Just A Thought

DEDICATION Since we do not live alone, by and for ourselves, but depend upon so many others just that we may go on living as we do, the number of people who help us all the time is simply incalculable. This book, therefore, is dedicated not to just a few, but to anyone who might read it. May they get as much out of it as I did in putting it together. A diamond is a diamond no matter where it’s found.

Introduction

Several years ago, I began to send out a daily message, called Just A Thought, and did so for several years. These were usually quotations from some-one, with a comment by myself, and now and then, something of my own ponderings. I discontinued these when the feedback didn’t warrant going on (it was often an effort to come up with something to say anyway), but since then, I thought that, combined, they might make quite a good book (the number of such books indicates quite a demand), and, upon the promptings of others, I settled down to work on it.

Unwilling and unable to face the onerous task of overseeing the printing of it, I turned it over to the broad shoulders of Goh Hock Guan ~ aka Dharmavira ~ my long-known Dharma-friend of Malacca, confident that he’ll be able to get it done; he has many contacts.

I chose the cover-picture because the inventor of the electric-light bulb ~ Thomas Alva Edison ~ brought light to the whole world. What an impact he had! He is one of my heroes.

Like my previous books, this has been printed for free distribution, but when someone pointed out to me recently that some of my books were being offered for sale on the Internet, I had to laugh, thinking that if people are prepared to buy them, there would be a greater chance they would read them than if they got them for free; there’s a ‘can’t-be-much-good-if-it’s-free’ syndrome ~ like things in boxes of cornflakes ~ which is often true, but not always. It has long been a Buddhist tradition to print books for free distribution, the idea being that a price cannot be put on things that are potentially so useful. I have, myself, benefited so much from books on Dharma, and so know that the old say-ing, “The Dharma-gift excels all other gifts” is true.

Adelaide, December 2007.