STUBBORN BEINGS
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In the preface of Lotus Sutra, it is said that when the aura of Buddha appeared, the assembly relied on the power and the aura of Buddha to see countless realms of other Buddhas in the universe, in which Buddha and Bodhisattva were preaching to sentient beings, drawing very beautiful pictures. The aura of the Shakyamuni Buddha shocked all the realms it reached. Buddhas of those realms sent their attendants to this Saha world to visit and pay homage to Shakyamuni Buddha. Among those greetings, there was a question, “It is said that beings of this Saha world are very stubborn. Is it difficult for you to teach them?“
What is stubbornness? Simply, it means these human beings are obstinate and it is difficult to change them. Beings of this human world are very difficult and stubborn to be converted and to be transformed. Therefore, we often wish our monks and nuns all the best and have good health, so that they can devote their entire life and effort into teaching human beings. We hope that their teach path in the human world would be less challenging.
Normally, wishes reflect the opposite things. We wish each other good health because of the fact that people in this world are often unhealthy. Similarly, in the past, people wished for their king survive tens and thousands of years. But as all other human, every king will die someday.
Today, we will list all types of stubbornness late on, so that each of us can self-reflect to see if we fall into any category. If we do, then we should know that we still have many shortfall, weaknesses. And that means we must remorse, we must learn how to correct our manners and overcome our mistakes. If we do not fall into any category, that means we have good blessings, good karma, and more importantly we possess sublime quality of a human being. We would, therefore, be successful in our cultivation path, and would become a true Buddha disciple.
However, not falling into any stubbornness category would be a difficult thing to achieve. Even monks or nuns can have one or two characteristics, let alone Buddhism followers, but we need to try hard to purify our mind, correct our manner to become a better person, so that we will be able to achieve positive results on our cultivation path to Buddhism.
Those who unfortunately fall in the category of stubborn beings will be banished to the netherworld. At their time of judgment, their sins will make it very difficult for them to achieve retribution, and as a result they will serve their retribution for a long time. A cruel but wealthy man often uses money and his influence to bully people. While this person still has their blessed fortunes, no one can better him, but when the blessings are exhausted, he will be fallen into the realms of misery for a very long time.
In life, there are many people complaining why their life is full of miseries, from one misfortune to another, they want to escape the cycle but cannot. These people should then consider that in any of their past lives, they were stubborn beings who committed sins without repentance and changing their ways, so when their retribution came they continue to complain about their fate.
The categories of “stubborn beings”:
People who do not accept rationale even when it is objective
Person A told person B, “Living in this world we must love others, especially miserable ones.” Person B rebutted: “Who has the time to worry about others, to live you must love yourself first and love your family first.” Person A said a moral thing but person B’s response demonstrates that they are very opinionated.
During a meal, someone said: “Eating must be in moderation, overeating one thing may cause cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure … especially for the elderly.” When we are young, our bodies are healthy, so we can eat whatever we want. But from the age of 30, we should be mindful of what we eat, even though our bodies are still healthy. If we are inactive, we should not overeat, because it can cause illnesses later on. This statement is logical and rationale, proven by medical science.
Overeating will lead to the risk of accumulation of fat in hearts and livers so the livers have to work harder to get rid of the fat, causing liver failure over time. On the other hand, according to Buddhism, we have limited blessings in our lifetime. Therefore, if we over indulge than we would run out of blessings quickly, resulting in a shorter life, susceptible to diseases and suffering from miseries. So, eating in moderation is in accordance with Buddhism and medical science.
Although we know the above is true and supported by medical science, there are those who will still argue, “Well, we should eat whatever we want and there is no need to hold ourselves back from indulging in food because our life is too short and we are stupid if we don’t enjoy as much as we can.” The statement “life is too short and we are stupid if we don’t enjoy as much as we can,” is irresponsible and very unwise. Or when people are addicted to gambling, we ask: “Why do you gamble all day?” Their response is: “Oh, gambling is fun. We cannot live forever, so why don’t we enjoy our life?” Many people have the similar thoughts, hence they pamper themselves and indulge their personal habits, living very selfishly.
Some religions incite their followers to hate and commit terrorist bomb attacks, killing innocent people, spreading fear… just to satisfy their anger. Hearing this, some people remark: “Religions that advocate terrorism are evil religions“, but others still argue: “When you’re so angry you have to find a way to release the anger.”
Two sides betting on a football match. The losing side supporter broke the television and shouted noisily. Seeing that, those around remarked “It’s just a game, it is not worth being angry about.” Stubborn people would respond to that comment: “who cares, that’s what makes it fun.“
Another example, person A told person B: “You’re so aggressive. You are always argumentative and only choose to believe that your own view is right, and when others disagree, you intimidate them with your aggression.” Person B would respond, “If we are too gentle, others will bully you.”
