A SABEDORIA DE BUDA - leitura do DHAMMAPADA - 4/5 - Lúcia Helena Galvão

Hello, once again we have had some nice minutes together to reflect on ideas. I think it's beautiful. We get together around ideas. Sometimes people ask me, do you think these people who are watching these videos on the internet are really your friends? Does it really have anything to do with you? I find this kind of placement a little curious, because people on the streets get together around interests, get together because one lives close to the other, get together because they work in the same place. Do we get together around ideas? I don't know who you

are in terms of identity, where you are, I don't know your faces, but I know you like ideas. This generates a greater affinity between us than the one we have with people we know physically. So, yes, I consider that we are friends. We have a point of union that is very valid and much longer-lasting than most of the points of union that we see being built between people in the current world. So I invite my friends to continue our reading of Dhammapada. Today we will start from chapter 17. Well, just going back to that beginning

to better locate ourselves. We are talking about a book called Tripitaka, the three sixths, which is where the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama were collected in some councils after his death. Within this Tripitaka there are three sixths. One of them is what we call Sutapitaka. Within Sutapitaka, which was compiled by Ananda, there are five divisions. One of these divisions is the Kudakanikaya. And within this book there are 15 other subdivisions. And one of them is Dhammapada. So I hope it hasn't gotten too complicated, so you can locate yourselves. And this Dhammapada is considered an extract of

the Buddhist doctrine, and I am very happy, very well done. And we are commenting on some selected verses. And from these selected verses, today we are entering chapter 17. I hope you are following the reading, seeing what we agreed on. If you don't follow the reading, you will get very little of what is being said. The idea of ​​these reading groups is to help them read the most important books, let's say, within a certain criterion, which in this case is my philosophical criterion, some of the most important books in our history. So let's go. Chapter

17. Its name is Kodavaga. Kodavaga deals with anger. And he makes a series of statements about this loss of control that we have so many times fallen into. Anger. In verse 222 it is said the following. The one who dominates growing anger, as if braking an unruly car, is called a driver. The others just hold the reins. Remember that biblical passage that I always quote, for your works I will know you. That is, I will see if you are a driver, because you drove the car in the direction you intended, and with skill, that is

a driver. I'm not going to say you're a driver, I'm just saying you sat in front of the wheel to take a picture. Plato also uses this example a little when he says, a doctor is the one who wants the good of the patients and who contributes to the good of the patients. It is not the one who has a lot of titles, a lot of labels, for your works I will know you. So it's no use saying, I drive this body of mine. Well, if you move through life, I'll see if it's yourself, as

a human consciousness that is driving, or if you are being dragged by the vehicle itself. If you are being dragged by your passions, by your anger, that is, by all the imbalances of the vehicles we are driving. That is, inside a car you have a steering wheel, you have wheels, you have a lot of complex gears, that serve you, but you have to know how to drive them. If you don't know, it's likely that one of these poorly used commands took the car out of the way, that is, it gave a direction to the car

that is not what you want. So the driver is the one who actually imposes himself on the vehicles. We have to have, first of all, an identity, know who we are and who the vehicle is. My car is there in the garage, I'm here, I know that my car and I are not one. Now my physical body, my emotions, my mind, do I have so much consciousness that I feel they are vehicles? They are not me. This detachment, this having an identity above the vehicles, is what turns you into a real driver. So you have

to drive. And the one who dominates the anger is the one who is similar to that skilled driver who brakes an out-of-control car. If you don't have this ability, you will have accidents, both in the car and in life. Verse 223 Anger is overcome by serenity, evil by good, greed by generosity, and lie by truth. Notice well, it's like you have two armies that are facing each other. Instead of fighting anger with the resources you have today, which has no chance of winning, you feed the other army, which is serenity. How? By practicing with discipline

daily acts of serenity. Putting a practical experience, creating an identity with this virtue. At a certain moment, the two armies will confront each other, but this one is much stronger and has a much greater chance of winning. Instead of fighting now that defect we have, we invest in the opposite quality. How? Every day, planned, intentionally, practicing the opposite virtue. Until we have an identity of consciousness with that virtue. In such a way that we can say, I am serene. We can have an identity with it. When anger arises, it is strange, it is an invader.

I no longer identify with it. As well as anger and serenity, as well as evil and good, as well as greed and generosity, lie and truth, any other polarity you have, invest in the opposite pole. This strengthens you. It strengthens you for an inevitable confrontation and creates an identity with the virtue you need to develop. 224 Say the truth. Do not surrender to anger. Give of the little you have to those who ask you. These three merits bring the man closer to the gods. Notice, I am not entering into religious connotations. The book Dhammapada is

a sacred book of the Buddhist tradition. But philosophically we can extract an interesting teaching from it. They considered that the gods are the apex of the human condition. Those most evolved beings who reached the top of the Olympus. That is, they reached perfection in terms of values, virtues and wisdom. If we observe the vision of these eastern peoples, of all concatenated nature, from the mineral to the vegetable, to the animal, to the human and even the divine, and try to understand a little this eastern logic, they realize that all beings are evolving. This is already

scientific for us today. And a stone that is structuring itself, organizing itself in a molecular way, it is getting closer and closer to the capture of energies that are typical of a vegetable. So much so that many collect crystals for the type of energy they are able to channel. That is, the energetic is already a field with which the vegetables work. But the mineral, when it evolves, leans towards the attributes of the vegetable. It begins to channel energies. And a plant that would work with this organization, this evolution, even a dicotiledonia, this complexity of forms.

We know that those most evolved, at least, says the popular use, that these most developed have a certain sensitivity to the human presence, sometimes of a person specifically. Have you ever heard of the story of the green finger? I'm not saying that this is a truth, but there is a lot of popular knowledge about it. That a person, for example, when you put violet in her house, she looks more green than in the other's house. It seems that this person has a certain tendency to create ties with the plant. And she realizes this and develops

much more. That is, a very evolved plant would already incline its tendencies to the emotional, which is no longer the field of development of the plant, it is the field of development of the animal world. So evolution is reflected in what comes next. And so do the animals. Who has ever had a little dog? I speak from my own experience. A little dog so naughty that we look at him and say, just need to talk. And it's really impressive the level of elaboration, of actions, the intentionality that we perceive. Then the regret is an incredible

thing that a dog is able to do. The dog is developing the emotional plane. The mental plane is already human. But those more evolved, don't they seem to think? And then comes the human condition, which develops all its rational capacity. Homo sapiens sapiens. Learns to develop a whole logical concatenation of premises and conclusions. Learns to think correctly. And the divine is the one who already works with a pure mind, absolutely altruistic, only for the other, only for the unity. But do you realize that when the human being evolves a lot, he begins to lean towards

