dharma notes

The Buddha’s teachings are like the instructions posted on a hotel room door, telling you what to do when the hotel’s on fire:

— Heed the fire alarm. This corresponds to the Buddha’s teachings on saṁvega, the sense that you’re enmeshed in a dangerous situation and want to find a way out.

— Realize that your conduct will mean the difference between life and death. This corresponds to heedfulness, the attitude underlying all skillful behavior.

— Read the map, posted on the door, for finding the closest fire escape. This corresponds to right view.

— Make up your mind to follow the map. This corresponds to right resolve.

— Don’t abuse any of the other people in the hotel as you try to make your escape. Don’t lie to them about the escape route, don’t claw your way over them, and don’t cheat them out of their belongings. This corresponds to right speech, right action, and right livelihood.

— Do your best to follow the instructions on the map, and resist the temptation to stay in the comfort of your room or to wander down the wrong corridors. This corresponds to right effort.

— Keep the map in mind at all times, and check your efforts to make sure that they’re in line with it. This corresponds to right mindfulness.

— Keep calm and focused, so that your emotions don’t prevent you from being clearly aware of what you’re doing and what needs to be done. This corresponds to right concentration.

This analogy, of course, is far from perfect. After all, in the actual practice of the Buddha’s teachings, the fire is already constantly burning inside your own mind—in the form of the fires of passion, aversion, delusion, and suffering—and the escape from these fires lies, not in leaving your mind, but in going deeper into the mind to a dimension, nibbāna, where fire can’t reach. Also, because both the fire and the escape lie within you, you can’t pull other people to safety. The most you can do for them is to tell or show them the way to practice, which they will have to manage for themselves.

But still, the above analogy is useful for highlighting a number of important features of the Buddha’s practice.

https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/OnThePath/Section0005.html