The Bowl of Saki Commentary

What is the nature of victory? When one gains something from another, unless in that process one has gained strength, one has gained nothing. The things that one momentarily seizes one cannot keep when one leaves this world; the strength that comes to one either on the battlefield or in controversy or in love or in friendliness or in any situation—if it is really strength—can be taken with one out of this world. This shows that strength is something that can be gained, and a victorious person can gain strength.

Now suppose one is an athlete. It has been found by people we regard as ordinary that well-trained athletes, be they ball players or runners or wrestlers or pugilists, must keep a fairly strict regimen especially in regard to rhythm and self-control. No matter how great their physical prowess, without this rhythm and self-control they cannot consistently and continually win. Their whole life, be it ever so mundane and material, depends upon their self-control.

From this we can see that the nature of deliverance is not apart from the finite existence, that Nirvanaand samsara are of the same essence. And what is the sage? The sage is nothing but that athlete, that pugilist, who has carried that regimen over into the mental sphere from the physical. And what is the saint? The saint is one who has gone still further and carried this discipline into the heart, in other words into the whole of life.