YOU’LL GET WHAT YOU WANT
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There is a French saying: “Vouloir c’est pouvoir” (meaning you’ll get what you want). However, according to the points of view from Buddhism, not everything we want would become reality because of karma, the law of Cause and Effect. It also depends on the amount of blessings we have accumulated from many past lives.
Despite we would try really hard to achieve our goals and objectives, but if we did not have enough blessings, it would be extremely challenging to make it become reality. It is important that we must have enough blessings, not just our wish. Everybody wants to be rich and respected, but in reality, how many people are there who actually rich? Many people had a dream of becoming engineers or doctors, but when they grew up, they encountered many obstacles, their study was interrupted, and they had to choose a different path. That is life, nothing is permanent! We often are never happy with what we got.
When our blessings are not enough, we hardly could control our choices. Blessings determine changes in our life. For example, as a child, I wanted to become a scientist. I wanted to make a plane with no wings, no smoke but it can fly from planet to planet. I often looked at ranges of mountains and dreamed. However, when I grew up, everything changed and I left my family to become a monk.
Very often, we want one thing , but life turns out to be quite different; that is because of karma. At one point in time, our life could change completely when our blessings are enough. When I started to understand more about life, I thought that I must set myself a direction, a career path, and that path must be great and phenomenal. That path must bring happiness to many other human beings, the society and the country because we all do not just live for our ourselves.
I kept thinking but everything was still a mess. The path was still unclear. Suddenly, I came to learn about Buddhism. It was Buddhism that helped me realise clearly: Real happiness doesn’t lie in wealth but in the wisdom of recognizing the burdens of greed, anger and ignorance, which cause our sufferings. We can only enjoy real happiness when our mind is calm, relax and peaceful. At that very moment of realising the truth, I determined to leave everything to become a monk.
Therefore, “You’ll get what you want” is not always true. However, there are things which we want and we will be able to achieve at a point in time. For example, some Buddhists often came to our pagoda and some of them often wanted to try on the monk robes. They pretended to be a monk and took some pictures. Those would likely to become monks and nuns at a point in time, because it was an omen indicating that it was the time, they already might have enough blessings.
Similarly, if a monk or a nun tried a non-monk’s outfit, it would mean that their blessings of being a monk or a nun was about to end. They would stop living their religious life at some time in the future. This sounds very strange, but a similar situation had happened in real life.
My older brother became a monk at an early age. He was only accustomed to the monk’s brown robe. One day, he was interested in an outfit of a normal person i.e. just shirt and pant. He tried it on and looked at himself in the mirror. He felt strange. Only then, for over ten years after that, he had to wear layman’s clothes, though he still lived at the pagoda and did all the things a monk did: eating vegetarian food, practise all the principles, meditating, and working for the pagoda. The situation did not allow him to wear a monk’s clothes again, but forced him to wear a normal person’s clothes as if he was a layman.
Others, who knew him very well, also knew that he was a true monk, a true religious practitioner, very diligent and preached the Dharma really well. Because he was the oldest monk, everyone called him “Venerable” though he looked exactly like a layman – with hair and layman’s clothes. Later on, we knew about the story and the cause of why he looked like an ordinary person. After ten years, he was allowed to wear a monk’ clothes again. At that time, we were all very afraid when reflecting about the case. It was fearful that it could be true “You’ll get what you want” because: What we sow is what we reap.
Under the Ly Dynasty, there was a Zen Master named Tu Dao Hanh, who had attained Sainthood and had magical power. One day, he wanted to play a prank on his fellow brothers for fun. He used his magical power to transform himself into a tiger and caught his brothers, who were walking along the forest path. His brothers, also had attained Sainthood, knew the prank and avoided the path. They said: “If you want to be a tiger, you will be a tiger.” Immediately the tiger turned back into Venerable Tu Dao Hanh.
Soon after, Venerable Tu Dao Hanh died comfortably. Just before leaving the world, he said the last words to his brothers: “Thirty years after my death, I will be reborn to be a king. If you hear that the king is sick, please help him. It is because of my karma.”
