“What do stress and suffering come from? It’s like lifting this bowl and feeling that it’s heavy. If you put it down, it’s not heavy any more. As soon as you lift it up again, it’s heavy again. So what does the heaviness come from? We feel heavy because we’ve lifted this thing. So we put it down. We put down the cause of its heaviness and we’re light. Right? Know stress. Know the cause of stress. Know the cessation of stress. Know the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress. That’s all you do. Just put down the cause, and the stress and suffering ceases. That’s the practice.
When we start out, we don’t understand anything. We lift this up, and it really feels heavy. Why is it heavy? We don’t understand. Why is it heavy? Because that person looks down on us; because this person criticizes us. All kinds of things. We don’t know what we’re holding in our own hand. But if we put it down and stay still, we’re not heavy. See? We’re not suffering because we’re not lifting anything. That’s all there is to our practice.”