GAMBLING FEVER AND THE BLACK CHIP

These are basic Dharma Ideas that may at a later date, or by your

request, be elaborated into a complete teaching.

Let there be no doubt about it, you are in the great Casino of Life. Furthermore, you have gambling fever. You believe that you are going to win, at least sometimes, the great reward: that of Happiness.

Have you never wondered why you pursue Happiness? Like the great designers of games of chance those who set up Happiness to be pursued, know that one has only to be reinforced sometimes for the conditioned fever to take hold.

You are told that it is your birthright to have this liberty to pursue Happiness. Why has no none ever explained that true Happiness need not be pursued? You already have it.

The gambler, like you, wants possesion of those little chips of different colors that show he is a winner. What have you won? What are you winning? You have managed to gain perhaps and you have the blue chips called wealth, the red chips called possessions, and the green chips of love, though the latter are few and badly damaged by use.

But what you do have in your pockets, deep down where you cannot discover them, are the black chips of sickness, old age and death. Sometimes in error digging down for a blue, red or green chip a black chip crops up. You throw it away. You don't want it. You are a winner.

You will eventually take out a black chip and it will stick to your hands and you will die.

Not that any will care for very long when you have that last black chip. They will be too busy after a short time trying to multiply the blue, red and green chips.

What will they write on your gravestone or upon your urn?

"He or she found the Blue chips", "He or she found the Red chips" or "He or she found the Green chips"? None of these, and it would be obvious to all that you found the Black chip, so they will not mention that.

They could write that he did it his (or her) way. Is that really a compliment? Adolf Hitler did it his way, as did Genghis Khan and Attila. What was your way?

Will they be able to say that you found the White chip? Probably not, because in the Great Casino called Samsara they don't talk about winning white chips.

On your gravestone they will try to write something complimentary.

They won't write, "He pursued Happiness," because almost everyone is doing that.

Why write anything at all? Why not simply say on your grave, "He died, after more or less living". Better still they could write... "We cannot say whose body lies here, because he didn't know himself." But that is no use, because they would have to write that on every gravestone if they were honest, together with any titles you may have gathered at the educational roulette table or the political slot machines.

Looking back, what have you really accomplished of noble value in your life?

"She was a loving mother"? That's nice if it is true. But being a loving mother is not sufficient if it is egocentric hedonism. Aren't all mothers naturally loving? It is then a sad commentary to point that out on one grave, because you are declaring, perhaps correctly, "My mother is OK, but the rest are a crock of..." But then again, you probably couldn't think of anything else to say.

It is best if here and now you actually write what you would like to have put on your gravestone. Then you have, naturally to work from now on to be worthy of it.

You might believe that it doesn't matter, because if you manage to get a last oration in, so that you are forgiven for being a complete fool all your life, or worse, you will be forgiven by some greater power.

But you in any case will have to leave the blue, red and green chips behind, for those who are hoping to get their share, trying to keep them from being stained by their tears.

It would be nice if they could at least declare, "He didn't enter the Casino, but found a white chip".

Enigmatic, unless you know what a white chip feels like to possess.

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

Now if you examine that white chip then you will find that its direct opposite is the black chip. The blue, the red and the green are worth nothing at all. When you go to the chip-changing counter they will tell you that they are only good for playing the life roulette and that you just have to play with those chips or throw them away...You know however that if you continue to play eventually you will lose everything.

You can't take anything outside the Casino. Peter, who is the doorman, won't even let you go out of the casino unless you leave your body behind.

You can go out of the casino with the black chips, but they will melt in the heat.

The white chips are different. That is because the white chip is made up of all the colors and the beauty of those white chips is that no one can take them away from you. Actually you can go into the Casino Garden and live there for the rest of your life with full well being.