danger of self:

we think too much of our own false self.

when we are down and out
we feel like giving up
and at those times
we really feel
it's good not to have self.

it's like when you were living in your old country
and
you wanted so much to leave that country
you feel like a person
with no self.

then
you arrived United States
and your financial situation improved
and
then
you begin to feel
you have a self again
in fact a big self.

with that big false self
you feel like
you can handle everything
every obstacle
and
you take up
going back to the old country
and you begin to encounter
all sorts of the old abstacles again in the old country,
and you wish
you have no-self in the midst of those obstacles.

our untamed mind is wild and unwise,
and
goes back and forth
wishfully thinking,
getting us into all sorts of suffering.

A STORY:

there was once a person in hell
who was tired of being in hell
and thought of a way to get out.
he thought of a past good deed he did
in having rescued a spider
who was in fact a Bodhisattva.

with that good thought
a spider appeared at the opening of the hell,
and the spider dropped down a thread
for the person to climb up
to get the hell out of hell.

the person did climb up the thread and was happy
to be on the way out.

when he looked down on the thread
he saw other hellish beings
climbing on the same thread to get out
the hell out of hell.

he felt like
it was HIS thread
and other beings should not be using the thread
that was his.
so he yelled at them
to get off HIS thread.

as soon as he thought of himself as a SELF,
the thread broke
and
all the hellish beings
including himself
feel down to the hell again.

the moral of the story is:

DO NOT GO BACK TO HELL
once you got out of it.

or mi to fo,