Understanding Yourself: The Journey Within : หน้า 27/135

7. LOOK WITHIN YOURSELF I look at myself. I look through myself. I understand "me" clearly. I look into my physical self to find my human nature until I thoroughly understand it. Then I look deeper into my spiritual self, to find my transcendental nature, until I understand this too. Once I understood myself, I understood others and everything else. This is the way of Dhamma. It sounds strange but it is true and it is profound. Try to understand ourselves truly, and we will understand everything and everyone else clearly, because this world is about us. Look inside us and we will see the world clearly. But the ways of the world are not like this---we tend to look at others and try to understand them instead of ourselves. When we fail to understand them we get frustrated. By looking so hard at others, we forget to look at ourselves. Acting this way will never help us truly understand. As for me, I look to myself to understand "me" first. Then I will understand others. May 5, 1980 8. DO IT FOR YOURSELF When Luang Por Wat Paknam was guiding the super-advanced meditation group, he asked every meditator, one by one, what his/her purpose was for performing this super-advanced meditation. Some said they did it for Buddhism; others said they did it for Luang Por. Everyone gave the same types of answers. When it was my turn to answer, I said, "I am doing it for myself." This was the answer that pleased Luang Por the most. He said, "This is the way to go! You guys are here to do it for yourselves, not for anyone else. No one can do it for others. You do it because you want to free yourself from suffering...to free yourself from the enslavement of the 'Mara'". September 20, 1982 *'Mara' refers to evil, both as a concept and as a personification. In Buddhist cosmology, Mara is a supernatural being responsible for hindering people from performing meritorious deeds. Mara can also mean obstacles for doing good deeds.