IT IS STILL NOT ENOUGH
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According to Vietnamese custom, Tet (Lunar New Year) means happiness and good luck. During Tet period, people often do meaningful things. We often visit each other, express our appreciation and compassion for each other. Another common thing we do is to visit temples, pagodas to pay homage to Buddha and pray for a better New Year. These two routines are very meaningful to Vietnamese people. However, there are many Vietnamese people, who do not understand the true meaning of Tet. They often use the occasion as an excuse to party, gamble and enjoy themselves. After Tet finishes, they return to work and other ordinary routines. They often think that is enough to enjoy life.
“It is still not enough!” is a statement to remind us every day that whenever we do something for others; or we rush to complete any work, and often think that should be enough… then it is the wrong thinking. It is really still not enough. It means we are not wise. People who are intelligent would never feel enough with what they have done, and achieved.
Often when we achieve a few things in life, we would feel satisfied and think that it should be enough. Whenever we feel satisfied and over confident about our achievement, we would start losing our blessings, we would start going backwards in life. That is karma, the law of cause and effect that governs all beings. Only Gods and Saints, who completely comprehend Buddhism, and diligently practice the Dharma, are not influenced by ego, and being selfless in order to be successful in their practice to achieve enlightenment.
Normally we would go to a temple once a month. However, when someone asks about our religion, we would firmly say that: “We are true Buddhists.” How can we be true Buddhists when we only go to a temple once a month? Having such thought means we are very unwise. We mistakenly think that visiting a temple once a month is enough to be a true Buddhist. There are many people have similar thinking or perception that they do not need to follow any region, as long as they do good deeds.
Well, is this enough to be a good person if we neither harm anyone, nor break any law, and sometimes help who are in need? That’s not enough at all. We would still continue doing bad things and commit sins by our bad thoughts and our greed, ignorance, and eventually would destroy all our merits and blessings. Our ego, the thought of “that’s good enough” prevents us from improving ourselves, and being better.
In reality, there are lots of people, who understand well some of Buddhist doctrines, but think that they are so good and really feel satisfied with themselves. That is a big mistake. Only when you become an Arhant, then you can completely eliminate ego and the self. Being an Anagami is still not powerful enough to eliminate ego, because of thousands of past lives and past sins. Buddha always had reminded everyone to get rid of self-satisfaction and ego to improve self. When Buddha criticized an Anagami about this problem, he had to leave the human world to live in other world within 7 levels of heaven; it took a few thousand years before he could achieve the Arhanthood. It was just because of ego, and self-satisfaction. Again Buddha had always reminded us not to be self-satisfied with our achievement.
During Tet holiday, visiting temples to pay homage to Buddha, to learn the Dharma and to pray is always a good thing. However, do not think that is enough, and no further good deed is needed. This thinking is a mistake. Learning about the Dharma is to help us improve ourselves, we must also practice diligently and do more and more good deeds throughout the year; and do not to think that “it is enough”.
Once an Abbot, who is from the West of Vietnam, asked me: “Dear Master, I have just became an Abbot for this temple and I know that in Buddhism, we do not pray to the stars to minimize bad luck, and increase good luck in life. However, many Buddhists have believed in this ritual routines for over many years. They keep asking me to perform these prayers for them. I don’t know what to do… I do not want to upset them; but also do not want to be superstitious”. I replied: “Well, you should still hold a big festival on the 8th of January (lunar calendar). However, rather than doing stars worshipping ceremony, you pray for happiness and peace; as well as vow to do good deeds for others and the country .
There are three factors in this prayer:
- First, we pray for everyone who is enrolled.
- Second, we pray for all beings. When someone’s name is called out, they should be on their knees, pray for the peace of the country, pray for its prosperity and good weather for our crops…
- Third, everyone, who attends the ceremony, should pray for world peace, no war, no killing. ..
All Buddhists should solemnly to pray and vow:
- To improve ourselves, overcome our mistakes, selfishness, greed, and cowardice…
- To do more good deeds and help others.
- To help more and more people to learn about Buddhism and the Dharma.
