Thứ Năm, Tháng Ba 28, 2024

LOVE SEES NO FAULTS

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LOVE SEES NOFAULTS

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Love sees no faults” is a Vietnamese proverb, that had been passed on to many generations; but we do not know its author. This proverb basically means that when we like someone, you can easily accept their flaws; on contrary, when you dislike someone, you can easily ignore their greatness. This proverb is short but very profound and it was derived from many years of our ancestors’ life experiences to conclude about human being’s emotion and perception when assessing and commenting about others.

Our assessment of someone often is not accurate because when assessing someone, we are ruled by hearts rather than heads. Our feeling, either we like or dislike someone, usually influences our perception and assessment about their strengths or weaknesses. When we dislike someone, it is hard to notice their strengths, but so easy to recognise their weaknesses and critise about those. In contrast, when we love someone, their strengths will obscure their weaknesses.

As in the case of an aggressive and hot-tempered person, if we liked him, his bad characteristics could become a strength. We would think that these characteristics (aggressive and hot-tempered) could make the people around us be more aware, have less quarrels with each other and therefore, it would help our community become more peaceful. It is a great thing when we could see positivism in negative things.

However, when we disliked someone, we would not be able to see their strengths and positivism clearly, but their weakenesses would become much more worse in our opinion. For example, for those who are quiet, calm and mature, we would think they are silly and dull; for those who are aggressive and bad-tempered, we find them annoying. Therefore, it is so accurate when Buddhism stated, “the head is ruled by the heart” i.e. when emotion involves, our judgment and perception are not absolutely accurate.

In fact, all of the matters, challenges, issues in our lives, and all of the principles that were taught by our ancestors, were completely covered in Buddhism. We often thought that Buddhism was something so sublime and impractical. In fact, the truth is that Buddhism is very profound and practical. Buddha had said many times in Nikaya: “Buddhism is the Dharma, it means practical, present, and boundless; people should come and see to believe in it”. These factors were used to define Dharma. Buddha had never defined Dharma, or mentioned that Dharma had to be defined by anyone, or Dharma is something sublime or mysterious. The true and practical doctrines preached or written in

Buddhism prayer books must be closely related to real life. To stress this point, this is the most important and essential element of the true Dharma.

If we listened to someone preaching about any doctrines or read books about principles that sounded so sublime, mysterious, impractical and did not have anything with reality, it would be no longer the true Dharma. We use the word “no longer” because it used to be the true Dharma, however, over time, these so-called Dharma became irrelevant. This is a very strange thing.

About a thousand or even two thousand years ago, after Buddha passed away, there were many materials written about Buddhism by our ancestors, these principles were very practical at that time, but now, we need to reconsider again. Many teachings, even practice methods are not suitable for the current life. In addition, which was called the true Dharma has now become impractical. Therefore, we must reform these doctrines make them more practical and useful again; and we have to accept that what we think are practical today will not be practical in five hundred years later. Someone will see the need to reform Buddhism again to be useful, practical and relevant for that period of time. This is a very important element of our Buddhists’ duty in preserving and promoting

Buddhism Dharma.

As for us, our cultivation journey is very basic and modest. We did not have much of education, we have not yet been taught about Buddhism, even at a primary level. When becoming monks, the first thing we did in the morning was to do farming, and in the evening we had to read and pray. Our master taught us for only a few years. That was really sad. Once we preached at a famous temple in a city, we met many renowned Venerable. One sitting next to me asked: “Are you

Chan Quang?” – “Yes, I am, sir.” I replied. Then he continued asking: “What level of Buddhism stury did you have?” I had to confess that I did not have any Buddhism Certificate at all. He frowned, “What about academic certificate?” I replied happily, “Yeah, I have a Bachelor Degree in English.”

At first, I was a bit sad because I thought I was a monk but did not have much chance to learn much about Buddhism. Nowadays, there are many religious schools open to the public, so we are hoping that our next generations of monk would have adequate education. Especially, when we learnt that “Dharma is practical“, we realised that when we read books about Buddhism in the past, we just scanned through the details, and did not think about those doctrines carefully as we thought these were too sublime and impractical. A lot of Buddhism

disserations written by either Northern or Southern School was very profound but impractical so we did not go into details and never read again, as we thought we would have not been capable of understanding those principles.