The examples mentioned above demonstrate the first type of stubbornness in human beings, and that is, they do not accept common sense. These types of people are self-righteous, lack of wisdom and live however they wish. When they live their life recklessly, they have created bad karma, therefore it is hard for them to be reincarnated as a human being in the next life. We should realize that a life is not eternal so we must accumulate blessings before we die. If we just enjoy life because life is too short, our retribution will be very bad.
People who do not believe in cause and effect
It is said that one good turn deserves another. However, some people argue: “I see a lot of people evil but still wealthy.” These people have not fully considered the situation and have passed judgment based on their own conclusions. It’s true that there are many evil people who are wealthy. But, their fortune will not last long because of the law of karma. And for kind-hearted people, they may appear poor now but surely their life will be enriched gradually and to live a fulfilling life.
When we see successful people, we usually compliment them on their success, “that person is blessed. Surely, he did a lot of good deeds in his previous life.” But, some people will disagree believing success was due to luck and timing, and not received through blessings. Such people do not believe that we reap what we have sown as well as the law of cause and effect which is fair and objective.
These people are pitiful because they are more susceptible to temptation. They don’t believe in the law of karma which is the foundation of morality, so they will find it hard to overcome temptations of committing sins to benefit themselves.
One, who does not believe in the law of cause and effect, also will not believe in reincarnation and thus, they do not hesitate to commit illegal acts or sins against karma. Karma and human being thinking and behaviours do relate to one another. When a Buddhist fears karma, they will naturally also fear to breaking the law as well.
The law forbids murder, theft, smuggling, tax evasion … because these acts violate social conscience. In Vietnam, the law considers an observer to a crime guilty if he or she does not come to the aid of a person in distress. For example, if we saw someone fall from a building and we did not come to their aid then we would be guilty of failing to provide aid and the police could arrest us. Buddhism is similar to this. If we ignore those in great need then our first retribution will be blindness and loss of hearing because we did nothing when our eyes saw others suffering and our ears could hear their plea for help.
Therefore, those who do not believe in karma will not pay attention to good and evil either in accordance with the common law and or any religions. It is easy for them to ignore others in great need. These people are hazardous to humanity.
We are very fortunate to follow Buddha’s teachings. Although we are not perfect, we believe in karma i.e. we reap what we have sown. Therefore, we are self-aware, and conscious to self-regulate, therefore we rarely fall into this category of temptation.
But what happens if we believe in karma when our neighbours do not? Would we commit sin if we do not convince our neighbour to believe in karma? Yes, of course. The law of Cause and Effect (karma) is inherently fair and dominates everything in the universe. In fact, this law is not simple as we may think but very scary. And this case is similar to the case that we do not find any way to save someone from falling down into a river. The difference here is that person fell down into a river and our neighbours are falling down into the ocean of misery.
So, true Buddhists always worry about how to bring Buddhism to everyone and at least, all the people around us have to believe in the karma law so that they never do bad deeds but good ones and live a righteous life. We only feel easy when we’re done with that.
When we didn’t know about Buddhism, we usually went to our neighbours for drinking, chatting… and now when we know it we should still go to their places but for helping them understand Buddhism and converting them. That is the way we bring the Dharma to them and save them from committing sin that they may do. Those who do not believe in karma are stubborn beings and if we don’t help others believe karma, we would be the same too. Otherwise, we will create great blessing.
There are cases to be considered as “no sin, no blessing,” and also many cases “either sin or blessing”. For example, when two friends meet but neither insult nor help each other, then this case is “no sin, no blessing.” However, when we see someone falling down into a river and we ignore instead of saving them, then this case is “sin”, otherwise, “blessing”. Like that, if we know about
Buddhism and the law of Cause and Effect, while our neighbours do not believe in Buddhism and we do not help them understand what we know, then this case is “sin”, otherwise, “blessing.” We have to be careful to differentiate between sin and blessing.
People who do not wish to correct their manner
Those are people who did something wrong but did not take other people’s advice to correct their characters and improve themselves. Those people are stubborn and obstinate. For example, there was a cruel person, when asked: “Why are you so cruel? You should be gentle to win others’ heart.” then this person responded in a phlegmatic manner: “No comment.” Another case was that a person who liked to show off. When other people talk to him: “Why are you not humble? You always show off“. He said, “No comment.” Or when people told him, “Why are you so mean? You’re so rich but you don’t do charity” then he said, “It’s none of your business.”
Those kinds of people mentioned above definitely are stubborn beings. Just because of their pride and stubbornness, they did not t take others’ advice although those advices are true.
We should differentiate between pettiness and economy. Economy means we spend money on the right things, while pettiness means we do not want to spend money even on the right things. For example, when we ran out of fish sauce, and our child asked money to buy some more, then we said, “No money for fish sauce, we should use salty water instead.” We should have spent money on fish sauce but we didn’t because of our pettiness. Or when our nephew complained to us that his house was burnt down, when we responded: “Poor you! I love you, but I do not have any money with me this time, next time when your house is burnt, I will give you some.”
