DO NOT WAIT…
PHAP QUANG CULTURE COMPANY
ĐT/Fax: (08) 38462646 – 38479599
Mobile: 0986.861338 – 0984.982229
Email: congtyphapquang@gmail.com.
Website: www.thientonphatquang.com
Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year, I like to talk about the topic “Do not wait…” This was the title of the article posted on Tuoi Tre newspaper (The Youth). The article was very interesting and its contents align to some of the moral values and principles in Buddhism, therefore, I like to reference this article throughout our discussion today.
The original article stated:
“Do not wait until receiving a smile from someone then smile back.
Do not wait until being loved by someone then love them back.
Do not wait until being lonely then acknowledge the value of love.
Do not wait until having a very satisfying job and then start to dedicate to your work.
Do not wait until having a lot then share a bit.
Do not wait until having fallen down then recall the advice.
Do not wait until having plenty of time then practise Buddhism.
Do not wait until making others upset then apologise.
Do not wait at all because you never know how long the wait will be”.
- Do not wait until receiving a smile from someone then smile back
Running into a person who is our relative, surely we say hello and smile at them. But if we did not much about that person, we easily passed them without paying too much attention. This is the common situation when two people met at the first or the second times but they knew only little about each other. This statement warns us that in our lives, do not keep our hearts cold, or be lack of courtesy or lack of kindness … typically proven by the attitude we showed when passing each other without smiling or saying “Hello.”
This statement also warns us we should not live being very narrow-minded. Why? Because a smile does not cost anything, and on the contrary, it makes people we meet realise that there are many people who are nice and willing to love others around us and thus they feel warm and they would love their lives more. A smile makes people who are sad feel better. If we meet a person and they smile at us first then it was our loss and there was no other explanation for that.
So, when we meet a stranger in a temple, on a street or on a bus … even we don’t know them, we should smile at them. This gesture would make the icy atmosphere break and would bring the friendship closer. Just a smile, we could bring joy to our lives. Like a Swallow, although it cannot create spring but its presence indicates the signal of Spring is coming.
Although a smile could not change the whole world as people would still continue to be cruel, selfish, and narrow-minded, however, the smile would still somehow warm up this world. When we could comprehend that philosophy, we could realise the value of being good and doing many good things and loving others. In our lives, we should always be friendly to others, even just simply as giving them a big warm smile. So the lesson from this is that: “Let always be proactive in being friendly and kind to others”.
If we waited for others to greet us first, then we responded out of politeness, it just meant that we were taught a ‘How to be polite’ lesson by them. After that we would feel embarrassed because of out impoliteness. Obviously that is our loss and acknowledging this is still good. Otherwise, if in this situation, we arrogantly turned away because we think they are strangers, then we were very rude.
For example, there was a time when we were in a hurry and passed a person, and after about ten-step away from each other, we suddenly turned around because we realised that they looked familiar then we both started smiling and greeting. Though we were slow but it was still good. If we did not do that, we were really arrogant then. This could show that we may not have morality. And we do hope that all of us, being Buddhists, who are sitting here today, and who were taught to love all sentient beings. We all may be slow in our actions, and response, but we would never lose our cordial smiles.
So, sometimes we might regret not having smiled at someone right after we met them. A smile could simply make others judge who we are and how moral, friendly, compassionate we are. Please do assess our own behaviour and learn from our mistakes.
- Do not wait until being loved then love back
The second statement refers a bit deeper into morality. This particularly criticises people who are selfish and passive.
For example, at school, we always keep our distance from others; or in temples we always appear calm and keep a distance from others, we do not want to show emotion to anyone. Or, similarly we do the same thing at work… These people with this behaviour should be criticised because they were waiting for someone to love them first before they respond. It also indicated that these people are less moral and they have not yet comprehend Buddhism principles. Buddha always teaches us to love all beings with no conditions and to not demand love in return.
When we are in a temple with presence of Buddha, respectful monks and nuns, even the trees and the grass also blend in with the atmosphere, we could feel the love amongst us and we can easily respond to this loving atmosphere because we believe the people, who are in the same temple with us, that they would hold the same belief. Because of our confidence in this environment, we could easily express our love and be friendly to others.
