འཕགས་པ་ཚངས་པས་ཞས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 8

8

They have control over their bodies and their speech. Being mindful to visit only suitable places, they develop the outlook that it would be preferable to take burning hot sand in their cupped hands and pour it into their own eyes than to look at a beautiful local woman with lust. Why? Because they have the thought that looking at a beautiful local woman in such a way will lead to their ruin and downfall, and to being miserable for a long time.

“With physical observation of the body like this, they maintain proper mindfulness toward food, drink, lodging, bedding, and seating. They make use of these things, but they do not relish them and they are not attached to them. If they find themselves really relishing them, then they should reflect like this: ‘That which appears to be pleasurable turns out to be the opposite—suffering. There is no conditioned entity in the three realms that can really bring happiness. Why? Because that which is conditioned is impermanent. How can those who are intelligent by nature find happiness in impermanent things?’

“Brahmā, if bodhisattvas are thoroughly engaged in practice and become oppressed by the sadness that ‘there is only suffering and no happiness,’ they should counter that affliction with the consideration that since this body requires regulation and development, it needs bribery for success.⁹ This body cannot be sustained with only painful exertion. It must be sustained with happy exertion. With a stable body through this life, one can achieve virtuous qualities.¹⁰ By analogy, a merchant who seeks profit may hire a thousand porters and compensate them well. He does not do so in order to enrich the porters with adornments, or in order to make them happy, but rather to have the loads carried. Similarly, when bodhisattvas eat food, they do not eat in order to beautify the body or to please the body,