What's this life all about? (Ajahn Chah)

Ajahn Chah (ajahnchah.org) via Ven. Sujato, Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

I need my own island...with them.

In every home and in every community — whether we live in the city, countryside, forests, or hills — we are the same in experiencing happiness and suffering.

Many of us lack an island of refuge, a field or garden where we can cultivate positive qualities of the heart. We experience spiritual poverty, and why? It's because we don’t really have commitment.

We have no clear understanding of what this life’s all about and therefore what we ought to be doing.

From childhood to adulthood, we only learn to seek enjoyment and delight in sensual things.

We never think that danger will threaten us as we go about our lives making a family and so on. [Isn't life about sensuality in general and sex in particular?]

Poking a Big Red Nest

Secretive creepy crawly ants (rangerrick.org)

Sensuality [stimulating the senses] is like taking a stiff stick and poking a big red nest. The more we poke at it, the more the creepy crawlies come onto us -- shooting onto our face, into our eyes, stinging our ears, eyes, everything. Ordinarily, we don't see the dangers and drawbacks of what we're doing. Everything's fine so far as we can see. But understand, if we don't see the dangers and drawbacks of such things, we'll never work our way free of them.