However, when we are in different places such as schools or workplace, and because we do not know the others yet, we would keep the distance, and do not show our emotion, or would not be friendly with others, then we are very much ordinary. It also simply meant that we only react or respond when others do so. Many people have that mentality, and that mentality is not appropriate for Buddhism principles.
Buddhism principles advise us that “We should love others without the expectation of being loved. Even when we loved others, we helped them, but they betrayed us, we would still be happy. It was because we were prepared for all circumstances, not because of our expectation of receiving their love back”.
So, for those who have the expectation that if we loved others, they would love us back, then it was to be considered very commercial. For example, at workplace, people would be friendly with their boss, their colleagues, and their employees to enable their work progress smoothly. Though such action is still considered good and well, but it still does not completely align with Buddhism principles, because it was done with a purpose. And if someday we meet a person, who was jealous of us for some reasons, then we would be very annoying, sometimes we even consider revenge.
So when we are at work or at any places, let ourselves be open to love everyone and let prepare for all sorts of situations i.e. have the mentality that amongst those we love there are good people treating us well and also there are bad people who envy us and sometimes they could victimise us, harm us, or defame us. Having predicted those bad situations, we would be still able to accept those circumstances and it also because that is life.
Although life is unfair like that but the Buddha also teaches us to love others no matter what and our love for others should always be there in our hearts. So when we meet someone, we should always be open and proactive, not waiting for them to do so because the later can be considered to be selfish, and that is not one of the true Buddhist’s characteristics.
For example, in the workplace, if we only treated others kindly because they were kind to us, it was not really good. This thinking and attitude is not allowed in our temple. It would mean that there would be different groups of nuns, and monks, there would be division in the community, and we are not united. Therefore, a person who is going to be a monk or a nun is not allowed to even have that thought or take any similar sorts of action. They must love all people even these people have not yet understood them. However, loving others do not mean you must express explicitly your love to them. Your love to them can be shown by your caring for them and your support, being there when needed. That attitude shows our enthusiasm, proactiveness and considerateness.
“Do not wait until being loved then love back.” What does this statement remind us? It is quite simple. If these people, who lived next door to each other over a long period of time, and they still had not fully understood or appreciate each other. One day one of these people left. Leaving in this scenario has many meanings. It could simply mean that one of them left to live else where, or more than that, one of them left this world. It was then the other just realised his so-called neighbour was a lovely person. Because of his narrow-mindedness, he was not proactive in providing his love to his neighbour. He missed the neighbour when the neighbour already left. He would have no further chances to do good deeds for his neighbour or to show his appreciation towards his neighbour.
If in our previous lives, when we loved someone, then it would be easier to do the same in this life. On the contrary, if we were not proactive in doing so, it would take time. It is in deed karma law, because if in this life we do good deeds for someone then we would naturally love them in our next life and we would help each other in cultivating the Dharma.
Sometimes, there would be people that are not willing to love us first. They wait for us and we wait for them. But if unfortunately he would pass away and we had thought he was a good person because he would not upset us or would have never said bad words to us, it was too late for us to acknowledge his greatness. Therefore, it would be best that we should not care about how good or bad these people are, whether or not they love us, we should love them first. This is also consistent with Buddha’s teachings. We are Buddhists so we must practice these teachings.
Do not wait until being lonely then acknowledge the value of love
In this ordinary life, we always fight against each other, get angry with each other and blame others, which lead to broken relationship. It is very easy to blame, defame and betray people. The retribution for those bad deeds is to live a lonely life.
We have met so many people like that. When surrounded by family and friends, they blamed others, or were angry with someone, or looked down on others. When they realised what they did, everyone had already left. Those who could understand them also stayed far away from them. There would be no one that would love them; no one wanted to see them because of their negative attitude. The retribution for not appreciating value of people relationship is to live a lonely life.
