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Twelve Facets of Reality
“No," he thought, “my mind will blow.”
On the fifth day, he went back to his friend and told him, "I want out! I don't want to do this any more.”
"What about our agreement?” his friend asked him. "To hell with it!" “Why are you using the word 'hell'?”
"Because I am suffering hell,” he answered. "My thoughts have become monstrous.”
“So," his friend gently chided him, “don't you think that one day you will have to face your own thoughts? Why not see them now? How long will you keep on running away from them? You are going to have to face them afterward, so why not start now? Why postpone?”
“Have I to face them?” asked the friend.
"The time comes to all; if not now, then later. One day, you will have to be alone. You will not be surrounded by people. Why not confront yourself now? You know how you feel after eating too much hot, spicy food. There is a burning sensation in your body. Your thoughts are percolating inside you like that, making you upset. You can't control them or get rid of them. Why not do something about them—change them?”
"What to do?" asked the new meditator. “How can I change my thoughts from what they are already?”
“Inside you are pure. You have to separate yourself from your thoughts, and watch them one by one. In the past, you left all your senses, the inner gates, open. You didn't know that when you use them to go out, at the same time they let dirty gutter water in. So now you need to dry up all the water. How can you see a good reflection of yourself when you are clouded by so much unclear thinking and entangled in superficial love affairs?” “Then how can I live?”
The friend answered, “Live, yes, that is what you must do! But just now you are not really living. You are run
