Our gratitude to the dedicated, ardent and resolute.
SN. 47.22 "Duration"
"The same setting. Sitting to one side the Venerable Bhadda said to the Venerable Ānanda:
“Friend Ānanda, what is the cause and reason why the true Dhamma does not endure long after a Tathagata has attained final Nibbāna? And what is the cause and reason why the true Dhamma endures long after a Tathagata has attained final Nibbāna?”
“Good, good, friend Bhadda! Your intelligence is excellent, your acumen is excellent, your inquiry is a good one. For you have asked me: ‘Friend Ānanda, what is the cause and reason why the true Dhamma does not endure long after a Tathagata has attained final Nibbāna? And what is the cause and reason why the true Dhamma endures long after a Tathagata has attained final Nibbāna?’”
“Yes, friend.”
“It is, friend, because the four establishments of mindfulness are not developed and cultivated that the true Dhamma does not endure long after a Tathagata has attained final Nibbāna. And it is because the four establishments of mindfulness are developed and cultivated that the true Dhamma endures long after a Tathagata has attained final Nibbāna. What four? Here, friend, a bhikkhu dwells contemplating the body in the body … feelings in feelings … mind in mind … phenomena in phenomena, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having removed covetousness and displeasure in regard to the world.
“It is because these four establishments of mindfulness are not developed and cultivated that the true Dhamma does not endure long after a Tathagata has attained final Nibbāna. And it is because these four establishments of mindfulness are developed and cultivated that the true Dhamma endures long after a Tathagata has attained final Nibbāna.”
Sometimes, when thoughts come up about the Dhamma being present here, still intact, I can feel something that I don't have a name for come up and it gives me a lot of strength. I think about how the Dhamma got here. It has continued on for two and a half thousand years. It has rung like a bell throughout that entire time, for every second of every minute of every day as a perfect truth it was present and would catch up on a tiny knowing-ness in the mind and heart of people who were ready.
Across all traditions people just like us heard it and it touched something that knows in them, starting a tiny vibration within the awareness. Those people looked after it, touching it with the four foundations of mindfulness, they fed to it their doubts and confusion, frustrations and cravings, and let themselves go so that vibration could spread. Those people let that note spread through them until everything they saw resonated with it. Those people persisted until they were a new living node that restored the energy of the Dhamma and became the vehicles that passed that perfect resonance from one lifetime to another.
That was twenty five lifetimes of very old monks, perfected in the foundations of mindfulness, resonating from the bell that was the Buddha, the Dhamma, Ananda and the Sangha through time. This feeling is very reassuring and goes deeper that I can perceive right now, and this is something I think we are all sharing in the Sangha. Is this Bodhicitta? Is this faith? Is it awareness? I'm not sure yet but it feel really good and makes me practice more. Do you feel this sometimes? I'd love to know.
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