it? That is, the best men in humanity already had an altruism, the flower of the skin? That is, what the oriental tradition considers, I'm not putting this as any absolute truth, is that evolution leans us to the future. So obviously, just like when you want to have a little dog at home, you don't want the one that is chaotic, ferocious, that doesn't respect you, bites you, doesn't know how to live with a human being. You want the one that is closest to you. If these divine beings really exist, they must have a similar logic. They

don't want clumsy human beings, they want those who are close to them. And from these, they are more intimate. And to these, according to this vision, maybe they communicate their secrets. Notice, without Western preconceived visions, this is a philosophy, this is a worldview. Can't we look at it without thinking and try to learn from it? I think so. As a philosopher, I am not a Buddhist, but I learn a lot from Dama Pada. 227, 228 No one in the world escapes criticism. There is none, never has been, and never will be, a person totally free

of censorship or permanently praised. I was just about to look at these verses, preparing the lecture for you, I said, it's impressive after a while. It's even hard for us to recognize. Is this the Analects of Confucius? Is this the voice of the Tibetan silence? Is this the Indian Bhagavad Gita? Because the basis, the way it is expressed is differentiated, of course. But the basis of the teachings that are here is so universal, that it is really impressive. It seems that everything drank from a single source, or walks to a single source, and what advances

becomes more similar, like those who climb to the top of a pyramid, closer as they approach the top. So when you see, for example, this verse, which says that you do not worry too much about criticism, because no matter how much you try to follow the social script, you will be criticized. Do not worry too much about praise, because no matter how much you obey social rules and stand out, there will be people who will criticize you. That is, do not be aware of criticism or praise. This is very Confucian. That passage in which a

disciple of Confucius comes to him and says, Master, if a man is loved by all the people of a city, what can we say about the character of this man? He says, we can't say anything. And if a man is hated by all the people of a city, what can we say about his character? We can't say anything either. But how, Master? What is the solid clue we can have to have a premise about the character of a man? He says, a single clue. If he is loved by the good and hated by the bad.

That is, as the world is dual, and there will be those of a less solid character, more solid, and in numerous intermediate gradations, each human being will be a judgment. The closer you get to him, the further you get away, when you get further away, but get a little closer, he can start taking you as a reference, but those who are very far away may want to criticize, for a certain fear of having to embark on the same adventure as you. That is, it is practically, as the popular saying says, each head a sentence, each

human being will be an opposition to you. Imagine wanting to make an average of all this. In addition to being tremendously demagogic, it is a prison of the soul. It is a life behavior that wants to please everyone. This is the end. There is no possibility of taking a step towards the unknown if we want to condition our steps to what people judge and expect from us. We will always be criticized or praised. Do not let your behavior depend on either one or the other. 231-234 Be vigilant of the insubmission of the body, of the

tongue and of the mind. Do not turn to the body through actions, words or thoughts. The wise one watches his actions, refrains his words and dominates his thoughts. That is, the wise one is vigilant, the question of attention. Let's do a little study, a little summary. One of the most recurring things that this book has is be careful with carelessness. You can have principles, you can have good intentions, if you are not vigilant, by the cracks of your carelessness, everything will come in. And soon you will not be in the middle of the amount of

things that are not yours, but that are inside you, as thoughts, as conduct, as feelings. So vigilance is very important. And he warns of the insubmission of the body through actions, of the tongue and of the mind. Be careful not to hurt with actions, words or thoughts. Be careful! None of these verses is so easy to understand. Because not to hurt does not mean always having to use a sweet and soft language. But to use a language that always encourages the other to walk towards the good that is his own. So you can imagine that

you will come to a child, the example I always give, which is the least controversial, you will come to a child who will put his finger in the socket, don't do that, son, he's already electrocuted. Then it's a scream, no! Well, that was hard, it was not hard, it was fair, it was necessary. You had no interest in it, it was for her good. Sometimes we have to take the whip to get the merchants out of the temple, because of them, so that they do not profane the sacred. That is, the good is what is

appropriate to lead beings towards the good. It is not the soft, because this can be a great demagogy, wanting to be loved at any price, no matter what happens to people. It's like the doctor who gives a strawberry syrup to a child who needs a stronger medicine, but wants her to love him. So she dies loving the doctor, this is absurd. So not being aggressive does not mean being always sweet. Be careful, because in all the plans, being too sweet can generate an excess of weight and a lot of health problems, both physical and anemic.

So know how to decode these well, because from the misunderstanding of verses like this, a lot of theories and education practices will be born, and a lot of things that we have problems with to this day. Be careful! A good educator, a good conductor, treats with justice, with kindness, but not always with softness. Always with the most effective way, to save the other from pain, to lead them towards the good, which is not always a sweet language. In fact, sometimes it hurts us much more a sweet voice, with a tip of irony, than a scream

from a father or a mother who says, No! Don't do it! And we know it's out of love. So know how to dose what is behind the forms, and know how to use them. Chapter 18 The impurity, Malavaga, verse 235 Fill like a dry leaf in the tree of life. The heralds of the King of Death knock at your door. You leave for a long journey, and have no provision for the journey, that is, no merit of good deeds. What is he talking about? At this moment we are like a dry leaf, life begins to

withdraw, those who reach a certain age... And it's curious, because life is so fleeting, that the young man thinks, This will not happen to me so soon. It's a blink of an eye. Life has as a trademark its fleetingness. There is an author who says that you can only say one thing about life, it passes, and it passes quickly. That is, at a certain moment, we start to see those yellowish colors of autumn in our lives. Soon comes the winter, the harvest, the end of the cycle. He says, the moment you realize this, the moment

you realize that life is fleeting, run now, so as not to undertake this great journey of hands wandering. Because, by definition, we will have to return to the case of the father with the arms full of fruit, with the arms full of flowers and fruits, that were harvested along our journey. There is nothing, nothing was done in terms of merit, of good deeds, now, get up and do it. Now, start to transform your way of living, so as not to undertake this journey of empty suitcase. So remember that Egyptian passage that says, He woke up,

gets up and runs. Ah, but I could have woken up for the meaning of life at the age of 20. I was not prepared, because otherwise I would have woken up. I woke up at 70, okay, it's now, now is my time. I will leave from this just moment, immediately, reaping the fruits and merits of this precious finding that I made, that life is fleeting and that we have to reap merits, we have to add to the world and to ourselves. So, the moment when consciousness realized, is the moment of action, without lamentations, it is

the moment that could realize, therefore, it is now. Do not let yourself be guided by this fleetingness of a life of 80, 90 years. I can say, I'm very young, I'm very old, people, 70, 90 years, even more so, we are within an oriental tradition, which works with the idea of ​​reincarnation. How many times do I tell you, for example, about Plato? In any subject, anywhere in the world, I ask Plato to help me explain. Plato lived 2,400 years. Imagine you, being alive, participating in our life, helping us to understand a lot of things, it