During Tet holiday period, we often think about one thousand years ago. At that time, our society was not as crowded. There was quite a long distance between resident places in city areas. In rural areas this distance was a lot longer. If a father asked his child to ask for some salt from the next door neighbour, it would have took the child an hour to walk to the neighbour house and bring the salt back. And we often heard people say “Have fun in the New Year,” which has been a norm since. But what forms happiness or having fun? We often heard people say “the more the merrier”, the principle is quite simple really. We should remember that: the more people around us, the happier we should be. Although Tet has come and spring is in the air, but if we were alone by ourselves, it would be really sad. We would then think of other places where other family would have each other and enjoy their time together and yet here we are, alone! We should then realised the misery of being lonely because we could not enjoy and be happy like others.
We also often think about how our ancestors celebrated Tet holiday, thousands of years ago, while they lived so far away from each other. There were only few people back then. And because we only feel happy if there are many people around us, but at that time there were only a few residents in a town. During Tet holiday, they would go from house to house to greet and wish each other best wishes for the New Year. However, if they left someone at home, then that person would be really sad. So, sometimes, others’ happiness could be someone else’s sadness.
Today, the fact that you all are here during this New Year festival, and bring joy, happiness to our temple. We should be enjoying our time together. However, when you are here enjoying this atmosphere, people at home would miss you and there would be less happiness around your place because of your absence. People relationships and love are always on our mind. And we have realised that natures take its cause, human beings should be together, and not to be lonely, otherwise we would not exist.
A long time ago, when human beings started to reside on Earth, there were very few residents here and there. There were places that people came and left as they were only alone. However, over time, fortunately human beings started realising that they could form a group, then became a minority group, and finally declared a nation. So we only exist if we learn to live together, and that means we must support each other. We must count on others. Mother nature forces human beings to live together. Only when someone achieved the highest level in cultivation, we could survive on our own. However, living alone is not the objective of Buddhism. The objective of Buddhism is to continuously improve ourselves to teach and help other human beings.
Again the above just simply means that it is very natural that human beings must learn to live together. However, there are people who underestimate the importance of this principle, because they could not comprehend the importance and meaning of being with others and relationship between people. They always look for flaws in others. They do not value the importance of love and being loved, so the result in the end is that they are isolated from others. Only when they were in that situation, they would realise how difficult life could be without others. When they realised that problem, that everything they would want to do would become more difficult, they could not rely on anyone as there would be no one around, they would become more and more de-motivated in their life.
If we are loved, naturally we would feel happy and thus we would stay young for a long time. We would notice that there are two kinds of people: The first kind consists of those who are destined to interact with many people; they always love and help others. They would do anything to benefits all beings throughout their life. They would not think bad, or blame others. Everyone would want to be around these people as they always find something good in others. They would always look radiant because they would always feel happy about life. When it is their time, there would be a lot of people come to say good bye and celebrate their lives. That means they would live and die happily. The second kind consists of those who living solitary lives. These people would always look old and worried when we see them. So if somehow we were pushed into that lonely life, the loneliness would make us become weaker and when we die, we would die in loneliness, sadness and in a unhealthy way.
On the 5th day of Lunar New Year, we will preach “Spring and Age”. This topic would remind us: “Do not wait until we fall into a lonely life then acknowledge the value of relationship with other people. Then we wish if we had not blamed, accused, spoken harshly about others or been arrogant but had been modest, and had appreciated people’s relationship, perhaps we would have been living a happy life”.
There have been many people leaving Vietnam for another country. In a foreign country, the opportunity to speak Vietnamese is rare. In fact, they had just arrived at a new country, they could not speak that country’s language yet. As the result, they could not communicate effectively with the native, so they felt lonely in the new land. Only when they could communicate effectively with others, they would feel more welcomed and less lonely. Once, we talked to an American. One of the Buddhists asked if he wanted a drink. The Buddhist brought the American a glass of water but he could not talk to him because the Buddhist did not understand English. It is quite simple really, we should learn to know a foreign language to actively overcome the language barrier so that we become less solitary and love people more easily.
So the saying “do not wait until being lonely then understand the value of love” is very meaningful and valuable. When we still have the opportunity to love, and to be with others, let cherish those relationships, do not let our love for them fade away. We should love people more and more. If our love for others increases from time to time, we have been living right. Otherwise, it is such a pity.