The truth is that we had the money, but we did not want to spend it, so we didn’t give it to our nephew. It is petty and greedy i.e. we hate to spend money even on right thing. Seeing this, someone criticized us: “why are you so petty and greedy? You should be more generous to help others.” But our response was: “Well, it helps make me wealthy while generosity doesn’t.” It is really the bad manner to ignore others’ advice and we also do not want to fix it. These people are very stubborn indeed.
Another example is that we were very talkative. When we were talking, no one could interrupt us. Whenever other people were about to talk, we hastily talked first because we were afraid they would talked too long and there would be no time for us. Even when they didn’t want to listen to us anymore, we would still beg them: “Wait a minute please! I still have something to say.” Knowing our disadvantage, someone took the courage to tell us: “Why do you talk so much, I’m tired of hearing your voice”. Although we knew that what they said was true, we did not want to do anything about it, nor want to change.
Or we like to brag on and on. We know this is not good but we still thought bragging is for fun. In this case, we know our flaw but we did not want to do anything about it.
There has been cases where we were friend with a quiet person. He only speaks up when necessary. We know that his manner is good but we did not want to learn from him, to improve ourselves due to our stubbornness.
In this world, there are so many people better than us at many things but we don’t want to learn from them to improve ourselves. This is one of the characteristics of a stubborn beings.
People who cannot comprehend enlightenment and liberation
There are many people, who just finish Year 12, but are keen on reading more and more to improve their knowledge, even though they did not study academically further. These people would only be able to attain general knowledge about life, not necessarily religious beliefs i.e. enlightenment and liberation.
When we hear people say that: “Those who enter into Buddhism and attain enlightenment will be released from ignorance, delusion and egotism,” but we do not care, then we should know that we are one of the “stubborn beings”. Because a wise person hearing there is a method that helps people become wiser, he immediately wants to find out about it to make sure whether that method exists.
Though we are knowledgeable but if we are not interested in liberation and enlightenment, we would not have wisdom yet. We would only be able to know about science, society, current affairs, movie/pop stars… but not the religion that can help people reduce their selfishness, achieve peaceful mind and have compassion for other human beings. Then we must know that we are one of the stubborn beings.
When someone talks about cultivation, we just listen to the conversation to lessen our stress, but not totally are interested in. Life is full of worries and hardships, and we must work to make money, communicate with other people, fulfill our obligations … Those things make us think over and over again, cause us too much stress. Although we know the danger of stress, we only seek the method to reduce stress but not the way to attain liberation and enlightenment. We are knowledgeable but still stubborn.
Though we have knowledge, we still haven’t had wisdom yet. We only possess general knowledge. We must correct our manner, character to help reduce our selfishness, to have compassion and peaceful mind. From being knowledgeable to being wise is not far away, however, we still do not want to try and achieve higher level.
Hearing about a monk, who could mediate for consecutive seven days, but we still did not care much! We did not even want to know how that person could do that and what happened with him during that time. We must know that when a person achieve the highest level of meditation, he could control his whole body except breathing. In this state, he must have been very peaceful and happy. The state was very special indeed. Yet, we were not curious about it, and then truly we were a “stubborn beings.”
Human beings are dominated by ignorance, stupidity, egos and karma, and we are attached to the endless cycle of birth and death, i.e. we were born in this life, live for a period of time, die, then again after some time, then we were reborn into different life. This is the never-ending cycle. Nevertheless, we would not be able to remember what happened to us in our previous lives. That’s why many people don’t believe in the cycle or rebirth.
We say to ourselves many times: “After many years of trying to live, we will die one day”. It is the same path, same journey from one life to another: we were born; when we were young; we went to school; when we grew up, we went to work; and when we were old, we had to fight with sickness and old age, and in the end, we died. This is a never-ending cycle of birth and death. It’s very scary, indeed!
Buddha once said: “The suffering of a camel’s carrying goods heavily across the desert is not suffering. The suffering of a person’s carrying luggage in the long night is not suffering. The suffering of the cycle of rebirth i.e. to being born, then die, and then reborn; and every time of rebirth, one has to struggle to live and one is dominated by ignorance is real suffering.”
This was a valuable teaching. So we should understand that to achieve liberation from the cycle of rebirth is the ultimate goal. However, due to our stubbornness, we do not believe in Buddha’s teaching. We do not realise the suffering of rebirth, therefore, we are not afraid of it. We are, therefore, a stubborn being.