It is absolutely true that “Dharma is practical,” so we have to find really what is practical and relevant. They must include the teachings that are very close to our real life. The Buddhism teachings in Nikaya are Buddha’s words, also stated the same thing. Although the old writing style was a bit confusing, it is still very practical and relevant now, even two thousand five hundred years had passed. This is also why we must pay homage to Buddha. After Buddha’s period of time, over a few thoudsands of years, there had been so many disserations written, which now has become outdated and not much meaningful to the present life. However, all teachings and principles written by Buddha are not outdated at all. The proof is in the Nikaya Doctrines which writing is very succint, concise and could explain all matters in our life.

We ourselves did not expect that teaching Nikaya Doctrines could help confirm the “practical” and “relevant” nature of the Dharma. Dharma is the truth, and it was accepted and confirmed by Buddha. Therefore, it reflects not only in what the Buddha has said, but also in all livings on earth.

For example, the proverb, “Do not judge the book by its cover“, could be called Dharma or even “Love sees no faults”. Today, we discuss this proverb and the Dharma to refer to the following matters:

Firstly, we analyse the morals hidden behind these proverbs as it has the same meaning with the statement “The head is ruled by the heart” in Buddhism. Secondly, we must emphasise that the key things in Buddhism are practicality and relevance; it does not depend on time and we must see it, and experience it over and over again. We must come and experience Buddhism, not just believing in it spiritually. If we just believe in Buddhism, just because of our belief and trust in it, then it is not truly genuine Buddhism. We must experience it by ourselves, in our real ife. Intellectual people must accept this fact, this is a very basic and important element of the Dharma. We emphasised this point because the Dharma covers all matters in our real life, not just in books.

Life has so many things for us to assess.

First, we assess people. When we look at a person, there are many things that would influence our judgement, which easily could make us have wrong perception about them. So, which factor does really influence our judgement? There many of them, but the number one factor is the appearance.

When looking at an attrative and beautiful person, even though we do not know much about them, we still like them, and it is because of their blessings. The outside appearance is the first factor influencing our judgement about someone. In reality, despite the fact that we do not know if this person is good or bad, we would assume that they are good people based on their attractiveness. There are many real cases where beautiful and good-looking people are cruel. Is this the reality? Yes, it is.We have watched many movies about this topic, but there are also many real life scenarios. There are many people who did not have the blessing of having a beautiful face, however, their ethics, their compassions for others are commendable; and obviously there are a few people who are blessed to have both: beauty and compassion.

Again, appearance plays an important role and it influences our perception of other people. If our judgement is influenced by people’s appearance, it would be quite difficult for us have a right judgement or conclusion about anyone. Ugly looking people would not easily gain our compasion and trust, and vice versa. In fact, this is controlled by karma. Karma could control our thoughts and our mind. This is also the reason why a lot of companies employ good-looking, attractive employees for Customer Service roles.

Relationship by blood is also another factor, which influences our judgement. Because of family relationship, we would be always on the family side regardless; and this was proven in a lot of trials at court. For example, there was a naughty, spoilt young man, who drove into someone, caused them to die, because of his carelessness. At the trial, all people felt hatred towards that man, but his parents and his familiy members felt the opposite. Although the parents were aware that their son was at fault, they still tried to hire the best lawyer to defend for him. They could even be willing to take the blame on themselves for pampering their son too much. Therefore, the relationship between family members could make our judgement clouded and obscure. This is a very important factor, which could lead our judgment towards being biased and wrong.

In a fight, or in an argument, we would be always on the family side, and not on the stranger’s side. Or, when we heard an arguement between two people

who had different level of academick education, we often would lean towards more the argument of the one who had a higher academic education. We could often see the differences between the argument quite easily; one would be more convincing than the others. For example, the statement “the head is rules by the heart” or “Love sees no faults” would be more persuasive if it was expressed by an educated Buddhist instead of a farmer.

Not only relationship by blood, but also wealth is another factor that would influence our judgement and perception. As the saying goes, “Stronger by rice, daring by money” (This is a Vietnamese proverb). It is very common in our oridinary life. When someone states something, even though the statement is not realistic, and sometimes even ridiculous, others would still admire them because of their wealth, their position in the social hierarchy.

The truth is that it is blessing (good or bad karma) which secretly controls everyone’s judgement. A person with lots of blessing always gains attention, care and support from others and vice versa. When judging someone, our thinking and our mind are influenced or controlled by his or her blessing. Their blessing would encourage us to think positively about these people, although in reality, they are not that good. Blessing protects people. The more blessing we have, the more benefits we would have.

This also explains why there are so many evil people, which are not punished by the law and even sometimes, they are protected by powerful polictics force. A criminal who have committed a serious crime but with his/her blessing from past lives, he/she would still receive clemency. On the contrary, a person lacking of blessing could suffer from an injustice even just having committed a petty crime. Life is full of unfair things and the difference in people’s blesshing is really the cause of this unfairness. However, karma is fair, the law of cause and effect is absolutely fair “we reap what we have sown”, it is just the matter of time.

