Ajahn Chah

Is there anything intrinsically clean there?

Can you find any abiding essence?

This whole body is steadily degenerating.

The Buddha taught us to see that it doesn't belong to us.

It's natural for the body to be this way.

because all conditioned phenomena are subject to change.

How else would you have it?

In fact, there is nothing wrong with the way the body is.

It's not the body that causes suffering, it's wrong thinking.

When you see things in the wrong way, there's bound to be confusion.

It's like the water of a river.

It naturally flows downhill.

It never flows uphill.

That's its nature.

If a person was to go and stand on the riverbank and want the water to flow back uphill, he would be foolish.

Wherever he went,

His foolish thinking would allow him no peace of mind.

He would suffer because of his wrong view, his thinking against the stream.

If he had right view, he would see that the water must inevitably flow downhill.

And until he realized and accepted that fact, he would be bewildered and frustrated.