- To help convince at least ten people to take refuge in Buddhism each year.
So, each year instead of doing a star worshiping ceremony, we should pray for everyone to be happy; pray that our country and the world will always be peaceful. And after the ceremony, we invite all the Buddhist to attend a Buddhist vegetarian banquet with music and singing. This way we can be happy, still enjoy the atmosphere of Tet Holiday, but do good deeds for many others.
But there are others who would say: “I am not superstitious, so I won’t worship any stars”. Well, that is good, but still not enough. Why? It is because any Buddhist will always want to be blessed by Buddha in the New Year, therefore, they always would like to do the praying on the 8th of January, Lunar Calendar. We cannot ignore this important custom of Buddhism.
We are advised to do one hundred bows to Buddha every day. After doing that, we feel better and think that we already are a true Buddha’s disciple. Well, not really. To achieve that, we have to accumulate our blessings and merits over hundreds and thousands of lives.
Similarly, when mediating, we should imagine that our compassion covers the entire universe, and imagine that we are compassionate beings. Again, do not think that is enough. Don’t make that mistake. It is like when someone listens to the Prajna in Buddhism, which states: “Form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form”, and then consider that he/she already understands the whole Prajna. Thinking like that is so wrong. Prajna is not that simple to comprehend. To fully comprehend Prajna, one must achieve enlightenment and do millions of good deeds like Bodhisattva, and have to consider oneself as nothing. After finishing mediation, and when one’s mind is so peaceful, calm and pure without any delusions, but still do not think that we already achieve the highest level of meditation.
There are many things that we have achieved over time, however, those are just the beginning… do not think that we are so good already. Such self-satisfaction, arrogance and pride will not help us learn more and improve ourselves further. It could be worse that it would make us lose our blessings and destroy our life.
When we meet someone, who think that they are better than others, and always look down on others, we would know that they make that fundamental mistake. This is true for both monks and normal people in reality.
When a religious practitioner, like an Abbot of temple, start comparing himself with Buddha, he makes that important mistake, falls into that trap of ego and being self-centered. In Buddhism, compassion and kindness are the most noble factors; nothing to do with ego, arrogance and self-centeredness. We should be very aware and careful of this.
This is a simple example, when visting a temple, we saw a poor man. He was thin, pale and poorly dressed, while we dressed very fashionably. While having a meal with other Buddhists and monks, by coincidence we sat at the same table with this poor person. This was completely different with our normal life, where we often dined with wealthy and rich people. Someone saw and asked us to move table, however, we responded politely, preferring to stay at the same table. That behaviours demonstrated that we were ethical; we considered and respected everyone equally. All Buddhists are the same, no differences in wealth and class.
The above also means moral/ethic. It is because our thinking is that when coming to a temple, we are all Buddhists, we are all Buddha’s disciples, there is no difference in class, wealth, therefore everyone is treated the same. Whatever happens outside the temple, in our ordinary life, must be forgotten. Inside the temple, we are all the same in that regard.
However, if we consider ourselves the same as Buddha, or our ancestors, that is not moral anymore, but is arrogance, ego and pride. One arrogance, ego and pride exists in our mind and soul, it will influence our behaviours, which will lead us to do more wrong things, and commit sins.
Ordinary people is less likely to suffer from being arrogant or being mental (this is the extreme) than religious practitioners. Student is an example. There are many outstanding students in real life, but they are not all mental. They follow the grades as prescribed by the education system. There are different levels in education system to allow students to learn gradually; each grade has different levels of difficulties. Therefore, even if someone is outstanding at Grade 6, they still need to learn other Grades. The system helps student mental stability in that sense. The highest degree in education is PHD or Doctorate. A true PHD or Doctorate degree holder will also see themselves as still do not have enough knowledge about everything in the universe. Those, who keeps telling others about their achievement, are definitely influenced by their ego and pride.
So what is the top level of education? Is this when you are awarded the prestigious Nobel prize? No, not really because after achieving the prize, they cannot progress further. The Writer Association has commented that: “most of the writers after receiving Nobel Prize have stopped writing”. It is because after receiving the prize, they become so popular, famous, therefore they consider themselves the best, the top of the class, they no longer look for self-improvement.