- Do not wait until having a very satisfying job and then start to dedicate to your work
This statement is very interesting. And this mentality is quite common actually. So what is the purpose of having a job? What is the purpose of working?
To define what a job is, we should analyse and compare the meanings of “having a job” vs. “working”.
For example, a man is gathering woods. Is it a job? Yes, it is. However, another example includes a man who was bringing bricks to help building a house, but later on, he was the person ruining the place; Or, someone was building a pile of sand then waiting for the ocean waves come to destroy it. Were these really jobs? No, they were games not jobs. All of the above were physical acts, but only one of them could be called a job while others were called games. It is be cause when you are doing something that contribute towards human being lives, then it is a job.
In this world there are many jobs for us. Everyone often chooses a suitable profession. But in this article, the author reminds us not to think and act like that “Do not wait until having a very satisfying job and then start to dedicate to your work”. Why so? Because the point of choosing a job that we are satisfied with, even though it may still contribute towards human lives, we did this job to satisfy our needs, not for others. Our selfishness still exists.
So, those who understand the meaning of “labour” or “job” would agree on the fact that “Doing a job means to contribute to human life to benefit others.” We chop wood and cook, then we and our family would have things to eat. In a temple, if we collect rubbish, we ourselves and many Buddhist would have the clean place to live. Maybe even we are directors of a company, we are the rich, but when being at a temple we are guests, we should help by getting drinks for others or do anything as long as it benefits other people. If we think that “we just explain the Buddhism doctrine to people, but we do not know how to interact with them”, then it means we just think for ourselves, not for other people.
We should do anything as long as it makes sense, valuable and contribute to human beings lives. It could be because we were doing many works that we did not like, but those acts helped others, our blessings were increased and sooner or later we would get a more satisfying job. For example, there was a graduate chemical engineer and he had not yet had a job. This person applied for an engineer position in a company. The company representative said that they had enough chemical engineers but lack of security guards. This person thought “now that there were not chemical positions available, I should work as a security guard to support my family and this job should also contribute to the society.” And this person did his job happily and with dedication. And thanks to his dedication and his support to other people to fulfill their duties, his blessings had been increased. Later, that company had created more jobs to grow, and it needed more chemical engineers. At that time the director remembered that security guy who had majored in chemistry then assigned a suitable engineer job to him.
Or another example, there was a student, who studied music at music school, dreamt of becoming a musical star. But at that time the opportunity was not available, and only a carpenter position was available for him. This person was too arrogant to work as a carpenter. He waited for the singer position so that he could proudly stand in front of any audiences and to be a star. Since he did not accept the carpenter position and he had no chance to become a singer yet, in the end, he had no work to do, which means he contributed nothing to life.
The concept of work is very subtle. Because we work hard or even suffer from work as long as it benefits our lives and others, our merit would increase. As a result, someday we would have a satisfying job to do. It would be great when we do a job which is not normally our area of expertise; or not to our linking, however we would still dedicate to complete the assigned duties. Thanks to our dedication, then would have gained a lot of experiences which would be advantageous when we apply for new jobs in the future.
Long time ago when our country just finished war and gained Independence, our family just did farming work. We had to dig, planted rice and peanuts, gathered firewood, watered sugar canes … These kinds of work did not seem appropriate for us at the time, as we were school academics, we should have studied all day instead of being out there working on farm tasks. But at that time, that was the circumstance and everyone had to do things, anything, to support their family. We loved our family so we were dedicated to complete the task. Later our family circumstance became better, we went back to school then later became a monk. Now looking back on those days, we are grateful for those difficult times, working under a bright, strong sunshine, or those days when we were alone in the field keeping birds from eating our rice, or those nights when we were alone in the forest burning wood into charcoal… We worked very hard. Surprisingly, thanks to all the hard work during those difficult times, we now could be brave to face any difficulties or challenges in life.
