Refuge to the Triple Gem
The traveler by Ven. Ajahn Chah
Naturally people who wish to reach their home are not those who merely sit and think about traveling.
They must actually undertake the process of traveling step by step, and in the right direction as well, in order to finally reach home. If they take the wrong path, they may eventually run into difficulties, such as swamps or other obstacles, which are hard to get around. Or they may run into dangerous situations and thereby possibly never reach home.
Those who reach home can relax and sleep comfortably. Home is a place of comfort. But if the traveler only passed by the front of his home or only walked around it, he would not receive any benefit from having traveled all the way home.
In the same way, walking the path to reach the Buddha-Dhamma is something each one of us must do individually ourselves, for no one can do it for us. And we must travel along the proper path of morality, concentration and wisdom until we find the blessings of purity, radiance and peacefulness of mind that are the fruits of traveling the path.
However if one only has knowledge of books, sermons, and sutras, that is, only knowledge of the map or plans for the journey, even in hundreds of lifetimes one will never know purity, radiance and peacefulness of mind. Instead one will just waste time and never get to the real benefits of practice.
Teachers are those who point out the direction of the Path. After listening to the teachers, whether or not we walk the Path by practicing ourselves, and thereby reap the fruits of practice, is strictly up to each one of us.
Source:
http://www.dhammatalks.net/Books/Ajahn_Chah_Tree_in_a_Forest.pdf
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