However, those cases are rare. Generally, common people’s psychology is table, which different from religious people.
During Buddha’s time, religious people were not arrogant or complacent because Buddha clearly defined different the levels of meditation (four levels) as well as four different levels of enlightenment. So when someone reached a particular level, they knew that there were more levels and they had to keep learning and practicing, keeping them from suffering from arrogance and complacency until they became an Arhant. At this level, they were free from arrogance and ego.
Today, because Buddha does not live in this human world to assess and advise us which level we are at, we have to ask our masters. And the fact is that our masters cannot be comparable with Buddha, they could easily assess wrongly and make us think we are at a very high level, hence, it is easy for us to be arrogant, proud about our achievement.
In Buddha’s time, when someone could meditate well, Buddha said “you haven’t yet reached the first level as your mind is not yet completely pure”. Today, just when we can meditate for longer than usual, and we feel our mind is peaceful then we believe we attain enlightenment. It is not correct. Buddha said that the first level of meditation is when our mind is entirely pure and we have the perfect morality. The Buddhist scriptures clearly stated: “Being free from desire, being free from incorrect Dharma” and this is just the first level of mediation. So we must understand that how difficult and holy the second, the third or the fourth level of meditation would be. There are many people, who have mistakenly criticise the Fourth Level of Meditation. These people will never be able to meditate and become true Buddha’s disciples. They clearly do not understand about meditation at all, therefore though not yet attain the first level of mediation, they already criticized the other levels. Therefore, within the religions itself, there are people who can become mental quite easily as they think they already reach the top of practicing the Dharma. Only Buddha can accurately assess our meditation or enlightenment level. No one else can.
Therefore any Buddhists must be careful and consider carefully what our Masters tell us. We can respect our masters but stay alert and always consider what our Masters say and advise. If he causes us to think we already reach high level of practice, then be careful and consider carefully those advices. These advices may badly impact our life.
The right path is: “Boundless reverence for Buddha is a must, Nikāyas from Buddha’s time is the foundation and Mahayana is the reference”. We’ll start with the most basic: our absolute reverence for Buddha. When we kneel down in front of Buddha, we must think Buddha is so holy and is bigger than the whole universe, whereas we are nothing but dust. The longer we practise the Dharma, the more insignificant we consider ourselves. That is the most fundamental and very important basic rule that cannot be changed. Don’t just look for other holy principles; start with the basic first.
Therefore, whoever can remember the saying “It is still not enough!” will save their own life in many events/occasions. This sounds unrealistic but it is true. Because when we recite this sayings over and over again, then naturally we will be blessed by many Saints and Gods. For example, when someone compliments us, we must tell ourselves: “What we did is still not enough”. We should tell ourselves that again and again and good luck will come for us. That is because we practise this saying many times, to improve ourselves, to make sure we do more and more good things. As the result, our blessings are accumulated, and when needed, Saints and Gods will bless and save us from bad luck. It is though a simple saying, but very powerful.
Or, for example, when someone said something bad about us, because we had practised the Dharma, we would still be calm, and would have no hatred for this person. Though we have displayed good behaviours, we must not be proud and still must keep reminding ourselves of the saying: It is still not enough! When we meditate, we must wish for these people to be better, learn the Dharma and improve themselves, then that would be just enough. This is extremely difficult to do, in deed. Though we were not angry at them, however, deep down, we may still do not like these people. This would take years of practice of purify our mind and soul so hatred will no longer exit.
This is another example. One day we met a poor person, who was begging for help. Feeling sorry for them, we gave all our money to them and accepted the risk that we had none left for any emergency cases. We felt great doing that. Often we would have exchanged to smaller notes and gave small changes to this poor person; but in this case we just gave everything to him. Though that was a courageous and great behaviour, that is still not enough. We only helped them financially, we had not yet made them aware of Buddhism and the Dharma. We must help them understand why they had a miserable and poor life, what they did the past to have this poor life; and more importantly what they must do to change their karma to have a better life. We could have said to the poor person as well as gave them the money: “Wish you all the best… wish you always have compassion for others, and believe in karma”. We can only hope that they would think about our saying, and start believing in karma and it may change their life.
