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HIS LIKES AND DISLIKES
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arise the love for private possessions ? If there would be no possession, would there arise avarice for more possession ?”
“There would not, Lord.”
“If there would not be the love of private possession, would there not be peace ?”
“There would be, Lord.”
“I recognise the earth as earth. But I have no craving for it,” said the Lord.
“Therefore it is, say I, that by extirpating all cravings, by not lusting after them, but by destroying and abandoning and renouncing them all that I acquired enlightenment.
“Seek to be partakers, brethren, not of the world’s goods but of my doctrines. For craving brings about attachment and attachment enslaves the mind.”
In these words did the Blessed Lord explain to Ananda and the brethren the evils of the acquisitive instinct.
§ 3. His Joy at the Beautiful
The Buddha was so fond of the beautiful that he might well bear an alias and be called Buddha, the Lover of the Beautiful.
So he preached to his followers: “Be in the company of the lovely.”
Addressing the bhikkhus, he said :
“Monks, I know not of any other single thing of such power to cause the arising of good states if not yet arisen, or the waning of evil states already arisen, as friendship with the lovely.
“In one who is a friend of what is lovely, good states not arisen do arise and evil states already arisen wane. Evil states and devotion to evil states wanes, lack of devotion to good states disappears, good states and devotion thereto arise; lack of devotion to evil states increases.
“Monks, I know not of any other single thing of such power to prevent the arising of the limbs of
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