Therefore, when we got in the temple we were no longer afraid of anything and we could do anything even if it is hard or dangerous. We are grateful for doing any work, even it the work is not ideal for us at that time, but it would help us a lot to our cultivation of the Dharma. In our temple, when our masters went to the rice field to harvest, we would help them too. Another time, we needed to build a bridge to connect two temples. It was winter and there was a stream flowing hard between the two temples. My master assigned this job to us. To build the bridge we must have dived into the deep stream to place concrete posts at the bottom of the stream. It was during winter, and the water was icy cold. We burnt the pile of hay leaves then we take turns jumping into the water digging holes for these posts. Everyone took turn to jump into the cold water to work, then rest, and then work again. By helping each other, and doing it together, we completed the tasks successfully. We were pleased when we did that work as it help train us how to behave and act during difficult times. We continue gaining blessings for our work. If we joined the temple, and we did not participate into doing those difficult and challenging work, then we would not gain blessings, and if we would wait for better tasks, it does not show our dedication to cultivation at all.
This statement “Do not wait until having a very satisfying job and then start to dedicate to your work” is really meaningful. Sometimes when we get a job which was not what we quite expect, it is just meant to be, it could be the opportunity for us to train ourselves to be better. So we should and would do anything as long as it helps and benefits others.
- Do not wait until having a lot then share a bit
That means do not wait till being rich then start to do charity and help others.
This is also common mentality of people who have to work very hard to earn their living. For example, our daily rate is 70,000VND, which we worked so hard for, of course, there are other people who have blessings and their job get paid daily rate of 500,000VND. We would then think that we were poor because our daily rate was less than the other. And when our neighbour was sick and asked for some money to buy the medicine, we would hesitate to give them the money as we worked so hard for it. This scenario is very common. When considering the hard work we did, naturally we did not want to share to others. On the contrary, the rich people would give out the money without any hesitation. However because they were rich and they could afford to give out money to help, they would still not gain as much blessings. That is the reason why there is a saying that
“the rich would not gain as much blessings when giving out to help others, as when the poor do the same thing”.
When the poor gave out their money to help others, it means they sacrificed their earnings after a long hard labour day for other people. Because of their kindness and their scarification, they would gain a great deal of blessings and good retribution. Someone would ask “But their contribution was less than mine. Each time they only contributed 100,000VND, 200,000VND, or 500,000VND; but I contributed 10 million VND, but my children and I would not be as lucky as his.” Why is that? That is because it did not take much of an effort for rich people to give out to help. Moreover, they spend more than they give, while the poor give more than they spend so they will get a lot of blessings.
Please remember “Do not wait until having a lot then share a bit” because giving alms when rich has less blessings when poor. For example, when we travelled by train from the North to the South, and it was lunch time; and at that moment, we caught a person sitting across us watching us having our sandwich, but they quickly turned away. We were aware that they did not have anything to eat, or had any money to buy any food. However, we hesitated to share with them because we were wondering “Should we share the sandwich that was already bitten with them?” And when we realised, it was already too late. Later when the train arrived at the station, all got off the train, and seeing that they were exhausted from their hunger, we regretted not sharing our food with them. We wished we had shared with them and thus the sadness would torment us for the rest of our life.
Sometimes it could just be a small thing which can torment us for the rest of our life. As opportunities and time have passed, we had no chances to correct our actions. In this world when we have a chance to support or share something with others, do not hesitate to do that. Let love spread all over this world, so that we can peacefully continue living with no secret regrets or worries at all.
Sometimes having done something wrong, we would remember that until the day we die. Maybe when we were about to pass away, we would feel satisfied with most of things we did, we were proud of our family and children, but were still regretted that 30 years ago on the train we did not share our sandwich with a hungry passenger. As the result, we did not have a peaceful passing away. Therefore, do not hesitate to try our best to help others.
In fact, there are many ways of blessings being calculated, either by physical materials and/or thoughts. The blessing formula of cause-and-effect law is very complicated. For now, let just simplify it by referring to two factors in the following example. If we gave a poor person 10,000VND, which we worked very hard to earn that amount of money, however, with our scarification and our thoughts of poor people, we would get a lot of blessings we cause. However, if when we gave the poor person 100,000VND, which we could easily earn this money, then our blessing would not be as significant.