Believing in karma means that we believe it “Doing good deeds will bring good luck, and committing sins will be punished”; “What goes around comes around”; therefore we must all have compassion and help others; and that would help improve our life and make it better.
Sometimes, we cannot help others often, but always remember to remind the others about moral principles. When we have more time and can afford to do more, we should do more good deeds for others, help others to have jobs… to maintain their financial stability. These good things will last for a long time. However, helping others financially is not enough. We always must remember to teach others about moral principles.
Another example is about brave soldiers. Even though, they were so brave and were willing to scarify their lives for their own country, but that was still not enough. Because it was just during the war. When the war was ended, and during peacetime, if these soldiers became government officials, he had to always have compassion and help other residents, then he was truly a patriot. Fighting for the country alone is not enough to be a true patriot.
In fact, to be a true patriot you must have the four characteristics below:
- Firstly, we must have compassion for all people living in this country. Only having the compassion for family members or just a nearby neighborhood is not enough.
- Secondly, we must love this country wholeheartedly, because our ancestors had fought for it; many soldiers and national heroes had fought to protect it and kept it beautiful thus far
- Thirdly, we must love our beautiful traditions and customs. For instance, for Tet occasion, we must think about our grandparents, show our gratitude towards them and wish others luck. We value our families. We respect our Masters.
- Fourthly, one thing that is so easy to forget is that we must have compassion for our country leaders. In the ancient times, this was said very clearly, “Being loyal to the king and love the country.” However, now, under the democracy, this factor is often forgotten, losing a significant part of patriotism.
Also it would not be enough if only our family had taken refuge in the Triple Gem, while the others hadn’t. We should help them take refuge also or our reverence for Buddha, our compassion and our love for Buddhism are still not enough.
We must help many people understand Buddhism. Anyone we meet, we must help them know about Buddhism like us or even better than. However, it is still not enough. If we feel that we have practised Buddhism well, we must do more, and even would consider to become a monk. Only then that is just enough!
Nowadays, people around the world are free to choose their own religions. The reverence from people for their religions, their Gods are so strong that the world leaders must respect and agree that everyone has their own right to follow the religion of their choice. However, that is not enough. Many people think that our civilization is so advanced already, but it is not as advanced as we think. The world is still very chaotic and has a lot of flaws; people have many false beliefs. Perhaps, only a few more hundreds year later, the human race can be more advanced in their thinking.
Besides, the freedom of religions also has its own mistake. People who are in charge, must find the right religion for the world to follow. When there is freedom to choose any religion, people will choose different ones. Since there are so many different religions, all of them cannot be right together. There is only one true principle, one truth.
There are many different religions around the world. Many of them are very extreme and they allow their followers to kill other people. If the world leaders allow people to choose the wrong religion, committing crimes and sins, then they allow people to make their own decision whether be good or be bad. Should this still be the way?
The law prohibits anyone from burglary; providing wrong evidence; corruption, killings, etc, however it does not prohibit people to choose the wrong religion. Therefore, freedom in this sense is a mistake. The human race must further advance over the next hundreds or thousands of years in order to have the right religion.
If someone asked us: “Which religion is the right one for the human race?” We all should answer: “It is Buddhism” because we are Buddha’s disciples. If someone asked other religious practitioners, they would have answered that it should be their religion. If we use a voting system, whichever religions have more followers will win. And sometimes it does not mean that a religion which has more followers than others, is the right one for the human race.
For any election, if only relying on the total vote, the chosen leaders might not be the right one. There are many other factors that help a person to be a great leader. Some has asked: “Would it be enough if we scarify ourselves for Buddhism, even death?” Well, actually it is still not enough. Death does not help protect and develop the country, and Buddhism. If you are not afraid of death, that is a good thing; however, it is even better if we could dedicate our life to protect our country and Buddhism.
