LITMIR.BIZ

      ISBN 978-5-0051-3680-0

      Created with Ridero smart publishing system

      In lieu of a foreword

      Two students of the great Zen master walked in the garden near the house. They were allowed to walk every day, morning and evening. Walks were not only a form of recreation, but also another type of training – walking meditation. No one can sit for twenty-four hours a day – feet need movement, blood needs circulation – so even in a Buddhist monastery you meditate for a few hours sitting and then start meditating on the walk.

      Both monks were smokers, and both have long wanted to ask the master for permission to smoke openly rather than hide behind trees in the garden. So they conspired and decided:

      – Tomorrow, perhaps the Master will say no, but we will ask. After all, smoking in the garden is not so sacrilegious, we will not smoke in his house. What if he lets us?

      The next day, they met in the garden. One of them, noticing that the other smokes openly and without hiding, got angry:

      – Do you smoke? Don’t you obey his instructions? I asked for the master too, but he refused me flat out.

      The other one said:

      – But he said yes to me.

      It seemed very unfair.

      And the first said:

      – I’ll go and immediately find out why he said no to me and you said yes.

      The other one was interested:

      – Wait a minute. Please tell me what you asked?

      – What did I ask you? – answered first. I asked: «Can I smoke while meditating?» He said no and looked very angry.

      The other one laughed and said:

      – Now I know what it is. I asked: «Can I meditate when I smoke?» He said, «yes.»

      Mind and body

      Two students of the great Zen master walked in the garden near the house. They were allowed to walk every day, morning and evening. Walks were not only a form of recreation, but also another type of training – walking meditation. No one can sit for twenty-four hours a day – feet need movement, blood needs circulation – so even in a Buddhist monastery you meditate for a few hours sitting and then start meditating on the walk.

      Both monks were smokers, and both have long wanted to ask the master for permission to smoke openly rather than hide behind trees in the garden. So they conspired and decided:

      – Tomorrow, perhaps the Master will say no, but we will ask. After all, smoking in the garden is not so sacrilegious, we will not smoke in his house. What if he lets us?

      The next day, they met in the garden. One of them, noticing that the other smokes openly and without hiding, got angry:

      – Do you smoke? Don’t you obey his instructions? I asked the master too, but he refused me flat out.

      The other one said:

      – But he said yes to me.

      It seemed very unfair.

      And the first said:

      – I’ll go and immediately find out why he said no to me and you said yes.

      The other one was interested:

      – Wait a minute. Please tell me what you asked?

      – What did I ask you? – answered first. I asked: «Can I smoke while meditating?» He said no and looked very angry.

      The other one laughed and said:

      – Now I know what it is. I asked: «Can I meditate when I smoke?» He said, «yes.»

      Listen to yourself

      As soon as you start listening to yourself while smoking, watching yourself, everything becomes much clearer and easier. The fight against smoking is not accepting denial or suppression. Always remember that smoking is part of you, and when you deny or suppress your desire to smoke, you deny and suppress yourself. It is impossible to ban yourself, but it is possible to understand and change yourself. There is no need to fight smoking – it is a vicious circle, a psychological form of violence and aggression against yourself. Any kind of conflict with your Self causes only more discomfort and anxiety, which are the basis of the desire to smoke another cigarette. There is no reason to conflict with your affection. Nature is always on the path of least resistance, so you should listen to the nature of your smoking. Let the changes go through comfort and awareness, rather than through denial and anxiety. You have thrown away so many times with shame and spite without smoking another cigarette, poisoning your consciousness with self-limitation and anxiety. Did it help you quit smoking? Out of hundreds of attempts at a senseless ban, did one succeed?

      After dozens of failures, try to relax. Try another method. Just try nothing else. Try to smoke a cigarette and listen to yourself. Don’t go through self-limitation and denial, but let yourself smoke by accepting your habit. Observe yourself. Ask yourself the question – what do I do when I smoke? Tell yourself I’m here, I am, I’m the one who stands and smokes. Practice this behavior for seven days. It’s only a week. At first you’ll find it ridiculous, even absurd, to remember yourself when you smoke. Indeed, your whole life you have been taught to talk to others and listen to others, but not to yourself. This is not just about smoking, but all of our activities – it is permeated by someone else looking at us and demanding his attention. For only seven days, forget about others and listen to yourself. Life is so long and beautiful, and only a week will not take you much time, but you will see that the benefits of such a dialogue with yourself much more than senseless prohibitions. Going inside yourself does wonders. You will not even notice how it will change everything! After all, once you learn to listen to yourself, it will change a lot.

      Mean and meaner…

      It happened that a homeless man lost his humble shelter in the woods. The weather was cool and he urgently needed a way to resolve the roof over his head. But the problem was that he seemed to be an awfully greedy man in the neighborhood. Painfully greedy. That’s why he wasn’t destined to find shelter with his closest neighbors. The homeless man was sitting there thinking:

      – The one on the left, I pitied a piece of bun we found together, and the one by the river probably still remembers me not sharing a bottle of wine with him. I don’t think we should even try to ask these kind people for help.

      So he reasoned until he remembered that there was another very greedy homeless man a couple of miles away from his pit, but his character was even heavier, and his greed was said to have no limit. But the cold was already approaching and, sighing, the homeless man went in search.

      Late at night he reached the hut, which was rumored to have been abandoned for many years, the owner being so greedy. Our hero approached the window and hesitated to look through it. He saw how the owner of the hut, having put on a minimum wick of kerosene lamp, in a dim light counted coins, which he managed to squeeze out for a day. The guest got up the courage and knocked on the door. Surprisingly, the owner invited him under the roof and, scattered indicating the place in the corner, continued to count his wealth, occasionally and with suspicion looking at the uninvited.

      The silence dragged on, and it was necessary to start the conversation somehow:

      – Why did you twist the wick so hard? – asked the guest from his master.

      – The lamp spends too much kerosene, and I’d rather spoil my eyesight than pour a hundred grams of extra fuel into it.

      The guest got stingy with the owner’s stinginess and made himself comfortable by lighting a cigarette.

      The owner of the hut finished counting his income and, raising his head from his penny, asked the guest to buy him a cigarette.

      – Hey,

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