Understanding this principle, Buddhist disciples must try our best to do more good deeds in everything we do, in every thought we have, and in every seconds of the day. Only blessing would help us purify our mind, only blessing would help us in meditation and only blessing would help us have ability to go on the Eightfold Noble Paths. Good people without blessing would not be able do great things, while bad ones with lots of blessing could influence others, which could be heading towards any direction.

For example, a non-Buddhist was talking to two of his friends. The poor one, a Buddhist, advised him to follow Buddhism, and to practise the Dharma. In contrast, the wealthy one advised him to enjoy life as life is too short. Because the poor one did not have as much blessing as the wealthy one, his advice was not as convincing as the other. The advice of the wealthy friend was a lot more influencial in this case. It was difficult for the non-Buddhist to follow the poor friend’s advice, although it is absolutely true. Hence, all Buddhist disciples must have as much blessing as possible in order to promote and protect Buddhism.

In addition to the two above factors (relationship by blood and wealth), karma is also another main factor that secretly rules people’s lives. It is not unreasonable to say “Life is suffering, love is unfair and practising the Dharma is a source ofblessing”. Life is a chain of events; it is about avoiding pains and miseries, and seeking pleasure where possible; borrowing then again paying back. Life is so short but because of beings’ ignorance, we have made countless errors, and have created lots of bad karma. If in the past lives, the relationship between people were harsh and even had a lot of tension, then in the current life, it would be hard to gain each other’s compassion. And vice versa, if the relationship were great in the past lives, it would be easier and natural to gain eath other’s trust and consideration.

Even in this current life, if ten years ago, we argued or got into a fight with someone else, despite how much remorse we have paid, it would be still difficult for us to gain the other person’s sympathy and compassion when we met the person again because of bad karma. Although we did many good deeds and received many compliments, they would still see us as someone not being genuine. In contrast, if in the past, we treated someone good, created blessing, then in this life, we would be supported and cared by others. Therefore, past events, either good or bad, would influence our judgement one way or another.

Besides, the relationship by birthplace could also have influence on our judgement or assessment of someone. Usually, people with the same homeland would easily gain each others’ compassion. Homeland is somewhere that is really close to us, therefore, whenever we meet someone from our homeland, we would immediately like the person. Whatever the person may say, regardless of what topic it was, we would still be interested in listening to it.

The last factor is the destiny, the fate based on karma. Events happened in the past lives between people would definitely have influence on their judgement of someone in the future lives.

Therefore, praise or criticism about someone are not entirely accurate. These comments have already been influenced by many factors. Often, praise and criticism are influenced by emotion, likes or dislikes. It applies to religion, too. If we were a Buddhist, we would definitely defend another Buddhist, regardless of the circumstance. Why is that so? Because we know and understand that Buddhism is the only truth, therefore, we chose to follow it. Those who have not fully understood Buddhism, their belief in Buddhism would not be strong, so they could easily change their mind and influenced by others’ opnions about Buddhism.

Therefore, we must understand Buddhism completely, experience it to believe in it, then follow it; not the other way around. If we did not have the wisdom to distinguish between the right and the wrong, then we would easily abandon Buddhism because of these criticism.

Once, we talked to an American (We already mentioned this story when we preached the Vajra Sutra). He asked us: “What is the origin of all beings?”. According to his religion, God had created all. Buddhism does not say so. He said that he liked other Buddhist teachings and thought that Buddhism is perfect. He also had met many ethical and religious Buddhists. Nevertheless, the fundamental difference between his religion and Buddhism in the origin of all beings made him confused.

In fact, it is very difficult to talk about the origin of all beings. A simple question about flowers could result in many answers about its origin. There have been are many questions arisen about the origins of all beings. The satisfactory answer for this big question was not easy to find, therefore human beings had chose God as the creator of all things. Buddhism is different. With His perfect power and wisdom, Buddha stated all events, and all beings are ruled and governed by karma and destiny. And Buddha’s statement had challenged the American’s belief in his religion as he replied: “The statement has challenged my belief in Christian.”

We would always naturally defend our own belief, our own religion. However, the rationale used in Buddhism bases on reasoning and logics. Buddhism principles are also realistic, scientific and those teachings does not base on any other beliefs or magical powers.