Exactly as predicted, 30 years after Zen Master Tu Dao Hanh died, King Ly Than Tong, who received the throne from King Ly Nhan Tong, suffered from a strange illness: thick hair appeared from his head to toe, he scratched and roared like a tiger for months. (History recorded this event but in a few words, as if to avoid it.) Then the Court appealed for good doctors. Venerable Nguyen Minh Khong agreed to cure the King. He used acupuncture and was able to cure the King’s illness successfully. The King recovered. After the treatment, Venerable Nguyen Minh Khong was inaugurated as the country’s Teacher. Later, King Ly
Than Tong died early.
As we see, because of a playful action, turning into a tiger, Venerable Tu Dao Hanh had to pay retribution after 30 years. Because his blessings were still great, he wasn’t reborn as an animal but suffered from the sickness of changing into a tiger, and then was healed. How fearful karma is! Obviously, want is one thing and the reality is another, which totally depends on karma.
Now, we will discuss some examples about what we want and their related consequences.
In most cases, we often do not get what we want. If the wish is selfish, we may or may not accomplish it; sometimes it could take a long time, even a few hundred incarnations. However, if the wish is for others’ benefits, it would become the reality quite quickly.
For example, a few workers of a Charity Organisation knew about a lonely old woman, who often got sick, but her children lived far away and could not see and take care of her often. During Lunar New Year, she did not have enough food to eat. Her house was in bad conditions. They sympathised for her, and wanted to help her feel happy during the last few years of her life. They then called for money contribution to buy good, to fix her house so that the old woman could feel the love and the care from everyone.
So, what did these charity workers want? They just wanted the old woman to enjoy the happiness of being cared for and being loved during a special occasion, Lunar New Year holiday. They did not want her to feel left out. And the law of Cause and Effect is fair and miraculous: our true and genuine wish for others would have good return. In this case, their good thoughts and deeds would enable them to be happy with their family. However though, it was only because of the special occasion, after that, their lives were back to normal.
There is a very essential and important wish: wishing for all pagodas to be prosperous and crowded, so that everyone has moral standards to live accordingly. All Buddhist must work hard to make this wish become true. That is the only way that we could do to help maintain and protect Buddhism forever, for everyone to take shelter and cultivation. That is the true blessing for everyone in this world.
Buddhism understands well about karma, therefore, Mahayanistic Doctrines emphasize the great significance of karma. There is an absolute holy vow:
“Vowing all beings to achieve Buddhahood.” We want all beings to achieve Buddhahood, what about ourselves?. We will also be able to achieve that, in one of the future lives, because we have already planted the seed by kneeling in front of Buddha and made the vow. That vow is now firmly fixed in our karma. Certainly, in one of the future lives, we would be able to achieve Buddhahood.
If anyone has said that vow sincerely, their cultivation result will be perfect. Karma will lead their thoughts, actions, decisions, and situations that would lead to Buddhahood. In contrast, if anyone has said the vow insincerely, their cultivation journey will be incomplete. Their cultivation path would encounter many obstacles.
Hence, please, everyone, remember that every time we pay homage to Buddha, we must say the greatest vow of all sincerely: Vow for all beings to achieve Buddhahood. It takes only one time to pay homage to Buddha; it takes only one time for us to make the vow in front of Buddha, karma will lead our lives towards Buddhahood. Although in our further lives, even if we are bound by the circle of life and death; even if our lives could be either poor or happy, the seed of wanting to achieve Buddhahood has planted in our mind and The Dharma will always be the guiding star in our life. When it is the right time, when we have enough blessings, we could attain Buddhahood and help transform other beings. Let all of us say that vow sincerely.
Some people wanted their child to become a monk or a nun. They confided in me: “Dear Master, I want my son to be a monk, but he still hesitates.” That was funny, not because the son hesitated, but because it meant the parent would be a monk/nun in the next life. If we wanted others to live a monastic life, we ourselves would live that same life, inevitably. That is karma: what we sow is what we reap.