Or when we hear someone mention that: “That temple worshiped Buddha, who was the crowned Prince of India but left home to become a monk, then finally attained Buddhahood.” However, we ignored the story, nor did not want to progress further in understand why. We are really and truly a stubborn being. If we were wise, we would be wondering: “How could someone dare give up the throne? What the state of enlightenment is like, so many people treasure it too much?” Or we wonder: “When one attains enlightenment, they will have supreme wisdom, supernatural power and even they can end their life whenever they want. How could they do that?” As for stubborn beings, they do not really care any of the above, nor they want to achieve higher level of their wisdom.
People who believe in Buddhism but are not eager to learn the doctrines
There was a Buddhist family. The father often told his son to light incense on the altar of Buddha. The son did it and bowed to Buddha. When someone asked him what his religion was, he replied: “My grandparents and parents are Buddhist, so I am a Buddhist too”. He only knew that but did not find out about Buddhism. He drinks but does not do good deeds, not offer to the Triple Gems, not take refuge in the Triple Gems and not practise the Dharma. This person also believed in the Buddha, worship the Buddha, but was still a stubborn being.
Or we understand and know about karma, but just a little, so when someone asked us what Buddhism was. We answered: “to be a good person and to live a virtuous life.” Although we were Buddhists and took refuge in the Three Jewels, we only knew a little about Buddhism, therefore, we could not tell other much about Buddhism. We were one of the stubborn beings.
Or when we were asked: “Does Buddhism mean Amitabha Buddha recitation? If so, what time we do it?” We replied, “We recite Buddha when we have accidents.” Because we briefly knew about Buddhism, our answers were very limited and simple, and could not convey everything about Buddhism. It means that even though we are Buddhist, but we did not learn its doctrines to improve ourselves. We are still a stubborn being.
People who know some Buddhist doctrines but do not take time to study/contemplate it, think it through and practise them
The term “contemplate” implies “Right Thoughts”. Despite the fact that we know about some Buddhist teachings, but we do not take time to contemplate and study it thoroughly to fully understand and to apply them to our religious life, then we are stubborn beings.
Compassion
Buddhism mentions about “compassion”, meaning we must have compassion for all beings. We know about this term but do not think about it nor apply it to our life. We have love for our parents, our husband/wife, and our children and if better, we also love our relatives and our neighbors. Now Buddhism teaches us that we should love all beings. But what does “loving all sentiment beings” mean? And How? Though we do not know the answers for these questions, we still do not try to find out more about it. Is such love reasonable?
Therefore, when Buddha teaches us that we must love all beings, we have to learn about this kind of love and how to apply it to our life. When we clearly understand about the meanings and how to apply, every day we should pray to Buddha: “Dear Buddha, please bless me so that I can love all beings in this life.” We should do it repeatedly then every time we meet someone, we tell ourselves to try to have compassion for them. Although we have not helped them on anything yet, we should try. We can do that only if we have practised Buddhism and have lots of blessings, and therefore, we are not stubborn beings.
Many people, even monks, have learnt about compassion, however, they are not really interested, and do not try to study it more and apply it in their life. Such people are “stubborn beings.” This would result in causing Buddhism to become weaker. Only when all Buddhists, both monks and lay people, have compassion for all beings, then we would be able to help each other, and bring more benefits to this life. Thus, it is compassion that makes Buddhism more powerful. In contrast, those who are cold-hearted, and do not have compassion for others as well as do not want to help others; even if they wish to practise Buddhism, it would be just for themselves, not for others; therefore, Buddhism is not powerful.
We must remember that thinking creates the path and emotion creates the strength to go on that path. For example, a person having vindictive hatred for someone, would have the strength to take revenge. This person dares to bear any sufferings and everything to fulfill his wishes. Because hatred or love is emotion, it creates power for you to do anything. Therefore, when seeing anyone everyday, either strange or already acquainted, we should always try to have compassion for them. That means we do not waste our religious life because we have studied Buddhist teachings and applied in to our life.
Humility
There was a saying: “Humble people must attain the stage of selflessness“. We must understand that before achieve the stage of selflessness, people must practise being modest over and over again i.e. always have respect for everyone, realise our own shortcomings and must be aware that there are many things that we should learn from others, then practice them. So, if seeing anybody better than us, we must not envy but praise and learn from them.
We ourselves sometimes do something useful or when people praise us about what we did, we must think that: “This is nothing compared with other great men in this world.” Therefore, despite of doing many good deeds, we should not allow ourselves to be satisfied or proud of what we have done. We should always think like that to practise modesty; and once we achieve that, we would then gradually be selfless. We must think carefully about this principle so that we can instill it into ourselves then our mind would be filled with moral doctrines.
We knew that meditation means sitting still without thinking anything at all. However, after two or three minutes of trying, we could not achieve this, we could not stop our mind from thinking, and then we gave up. It means we are “stubborn beings.”