With other religions, people have adopted them since their infancy because of their parents, and/or their ancestors, although they have not yet had time to understand about the religion itself. A Switzerland lady once listened to Buddhism preaching and had agreed then to follow Buddhism. She thought that it was quite unfair that her parents baptised her without her agreement. Now she had grown up, she should have the right to decide which religion to follow. Her right decision also brings joy to all of us. We chose Buddhism, because it is the right path, leading us to the truth and to everything else in this vast universe.

It is the common sense that we would often favour our own religion or the religion that our parents had been following, without considering its doctrines. Even our first impression when we met a monk would also influence our assessment and consideration about that religion. If we met a very caring and kind-hearted monk, we would naturally have good impression and great respect for this religion.

Knowledge and personal prejudice would significantly impact our assessment of a religion. If we only heard bad comments about some religions, we, without much difficulties, would have made inaccurate assessment and judgment about it. For example, if we did not know anything about Buddhism doctrines, but only formed our assessment only by watching the “Lan and Diep” musical theatre show, we then could make pessimistic assessment of this religion. From the love story, we might think that following Buddhism was to escape from misery, and from everyone else. It is absolutely not true. For that reason, our own personal prejudice, knowledge, feeling and especially blessing would shape our view about any religion. Thus, it is very challenging and difficulte to form an accurate view.

Similarly with the situation when commenting about a country or a nation, the nationality is the most important factor. If you were a Vietnamese, surely, you would love Vietnam, and its people, even if the country is still poor and its people still have lots and lots of flaws.

There are many Vietnamese people, who just have been living overseas for a short period of time, have said that Vietnam is an undeveloped country and Vietnamese people were dull. These people were really awful and they had low morals. Those, who have high ethical standards, would still remember and love their home land, their origins, even though they already lived quite comfortably else where. No matter what, we still have the Vietnamese blood in us, and we must always love our homeland, our country, and our people.

It is quite common that we would make judgement about a country based on someone we know from that country. For example, if we had a great French or German friend, who were very nice and kind people, we would naturally like their country.

Therefore, if we want people from other countries like Vietnam, like its people, each of us must make an effort to improve our country. When seeing a foreigner, each and every action of our behaviour, or our saying would influence their perception of Vietnam and its people. Although there is no formality about each of us being a representative of Vietnam, we must remember that in deed we are. We must take care in each action, each behaviour, and in each word of our saying when socialising with other foreigners. We must create good impression for people from other country about Vietnam and its people.

When a foreigner travels or on a business trip to another country, everything in that country is new to them. Therefore, how well he is treated in a foreign country would definitely impact on how well he perceive that country. If he is treated well, his perception and assessment about that country would be good, and vice versa.

Another factor that would influence our view and perception about another country is their politics. The perception could be totally wrong if we based only our thinkin about the country polictical status. A country may be not as bad as it being perceived because of the political competitions, being discussed in the media.

Again, a very special thing, karma, silently rules our thinking about any country. A Buddhist once told us about her story which was a bit surreal, but it reflected what karma is all about. She is a Vietnamese; she was born and grew up in Vietnam but if someone asked her what country in the world she liked best, her answer was Egypt. She did not like other civilized countries like the U.S., Japan,

Germany, France, Russia, China, Hong Kong, Australia like many others… She herself did not know why. She loved only Egypt and Egyptian even though she did not know much about the country and its people. She even did not have a opportunity to read a book or visit the country, but she still loved Egypt and Egyptian. Her daughter was a Buddhist as well. One night, she dreamt about what happened some thousand years ago. At that time, both she and her mother were in the palace of the King of Egypt. Her mother was a imperial concubine, the wife of

a Pharaoh and she was a maid, working in the palace. After her daugher’s dream, only then the mother knew why she loved Egypt.

Now, let’s discuss about about assessment of an art work or a musical composer. Apart from the author’s true talent, the audience’s ability to enjoy his work also plays an important role in the assessment. There are some musical songs that only qualified people would be able enjoy and feel the greatness while others would feel bored when listening to those. Personal feeling/mood is also an influencing factor. Sometimes, when we first heard a song, it did not sound right, we could not feel it. But the more we listed to it, we started feeling the song, and its rhythm.

Have you ever seen an abstract painting? The paintings which easily makes us confused about what the author was trying to convey to the audiences. Those who understand and like abstract painting style are quite admirable, because we could not really understand these paintings. In deed, these paintings could worthy thousands or even millions of dollars.

Once, we met a Vietnamese artist. This artist was quite well known in Vietnam and overseas as well. A lot of his paintings were sold abroad, and that was why he was so rich. He mostly painted abstract paintings and only about Buddhism. He said that Buddhism teachings gave him great inspiration. He gave us the well-known magazine in which it displayed his works and talked about his talent. We admired his talent and his arts, with great courtesy, but in deed, we really did not understand these paintings at all.