Here is another scenario. A father always advised his son to study hard to become a doctor, so that he could help people. When becoming a doctor, his son was able to do much good karma. He made his son study as hard as he can. Finally, the son became a doctor. And the consequence was that, in the next life, the father became a doctor himself too, because he has always wanted it for his son. Similarly, some parents wanted their children to become singers, though their children could not sing well. As a result, the parents would be reborn to be singers in their next life. We will get what we want, however, it always depends on our karma, and many accumulated conditions after many lives. Those who wanted their children to become monks/nuns, would have sowed the seed, however, to successfully become a great monk, there are many other conditions, and many blessings and more importantly, their own karma to make that happen.
In this life, even though if you are old and could not become a monk, you can still help promote and protect Buddhism and support monks and nuns with the best of your ability. Every day and night, you practise the Dharma diligently, meditate and do a lot of good deeds. Those great things will accumulate and help you later on. In the next life, as the result, karma would guide you to become a monk early. As a monk or nun, you would have full blessings, be loved, your pagoda would be well supported, and your work would progress well. That is because you have sowed the seed: you had been practising diligently and done many good deeds.
Therefore, between the want and the achievement, there is always a gap, which would require us to do many good deeds, create many blessings to help with our karma. We must always remember that: we must do good deeds, create many blessings because our want and desire is not good enough. Though we say “You’ll get what you want”, but the path from just a thought to an action could be a very long path, even from one live to many others. The path is long or short, smooth or rough, it all depends on our karma.
Many old people only asked to become monks when their children had already grown-up. After they have had a few years of cultivation, one of their son came to visit the father and asked for his permission to marry someone: “Dear Father, it’s a little bit difficult to ask because now you are a monk, but the two families have agreed for me and my fiance to get married. Please give us your blessings.” The father, who had been a monk for quite a few years, replied: “That’s great. Please be happy and have many children. The wedding should be organised like this….” He planned the wedding as if he were still living a normal life, not being a monk. That indicated in his mind, he always wanted his son to have his own family. That wish formed his karma, and in his next life, he could not become a monk early. He would have to get married first, then have children, then if his blessings would be good enough, he would be able to become a monk. Therefore, according to the Governing Rule in Buddhism, especially relating to Bhikkhus, Buddha does not allow any Bhikkhus to do match-making. That is because match-making would result in the karma in their future lives.
Many Buddhists had asked me: “Dear Master, those two love each other, are they good to be married to each other, are their ages suitable for each other?”
I do not know much about this, so I replied: “There is no such thing as suitable age… maybe it is best for them to become a monk or a nun!” I must say so, as I wanted to avoid being a match-maker, to avoid the karma of marriage. Please, we all must be careful about what we do and what we say.
Buddha has taught: “A Bhikkhu must see the danger in every tiny mistake.” We must be aware and avoid every single mistake, even just a minor one. A small mistake could result in very bad karma later on. In life, we want many things for others, both good and bad. Therefore, we must be very cautious of our thoughts. Once thoughts have formed, what we want for others will actually become reality for ourselves, too. Actually, our wants for others are uncountable; therefore we must be careful in every single thought.
A truly genuine teacher always wanted his students to progress well in his study and become more mature. That want helped the teacher become more and more knowledgeable. In the next incarnation, he would become a better person, a more knowledgeable person. With his good karma, he could become a famous scientist, a genius because he had always wanted others to be better than him. However, if he was narrow-minded and self-fish, and just wanted to be better than everyone, and his study, the result would totally be the opposite.
If we live for others’ benefits; if we always think for other; if we always share with others what we know and always provide others instructions thoroughly; and if we always want others to be better, more knowledgeable and more successful, we would be able to have great returns, due to our good karma. In our future lives, wherever we go, wherever we would be reborn to, we would be able to learn great things, meet great people.
Or, when we pray for the world to be peaceful, pray for all beings to be safe and happy sincerely from the bottom of our heart, as well as we live a pure life, eat vegetarian food only, never kill any beings, it is certain that we would be reborn in peaceful world, life after life. It is the sincerity in our mind, which would bring good return for us. Though this world is not peaceful yet, its beings are not really safe and happy, but our good karma will lead us to peaceful places.
