week 4

To me, the opening stanzas of the The Dhammapapada feels like he is referring to hope in a sense. Stanza 11 and 12 state:

“Those who hold the worthless to be of value,

And see in the valuable the worthless,

Do not attain the valuable,

Pasturing, as they are, in the field of wrong intention.

But having understood the valuable as the valuable,

And the worthless as the worthless,

They attain the valuable,

Pasturing, as they are, in the field of right intention.”

I think this can be taken as those who have to much hope and try to see the good in everything in life will never be able to attain true hope or see the value in it. But if people who see the world for how it is and can evaluate the valuable as valuable and worthless as worthless then they will be able to truly tell what is valuable in the end. My question for this is what valuable is he referring to? Would it be individually based? Since everyone has their own individual ideas for what they view as valuable.

In passage 338 he talks about cravings stating,

‘As a cut tree grows back

If the root is undamaged and firm,

So too this pain emerges again and again

If the tendency toward craving is not rooted out”

I thought this was interesting because I feel like depending on the craving, they don’t necessarily need to be viewed as bad. And in some instances, I think they could also affect us living a good life in a positive way.