The most comfortable and wisest people are those who watch their health when they are healthy; guard their country when it is untroubled; and cultivate their fields well when weeds are nonexistent or scarce.

Venerable Chwasan

Our mind contains within it infinite principles, infinite treasures, and infinite creative transformations. If we can simply guard it, our bounty will be infinite and inexhaustible, free and easy, abounding with riches. This makes the thief all the more covetous and unyielding. To guard against this, we need agency, we need wisdom, and we need courage. If we lack these three things, there will be no way for us to ward off the desires and guard our mind. Indeed, it is all the more difficult to reclaim it once it has been taken away. It is wiser and simpler to guard it well before this can happen, for then we need not make the extra effort to take it back.

Uit: The principle and training of the mind, Venerable Chwasan, p 130-131; quoted in ‘The Grace in This World, An interview with Venerable Chwasan, former head dharma master of the Won Buddhist Order’, by Emma Varvaloucas on -tricycle.org
Afbeelding: In the meadow, Zinaida Serebriakova, 1912.