However though, by referring to the above, we did not mean to do it irresponsibly, which means we give out to others everything we have. By doing it, we were about to make a mistake. For instance, after a husband passed away, his wife and children would inherit all his assets. When he was still alive, he had full ownership of his assets, but it also implied that some of the assets belong to his wife and his children. The ownership just did not show clearly. When he was alive, he owned the house; and when and he passed away, the value of the house would be divided into two parts: one for the wife, and another for the children. That was why when the husband was alive, his wife and children already owned a part of the house, but the ownership was implicit, and hidden
Similarly, how about our money? Who does it belong to? Be very careful with this, because all of the money maybe does not belong to us. Although we often are the people who make final decision on the spending, it does not mean that all of the money belongs to only us. Likewise, the prime minister could decide on how to spend the national budget, but the money does not belong to him. If he made wrong decisions, he would commit a sin, quite a bad one. Therefore, even if we are the head of the family and keep the money, but do not think it is our money, as it belongs to the whole family.
So, giving out or donate without thinking carefully means we are making a mistake. Although this statement advises us to always be willing to help others, we should still be very careful and cautious when making a decision. We must remember that: we should give out and create blessings within its defined boundary, but do not do it irresponsibly
Do not wait until having fallen down then recall the advice
This statement is very interesting. For example, when a girl introduced her boyfriend to her parents, they advised her that “What a guy! He looks too tough. You would suffer in this relationship. You should end it” She did not listen to their advice because she thought that their love was stronger than anything and she loved him deeply. No matter how many times her parents told her off, she still married him; but she also divorced him a year later. When it happened, she thought her parents were right. Similarly, when parents advised their son “You should be a teacher”, but the son replied “No, I like to do business. I want to be a businessman”. The parents kept advising him “You personality is not suitable to do business. If you still proceed, you would not be successful and would get into bankruptcy. Teaching is more stable, less earnings but ethical.” He did not listen to his parents and carried on doing his business. Five years later, he was in debt to the bank and almost was jailed. When it happened, he thought his parents were wise in their advice. Being eager to win when we were young, we always subjectively thought that we were right and thus did not listen to other people’s advice. Only when the failure happened, we recalled the advice.
This statement just simply reminds us that: Never underestimate other people’s advice. Obviously we could not always agree with their advice.
Sometimes they also advise bad things due to their negative thoughts or due to their lacking of experiences or knowledge. We should not, therefore, always rely totally on other people’s advice.
However, do not disregard those advices, especially when we are very young. No matter how smart we are, we were young so we still make the mistake. The mistake is being arrogant and aggressive about everything. We believed that we were right about everything, and everything is beautiful and possible in this world. Those who have passed their youth would understand about this. Young people would not possibly be aware of this, because they so believe they were right, so they ignored other people’s advice. This is our weakness. Those who have passed their youth would understand that only very few things, out of many things we thought of doing while we were young, which could be done successfully. When we were getting older, we then advise the others from our learnings and our failure.
When we were robbed, ripped off, or negligent in doing something, we would acknowledge how useful the advice was; but then, it was too late. These advices from others often from their past experiences that they learnt all their lives, some even from a very challenging and hard times in their lives, not simply just words. For example, our parents advise us: “When you get to know someone, you should consider the way the person treats his family to assess how good they are”. When someone was kind to us, we would consider them to be our friend. However, if we looked into it, he/she only was kind to us, but not kind to his/her own family, then he/she was not a good person. Ignoring that, we still progressed with getting into the relationship with this person. We have ignored the advice from our parents. We made a mistake. The person we thought we knew could turn out to be someone else and that mistake could make us go to jail one day.
When it happened, we remembered the valuable advice we received from others. It is advised that if one, who is not kind to their families, is not kind to others too. One who does not go to a pagoda, maybe, one is not good. And do not yet think one who does not attentively listen to a sermon is a good person either …
So, let us be calm, listen to and appreciate the advice even when we need to think about those advices before making final decision. It is up to us but never disregard the advice.
- Do not wait until having plenty of time then start to practise Buddhism
(Since the original meaning of this statement is not clear, we have modified it a bit and emphasised more on the cultivation of Buddhism).
There are Buddhists who are too busy with their lives so they almost forget to cultivate. We have advised them to spend more time on cultivation but they always have excuses for their laziness and the delays.