We must understand that, when we just start meditation, we cannot immediately stop our mind from thinking and wandering around. Our mind is so used to thinking many unnecessary things, it is impossible to force it to stop right away. We must make effort to mediate. At first, we will suffer from sitting in full-lotus position but later this suffering is gradually relieved. We have to stop delusions arising while we are keeping track of our breath. We always must come back to monitoring our breath. Practicing meditation is really hard since meditation means fighting with ourselves and this is the most difficult battle.
Overcoming other obstacles is already difficult, but overcoming ourselves is thousand times more difficult.
Let’s talk about the story of Sir Ma To again. Once, he met a very good hunter named Thach Cung. He asked Thach Cung: “You are good at shooting, aren’t you?” – “Yes, I am.” He continued: “How many birds can you kill with one shot?” – “One shot kills only one bird, Sir.” Ma To then said: “It’s not good. I can kill the whole flock of birds with just one shot.” Thach Cung replied: “We should not end the life of the whole flock of birds with just one shot”. Although Thach Cung was a hunter, he was a good person, he felt compassionate for other living beings. Therefore, Sir Ma To said: “If you can say that statement, why don’t you turn round and shoot at yourself.“
Sir Ma To’s statement made Thach Cung awakened then Thach Cung put his bow down then made the vow to be a monk. This was a very strange event. A hunter had causal condition to become a monk. Because of his personal circumstance, he had to go hunting to feed his family but deep down from his heart, he had compassion for other living beings. Realising Thach Cung’s good nature, Sir Ma To told him: “If you can say that statement, why don’t you turn round and shoot at yourself.” “Shooting yourself” here means getting rid of bad thoughts, and practise the Dharma.
In this life, to win a debate is not that difficult. We just need a little tactic to convince the others. The most difficult part is to fight against our evil thoughts that are dominating us from our past karma. That is thousand times more difficult.
What does “fighting against ourselves” really mean? When there is a thought arising in our mind such as “We are the best in this world”, then immediately we have to contradict ourselves “You’re the worst in this world”.
Then if that thought turned to “If not the best, then I must be the second best or third best in this world” then immediately we should say “Absolutely not! You’re the worst, not the second, third best at all…” That is, we must criticise ourselves, which is the most difficult thing we have to do and overcome. This is another example relating to money. The first thought is “What should I do to earn 1 or 2 billion VND?”. The second one is “We are so greedy to think like that so we must end that thought.” The third one continues with “Only if we have a lot of money then we can live a happy life.” The fourth one is “Do not wish a happy life with a lot of money but wish that we live an ethical life…”
We must fight against those kinds of thought every second of the day. This is the biggest and the most difficult fight for those who wish to practise Buddhism appropriately. We must be genuine and wanting to fight this battle. Although initially, we would have plenty of dark thoughts, we would criticise ourselves back and forth. At first, people may think we are crazy, but over time, we will improve, good thoughts would come to our mind naturally. And when we win this battle against ourselves, we would become saints.
Meditation is also the fight against own self. As mentioned above, the inner fight in our mind between good and evil is to increase the good and eliminate the evil. Meditation helps stop our bad thoughts completely so that our mind is completely peaceful and attain the stage of emptiness without any delusion. Only until then, our fight against ourselves really ends.
This is the true value of a genuine Buddhist. Our Buddha was enlightened through meditation, so how can we, Buddhists, refuse to practice meditation? There are many people stopping meditation because they cannot concentrate when they first meditated. They are a kind of “stubborn beings.”
There are many people who have heard about Selflessness in Buddhism. However, they were confused and found it strange, as in life, there should always be differences amongst people. Those, who have lots of blessings, who are keen on practicing, and who are knowledgeable, would be able to comprehend the magnificence of Selflessness. These people would strive to practise towards achieving to be selfless. These are true Buddhists. Those, who just hear about Selflessness then ignore, would not be able to comprehend its meaning, and that is a real pity.
One more thing, as Buddhists, we understand the karma law and realise that we should do good deeds. But then we still feel puzzled when hearing that: “We do good deeds but not for our own benefits.” What does that mean? It means we should do good deeds because we have compassion for living beings but not for our own benefits, or good results that we would receive later on in life. Though we do not expect, we would still receive good results in the future because it is the karma law. This is one of the most extraordinary doctrine in Buddhism that we must study thoroughly and apply in our life.
However, there are many of us do not care about this doctrine. We most likely act as a routine: Doing good deed. We are called stubborn sentiment beings. Only if we take one additional step to learn more about it, and practise it, we would be able to become true Buddhists.
People who practise the Dharma but do not strive hard enough to reach the final stage of enlightenment
Those are people who also practice meditation but only practice when other people do it, then when others finish meditation, they also do the same; when the others eat or sleep, they eat or sleep too; when others don’t meditate, they don’t too… They always follow others so their mind, being passive and not proactive. Therefore, their mind is sometimes peaceful, sometimes is not which makes them feel discouraged. Eventually they do not want to make additional effort to practise more to attain full enlightenment. Those people are stubborn beings at high level. If we really want to be true Buddha’s disciples, we must be determined to practise well, and meditate well to reach the highest level of meditation, then reaching towards full enlightenment.
