lead to distraction and lack of focus. Just as a dog may tire itself out pursuing something that ultimately does not provide lasting fulfillment, people can waste their energy on transient thoughts rather than grounding themselves in the present moment or seeking deeper understanding.
In practice
This quote can be used in a meditation workshop to encourage participants to focus on the present.
Life is short and the time of death is uncertain; so apply yourself to meditation. Avoid doing evil, and acquire merit, to the best of your ability, even at the cost of life itself. In short: Act so that you have no cause to be ashamed of yourselves and hold fast to this rule.
All worldly pursuits have but one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow; acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings in destruction; meetings in separation; births in death. Knowing this, one should, from the very first, renounce acquisitions and storing-up, and building, and meeting; and, faithful to the commands of an eminent Guru, set about realizing the Truth. That alone is the best of religious observances.
He who knows that all things are his mind, That all with which he meets are friendly, Is ever joyful.
I have no desire for wealth or possessions, and so I have nothing. I do not experience the initial suffering of having to accumulate possessions, the intermediate suffering of having to guard and keep up possessions, nor the final suffering of loosing the possessions.
When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick: every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once.
In the gap between thoughts_x000D_ nonconceptual wisdom shines continuously.
I think one of the main reasons I write is to do better than ranting. The ranting is the opinion, and the writing is not the opinion. I always say that people's opinions are the worst things about them. The words demand a dignity.
I'm not trying to counsel any of you to do anything really special except dare to think. And to dare to go with the truth. And to dare to really love completely.
In the end, I am quite normal. I don't have odd habits. I don't dramatize. Above all, I do not romanticize the act of writing. I don't talk about the anguish I suffer in creating. I do not have a fear of the blank page, writer's block, all those things that we hear about writers.
After such knowledge, what forgiveness?
When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself but the ends you serve that are for all, in common, will take you into eternity.
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