We know a provincial Chairman who knows how to best utilise his time to both cultivate properly and for his work. He has been always busy, working all year around, even on Saturday and Sunday, almost with no time to spare. He is a very dedicated and ethical man with integrity. So we might think that with his busy work schedule, he would not be able to study Buddhism principles and cultivate. But it was not true. Every morning, he would practice basic qigong at least two hundred times, listen to a short sermon and then go to work. So, when a Buddhist says he is too busy to cultivate, we would tell the story of this provincial Chairman as the role model for others to follow. Even though he was so busy, he still takes the time to practice, doing research and exercise to remain being healthy.
So we should never complain that we have little time. The point is how to best arrange time and use it wisely so we have time to cultivate. We must start right now. Because Buddha’s teachings are the light to help us not only to get rid of the darkness of ignorance, but also help us to escape from the heat, torment of sorrow. Buddha’s teachings are spiritual food to help us escape from lacking of wisdom as well. Buddha’s teachings are sacred. We rely on these principles and we feel protected by them. If we miss out on listening to these teachings on one day, we would not feel right.
And if everyday, we are able to listen to the teachings and practice it, then every day we would be getting closer to Buddha, our lives are getting more peaceful and would be a lot happier.
So, never leave Buddhism. We should always make time for it. No matter how busy we are, we must constantly worship Buddha and meditate. The day we worship Buddha and meditate is the day we are purifying our bodies and minds, getting closer to better things. The more good deeds we do, the more blessings we would gain, and that means we are getting one step closer to noble fruition. If we delay or miss a day of listening to Buddha’s teachings and practicing them, it will be the day that ignorance and sin have the opportunity to destroy our souls a little more. So do we want to come to the light of the Dharma or to let ignorance destroy our souls? Or do we want to let Dharma purify our mind or let affliction fills up in our mind. It is our decision. Therefore, we have no choice but have to force ourselves. Each of us must force ourselves not to be forgotten to learn about
Buddha’s teachings and practice them everyday so that the teachings are instilled into us. We would make progress and become better every day.
There are some things we put off can cause us some disadvantages, but if we delay in practising Buddhism principles, the disadvantages are too big.
Once, Buddha accompanied the Sanghas left the monastery for food. They went along the path surrounded by the field to get into town. There were many farmers plowing in the field in early morning. There was a farmer digging and when he saw Buddha and the Sanghas, he left his hoe, bowed to pay homage to Buddha. Thinking about something, he picked up his hoe and continued his work. Seeing this, Buddha stopped and told the Sanghas that this farmer also had the same thought throughout his past one hundred lives “I will wait until I finish hoeing the field, then I will practise Buddhism”. But when he completed, he then thought, “I will wait until I finish the harvest, then I will practise Buddhism”. And when he was done with the harvest, he thought, “I will wait until my son is grown up and takes my place in ploughing the field, then I will practise Buddhism”. He continued his thinking like this; it took him a long time to be with Dharma; though many lives later, he met Buddha and Sacred Ones. So, we should not put off practicing Buddhism teachings. There are some things we put off can cause us some disadvantages but for Buddhism and cultivation, one day we put off means we must wait 1000 lives. The cause of hesitation and delay in cultivation will become the effect of one thousand times of wait, hesitation and delay.
Do not wait until making others upset then apologise
Do we make this mistake at all? Of course, we have upset our family and friends many times in life. Although we knew about these mistakes and apologised for those mistakes, our feelings were still wounded. A father had a bad-tempered son. He told his son that “When you are angry about something, hammer a nail onto the railing”. The son listed to his father, so everyone time he was angry; he hammered a nail onto the railing of the house. Later on, seeing the jagged nails on the railing, the son thought of his temper and how bad it was, demonstrated by those nails and he began to be fear of his bad temper and became more patient. Then the father told his son “When you can control yourself, take a nail out”. The son did as per his father’s advice for several years and eventually removed all the nails. Finally, the father said “Look at the railing”. The son obeyed and he saw the holes of his nails jagged on the railing.
