whenever I come across a lot of repetition, my mind tends to skip over them, thinking, “Yes, I’ve already read or heard that,” and I hurry on to the next sentence or page. Perhaps the repetitions are simply a function of the oral tradition, but there is another possibility. Maybe when the Buddha repeats certain phrases over and over again, he is trying to tell us something: that these are important qualities of mind to cultivate and strengthen in our practice and in our lives.