Therefore, all of the praying in Buddha’s teachings is not illusions. These prayers help us plant good seeds. Bodhisattvas in Buddhism had written such prayers to help all beings plant good seeds to get good returns.
Even some prayers, at first, sound quite unreasonable: “Vow all sentient and insentient beings in the universe to attain Buddhahood”. Sentient beings are beings with consciousness i.e. animals such as, dogs, cats, elephants… Insentient beings are like plants, rock, sand, dust, etc. The vow at first sounded quite unreal, but it had been passed on throughout many generations in Buddhism.
Though it is just a prayer, in fact, it challenges everyone’s wisdom. The prayer is strange, somewhat unreasonable and utopian. It is extremely difficult for a human being to become a Saint, let alone sentient and insentient beings also to attain Buddhahood. The vow is extremely illusive.
However, let’s thing about this: the prayer has been written into the Dharma by Bodhisattvas and we have been chanting it every day, it cannot be just an illusion. We might think it is unreasonable because of our own ignorance, which prevent us from seeing the truth. Only Enlightened Saints can have super wisdom would understand the prayer.
The prayer is a challenge for Zen, but today we will not discuss about this, just karma.
The prayer is so noble “Vow all sentient and insentient beings to attain Buddhahood”. That means the prayer has no discrimination, everything is treated equally. If we sincerely vow all sentient and insentient beings to achieve Buddhahood, in future, our enlightenment path would be perfect. This is the realm of all Saints; therefore, it is beyond our limited understanding and awareness. Only Saints can understand how plants and sand could be enlightened.
We should neither ask for explanation nor curious. The only way for us is to try hard to practise and then we would be able to understand the greatness beyond any words of that prayer, one day.
When I was a kid, I often got sick and often went to see the doctor. I was surprised that most doctors were so healthy and very good looking too. It is still true. According to karma, nothing is random. Good doctors are always in good health because they have always wanted their patients to be healthy. Though they may have created bad karma in their previous lives, but now as doctors, they have gained much more blessings as they treat their patients well and always wish their patients to recover quickly.
For some doctors, though in their past lives, they may have been a General, who had killed many people at war, but this live, they became doctors to cure many people. Why is that so? It is a secret of reincarnation cycle, or, we may say, of Ksitigarbha Sutra. Although Ksitigarbha Sutra was not originated from India but from China, the Sutra is excellent. When beings committed evil sins, they would be reborn in hell after death. In hell, their spirits would be tortured and imprisoned. However, Ksitigarbha Boddhisattva would be there to save and transform them so that they could realise their sins, remorse, and change. When they were reborn back to the human world, they would be good people, to do good deeds, to compensate for their sins from the previous life. Indeed, there are Boddhisattvas, who live in hell, to help and save sinful beings.
Some beings, for example Generals or Soliders, would not be reborn in hell because their blessings of contributing to the country. However, they indeed had committed an evil sin, regardless, killing other human being. Killing at battlefields, though for a good cause, but still it is an evil sin. Therefore, when these soldiers died, their spirits did not know where to go… Boddhisattvas would come and help these spirits to understand their sin, help them remorse and vow to help people and save lives in their next life, in compensation for their killing karma. Therefore, these soldiers could become doctors in their next lives to help save lives of others.
Sometimes, though their repentance may be sincere, their wish could not be true until many years later. Because of the vow, they showed their interest in medicine since young age. When they grew up, they devoted their life to help other and cure diseases. However, they did not have good appearance because they still had to pay for their bad karma of killing other human beings during war. The law of Cause and Effect is very fair, objective, and miraculous: Rewards for good deeds and punishment for evil sins. The more good deeds we do, the less bad karma we would have. Ordinary people like us could never understand completely its mystery.
Similarly, why would a builder never had his own house, though he could build for many houses for many others? In the previous life, he may have burnt and destroyed other people’s houses during the wars. Although the situation forced him to destroy people’s houses, he still had to pay. In the invisible world, his soul had no place to take shelter. Not knowing why, he went from pagoda to pagoda to pay homage and asked about his sins. Feeling for the soul, the Buddhism Protector in the pagoda educated him and showed him the cause. Realising his past sins, he remorsed. With all his respect to Buddha, he vowed to be reborn a devoted builder for his whole life, to pay for his sin from the past.