A painting, or a musical song always intends to convey a message or a moral value. The content is important but it is not the primary priority. The work itself must be great and beautiful first, otherwise, it is hard to attract viewers, and therefore it would be hard to convey its meanings. If the song had good lyrics but bad rhythm, no one would want to sing that song. If a painting had a great message but its presentation/display was terrible, it would not be able to attract viewers.

That is why we like to look at photographs. We have a friend, who is a professional photograher, and one of his photograph has won a prize abroad. The photo shows a girl with a crippled leg was sitting sadly against a tree, and the background was a couple sitting happily on the bench. Well, each of us would understanding the meaning of this photo differently. For this reason, we now should understand that a photo, or a song, or any work of art attracts different

viewers, and these people have differrent level of knowledge and understanding. If the content is too sublime, and not realistic and not easy to understand, it only attracts a very limited number of viewers.

Authors themselves play an important role too. If the authors had depraved life, most of their work would not be well-received and popular. Often, when we dislike someone, we would then dislike their work, too.

Personal taste is also another influencing factor. A moral principle would be rated highly if at first we can understand it and apply it to our ordinary life. When we listened to a teacher, or a CD or read a book, if we could understand it, we would consider that teacher, or that CD or that book good, and vice versa.

In some cases, we could either like or dislike someone’s sermon just because of karma. Whether the sermon was good or bad, reasonable or unreasonable, if between the teacher and us had good karma from past lives, it would be likely that we would like the sermon. Or it could be also because of our knowledge level about the topic which the sermon was addressing.

It is quite obvious that karma, past lives’ events, between a Master and his disciples are really important in teaching/learning moral principles. If there is no karma, whatsoever, between a Master and his disciple, the teacher/learner relationship could not be formed; the disciple would have to look elsewhere, and learn elsewhere.

Besides, other people’s comments about the religion also would impact us on learning the Dhrama, too. If we learnt from a Master, who had received a lot of good feedback and have many supporters, it would be easier for us to accept his teaching. If when we were discussing about a sermon with a group of people, and these people would comment greatly about it, we would not be able to say anything else otherwise. Even if we thought that the sermon was not that good, we would not say so. We reacted that way just because we were afraid that they would think that our knowledge was so limited, and we could not understand the sermon.

Therefore, we must be very cautious when evaluating and when stating our opinion about anything. Everything we see, everything we assess would not be as objective as we thought. They all are influenced by other factors in our lives (we have stated most of them from the beginning of this discussion paper). Only those, who have incredible knowledge, the ability to attain the highest level of meditation

to have a pure mind and soul, could be accruate in their assessment and judgement about others. Those, who are still selfish and narrow-minded, would often have inaccurate assessment and judgement.

This is also one of the reason why fortune-tellers could tell what other people think and could predict the future events. It is because their mind was pure and stable. Only then, you could overcome your personal biased feelings and judgement to assess things accurately.

Knowing about this principle now, let’s consider all the events around us.

There are many criticisms, good or bad, around media, happening every day. These comments are mostly based on personal judgement and perception.

We discuss this topic today, so that we are all aware, and should be cautious in what we say, in our assessment and judgement about anything, or about anyone. There is nothing asbsolute in this world, even when we see it with our own eyes. Newspaper article is an example. These articles are often subjective, and the content are mostly influenced by powerful policial forces. Even those presidents, from democratic countries, would often also use his power to influence the media, to shape the public opinion.

For example, if they wanted to invade another country, they would use the media to gain the public’s support. The purpose was for the public to gain hatred about that country, so they would support the war, if that was to happen. Therefore, what the public knew and heard about, was purely speculations, lies, and personal tactics to fulfil political purpose.

We met a Vietnamese lady, who has been living aboard for a long time. She expressed her dislike of Vietnam. She was proud of the country, where she was currently residing in now and the residents because it is the law in her country that the public has the right to know everything. When we questioned that: “So, the media is allowed to spread incorrect information, even lies?” She was quiet then. We did not know who she was and only later on knew that she held a quite important position in a big overseas organisation.

We must understand that liberty and democracy does not mean the public knows everything and everything is true. This world is not heaven, but full of injustice. In fact, heaven still has injustice but just less than our world. In the

human world, the truth is always hidden. Intrigues, love, hatred and compassion of human beings has caused many lies, nothing is really the truth.

