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I've got a prescription, I've got a prescription

JeffreyJeffrey Veteran
edited October 2011 in Arts & Writings
Pema Chodron tells the story of a person who has taken on the buddhist path and is very proud of the knowledge they received. This goes back to my post earlier is where my train of thought went. Where I said to put into practice the teaching and do our own practice. I think it was a thread where everyone was arguing over right speach, I forgot.

Anyhow the story is of this person who runs around telling all of their friends "I've got a prescription, I've got a prescription!" They never fill the prescription or take the medicine. They just run around talking about their prescription.

Comments

  • compassionate_warriorcompassionate_warrior Veteran
    lol ! Great, Jeffrey! It was on a thread where everyone was arguing about those prescription was best, IIRC.
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    By the same token, the danger is in filling the prescription, then taking all the tablets at once in the mistaken belief you'll get over your malady more quickly.....
  • JeffreyJeffrey Veteran
    Indeed, and incidentally I imagine we can all examine these questions. Perhaps even Pema Chodron does!
  • SattvaPaulSattvaPaul South Wales, UK Veteran
    Or we can keep going from doctor to doctor receiving different diagnoses and different prescriptions, and then mix all the meds together. :crazy:
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    edited October 2011
    ....Or we can decide that we have an aversion to medicine, and although we take the prescription - and we might even go the step further and fill it - we resist taking the medicine, because we believe we can heal the malady on our own.....


    Oh, the possibilities are endless....!
  • ArnArn
    ....
    Oh, the possibilities are endless....!
    And so instead of building up a big story in our head we just bring our awareness back to the present moment and pop the prescribed pill with a nice cup of tea
    :coffee: :)
  • SattvaPaulSattvaPaul South Wales, UK Veteran
    edited October 2011
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran
    By the same token, the danger is in filling the prescription, then taking all the tablets at once in the mistaken belief you'll get over your malady more quickly.....
    Even more dangerous is taking one or two pills and thinking you're cured and throw them away, when you actually aren't cured. :)
  • HanzzeHanzze Veteran
    Medicine

    ...It's like a doctor handing a bottle of medicine to a patient with a fever. On the outside of the bottle is a label telling the different diseases the medicine can cure. As for the medicine that cures the diseases, it's inside the bottle. If the patient spends all his time reading the label — even if he reads it a hundred times, a thousand times — he'll end up dying and never get any benefit out of the medicine. He'll then go around making a big fuss, complaining that the doctor is bad, the medicine can't cure the diseases it's claimed to cure, even though he never opened the cap on the bottle to take the medicine.

    http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/chah/insimpleterms.html
    *smile*
  • HanzzeHanzze Veteran
    By the same token, the danger is in filling the prescription, then taking all the tablets at once in the mistaken belief you'll get over your malady more quickly.....
    Even more dangerous is taking one or two pills and thinking you're cured and throw them away, when you actually aren't cured. :)
    Rubbing Fire Sticks

    The practice is like a man rubbing fire sticks together. He's heard people say, "Take two pieces of bamboo and rub them together, and you'll get fire." So he takes two pieces of bamboo and rubs them together. But his heart is impatient. After rubbing them together a bit he wants there to be fire. His heart keeps pushing for the fire to come quickly, but the fire just won't come. He starts getting lazy, so he stops to rest. Then he tries rubbing the sticks together again for a little bit, and then stops to rest. Whatever warmth there was disappears, because the warmth isn't connected.

    If he keeps acting like this, stopping whenever he gets tired — although just being tired isn't so bad: His laziness gets mixed in too, so the whole thing goes to pieces. He decides that there is no fire, he doesn't want fire after all, so he gives up. He stops. He won't rub the sticks anymore. Then he goes about announcing, "There is no fire. You can't get it this way. There is no fire. I've already tried."

    http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/chah/insimpleterms.html

    *smile*



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