helps me to understand almost everything. That is, what are 70 years, Plato died in 2,400. So, do not measure what is early or late for something. The moment when consciousness awakens, is the moment to get up and run, as the Egyptians say. We go towards what we came to do, to give a truly human meaning to our life. Time is too much, insignificant, it is a very dubious figure. 238 Hurry up, become an island, work with ardor, be wise. Extinguishing your impurities, free from passions, you will no longer be subject to birth or death. Realize

that this insular thing of being an island, you are still communicating with the continent, when it needs you or when you need it. But there is a certain loneliness, where you work what only you can do, your inner life, correct your imperfections, purify your intentions, get rid of your desires. That is, this internal work, it is no use trying to make someone do it for you. It's you and yourself. The external experience is raw material, but all work is done inside. So there has to be a moment, what Plato called the divine bones of sacred

loneliness, where we are a little like an island, and we elaborate everything that the environment brought us, and we transform it into life, into maturity, into wisdom. One of the things we have today, highly complicated, is the prejudice against loneliness. An isolation due to complexes, due to inability to relate, is bad. Loneliness is not, loneliness is necessary. Sometimes you have to take everything they gave you and go in to see what you're going to do with it. We receive things from outside, experiences from within, ideas. We have to put it all together and build something

that will be the fruit of our life. Then, at a certain moment, this ripe fruit of human experience puts us above time, above life, above death. In the plan of ideas, we find our dose of eternity, we add something, a vision, a little light to the world. 242-243 Bad behavior is a stain. For those who give, greed is a stain. Bad action is actually a stain, in this and in the other world. Ignorance, however, is greater than all stains. Destroyed, you will be pure, O disciples! Kant talks about bad behavior, greed, bad action in general.

He says that the greatest stain is ignorance. You will say that philosophy is very complicated, it is categorizing everything, dividing everything. It takes work, but it is necessary. Ignorance itself has a duality, it has good ignorance. Today I ignore the ultimate meaning of human life, but I want to know. This is necessary, this is humility, I have to recognize where I am. To think I know what I don't know is crazy, ego inflation, as Jung would say. But there is a bad ignorance, which is the one that ignores, but thinks it knows, and doesn't want

to leave the point it is. This generates dogmatism, sectarianism, aggression, this mentality of either being with me or against me, there is no other nuance. That is, this type of consolidated ignorance has to do with that sentence Plato repeated so much. The greatest impediment to wisdom is to think you already know. Man thinks he owns the truth, and doesn't want to leave it. Or he may even suspect that he doesn't know, but it's a lot of work. He prefers not to move. In other words, a series of reasons make man freeze in ignorance, and he

is even proud of it. We have to be careful with that, because this frozen ignorance, that one that defended itself behind walls and doesn't want to move, this is the biggest of all maculas. The point of consciousness we have at this moment is predominantly ignorance, but tomorrow it will be less, then tomorrow it will be less, it is natural. Now, being frozen here, by one's own will, this is the worst of the maculas, the ignorance assumed and kept to the iron and fire, by the will of man himself. This is amazing, but very common. Continuing

in 249, the jealousy that disturbs what others achieve, neither day nor night will reach the concentration Samadhi. Imagine, within the human body, which is a good example of how you can work as a team, all this set of organic units, of cells, enzymes, hormones, everything that lives inside a human being, all this working together so that the body is healthy. There is a common goal, bigger. We know that a selfish goal, taken by any of these particles, can kill the body as a whole. An abnormal cell can kill a body. So, when we have this

feeling, which is not so much jealousy, the right name would be more envy, that the merit of the other, the gain of the other, is not a reference for me, it becomes an offense because it is him, not me, we put all the motivation of our life in these pounds of organic matter that today make up my body. All the motivation of my life is to accumulate merits for this personality. Imagine, it's like Leonardo da Vinci's motivation was to build a sandcastle. He knows that in a little while he will have nothing. Of course, every

man who wanted to build great things, sought at the maximum of his possibilities, the perenniality. And we don't do that. We throw away all possible merits inside the envelope, which we know ceases to exist from time to time. For the most unexpected reasons, it ceases to exist. So, deep down, envy is a kind of selfishness. I told you that all the problems in the world have selfishness behind them, but here it feels more particularly. The success has to be mine. At a certain moment, look at your body, without so much identification. I always recommend this

to my students. Open the door of your closet, where there is that big mirror, imagine you are introduced to someone, and look with the eyes of someone who is seeing a stranger for the first time. Notice this small pile of organic matter, a few dozen pounds, something that already gives signs of aging, that already gives signs that it doesn't work so well, depending on age. And soon, inexorably, it will cease to exist. How do you motivate yourself to work just for that? Do you realize that this is a kind of strange alienation? How can our

motivation be to work just for that? If we break this prison of consciousness, the merit of every human being who contributes to the advancement of humanity is ours too. The merit of every human being who builds for humanity to become better is ours too. We participate in this because it is our cause. Just like a soldier doesn't want to win the war alone, he wants his army to win. 251 There is no fire comparable to sensuality, nor captivity such as hatred. There is no embarrassed network such as illusion, nor a torrent comparable to desire. Once

again, I think it's good to reiterate this to you from time to time. I didn't overcome these things. I am a philosopher, I love wisdom, I don't have it. What differentiates a philosopher from a common man is the spirit of improvement. Fall a thousand times, get up a thousand and one, and one day get where he wants, because he doesn't give up. And whoever doesn't give up is inexorable. One day he will have victory. I also fight against these things in the same way everyone else does. And it is impressive the strength of a habit

of this kind, of an identity fixed on things of this kind. Sensuality as a way of feeling important, by mobilizing others for sexual attraction, for superficial elements, which in a way is offensive. It's offensive, okay, it's not bad that my body is beautiful, but it's bad to want someone to like me just for that. It's very poor, it's a package. It's bad that we want to be valued just for that. Sensuality makes man a showcase to give pleasures to the senses of others. It's very little for a human being. It suffers our dignity to be

aware of being an object that provides pleasure of the most coarse, dense and instinctive type that exists. There are many ways to provide pleasure. Somehow I hope that at this moment, this beautiful book that we are discussing together, brings some pleasure to you, that is also pleasure. But sensuality is being aware of very coarse pleasures that you provide to the other and that you provide to yourself. And hatred, which is a tool that addicts. At a certain point, the only thing the person wants to do in the world is to destroy what he denies. But