We are so lucky to learn about Buddhism and it would be really great if we meet a great Master. If the Master was not good, it would be likely that we would be led to follow a wrong path. Therefore, we all have to worship Buddha, pray to Buddha regularly that Buddha would help us go on the right path, so that we could understand and practise the Dharma correctly.

Please be aware and keep in mind that the human world is a mixture of true and false things, nothing is clear. Be careful with your assessment of anything because what you see or hear is dominated by many factors, some could be very powerful. There have been many terrible things created for evil purposes.

If a country, which specialised in the production of weapons, could not sell their weaponary products because everywhere in the world was so peaceful, then the question was: What would that country do?. Well, they must create wars. They could form a government, then elected a leader and influenced the leader to create war with other countries, so they could sell their weapons.

It is really sad because a human life is so short and fragile; and we cannot control this. People would kill each other just because of money and their own benefits. Blood must be shed, houses must be ruined and family must be separated during war, just for weapons to be sold. When this painful truth is exposed, many people just want to leave and never come back to this world, because no matter how hard we tried, this world could not become heaven and we could not live forever. We are always in the cycle or birth and death. We must cultivate harder, we must practise the Dharma harder, so when we die, we could be in heaven or reside in Buddha’s world.

This is the feeling and the desire of many dedicated Buddhists, who deeply understand the religion. Even Bodhisattvas with profound wisdom, great compassion are always willing to help sentient beings, but never hope to reform the world. This is the difference between ordinary people and Bodhisattvas. Ordinary people know this world is full of evils and hard to improve, so they leave and look for another peaceful place. Bodhisattvas know so and more but they would do a lot of things to improve this world. Although there is not so much hope, they still keep trying to mend, and to improve human beings’ souls.

Bodhisattvas had vowed to do so.

We should assess our own mind and soul. If we did not take action when witnessing something bad, we would still be an average human being. Although we has the knowledge to distinguish between the good and the bad, we still did not take action, yet we had not achieved the kindness, and the compassion of a Bodhisattva.

Because an average ordinary human being is dominated by selfishness, greed and hatred, their thoughts and acts are often reactive, without much consideration, and it often leads to quarrels and, to make the matter worse, it could end up with violence. For example, two people, A and B did not agree with each other. A told aother person, C, something about B; in the meantime, B also told C something about A. C could assess A or B’s attitudes to find out who was actually correct in this scenario. If A had negative attitude towards B, then A’s words were not entirely correct. If B had positive attitude to A, then B’s words would have more chance of being more reasonable and accurate.

If saying something when we are angry, these words often do not reflect the reality correctly. There have been many Vietnamese who have been living aboard, but they have tried to convince other people to fight against Vietnam. Their words were provoked by their hatred, therefore, often it was not convincing enough for others. In addition, they did not understand the fact that fighting against Vietnam was fighting against their own compatriots, and more importantly was fighting against Buddhism. Buddhism is the only religion, which tries to help people avoid the cycle of rebirth and head toward liberation.

Throughout this discussion, we should clearly understand the enormous value of Buddhism, as it leads all beings towards having pure mind without hatred and selfishness, to assess all events accurately. Buddism is the only religion, amongst many others in this world, which teaches human being to get rid of egosim, and love all beings no matter what. Buddhism is the most humane and is the perfect religion in the world. The Dharma teachings have educated all Buddhist monks”to leave all personal emotions behind, pratise more and more of the Dharma, and to love all beings”. This is one of the greatest proof about the endless compassion of Buddhism.

In “Four Noble Truths” or “Twelve Conditions”, Buddha stated that personal attachment was the cause of suffering. Buddha recommended people should have overcome personal feelings, extinguished greed, hatred, ignorance and headed towards liberation. Therefore, a genuine Buddhist monk would usually say the

right things. A true Master always keeps his mind pure and calm, so he can control his feelings and assess things as the way they are. Also, his compassion would cover all living beings. Why is that? Because when our mind is clear and pure, we can easily realise the good or bad things in a person, and we would be able to understand his or her nature.

Because of personal attachment, we used to assess someone improperly. Now that our mind is clear, we realise that there are more bad people than good ones in this world. It is really the truth, let’s ask the question: how many good ones are there amongs ten people? Probably, just two or three good people. Knowing that this world contains bad more than good, we could easility become pessimistic, frustrated and stressed. If we did not have compassion and love to forgive, we would hate and avoid those bad people.