Both monks and lay people could easily fall into this category i.e. they practise the Dharma just like a routine and do not strive hard enough to make more progress. Sometimes their Master would remind them: “You should make effort to cultivate the Dharma diligently because this life is still a long way from being near Buddha. This life is still full of sufferings. You all must try your best to cultivate to attain enlightenment so that everyone can take refuge in you.” They may only follow the advice once, then fall back into the routine again. They are indeed very stubborn.
Similarly, about chanting and praying to Buddha. Sometimes, we do say: “Namo Amitabha Buddha”, “Namo Kuan-yin Bodhisattva”, “Namu Maitreya Buddha”… but often we do not say it with the utmost concentration and sincerely. It is because we are still very lazy and stubborn as well.
When hearing other people say that: “Practicing the Dharma means chanting the prayers”, we then follow the advice, but that is all we do. That is not enough.
We must understand the prayers, the meanings. If we ignore these prayers’ meanings, and just read it out loud, we are stubborn sentiment beings. We must learn as much as we can about Buddhism, its doctrines, to understand how best to apply into our life. Buddhism is so miraculous and boundless, therefore we try our best to practise it.
There is another type of human beings who are superficial and also are being classified as “stubborn beings.” These people do charity but only care about material needs of poor people but not their spiritual needs. They do not care about the underlying causes of the poverty to help the poor completely. We have to understand that living beings are miserable due to lack of blessings and if they do not know how to do good deeds, then they would not know about karma. They would not live a moral life because nobody has taught them to do so. Therefore, if we just help them with food and other material needs, the help is temporary and very superficial. We must teach them to how to live ethically and do more good deeds so that they can be free from poverty and sufferings.
This is one step further of being a true Buddha’s disciple, but not everyone would be willing to do. If someone reminds us about this, we would just provide food and money to support them temporarily. We must aware of this because maybe we fall into this category. Please try to avoid making this mistake.
People who practise the Dharma for years but still cannot completely overcome their immoral mindset
Almost 80% of practitioners, both monks and lay Buddhists make this mistake. We would be jealous of or speaking ill of, or harming anyone who is better than us, despite many years of cultivation. Even people with more than forty years of practising Buddhism still could not overcome this obstacle. These people are also one type of “stubborn beings”.
Jealousy
When jealousy still exists in our mind, we would still be miserable, and it is easy to commit sins by speaking ill and criticising others. As the result, we create bad karma. Even worse, in some cases, people might harm one another. Those people would have terrible retribution in their next lives. However, even just speaking ill of others also means we commit a very bad sin.
This immoral mindset is very strange. If we are not determined to correct and destroy this kind of mind, we would not be released from it even after our death. This is a warning to everyone, who wants to follow Buddhism. Whatever and however we do, we must feel happy for those who are better than us. That is one way of creating blessings, otherwise, we would be committing a serious sin.
The first thing for all Buddha’s disciple to do is to wish everyone around them to be better than themselves, then their jealousy would gradually leave them. Even if we are one of the best, we must still sincerely pray to Buddha, wishing for all others to practice and cultivate better than we do. We must pray sincerely like that everyday to get rid of jealously. By doing that, we would not be “stubborn beings” any more.
If we did not pray to Buddha for others to be better than us, jealously would become stronger day by day without us noticing it. If we let it last very long, it is harder to get rid of it, then it is a pity when we could not overcome immoral mindset despite many years of practice.
This is the common mistake in Buddhism. There are monks even Venerable ones who have been practicing Buddhism for a long time but still cannot overcome this problem, which makes their religious life not perfect. All of us must be aware of this.
Many Buddhists, who have taken refuge in the Triple Gems for a long time, still only take care of themselves but not others. This is their selfishness and they still are stubborn beings.
Impatience or anger also has the same effect. Although we have practised for five years, we still could be angry with someone, who did not do the job properly, for a long time. If so, we should know that our immoral mindset still exists and we have not yet overcome it. After five years of practice and we still commit this mistake, then it is bad. If after twenty years of practice, we still commit this mistake, this is alarming. If after forty years of practice, we still commit this mistake, then we are stubborn beings. We must try to overcome this mistake in our practice.
As for true Buddhists, we are not allowed to hate, but must have love and compassion for everyone. Even when we cannot convert them because they are stubborn, we should not hate them, otherwise, we are stubborn too because we also cannot overcome our immoral mindset.