Some also has asked: “Why has Buddhism become weaker?” Our answer was: “It is because our reverence for Buddha alone is not enough to keep it strong, and help it develop further.” A religion can only be stronger and stronger if its followers have the absolute respect for its Master, and its religions. We, all Buddhists, should always ask ourselves if we have the absolute respect for Buddha yet?
To emphasize this point: To protect and build Buddhism to be a stronger religion, we all must have the absolute and boundless reverence for Buddha. Each time we bow in front of Buddha, we must wholeheartedly respect Buddha and it should represent in each of our bow. If all Buddhists across the world, from all temples around the world do so, we should have create compassion all around the world. That is the fundamental factor that help Buddhism be stronger.
In contrast, if we do not have the absolute respect for Buddha, each of us will still be strangers, each temple will be operated in its own way, not everyone will have compassion for each other. Only when we are united, care for each other, and more importantly, have the boundless respect for Buddha, we then can help Buddhism to be stronger and develop further.
However, please be reminded that “having only the respect for Buddha is still not enough!” We must also share our belief in Buddhism with others, and get them to understand more about Buddhism and share the same belief in the religion, then it is considered to be just enough.
When someone learns about Buddhism, only understanding its principle is not enough, we must practise and apply those principles in real life correctly and appropriately. We often say “All Buddhists must have compassion for each other.”
Though it sounds easy and it takes only 4 seconds to say these words, but it could take the whole life to live these words correctly.
There is a huge difference between the time of study and the time of practice. Studying takes less time than practice. What happens if a person spends a lot of time learning but only a little time practicing? –Well, then it is wrong and insufficient. Learning the theory alone is not enough. However, there were many people think and behave like that. They spend most of their life time to study and obtain academic degrees. And we know that they have gone on the wrong paths. There might be other objectives rather than the main objective of diligently practicing Buddhism and the Dharma.
If we go against what Buddha had taught us “Learn in 4 seconds, but practise the whole life”, then our path would be wrong, we cannot be enlightened and can never be free of the reincarnation cycle.
Therefore, when learning about Buddhism, we must balance learning the principles and practise these principles. If we have a degree, but no practice, then it is no use and is wasteful. All Buddhism Schools must consider to balance about learning the principles, the theory and the practice in real life. If all monks and nuns only focus on learning the theories, the principles and ddo not practise, their religious life will be impacted negatively. Examination or testing should also focus on the practice, not just theory.
Practicing compassion in Buddhism is extremely hard. It means we must love all beings. “All beings” means everyone and everything. It is not just our immediate families, but also everyone else around us, and the whole 80million people of Vietnam population; even spread to all 6 billion people around the world; even further to all animals, all trees and other natural wonders… We must love everything in the universe.
“It is still not enough!” Only one of us have that compassion is not enough. It must be from everyone. We must help create that awareness so all beings will have compassion for each other. That is the true compassion in Buddhism. However, it is extremely difficult to do. It could take someone thousands of lives to be able to achieve this Bodhisattva virtue. Only then it is just enough.
According to international law, each religion has to respect the other, however that is not enough. Because there always is one or two religions, which want to dominate the world. These religions are willing to terrorize and kill other human beings to achieve their objective. We must help them realise the wrong objectives, and dispose of those wrong beliefs. We must help them to understand the right moral principles, karma and do more good deeds.
While we respect and wholeheartedly devote for Buddhism. It is still not enough. We must love our country as well. These two different types of love go hand-in-hand and they complement each other.
Nowadays, some of the strongest economies in the world have the most advanced technology laboratories. They create more and more advanced products, sell those products around the world, help their country economies growth stronger and stronger. Why do they keep getting stronger and stronger? Because anything they produce and create is “still not enough”! Continuous improvement is always in their mindset. For example, when an engineer has invented a new technology, his director would commend him: “I praise you for your achievement, however, we should continue improving it. So today I give you a patent in this field but I need you to improve it further.” Therefore, with that mindset, they are never behind. They keep creating more and more advanced products and help their country economies grow stronger. On the contrary, we often are so proud of our own achievement, and do not improve ourselves, therefore we can continue being behind these other strong countries.
