Quote from Being Nobody Going Nowhere

Being Nobody, Going Nowhere: Meditations on the Buddhist Path


Ayya Khema

Wisdom Publications, Boston, 1987. 191 pages.

The five aggregates of clinging have as their largest and most noticeable object, the body. Nobody can forget that, and everybody has some sort of problem with it. Not necessarily consistently but now and then. "I can't sit. My knees are hurting. My backs hurting. My tummy is hurting. I'm feeling dizzy. I'm feeling tired."

The Buddha said that the unenlightened, untrained disciple has two darts or two arrows that are hurting him and the enlightened, trained disciple has one. The two arrows are mind and body, and the one is the body only. The Buddha also fell ill sometimes, but he continued to teach. It didn't stop him at all. In the end he became very ill, and when he was on the verge of dying he went into the meditative absorptions and thus passed away. Having very bad stomach cramps was no deterrent to him.

The enlightened, trained disciple also has body problems and difficulties. This body just isn't perfect, and it's never totally satisfactory. When the unenlightened, untrained disciple is affected by that, a reaction arises in the mind and responds with: "I'm feeling badly. I can't do this or that because of my condition; my body hurts so that I can't sit up or lie down or stand," or whatever it may be that feels uncomfortable. The worst of it is constantly trying to adjust one's activities to the way the body dictates. Is it ever possible to adjust one's situation totally, so that the body feels perfectly alright? Has anyone yet found that situation where the body always feels perfect? You can move from here to there, from one climate to another, from a chair to the couch, from the couch to the floor, and back to the chair. What happens? Nothing! There's always a problem. So we might as well stay on this pillow.  - page 117

Review submitted by Jennifer Knight

To visit the blog and see more reviews and quotes from books in the collection of Center for Sacred Sciences' Library, click here https://centerforsacredscienceslibrary.blogspot.com