Greed
Greed is also very bad. Often monks would not make this mistake because when becoming a monk, they often feel relaxed and do not care about material and reputation stuff for ourselves. But if they practice badly, they still make this mistake. The root cause is the fact that they are not determined to destroy this mindset, so it gradually grows up and becomes very dangerous.
On the other hand, a monk also has the need of money to take care of their study and other personal matters. That’s why some temples allow their monks to keep their own money. Everyone always has their personal needs, therefore, they try to earn money; and the more they earn the more they become greedy without even realizing it. This kind of mindset starts with a little thing but then it builds up over time and become greed.
Due to that desire, our greed has a chance to control ourselves. Therefore, even some of us have been practising Buddhism for more than thirty years, and now even being a Venerable, we still are controlled by this greed. If we had that mindset, we should know that we have committed that sin of: ‘having practiced for a long time but could not overcome the greed.’ This is a serious concern, especially for those who hold the important roles in Buddhism Committees. Especially, some religious leaders are very susceptible to this mistake as they always worry about having enough money to feed and take care of his disciples. Therefore, if they cannot control their mind properly, it will turn into a greedy mind. A truly genuine monk never keeps money at all. If they have money, they immediately find a way of using all money for any Buddhism related matter, so that they can destroy their greed. They are a good examples for us.
We must be aware of these two scenarios:
First, as for the monks and nuns who are responsible for managing the financial to look after the temples and all disciples, must always be careful and be aware of greed.
Second, as a Buddhist disciple, though you are not responsible for anything in Buddhism, you must be aware and learn to control this mindset. If not, it will grow over time, even you have practiced the Dharma for a long time, you would still be greedy, and you are a stubborn being.
We must be careful, in both cases. Therefore, it is best for monks not to keep their own money. The Abbots, who love their disciples as their own children, should take care of everything so that their disciples do not have to mind earning money; therefore their greed have no chance to grow and develop further. All monks and nuns must be alert about this.
As for all of us, laymen, ordinary people, because we need money for our personal life, it is harder for us to be free from greed. Many people have asked us, “As a layman, can we attain enlightenment?” Our response was: “You can attain enlightenment, if you could live under the same condition of monks and nuns.” This is indeed very difficult.
It is an extremely important basic that monks and nuns must not be greedy for money. This can only be achieved if monks and nuns are aware of greed, practice well to get rid of it. As for laymen, who live an ordinary life, but practice the Dharma, it is a lot harder to achieve due to personal circumstances. Therefore, it is extremely difficult for a layman to attain enlightenment. Buddha once had said: “Life of a layman is full of sufferings and attachments so it is hard for them to achieve peaceful mind.” Therefore, those who want to seek deliverance must leave their ordinary life to become monk/nun.
Bigotry
Bigotry always makes us think that we are right all the times, which makes us fall into the “stubborn beings.” Category. When we believe in something, we would not take others’ advice even sometimes our Master’s.
There are many aspects of bigotry; here we refer only to one aspect of it and that is we always think we are right. Those, who always doubt their thought, are wise and not dominated by bigotry. Having practiced Buddhism for years, we must overcome this weakness, bigotry. Every time we think of something, we have to assess it as carefully as possible, looking at it from different angles. We should imagine there is someone who argues with us over our opinions. If they are reasonable, we should accept their advice. Often it is very difficult to overcome bigotry. Even though we have practiced the Dharma for many years, we could be still bigoted and stubborn. So, among many kind of stubborn beings, bigots are the most stubborn.
Or when we think we are wiser or more talented than others then we should realize that we are stubborn beings.
Arrogance
Arrogance is a serious concern and it is easy to make this mistake. Many people have practiced the Dharma for all their life but still have arrogance. Even worse, there are many people who the more they practise the Dharma, the more arrogant they become. First, it was just a little bit of pride, then became arrogant as they progressed through their religious life. It was worse towards the end, when they became Venerable until no one could stand them. Arrogance is our very dangerous enemy and is the greatest obstacle to all religious practitioners.
Therefore, monks should be careful with it because arrogance can destroy all merits and blessings that we have worked so hard to create. Young monks should always be alert to this issue: arrogance. They should avoid the situation in which that the more they cultivate, the more arrogant they become. No matter what we cultivate, we have to ensure that the longer we cultivate, the more humbly we behave and the more we forget about ourselves. If we secretly raise the thought that we have cultivated longer than others, hold more important position than others or have a higher academic degree than others then we must realise that we fall into the trap: being arrogant.
Sometimes, seeing a younger monk, we may think “this person started practising after us”. That thought means we are arrogant about ourselves. If this kind of thought remained throughout our life, then no one would be able to bear being around us, even then we become a Venerable. So, from the very beginning, we must regularly warn us that though many people have started practising Buddhism after us, they may actually have better qualities than us, therefore they could become Saint one day; as for us, even though we started to cultivate earlier, however, we have lots to learn, and still remain quite ordinary.”