he doesn't want to build anything to put in place, he doesn't even know, he doesn't even have that. Imagine if he destroyed everything, he would be like a dog running after the car tire. When he stops, he doesn't know what to do. If you give a person who has hatred the means to destroy everything he hates, then he doesn't know what to do anymore. Because he doesn't know how to build, he only knows how to destroy. And will he end up destroying himself? Obviously, if he hasn't destroyed it yet. Because it is an element that

mines the structure, the organization of the psyche, the emotions, it disassembles the human being, if sustained for a long time. In addition to requiring a quantity of food, that no domestic animal I know requires. And it feeds on a tremendous energy, hatred, to stay alive inside you. Realize that if you don't feed hatred, his tendency is to go through a cycle and get mingled until you forget. To keep him alive, he demands that you give a violent energy to life, always to be there, nourishing again. So hatred is really a vampire. In 253, who repairs

other people's faults and without rest, he dividends, in addition to increasing his faults, he lights the fire of his own passions. Especially the great passion, which is the personalistic passion. The passion to make this personality the most relevant in the world. You look at the other and the other is an opportunity for you to promote yourself. The other is not another human being like you. The other is a mirror, from where you see certain things that interest you. That is, the very selfish man, very passionate, is exclusively stuck in the interests of his personality. And

the others have no attributes. The other attributes he projects. He has a vision, let's say, projected of himself. He only sees his shadows, he doesn't see other things. He lives in a very lonely world. So what he will say is that to repair other people's faults makes us feed our passions, our selfishness, our personality. In addition to that, we develop a morbidity that is terrible when it turns against you. I have been teaching for many years, you know that. And at one time I gave a lot of oratory courses. I am impressed, because the person

who most criticizes the colleague who got up and spoke, is the one who is most stuck when he gets up to introduce himself. Do you know why? Because criticism, when it turns against itself, destroys. The other can hide from it, it cannot hide from itself. Therefore, critical people are the most severe in relation to themselves. They end up with all their ability to build something. When this heavy artillery turns inside, there is no stone under stone. Therefore, they are fearful, very anxious, they are very afraid of throwing themselves into life. Because they know they will

be destroyed in the first exposure. That is, there is no way, if you get addicted to using a tool, you will use it against everyone and against yourself. 254 Through space, there is no way. The noble Samana, or the Seta, finds the way inside. For those who watched the series about the light of the way, it showed a lot of this. Find the way, gathering for the interior, and then projecting to the exterior. You find the path of harmony within yourself. Learning to harmonize my physical vehicle, which wants to sleep, my energetic vehicle, which wants

to eat, my emotional vehicle, which only wants to have fun, and the inferior mind, which only wants to get into subjects it does not know, which only wants to accumulate information without any commitment to it. If I harmonize all this and learn to coordinate and guide this vehicle, I am very good at harmonizing conflicts outside. If I learn to select what is impure in my mind, in my emotions, in my actions, in my words, I am very good at selecting, for example, what to offer to a child, what to offer to a young person, how

to educate. That is, I have an education experience of myself. You must always be your first student, yourself. This internal experience, which is much more complex than external, gives you authority to act on the outside world. It is interesting because we live in a certain moment where we, parents, teachers, I am both, we are trained for educators simply teaching things that we learn intellectually and not things that we live. And this is complicated. It gives very little depth, very little possibility to solve conflicts that were not foreseen within the scheme. Remember that in that same

book, we saw back there, greater than the one that wins a thousand warriors in battle, is the one who wins himself. In fact, it draws attention, we have a very interesting lecture on YouTube about the philosophy in education. I talk a lot about several of these aspects. Chapter 19 The Righteous, by D. Matavaga, verses 256 and 257. It is not fair that one who judges hastily or uses violence. The wise considers serenely what is right and what is wrong. Whoever judges the other, not by violence, but with serenity, knowledge of cause and enlightened by doctrine,

is a guardian of truth and deserves the name of righteous. It is a complex verse, there are two complex verses here, but the first thing we should deduce from there. First, judging people as it corresponds to judging. Judging a human being is so complex, that there are so many factors that participate in an attitude of a human being, of a thought, of a word, there are so many factors that influence, you need to go deep into these meanders, put yourself in the other's shoes and understand where that action was based. Even to try to reeducate

him if he has committed a crime. Or to form a worldview if it is a person who has not yet received any training. The possibility of error is great. Therefore, if you do not have this responsibility, it is unlawful to judge others. If I acquire what the orientals called karma, an unnecessary karma, if I do not judge so-and-so, why should I be issuing opinions? Judging is a very big risk. Remember that story of Damocles' sword? Who was a Greek king, who one day judged a bandit, a murderer, and judged him very severely. And this bandit

turned to him and said, if you do this, this prepotent attitude, because you are king. If you were in my place, everything would be different, if I were in yours too. Damocles says to him, is this the problem? Do you want to be in my place? You did not say before. The bandit is a little scared and says, no, sit here, now. And the bandit goes and sits on his throne. He says, are you feeling well now? I'm fine. Now look up. There was a huge sword hanging from the ceiling of that castle hall. The

tip of the sword pointed exactly to Damocles' head. He says, look up. The bandit is scared. He sees that it is the sword of justice. The first wrong decision I made, it falls on my head. Do you want to stay there? He did not, he preferred to go to prison. It was safer. It is evident that judging is a very big risk. If it does not suit you, do not judge. If it suits you, have a calm conscience, after having tried to look on all sides, without specialties, without hurry. Judge on all sides, so that

you reach a decision that you are aware that it is not revenge. It is really a process of reeducation. It is really the best chance of that person who is there. Justice is not vengeful, it is corrective. It does not come to punish us, it comes to give us the chance to rebuild ourselves. So this element is very important. And also the serenity that he says, calm down, because we have a terrible Western habit. We are too fast to make decisions, and too slow to execute them. Think better before making a decision. Do things calmly,

with a criterion that nothing is pending, no loose end. It is time to fulfill what you decided, inexorable, without hurry, without pause. This would be the right criterion that is being exposed here. Verse 2, 5, 8. Some may not like this one, the more tagarellas, but do not take me wrong. Here I understand what he means by that. The wise is not what speaks the most. The serene man, free of anger and fear, helpful and courageous, this one does deserve the name of wise. I'm not talking about extroverts, who tend to talk more. This is

not a defect, it is a type of temperament. But sometimes we reach an extreme level of not listening to others anymore. You must talk to people like that every day. If you look at her, she is not listening to you. She has her eyes open, looking at you, but you realize that she is preparing to shoot the answer as soon as you shut up. Her answer has nothing to do with what you said. She is not curious to know what you think. She is isolated in her little world. This is an opportunity to throw it

on you. The wise wants to learn all the time. This is a characteristic of the wise, he does not think he is wise. He is an eternal learner. You must know the story of that Odin god, of Scandinavian mythology, who was said to be the wisest being in the universe, because he walked around the earth asking everything to everyone. There were still two bodies that walked around him, listening and bringing to him everything that men said in the world. They were the ears of Odin. That is, he was always willing to listen. That's why he

