A knife has a blade , a spine and a handle.

Can you lift up only the blade? Can you lift up only the spine of the blade, or only the handle? The handle, the spine adn the blade are all parts of the same knife. When you pick up the knife, all three parts come up at the same time.

In the same way, if you pick up that which is good, the bad must follow.

People saerch for goodness and try to throw away eveil, but they don't study that which is neither good nor eveil. If you don't study this, then you won't have real understanding. If you pick up goodness, badness follows. If you pick up hapiness, suffering follows.

Train the mind until it is above good and eveil. That's when the practice is finished.



----From《A Tree In A Forest》by Ajahn Chah