Ambition
Ambition is an enemy of all monks as we always want to succeed more than others or stand out from a crowd. When we are driven by our ambition, then we become stubborn beings. Those, who want to stand out from a crowd and well-known to everyone, are very dangerous to Buddhism because it is easy for them to do wrong things and manipulate to get what they want. As for monks, we should not want anything for ourselves but for Buddhism. When we devote our life to Buddhism and wish to love all livings then according to the law of Cause and Effect, people will love us and we will stand out from a crowd, even if we do not want that at all. We must behave and act like that in order to become true Buddha’s disciple.
People who do not have Supreme Bodhi Mind
People belong to this type of stubborn beings are often being born into wealthy families, lots of blessings from their past lives, but do not want to learn more about religions. Because they always think that their lives are good enough, there would be no need to practise and improve themselves any more. Or, in some cases, people know about religions, but are not interested in taking the next steps. They do not want to think about enlightenment to help and transform other beings.
People who rely on their blessings, therefore, they have no respect for monks
Many wealthy men secretly look down on monks. They are so proud of their wealth that they have no respect for monks. Though monks are not wealthy, their spirits are always high. Monks have enormous respect for Buddha, and they always try their best to improve themselves and practise meditation. Therefore, people, who look down on monks and nun, would be poor and illiterate in their afterlives. They must understand that physical assets are impermanent, they could come and go at any time. When a human being dies, they cannot take with them their assets, except their sins and blessings.
People, who witness monks committing sins, then lose their faith in Buddhism
If by accident, we saw a monk who had a quarrel with someone else, we then lost faith in Buddhism, had no respect for Buddha, and then no longer came to temples. Even worse, we told others bad things about Buddhism, about monks, then others would eventually leave Buddhism. The truth is not all of the monks are like that. There are many monks who are good examples to us. Anyone, who has extreme views about Buddhism like this, would commit a serious sin.
When we meet this type of people, we should advise them not to mention about what they witnessed repetitively, and they also should not lose their faith in Buddhism, because everyone is uniquely different to each other. We must know that there are so many religious people who are kind, righteous, holy, and they are the ones for everyone to rely on.
People, who do not want to change to be better, due to their pride and bias
For example, we followed our Master because we thought that he could do many wonderful things. However, our master used charms and did many wrong things. After a while, we discovered that he was really bad. Knowing about the situation, someone criticised us: “Why did you follow that evil Master?” We responded arrogantly: “It is none of your business”.
Sometimes, because there were many people criticizing our master, we defended him angrily “I think he’s good, that’s why I follow him.’ Why did we talk back like that? – Because we thought that ‘good master creates good students.’ And we didn’t think that it was due to our pride, arrogant and bias, which would bring retribution to us. Therefore, if by any chance we realize that we have followed a bad Master and learnt about bad doctrines, do not be so proud, biased to stay with the Master. We should have left him to avoid of being a stubborn being.
We have listed various types of stubborn beings and more or less, we would fall into one of the categories. It also means that we would have to pay back for a long time, and could be from one life to another.
So all of us must try to overcome those mistakes and remorse in front of the Buddha. We should pray to the Buddha: “Namo Shakyamuni Buddha, now that I have learnt from my Master about many kinds of stubborn beings and I have realized that I am one of these types. Now I remorse in front of Buddha for these mistakes I have made. I pray to Buddha, please bless me with strength and knowledge to overcome the same mistakes.” That is, we must repent of our sins over and over again, days, months in order to obtain more blessings and avoid retribution. It would take a long time for us to be free from our sins, our debts
from our past lives, and this life. Only when we are free of these sins, our mind would be peaceful, we would make the best effort to practise the Dharma diligently to become a true Buddhist and bring many benefits to other living beings.
However, for the above, it means we only did it for ourselves. How about our friends, our family members and relatives? What about their sins and mistakes because they also fall into one of these categories? We must be patient with them. These types of people will not listen the first, or second times. We must be compassionate, patient to help transform them. We must help them realize by themselves, and they must be willing to change to be better.
We must never give up, even in our thought, even when the person is so evil and so stubborn. Maybe sometimes, we would feel so helpless. But we must not give up. We should vow to try to help them until the end and speak to ourselves: “maybe not now, but will be later.” We should pray to Buddha for blessing us to have enough strength, enough sincerity and compassion to save and transform stubborn beings. If we can do so, we would have lots of blessings and have better results later in life, or in other lives because we have brought enormous benefits to them.
Today, we talked about a very painful and uncomfortable topic. However, if we understand the topic today, when we understand our mind, our behaviours, we would be stronger and be able to form the right thinking and head towards the right direction:
That is we must be patient in helping others to be better, to learn more about the Dharma, to perfect themselves, and together we all head towards the ultimate spiritual goal.
Namo Shakya muni Buddha
