The Changeless Nature

the vesselsBuddha Activity 1 3 3Cool, delicious, soft, light water fallen from the clouds acquires somany different tastes through contact with salty and other grounds.Likewise the rain of the eightfold water of the sublime, falling fromthe heart of that vastest cloud of compassionate love, assumes many aflavour according to beings' various states of mind.effortless applicationThose of appreciative faith, the middling and those with animosityform three groups comparable to humans, peafowl and craving spirits.In the cloudless end of spring, it is men and these non-flyingbirds, and in the summertime, when it rains, the craving spirits, whosuffer. This example is made since, depending on whether there is ornot a rain of dharma from compassion's multitudes of clouds, thenworldly beings will either aspire to or have animosity for it.Deluging mighty raindrops, hurling down hailstones or thunderbolts,clouds do not consider the small fauna which are exposed orthose animals which can run to the hills for shelter. Likewise theclouds of perfect knowledge and compassionate love, with their veryfine or larger drops 11 , do not mind that some beings are going topurify their defilements whilst others will tend to believe in a self.dharma is the ideal remover of sufferingIn this samsara of beginningless births and deaths, there are fivesorts of sentient beings 12 . Just as there is no nice smell in excrement,there is no happiness in those five realms. Their sufferings are like theunceasing pain of burns, wounds made by weapons, chemical scaldsand so on. Compassion's clouds cause a mighty rain of true dharmawhich will soothe all those.Those endowed with prajna have no longing for even the highestcelestial or human sovereignty, having understood that divine deathand transmigration, as well as humans' constant searching, are 'misery'.They have also seen, through prajna and through following with trustthe tathagatas' excellent teachings: 'this is suffering', 'this is its cause'and 'this is its cessation' through the path - 'understanding' 13 .