And when he was reborn, as a teenager, when walking pass a house being built, he was interested in the job. He quitted school to assist the builders and learned on the job. Then he became a builder, and a contractor, building many houses. He had been accumulated blessings to create more and more good karma. Until the end of his life, if he had paid off his debts from his past live, he would be able to have a house of his own.
Sometimes we do the complete opposite to what we did in the previous life. That is because in the invisible world, we were taught about the right, our sins and our merits, the cause and effect and we realised that “When doing good for others, good thing will come to ourselves”. Like the General, as a doctor, he wanted his patients to be healthy, he himself would be the same, and his bad karma from the past would be paid off gradually. The builder was a similar case. He wanted people to have proper houses, so his past evil karma was paid off.
“You’ll get what you want” does not mean what we want will always come true. It means what we want for others will become true for us. This is the law of Cause and Effect, which is objective and fair, but very difficult to comprehend. That is why we should be very diligent and careful to eliminate evil thoughts and selfish ideas about others, to help avoid bad karma.
Those, who always are kind, and always want good things for anyone they meet, they have sowed a seed of attaining Sainthood for them in future lives. Those, who spread their compassion to all, will certainly become a Saint when their blessings are enough. Hence, when meeting and talking to other people, we should always wish them to become good people and do many good deeds for many others. Such thoughts will help us become a Saint later on, and we could help educate and save other beings in the future.
If we have already taken refuge in the Dharma, and in Budda, we must always promise ourselves to have compassion for our fellow monks and nuns, wish them everyday improvement in their cultivation path. At the same time, we must always provide the best possible facilities to support their life and their cultivation journey. As a result, we ourselves will be diligent in our own practice and our cultivation path would be less challenging. If we are selfish, jealous, and unpleased to see others’ progress, we would not be able to practise well because of bad karma.
Envying a well-preaching Master, or someone who could mediate well, will not help our cultivation path. Because such evil thoughts and acts would destroy our cultivation path. When the mind is not calm, and peaceful, when the mind does not have much wisdom, we could never mediate, or preach well.
In contrast, rejoicing in others’ good deeds helps produce many blessings.
We must share their joy when they succeed in teaching or attain Sainthood. A famous Dharma teacher can promote Buddhism. An Enlightened Master could help create many blessings for other beings. Buddhism will last forever because the right Dharma is still preserved and passed on through many generations, and human beings still believe in Buddhism because there are many people who could be enlightened. For the sake of such great benefits, let us always pray for others’ good progress in their cultivation path in Buddhism, in reaching enlightenment and promote Buddhism further. If we could always think so, we would be able to be wiser and become Saint in our future lives.
It is very natural that the mind of an ordinary person is mixed with good and evil thoughts. Due to ego, people tend to want bad things for others. Those who learn about Buddhism can restrain bad thoughts and behaviours. Those who do not learn about Buddhism are very likely to want bad things for others. For example, in class, we were ranked in the fifth place, and we felt very uncomfortable and jealous when our friends were ranked in the higher place. We wanted our friends to be behind us. Because of such a jealous wish, we would continuously go down no matter how hard we study.
There is a Vietnamese proverb about gambling, its meaning is: “Gambling is the father of poverty, which would lead to imprisonment.” This saying has been passed on from our ancestors throughout many generations. Gambling means sowing the seed of poverty. Why is that?
A gambler has only one wish: he must win and the others have to lose. That means he wants money from the others’ pockets. Fairly, the law of cause and effect will make the others’ money remaining and cause him losing his money.
That is why we lose everything when gambling. Does anyone in the casino want the others to take their money? Certainly No. That is why many investors like to invest in opening casinos. They know well that no one can be rich from gambling but only lose all their money. So where does the money go? It goes to the pockets of casino owners. We must understand that going to casino means burning our own money.