One of many great things of Buddhism is to keep our mind calm to assess people properly, but still have enough compassion so that we do not hate people. This principle hardly ever exists in other religions. In other religions, the followers are often motivated by personal feelings, therefore, they would kill those who do not not support or follow their religions. Only Buddhism is objective. Because being objective and unbiased, Buddhism could understand and accept that there are so many bad things existed in this world. Therefore, Buddhism encourages its followers to have compassion and love, so there would be no hatred; but there would be forgiveness, and we must ensure there are disciplines.

Now, we could say that Buddhism is the only religion in this world, of which principles do not relate to personal feelings and attachment, and it is the most loving and compassionate religion in the world.

There are two factors that would help us live well in this life: Ethics and Wisdom. We could assess things accurately when there was no personal feeling attached. We could forgive, and be tolerant and generous, when we have compassion.

Because Buddhism is the most compassionate religion, its prayers contain many holy vows, which would easily make people moved. The vow “I vow to save all beings” is the best vow in all that no other religions would have.

Another aspect of Buddhism is its laziness. Sometimes, it was just about dreaming about all the good things, but did nothing. When we prayed, we vowed

and promised many good things. However, when we finished praying, we did nothing to keep those promises because we thought that praying was good enough, we would have enough good blessing. We thought that would be enough for our cultivation and practice of Buddhism. An example: we just finished vowing to

Buddha that: “I vow to save all beings”, but immediately after, we would ignore all beings around us, even the next door neighbours. We could not care less if the neighbour knew about Buddhism or not… This is a weakness of Buddhism, and therefore of many monks.

Today, we must change this thinking and this behaviour. What we vowed to Buddha like “I vow to save all beings“, we must start taking actions to make the promise become reality. We must teach others about Buddhism, help them realise the true nature of a human life. All Buddhism disciples have an obligation to help poor people and those who do not yet know about Buddhism. This is the right strategy, the right plan and the big promise of Buddhism.

We have been focused only on helping other Buddhists, but not non-Buddhists. We helped those who came to the temple, who did praying regularly, but we ignored those who did not know about Buddhism. The same Buddhists were invited from one temple to another, had the same attention every time. There are many others who do not know about Buddhism, especially the poor, and yet we did not care for them. This is the big weakness of Buddhism, and now it is the time to change. This responsibility is no longer just limited to only monks, but of all Buddhists. From now on, we have to search in our area for poor people and non-Buddhists, then help and guide them to learn about Buddhism. Because only Buddhism can help all sentient beings understand karma, the cause and effect law. Only Buddhism can help all beings understand what is the right thing to do.

If we did not help them, a bad religion could use money to entice them. That religion could spend millions of Vietnamese Dong to achieve this objective. When that religion taught someone the wrong thing, he/she would no longer worship and respect their ancestors, but some other Gods. When you blindly followed a religion, it would be easy to also blindly follow all of the instructions from this religion, regardless if those were right or wrong. Many bad religions often are used for political purpose. This is extremely dangerous to the security of our country, so we all must be careful.

But why could such thing happen? It was because many Buddhists and monks did not do anything for Buddhism. Everyday, we vowed to Buddha that we would

love all beings, but we soon broke that vow. We made so many vows, but we also broke so many. We must change that thinking and behavious now.

We must discuss with all monks and other disciples on how best to guide everyone else to Buddhism. We must take action quickly, as there is not much time left. If we do not take any action soon, there would be many poor people, who would follow other religions, because of money. It would be such a pity, if they had to follow a wrong religion, did the wrong thing just because of a few million Vietnam dong to live on. We must help those people, and help them to keep the love for their country. We must try harder and harder.

On the other hand, Buddhist ourselves must be absolutely loyal and devoted to Buddhism. We must become stronger and practise harder to keep oursleves from being impacted or influenced by any political intrigues. We must understand that any religion has to base on the population, so any political leaders would have to care about this matter. In the ancient times, our Kings had never ingnored Buddhism. Important positions in Buddhism were designated by the Kings themselves. This was purely for one reason: to protect Buddhism from being attacked by other bad religions.

Similarly, in China, for each dynasty, key positions in Buddhism were designated by the King themselves. Even nowadays, all politicians always concern about religions. Because Buddhism is always lack of strong disciplines, it easily gets attacked by other religions. This is the worst weakness and disadvantage of Buddhism. If there was an attack, Buddhists would easily be split up; and these parties would fight with each other very fiercely.

Recently, we received a phone call from an unknown person. They said that they would let us have a benefit, a priority. We were unconcerned about what they offered, but we pretended to be trapped to find out what their real plan was. We had known for sure that they had other motive, and we were right. After they thought that we almost agreed to follow their plan, they gave us a condition that we had to follow another religion. We were sad because they followed the wrong path, against Buddhism, though they were a Buddhist themselves. We all must be cautious of this.