was the wisest of all beings. So this willingness, first of all, to know that he is not the owner of the truth, and this willingness to learn anything that happens, makes him always growing. This is a wise man. Humble, remember the phrase, I only know that I know nothing, that Socrates spoke. Humble and always willing to learn, with any human being, under any circumstance. So he is not compulsive to pour out what he has about others. He speaks in a deep and thoughtful way when it is up to him to speak. But he really hears

what the other says. He hears with a spirit of learning. You know those stories where you are listening to the other and trying to frame in categories inside your head? This is it. After he says this, that comes. These are preconceived ideas, forms, boxes. You are already prepared to fit. If this person does not fit into any of these boxes, what are you going to do with her? You will have to force her, because you have no other possibility. I find it curious how even today, when I explain to a person, I do a philosophy

course in a classic way, and the person does not know anything about philosophy, has no contact, she tries to fit into one of the things that still exist in society. Ah, it's a religion. No, it's not a religion, it's a political party. Ah, so there's no way. Either you fit into the box or you do not exist. I say, it's none of that. However, there is a huge world about which philosophy is debunked. Philosophy exists, but it is not one of these boxes. Thinking of boxes has to do with the classic sophism that they call

the third excluded. Either that or that. There is no possibility in the middle of the way. And there is an immense gradation of possibilities in the middle of the way. Always. In the middle of any polarity, there is an immense gradation of possibilities. Between them and after them. So the wise man knows how to listen and knows how to speak at the right time. Not much, but the right words, which bring comfort to those who listen to them. 260 Man is not venerable only for his white hair. Being old only for the years he has,

in fact, is to have aged in vain. The body fulfilled its script. But the body fulfilling its script is a merit of biology. It is not our merit, it is not human merit. It is not a merit of our consciousness. Our consciousness remained still, and only biology did its job, and ours. One more being that was born, lived, procreated, died. Okay, but this, any being of nature does. What makes us particular as human beings? It gives birth not only to bodies, it gives birth to ideas, it gives birth to superior feelings, it gives birth to

examples. There are a lot of things that have to come to the world through us so that we are legitimately human. And it is not only biology that fulfills its role, this is not our merit. We only have white hair, but inside we have an absolutely empty soul, nothing to offer. We are immature, trapped inside an aged body. Remember what I have often commented with you, about medieval alchemy, that was the Citrinites, the Yellow Work, which was what they judged as maturity. They say that maturity is very rare. Maturity is not a matter of passing

external time, it is to pass internal time. And sometimes the internal time is detained. They used a terrible phrase, that many human beings age in the way of certain fruits, that go from the green phase to the rotten phase, and do not mature. This often happens to us. We do not mature, because maturing is not a matter of time of praise, it is a matter of time of consciousness, it is the merit of each one. So we should think about it, build our own maturing, so that we can face the mirror and be proud of

each wrinkle, it is a scar of war, but I know what I got from it. Each strand of white hair is a mark, but I know what it transmitted to me. And look, from what I learned with this wrinkle, I paid little, I would pay two. One was cheap, it gave me a lot. Continuing, 2.62 Not only eloquence and good appearance make the jealous, the greedy and the false a man worthy of being respected. I told you that I lived the experience of a long time of the oratory course. Today I retired because there are

better ones. But at the time I did this, I was very impressed by the motivations people had to want to learn a technique of oratory. That is, to speak well, to expose the interest well, to expose a dogma well, often without the intention of benefiting. What we teach is a philosophical oratory, it is not very good for that. But there is a code within society today, that if you have a good appearance and eloquence, you are valued for what you look like, and not for what you really are. So you realize, sorry, I don't want

to hurt your susceptibility, but I know a lot of people who have a reading list during their life that would give ten libraries like mine, who have the habit of reading, and who, however, behind that, there is a certain inferiority complex, for not having much criteria to analyze what they read, not having much criteria to analyze their own life, not having much ability to generate their own reflections, and use this ostentation of the amount of information received as a synonym of quality, when in fact it is not. So instead of simply talking to someone and

showing their capacity for inner life, for reflection, for logical concatenation of thought, they present a curriculum vitae with 100, 200, whatever the number, works and compendiums read, as a way to cover, a mask to cover the poverty itself of their ability to understand. So quantity has nothing to do with quality, we know that. So be careful not to judge that a person is very intelligent because he read a lot and knows how to cite data as much as possible. I recommend you, once again, you will say, she is crazy, because she is talking about the

Dhammapada and she comes to me with the Axe of Hades. But even the Axe of Hades has everything to do with all these wonderful works, because he was also a philosopher. There is one of his stories called The Theory of the Medallion, where a father teaches his son to have a lot of knowledge, but not to have any opinion, nor to contradict anyone, and to always be in the wheel, being popular. It is a preciousness, because it is very current. So be careful with eloquence and a good physical appearance. Both things are virtues, but they

are not enough for you to say that this person is intelligent, is profound, has something to transmit, has depth, has wisdom. Nothing, it indicates nothing of that. It indicates only what it is. Physical beauty and good game, good ability to handle words to generate a pleasant impression. Nothing more. Do not take this as credentials of intelligence. It is one of the great mistakes we live today. Chapter 20, The Way. Magavaga, verse 276. You yourself must make the effort. The wise men only point the way. Remember, once again, from the Roman maxim, The easy ways lie,

in the hard ones is the truth. Of course it does not have to be so difficult, there are different degrees of difficulty in the achievements we have to make in our lives. But the fact is that no one will achieve anything for us. No one will ride a bicycle for us. We have to fall, to scratch our knee a thousand times, to get in there and walk in the thousandth. Someone can give us all the tips. And we will not get it just for tips. We will get it by practice, by effort, by discipline. And

when we get it, the merit is ours. Plato did not demand copyright every time the human being discovers that the world is an illusion because it is the myth of the cave. Because many read and do not reach that conclusion. It is our merit to experience this, which leads us to the objective conclusion. No one can give us wisdom. No one can walk for us. And any attempt in this sense is manipulation. Do not evolve on skates. Each one evolves through their own legs. And what do the masters and the wise men do? They point

the way. But they do not enter into personal issues, they do not decide how you will walk, nor when. They just point the way. They cannot walk for you. They cannot give you any evolution. They can invite you to walk with them. And nothing else. And this is good. Knowing this gives us a lot of security. It protects us against a kind of fantasy that can be dangerous. Even against certain types of idolatry. We know that well-intentioned people point the way, but they do not promise easy fruits. This is doubtful. 277 and 278 All things

