Although still dreading the
power of suffering, yet prolonging their stay in the sea of pain.
Disliking from their heart their present kind of life, yet still
striving incessantly after other life; enduring affliction that they may
partake of joy; seeking a birth in heaven, to suffer further trouble;
seeking joys, whilst the heart sinks with feebleness. For this is so
with those who oppose right reason; they cannot but be cramped and poor
at heart. But by earnestness and diligence, then we conquer. Walking in
the path of true wisdom, letting go both extremes, we then reach
ultimate perfection; to mortify the body, if this is religion, then to
enjoy rest, is something not resulting from religion. To walk
religiously and afterwards to receive happiness, this is to make the
fruit of religion something different from religion; but bodily exercise
is but the cause of death, strength results alone from the mind's
intention; if you remove from conduct the purpose of the mind, the
bodily act is but as rotten wood; wherefore, regulate the mind, and then
the body will spontaneously go right. You say that to eat pure things is
a cause of religious merit, but the wild beasts and the children of
poverty ever feed on these fruits and medicinal herbs; these then ought
to gain much religious merit. But if you say that the heart being good
then bodily suffering is the cause of further merit, then I ask why may
not those who live in ease, also possess a virtuous heart? If joys are
opposed to a virtuous heart, a virtuous heart may also be opposed to
bodily suffering; if, for instance, all those heretics profess purity
because they use water in various ways, then those who thus use water
among men, even with a wicked mind, yet ought ever to be pure.
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