The fact that we often go to the temple to practise alone is still not enough. We have to help others realise and understand the importance of practice, and get them to come along more often. We should continue helping more and more people. Though we have compassion for others, we must also help these people to have job, support each other to live and practise the religion diligently.
Many monks and nuns have asked us: “Currently, the rituals in many temples are like six hundred years ago.” Is it actually advancing and growing or going backwards? Absolutely, going backward! Six hundred years ago, we had those rituals and six hundred years later they still remain unchanged, while the world has made a lot of progress. Now, the youngsters do not want to go to temples to pray and chant, they want to do things more actively and engaged. So Buddhism also needs improvements to attract and keep the youngsters interested. For example, instead of the traditional chanting method, we could apply contemporary music to some of the chanting or praying to keep people interested and encourage people to come and visit temples more often.
Buddhism indeed needs to improve and evolutionalize some ritual routines. Even when our Masters had been successful in those traditional ways, but we cannot just accept the way it is. We must continuously improve to help Buddhism grow and develop more and more. If we just accept the way it is, and do not thrive for any improvement, then we forget the saying “It is still not enough!”
Spreading the Dharma further is the obligation of all Buddhists, not just monks and nuns. Does this sound strange to you? Actually not. There are obviously more Buddhists than monks and nuns. Therefore, the task of spreading the Dharma must be done by all Buddhists. Monks and nuns will give the guidance to ensure the path is correct. When you come to a temple to listen to the Dharma or pay homage to Buddha, you have a mission to complete for Buddhism. That is to help spread the Dharma further, make more and more people aware of the Dharma. It would be wrong to think that going to temple to pray for your family only. It is only just enough when we devote everything we have and all effort we could to be the representative of Buddha, and as the result, we must spread the Dharma and bring it to more and more people.
Therefore, there are three things that all Buddhists must always do:
- First: Observe and look around you to identify who do not yet know about Buddhism.
- Second: Get acquainted with those people and introduce Buddhism to them.
- Third: And finally, influence them to agree to take refuge in the Triple Gem.
Those are the three activities that we must always do. But it would be still not enough.” We must continue guiding and supporting those people until they become the representatives of Buddha and bringing the Dharma to many others. Then our mission will be completed.
If all Buddhists can do the above, how would the world turn out to be?
The human world now is very chaotic, where the good and the evil are reincarnated together. Animals are reincarnated as humans. Ghosts from hell are reincarnated as humans. Or Gods from heavens are reincarnated as humans. Fights between the good and the evil are happening all the times.
Therefore, if each Buddhist is a true representative of Buddha, then the human world will be a pure environment to teach Buddhism. All beings, who are reincarnated as humans, will learn about Buddhism, will be saved and transformed to be good beings. Possibly they come from bad places so they would have many weaknesses, but because of the holy environment that was full of compassion, which they were reborn into, they could not gotten worse; they could only improve themselves and be better. At that time, the human world would be the intermediate place to transform all beings into Saints.
Today, the human world could be either the intermediate place but it could also be the deepest hole. Some are reincarnated to be better and some are reborn into a worse life. The world is a mix of the good and the evil. However, if all Buddhists make effort to save and transform others then this world will be the place to help the evil become the good, ordinary people become Saints… We must not be proud about our achievement. We must keep trying to improve to complete our obligations as a true Buddhist and always remember that “it is still not enough”.
We must not think that Buddhism is now developing and is the dominant religion in many places because with that thinking, one day Buddhism would become weaker and weaker. We must not be proud and must remember that our compassion and devotion for Buddhism will never be enough. Regardless of how compassionate we are with Buddhism, with the Dharma, and Buddha; and regardless how well we respect our religion, it would still be never enough.
“Buddhism is the endless ocean, And we are just a drop in that ocean. Although we try our whole lives, Still we cannot see the vast sky.
The path though is very long,
My patience will last as long as that path.”
Namo Shakya muni Buddha