Similarly, although we realised the mistakes and apologised, there still left wounds in our and others’ souls. So it is best not to upset each other, not to live carelessly, not to talk without thinking and consideration and hurt people’s feelings. Because when we found out those who suffered from our actions and sadly left us, we would regret. We should not wait until that time; we should always consider our actions to prevent us from making those mistakes, hurting others. Please be very careful!
Having said all that, when we knew about our mistake and apologised for it, it was actually quite acceptable. There are people who do not even admit and apologise for their mistake until the day they leave this world to live another life but like animals. Those who make others sad and continue living without any regrets would live like an animal life in their next life. Why do you think we were born human beings? That is because we know how to apologise for our mistake when we hurt others. So we would return in our next life as human beings to redeem our mistakes. That is a difference between human beings and animals.
For example, a father gave his house to his son, however, his son was a profligate person. He lived a careless life, and spent money recklessly. When he returned home, his parents had died and the house had been damaged by heavy rain. He regretted so much for his actions then. Due to his regret, when he passed away, he was not reborn as an animal. When he died, Yama King allowed him to be reborn as an human being, but also made him vow: “Let vow what you will do in your next incarnation to compensate for all of the errors and mistakes you made”. He replied “Sir, to redeem my errors, I vow to serve, respect my parents and rebuild many houses”. So in his next life, he only have basic level of eduation, became an apprentice in building industry. He served his parents all his life time and he did not own any houses because he had not yet paid for his errors, mistakes made in his past life. Karma law is simple like that and quite reasonable.
There was also another story like this, but these people were undisturbed about their mistakes and errors, and instead of felt sorry and made redemption, they did nothing; as the result, their next life was born to be an animal.
Therefore, the fact that we acknowledge and apologise for our mistakes is quite acceptable even though it is late. Like the lyrics of a song we wrote, “men wander from place to place in rain and return late …” So, it is best that one must practise, prepare and have the courage to consider everything before doing or saying anything to avoid hurting others. Again, even when we apologised for those mistakes, they still left wounds in others’ heart and soul. We had better not make any mistakes so we do not have to make apologies.
- Do not wait at all because you never know how long the wait will be
There are many things in life that should not be delayed but require us to hurry up and start the actions immediately.
Why? Firstly, opportunities do not always come back. Like the sandwich story above, we ate the sandwich while the other person was hungry and we hesitated to invite them to join us. We could not meet them again so we missed the redemption. In fact, we should have invited them at that time. Secondly, time goes by quickly. If hesitating, we are wasting a very precious thing, which is time. We should be quick, determined, knowledgeable and persistent.
But the truth is, not everyone has enough willpower and is intellectual to decide quickly what to do and what not to do.
Only people who have lot blessings will have intelligence, will power and be capable of knowing what to do now and what not to do. Where do these blessings come from? Firstly, we must regularly worship and pay respect to all Buddhas, we then would be able to judge clearly what should be done and what should not be done. Secondly, we must have genuine compassion for other human beings. Thirdly, we must support and help others, and meditate. Due to our practice in worshipping Buddhas, our compassion, our help for others and meditation, naturally we would be blessed and we would be clear in our mind to take appropriate actions without any delay.
“Do Not Wait” reminds each of us to be decisive, be quick, and be accurate in assessing everything to start the work without any hesitation. Do not miss the chance. However, in another aspect of life from intellectual and ethical perspectives, there are things that we must wait and must not be impatient. If we did things in a rush and without thinking carefully about our decision, it would easily lead to us making mistakes.
Some people are anxiously waiting all day long
Which make us love them more and more.
Wives are waiting for their husbands
Farmers are waiting in the rice field.
Waiting the water rises up to row the boats to the dock
Waiting for the dawn for birds to come and sing
Spring comes with lots of flowers
People love people like brotherhood.
Some people are anxiously waiting all day long
Just to make more mistakes
Hesitated, hesitated and wondering
After people pass away then we regretted.
Life has many painful paths
But time passes so quickly
Religion is not far away
Try to cultivate the Dharma and stop waiting.
Spring has come already
Wish all of us always be happy at a peaceful place.
Namo Shakya muni Buddha