conditioned, created forms, are impermanent and unsatisfactory, they carry suffering. Whoever sees it with wisdom lives in peace in the world of suffering. This is the path of purification. This is the key to the four noble Buddhist truths. Everything in the world is impermanent, therefore it is the root of suffering. Do not think that it is only unpleasant things. Chocolate is a source of suffering, because it is not eternal. When you are close to reaching the last square, you are already suffering. Everything that gives you pleasure, everything that is pleasant, will end one day. Therefore, it

is a source of suffering. But we can be in the middle of things that are impermanent and not suffer. If we deal with them in the best possible way, we will not suffer, but if we desire them, if we take all this as passing elements in our life, our expectation of permanence, of things that will not remain, is what generates suffering. Nothing that is really yours can be taken from you. Even this here will be taken from us. Therefore, it is not mine. So, I do not cling to something that is not mine. I treat

it in the best possible way, with justice, with balance, but I do not cling to it. So that when it follows its path, it is a terrible pain for me. Now, realize that sometimes when we say not to cling to things of life that are temporary, the person has the impression that he is the one who despises things of life. And he is not. The one who is not attached to an object, in such a way as to say, this is mine, is the one who considers more the details of the object itself, its usefulness

to the world, and maybe is more careful to manage this object. Take your physical body. Who do you think takes better care of your physical body? A man who is tremendously attached to it, to its desires and whims, who gives wrong food, gives excess rest, gets lazy, and so on. Or a wise man, who knows he is not the owner of the body, but while he is using this body, will give it the best, so that it is healthy, in good condition, so that it is respected in what is a physical body, so that it

does the necessary activities. Anyway, who is not attached, conducts things better than who is attached. There is no doubt. Attachment will generate exaggerations, distortions. Just like a father who is very attached to his son, sometimes he is the one who more pampers, the one who gives less discipline, and a lot of things. The detached is fair and gives the best. So he says that suffering is not because we are in the middle of impermanent things, but because we want them to remain. We are attached to things that we will necessarily lose. We could live in

a world where everything is temporary and we do not suffer anything, aware that there is something behind it that remains. And we use this something as a basis for our consciousness. This look that sees the world, deep, and that is the scissor of all the things that pass, something of experience, to get closer and closer to touch your own deeper identity, your inner name. And realize that this inner name is identical to the inner name of the universe as a whole, of the One, of God. Do you understand that? All things pass, you give your

best and collect the best they can offer you, of experience, of wisdom. This brings you closer to what is real. And things? Do they follow their destiny? They never were. They were shadows, they become shadows again. They were dust, they become dust again. 280 The one who, young and strong, does not strive when necessary, abandoning laziness, the one who is futile, weak, apathetic and without determination, he will never find the path of wisdom. Laziness, weakness, apathy. When we have... This is important for you to realize, we have to understand what wisdom is, even if it

is vigilant and distant, because that's where our motivation comes from. If you like chocolate a lot, like some people I know out there, I won't say their names, if you like chocolate a lot and you know it's there in the room, it doesn't mean you'll be unmotivated to get up from your chair and go to the room. You'll run there. Because you know the value of chocolate. This makes you break laziness and apathy, it has motivation. If we knew what wisdom is, if we felt its taste, even if it is distant, we would have motivation

to run to it. We would not be apathetic, we would not be lazy. The apathetic, lazy, inert is the one who does not want to get anywhere. Therefore, he does not move, he has no energy, he has no motivation. The human being who sees the fullness of the human condition and knows how wonderful it is, that is, he loves wisdom, he does not waste time with useless things. He does not stop for addictions. He does not settle for weaknesses. He is able to walk in the back of history. Because our historical moment is a moment

of worship to weakness, almost generalized. He is able to take the back of our current culture and love the protagonist, love the initiative, love the constructive work that brings you closer to your dreams. Without dreams, it's very difficult. 283 Cut through the root, the entire forest of desires, and not just a tree. That is, what he is putting here, of course, is a final destination, to cut all desires definitively, but you have to realize that we are advancing in levels like a ladder. In the last step we will have cut through the root all the

defects. But at this moment, let's say we're going to go up in the first step, all defects have to be cut to a certain level, with balance, all of them. We cannot go up the first step cutting one defect and leaving all the others behind. This, as Helena Blavatsky said, at a certain moment, will hold you down and throw you down. Try to understand what I'm talking about. For this level of consciousness, I have a virtue, which is generosity, which works. It works well. But I have one thing that is behind, which is the lack

of initiative, which doesn't work at all. I have one that is more or less, which is creativity. There is another one that is very good, which is fraternity. It doesn't work. You will not go through this level only with one or two virtues, but with all the others. Evolve at this moment and take everything that was left behind and bring everything here. Don't leave ends to be found. Remember an example that our national director, Luz Carlos, always speaks of, and I find it very interesting. When a mechanic checks an airplane before it enters flight, he

will check all the details, nothing is left behind. He doesn't stop looking at the landing gear wheel. Because the landing gear wheel can cause an accident that kills everyone. Fatal! So nothing can be left behind. At this level. This level that he is talking about, cutting all the defenses to the root, is up there. But what is above, is below. Remember Caibalion. That is, there I will cut the roots of all. Here I will cut all to a certain level, which allows me to step with justice in the first step. But then comes the second.

For the second I already have a lot more things to cut. But at this moment I am Kittis. I am a legitimate occupant of the first step. All the elements within me were cut at the same level. Nothing was left behind. I have no loose ends. This is coherence, this is integrity. This gives us great security. Legitimacy to be where we are. 287-288 Just as a torrent floods and drags the sleeping village, so death drags the attached man, who delights in the abundance of children and herds. Children, parents, relatives and friends are not refuge for

the one from whom death has seized. Loving is not the same as being attached. In fact, I think that in true love, from the beginning, there must be the seed of detachment. Otherwise, at a certain moment, attachment tremendously distorts love. I did not spend much time in the situation of having a daughter who got married and went to live in another city. It's my experience, recent. How curious it is that love at this time has to be big enough to realize that our children, as Gibran would say, are the children of life. And that it

has to be done in the direction that is theirs. Although it hurts. But it has to have a large dose of detachment so that love is not contaminated by selfishness. So that you do not want the other to be an eternal witness of your personal experience. You want that path, that direction, that is good for him. Love has to have in its roots detachment. We kill those we love. So it's not not loving children and friends, it's not being attached to the point of tying them close to you out of need. The need to be

loved at any price. Because this is always sick and always harmful. And if you love all things, but do not consider any of them as yours and accept that life follows your course, you are prepared for death. Because one day your own physical life will follow your course. You will not feel left out or stolen. Because you built a core of consciousness that is beyond what can be taken from you. In a certain passage, a philosopher said something very interesting. He was not afraid that one day death would take his life. Because every day he

lived with death. Every day something died in him and something more elevated was born. And this daily familiarity with death makes the last, the great death of our current physical experience, not take us by surprise. We are used to dying and being reborn every day. And we know that this is possible. So this healthy relationship with the laws of life, instead of fighting with them, this makes us very light, very fluid. And it greatly reduces the drama of living. It greatly reduces the pain, which is the goal of Buddhism. Chapter 21, Micellanea, by Paquina Cavaga.

