Centered in the Body
May 08, 2007
In one of the suttas on mindfulness of the body, the Buddha gives an image of how we should practice. He says: Suppose there’s a man, and they’ve placed a bowl of oil on his head. The bowl is full to the brim. There’s a beauty queen who is singing and dancing, and a crowd of people excited about the beauty queen singing and dancing, and the man has to walk between the two. There’s another man following behind him with a raised sword, and if the first man lets even a drop of oil spill, the man with the raised sword is going to cut off his head. So the Buddha asks: Will that first man allow his attention to be distracted by the beauty queen or by the crowd? The answer, of course, is No, because he knows he would die.