Imagine living in a cottage on the side of a mountain ... - Dhamma by Ajahn Jayasāro
Imagine living in a cottage on the side of a mountain. You can hear the sound of a chainsaw in the forested valley below. It is a very irritating sound, and because the noise is not even, it is hard to ignore. But after some time you get more used to it. Minutes pass without you being aware of the sound, but when your mind is drawn back to it again you realise that your body and mind have been tense the whole time.
And then the noise stops. It is not an absolute silence. You can still hear the wind in the trees and the singing of the birds. But those sounds don't disturb the silence. They seem like part of it.
The cessation of suffering may be understood in this way. Cessation is not extinction. It is like the end of the sound of the annoying chainsaw. Nature, the wind, the trees, the birds remain.
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