Verse 291 To seek happiness at the detriment of others is to get involved in the chains of hatred, of which you will not be free. We talked about this in the same book, in a previous chapter. It is the moral law that should be the fundamental one. Your happiness never depends on the other's unhappiness. Your pleasure never depends on the pain of the other. Your achievement never depends on the humiliation, the exposition, the defeat of the other. That is, we learn to win together. That we do not pay with the currency of other people's pain

for our victory. We do not pay with the currency of the humiliation, the exposition of the other, for the imposition of our point of view, or of our word, of our image, whatever. We do not pay a price like this, because it is too expensive, it is not worth it. How long does fame last? How long does public recognition last? For those who follow the lives of Hollywood actors and actresses, they know how bitter death is, and in general, totally forgotten. How long does a moment of fame last for you to pay for it cruelly?

Cruelty of assuming that the other suffers for you to be happy? We should not accept paying this price, it is too expensive. Sometimes we look back at our life and see, I suffered a lot, but I learned so much from it, that this suffering was worth it, it was cheap. And sometimes we look at certain things that we want to achieve and say, this will cost the pain of so many people that are not worth it, it is expensive. Do you know what it is to know how to give the right price to things, considering

the idea of ​​good, the idea of ​​the one, the idea of ​​fraternity? Some things are cheaper than we think and others much more expensive. We should know how to replace prices in the things of our life, considering the real value of each one of them, how much it leads us to overcome illusion and see reality clearly. How much wisdom leads us. 293 To be permanently vigilant against the surprises of the senses, by the meditation of the true nature of the body, to avoid doing evil, to be ready to do good, is to be wise, is

to free oneself from desires and illusion. That is, to have a principle of action. This year, I love to talk about it, the planning of the new year, which we do on December 31 and January 1. And a week later, I don't even remember what it is about, if I don't write it down, I've already forgotten everything. We should think, whatever comes this year, I will face it with honesty, with fraternity, with dignity, and faithful to my principles. I will get to the other side, overcoming these obstacles, without ceasing to be who I am. My

fidelity to the fundamental principles that define my life, that define my own identity, I don't give up. Maybe I'll get there slower, maybe I won't get there having great glory or great material goods, but I will get to the other side without the circumstances stealing me from myself. This already gives you a general line. Whatever happens, you will be able to get to the other side without giving up. There is a movie that I really like, which is The Gladiator. Very, very beautiful. I will not go into detail about the movie, but those who have

not seen it are worth it. There is a passage, Maximus Decimus Meridion, who was a gladiator, actually an old Roman general, he is with the gladiators in the center of an arena, and Roman war cars will come to fight them. It was a unequal dispute. He gathers his men in front of that gate where the cars would come from and says, whatever happens behind that door, if we stay together, we will survive. And he really does that. A half dozen men, very little armed, standing, who beat war cars, armed to the teeth. If we stay

together, we will survive. Do you know what he is saying? I am the unity, if I preserve it, nothing will beat me. A beautiful passage of this, when Roger Scruton, in his book about beauty, he will talk about the sublime. When we look at the waterfalls of Niagara, of Iguaçu, to a gigantic mountain range, we say, wow, how sublime this is! But at the second moment we look at all this and say, I am also sublime, because these things can kill me, but they cannot corrupt me. They cannot take my dignity away from me. No

one can steal my principles from me. And this gives the sublime tone of the human condition, makes it as grandiose as a waterfall or a mountain range. Things can kill him physically, but they cannot corrupt him. If he does not corrupt himself, if he is faithful to himself. This is a fundamental element to remember, always. 2.95 Brahman who killed the mother, desires, father, pride, two kings of warriors, eternalism and nihilism, and the best of men, which is the attachment to the personality of the Buddha, serene, walks in peace and salvation, free from the mistakes of

the past. This is one of the verses that is incredible. How controversial, but it is so obvious that he is not talking about killing his mother or his father, but to kill a certain defect that imprisons you, and that limits you and makes you suffer. But the tendency to take everything in the literal field is scary. Sometimes I am surprised to see interpretations that give certain things that I say. It's impressive. In other words, we are addicted to the law of the least effort, to stay in the superficiality of the word. So he says, the

one who walks in peace, in peace and salvation, who overcame everything that could hit him, that could make him suffer, who found something that is above time. This was a man who was able to free himself from certain ties, so old that we consider them to be part of us, as if they were our father and mother. Our defects are sometimes so old that we think that if we lose them, we will mutilate. It's like an arm, a leg. It's a terrible pain. But they are not. And we go to the other side and keep

walking without them. This is possible. It is a work of imagination. Imagine yourself without these defects and realize that you are still alive. It's not an apocalypse, you didn't die, you're still alive and better on the other side. This imagination, creativity work helps us a lot to move forward. So killing desires and pride, egoistic, unbridled desires, and the pride of thinking I'm better than everyone else, therefore, fragmentation of humanity so that 7 billion minus one are inferior to me, because that's the realization. These two things are a prison that makes man, attached to matter, die

along with it. The man who freed himself from these two things, father and mother, freed himself from the two warlords, eternalism and nihilism, which are two negative interpretations of certain elements in nature. I usually joke that there is, within human behavior, a tendency, that law of who looks for it, finds it here. If I want to settle down, and someone tells me that the universe is eternal, and that I will always have another chance, for example, the doctrine of reincarnation, I can think that I don't need to hurry now. I can leave it to fight

my anger tomorrow, my laziness next week, the next year or in the next life, because there is so much time, why should I rush? It's a negative interpretation of eternity, which generates what he calls nihilism, sorry, eternalism. And the other side is nihilism, which is what you think that after life there will be nothing, everything will dissolve. So why would I have work now, if everything I do will dissolve later? This reminds me of a little passage of mine, discussing with my mother why I had to fix the bed, if at night it would be

all disfigured again. And today I know, I think every child must have asked this question, I know that the fixed bed helped me fix my thoughts, helped me fix my feelings, helped me fix my whole life, because I lived with order. In a way, it got stuck in me and determined a way of seeing and living. So we don't even need to postpone our change, because there is a lot of time, because there is not so much time, there is time for everything, there are seasons of life, and we can't even think that it's no