Therefore, when we follow Buddhism, become Buddha’s disciples, we must also use our wisdom, intelligence to assess everything accurately. That is the first requirement. The second requirement is to learn as much as we can about

Buddhism, in order to keep our belief strong, keep our mind and soul pure and calm. We must not let our mind and soul being biased, being subjective. We must always be calm, allow our mind to be pure. More importantly, we must often pay homage to Buddha, help as many other people as possible, to create more blessing.

We must be ethical, and never allow ourselves to be subjective and proud that we are right all the times. Wisdom only come to us, if we often pay homage to Buddha; if we create good blessing; if we maintain our ethical standard; and if we are not subjective and too proud about ourselves. This is very important. It is because when our pride and arrogance arise, we often only accept our own thinking and belief, our mind and thinking is then limited, and as the result, we could not be wise and clear to assess everything else. Only those, who are careful of what they think, always assess if they are right or wrong, after three years, they would become wiser.

Those, who always think that they know it all, who always think that they are right, would never improve, would never be wiser. This is the key of practising to improve our wisdom and knowledge. Once we have wisdom and knowledge, our assessment would be more accurate. Comprehending Buddhist teachings would become easier. Those, who can be apply this principle, who can always assess self to improve everyday, are really wise. Only ignorant ones always think that they are right. This is although a very basic principle, but we all must remember it.

Apart from having calm and pure mind, being unbiased towards others, meditation could help us further improve our wisdom, however though, we should be very modest about this achievement. Why? It is because there are many prejudices which are so strong that even meditation could not help get rid of them totally, and they secretly still control our mind. A meditative mind though has been purified, but deep down, the mind could still be influenced by many ignorant thoughts and motives, which as the result drive our thinking, assessment and behaviour. It would lead to wrong thinking, wrong assessment on others. Therefore, those, who mediate to purify thier mind successfully, should not be too subjective and too proud. If we could always try to be modest, have pure mind, and see ourselves being limited and know less than other, our knowledge and wise would continue developing and improving.

In contrast, those, who have just attained the beggining level of meditation, but already look down on others, their thinking and judgement would be ruled by

their own ignorance. This is why there are so many academics with advanced degrees would still follow the wrong path. They relied solely on their own knowledge. They became subjective. They always thought that they were right. They did not worship Buddha. They did not help people and did not have strong moral standard. In some countries like Japan, Switzerland, the United States …

there are many bad religious sects, with a lot of followers being doctors, professors…etc. Therefore, if we thought that someone was right, only based on their academic degrees and level of education, we would be totally wrong. Having wisdom to see through things and beyond the present is actually very different.

On the other hand, the luck of a religous learner is also important. It would be very fortunate if we are to meet a truely genuine and great Master. This great Master would be able to teach us the right things and we will improve our knowledge and behave ethically in accordance with Buddhism teachings. Otherwise, we could learn wrong things and eventually would do bad things to others.

If we always think of other people, learn and live for others, we share with others our knowledge, we would be blessed with more wisdom. However, when sharing your knowledge with others, we must not be proud and show arrogant attitude, showing off what we know to prove that we know more than others. If we discused about some profound principles, it just simply meant that these principles are profound, not us. We are just dust in this world. When we think that we are great, our pride arises, our mind is clouded, and it would eventually destroy all our blessing.

Some Buddhists, after learning about Buddhism teachings, would want to eagerly explain these teachings to others because they want other to have the same understanding about Buddhism as them. This is great because it would help Buddhism be flourished. But please remember while teaching others, be very modest. If you passed on the teachings to others as if you were the master, you would be losing your blessing. So please be aware of that consequence, and be careful.

To keep ourselves always be modest, the key thing is we must pay homage to Buddha more often. Everyday, we should be on our knees, bow to Buddha, pray to Buddha that we can overcome our prejudice, assess people and things accurately and fairly, and our thoughts and behaviours would always be in accordance with Buddhism teachings. If we do so everyday, then many lives after,

 

we could be an intelligent person, and could have the ability to assess people and events accurately. Even in this life, it would help with improving your wisdom later in life. We only need to honestly vow to Buddha every day or night and Buddha will bless us.

We discussed this proverb today to advise you that be careful when you assess anyone or anything. Besides, we also must be alert to other religions’ conspiracies to split up Buddhism. Life if full of political motives and intrigues, so we should take refuge in the Buddha. We have to pray to Buddha that we would have wisdom to assess and judge people and all things around us accurately.

Namo Shakya muni Buddha.

 

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