use changing, that we're going to become nothing. It means that maybe we are still nothing, we don't perceive anything true and permanent within us, we are strange to ourselves. This is a symptom that we have to build something in the middle of nowhere. Then someone comes to me and says that Buddhism is nihilistic, that preaches the nothingness of what we are today, the nothingness of selfishness, the nothingness of separatism, the nothingness of pride. Yes, that's right. But I find what is real, the loss of touch, of my identity, which is above time and space, this

is nothing, quite the opposite, this is everything. Buddhism leads us within this tradition that we are studying, I don't speak of Buddhist religion, but Buddhist philosophy, leads the search for what is permanent and real within us. How can this be nihilism? So, without radicalism, without going to one side or the other, it's no use, I don't even have time for more. They are escapes so we don't do what we should do now. I've told you in other lectures, this is not a joke, nor is it a story for the English to see, it really happened

to me. On one occasion, we are volunteers in Nova Acrópole, I was cleaning the school, I was a little girl, I was just starting, I was everything, I was a cleaner, I was a teacher, I was everything. A student arrived earlier and saw me cleaning the school, he sat down, he was a little suspicious, and in the end he came to tell me, Look, teacher, I really wanted to help you. But Plato says that each one should dedicate himself to a single trade, which is the one that is in accordance with his nature. My nature

is not a cleaner, so I couldn't help you. It's something that even today, when I remember Rio, because it's platonic laziness. The citizen uses Plato to feed his laziness, everything is possible. So, citizen, taking the Buddhist doctrine to say that it will become nothing, and therefore it's no use doing anything, it doesn't cost. Using the doctrine of reincarnation to say that there is a lot of time, so I don't need to start now, it doesn't cost. Anything can be used by an expert laziness, who wants to find good means to remain in control of our

lives. So we have to be careful with the manipulation we do to ourselves. This nihilism and this eternalism are two forms of manipulation, that the Brahman, the wise, is able to defeat. Two strong generals. And the best of men, he orders to kill too. In other words, I cling to the personality of the Buddha, or any other master you think of. These beings came to the world to say that you are not your personality, that you have something sacred, much greater, that will merge with the Father. What sense does it make for them to say,

if you don't cling to your personality, you cling to their personality? Is there something contradictory about it? Are they showing a path of liberation that leads to unity, that leads to the Father? They are not telling you to imprison yourself in your personality. Any take on a master, a wise man, no matter how high he is, as having value as a personality, will generate separatism. Soon these nucleus of owners of truth will be fighting each other. When all these masters came to take fraternity and love, soon their disciples are degladiating, destroying and killing themselves. Do

you know why? Cling to personality. He also kills the Buddha, he kills the Father, the Mother, twice the warriors and he kills the Buddha himself. Look where he points, don't cling to his finger. This is a question that gives a lot of philosophical discussion. I recommend that you reflect a little about it. Whatever the master of wisdom is, often his descendants along the way go through these reversals of misinterpretation. 296-300 The disciples of Gautama Buddha, who constantly, day and night, practice meditation known as remembrance of the qualities of the Buddha, of the doctrine and of

the community of disciples, and remember the transitory nature of the body and rejoice in non-violence. You will say, but how so? Is remembering the qualities of the Buddha not contradictory to what you just said, so as not to worship personality? No, it is not contradictory. It is very necessary that you create in your imagination a model of what you want to be. How can I say, I am a philosopher, I love wisdom. What is wisdom? I don't know what wisdom is. He says he is a wise man, I don't know. How can I look for

something I don't know what it is? You have to have a visualization, like chocolate in the room, to be motivated. For a long time, it has happened a thousand times in my lecture, and it is a fact, I did it. I spent a time that all the books I read, I took the description of the wise men. I wanted to know how I wanted to visualize a wise man in front of me. I wanted to know how the wise man behaves in the traffic jam to go to work in the morning, when the car breaks.

I wanted to imagine the wise man with a boring boss. The wise man with an unfair society. I wanted to see him living, facing the adversities of life. I needed to create an image so that I could get attached to it and have it as a reference. I wrote it in cardboard and stuck it everywhere in my room. I find it impressive how we don't realize that we need it. A plausible image. How would a being, which would be a sketch of the complete human being, react to this circumstance that I made a mistake? Remember,

Epictetus, the great stoic philosopher, said, The seeds of greatness in man need an image, a model to flourish and germinate. We need this model to germinate, to flourish, to bring around what we have best. So, remember the qualities of Buddha, to realize that they are also latent within you. Remember what a wise man is, so that you have this as a model. If you don't consciously create a model of what you want to be in your mind, social models come in through the cracks of distraction. When you least expect it, you are imagining yourself as

a young man from a soap opera, of dubious qualities. Because we need models. If you don't consciously create them, the models of success, of society's admirers, will infiltrate. They are far from being what we should really admire. 302, 304 Don't be a wanderer without a purpose, looking for suffering. Pure men are recognized by far as the snowy peaks of the Himalayas. In a way, it has everything to do with what we just said. I have a goal, which is wisdom. I am no longer a wanderer. I have a goal, I am in the middle of

the high seas, but I saw an island there. I want to get there. I am no longer a shipwreck at the mercy of the tides. Now I am a man with a goal. I want to get to that island. We have to know where we want to go. We can't fall before the land, as if it were a lost shipwreck in the middle of the ocean. There is no chance. I want to build myself, I want to be this. And with that, I will contribute, I will give my share of contribution to humanity. When I

teach time planning, I always start there. First, plan your life as a whole. Then, fit the concentric circles. And finally, he says that pure men are recognized as snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas. And it is a fact. When we have a historical moment, where the values are all very rastejantes, they are merely survival instincts, instincts of perpetuation of the species with the greatest possible pleasure, when everyone rastesja, a single human being standing, draws attention far away, because he is standing. That is, vertical, making a bridge between heaven and earth, which is typical of the nature

of men. It draws attention. So, a single wise man, the sermon of Benares, of Buddha, I have already told you about it, a single lamp in the old age, at the top of the mountain, when all the lights go out, he is seen from a great distance. The light has this capacity. The more it gets dark, no matter how small the light you bring, it is able to illuminate and guide many. We can, in the synthesis of what has been said, we can make a big difference, we don't have to be many. It can be

one, but it has to be a lot. A lot, that is, quality, and not quantity. History is hardly made by quantity, it is made by quality. So, with that, we finish chapter 21, we finish our reading today. Today we had some very strong, very impactful things, that require reflection. The philosopher is the one who does not deny or accept anything priori, he brings it to himself, elaborates, chews, reflects, and sees how he can apply it to his life. We are studying a doctrine with which we are not so familiar in the West, but regardless of

religious connections, it has a very rich philosophy, which can help us to become better human beings. Don't forget, this is the focus. I hope you continue to follow the reading, and an excellent week for you. A hug.