Many people want to be superior to others, and they even want to be admired and served, even from the basic things. If such thoughts exist in our mind, believe that we would become servants one day. Understanding this principle, we should vow to be a servant, a provider and a dedicator for others.
We may be very rich, but when we visit a pagoda, we should integrate well with others and try our best to help with the chores such as serving meals, welcoming guests, or even cleaning the bathrooms. We should do whatever is useful. When we want to serve others, take care of others, we have become a strong dedicator. Later in life, we would be able to have others help us back, though very uneasy but unavoidable because of the law of Cause and Effect.
Like a Prime Minister, wanting or not, he must be served. That is the law and the principle we all must abide to. When dining, he has to sit with the right posture. His food has to be tasted before he eats. There are guards and servants, who always are available at hand. Cooking a meal for him is the effort from many people: the buyers, the cooks, the quality examiners, and the guards… He may not want it, but that is karma – what he had planted in his past lives. He had taken care of people so well in his past lives, and in this live, others have to serve him back. There are things we do not want but have to accept because of the very fair and objective law – the law of Cause and Effect. However, we, Buddhists, must only want to serve, because serving others is the most effective way of creating more blessings, and serving others is the best offerings of all in Buddhism.
Here is another example. When someone thinks so badly about others, that their past karma caused them to want a person to disappear from the world. Have you ever been in such a situation? What do you want for the person whom you hate? e.g. A stroke at midnight, a traffic accident, struck by lightning… the person no longer exists. However, in reality, nothing has yet happened to the other person yet, but you have already suffered due to your bad karma.
There are many reasons why someone would die at young age and one of them could be because of bad karma. I repeated the question again: Have you ever wanted someone to die? If the answer is yes, you must know that your mind is so evil and sinful. Such evil thought is so dangerous because the karma will bring back to you what you want for others.
Now, let us discuss another scenario: in a pagoda. All monks and nuns are taken care of and taught by the same Master. The Master always wants everyone to have compassion for each other and help each other with their cultivation path. He wants to see his disciples to progress further and improve every day. He cannot live forever to teach them, to protect and to promote Buddhism. Hence, he wants his disciples to make great efforts in practice and then they can take over the most important responsibility. However, though his intention is good, there still are bad and good disciples. There is competition between he disciples. There is only one pagoda so there could only be one leader, one Master.
By now, we should understand that evil mind always leads us to do bad things. And as I have said, karma is very fair. Once we want the others to leave, the people who really have to leave are actually us. If we always want our brothers to live in harmony and practise diligently, whoever is the greatest disciple would be able to become the Head. The rest should serve the new leader happily. Again, karma is very precise and fair.
Therefore, it is very painful for me to know that my disciples are jealous of each other, and are competitive with each other. When we wish something bad for others, it will eventually happen to us. Please remember that! If we want someone to be insulted, the same thing will happen to us. If we want others to be imprisoned, the same thing will happen to us. If we want others to be expelled from the pagoda, the same thing will happen to us.
Remember that bad and evil thoughts can spread very well and very fast. At first, only one person has the thought, but then many others will know about that thought and spread it on. It will spread very rapidly.
Usually, women tend to be jealous of each other’s appearance. They feel uncomfortable and jealous to see someone more beautiful than them. They would want the other person to get older and get ugly quickly. Again, they would suffer with the same bad consequence: being old and ugly themselves. The lesson here is that if you want to be younger and forever beautiful, always wish others the same thing.
Today, we have discussed the topic “You’ll get what you want” with the hope that everyone can control their thoughts about others. What we want for others, good or bad, all should come from our ethics. Those with great compassion and high ethical standard will always think well for others, for people’s happiness, because that is also their happiness. Though they are still bound by the cycle of birth and death, their life would be better and better life after life, until Sainthood.
Those with anger, ignorance, selfishness, jealousy, cruelty and who always want bad things for others will suffer. If we are that type of people, we will be reborn in bad situations, and hard life will prevent us from enlightenment.
We must control our wants, our thoughts and be prudent when thinking or wanting something for others. Some wishes are small, but some are quite big. What are they really? For example, the want of two women, who want each other to be old and ugly quickly, is small because there is no damage. However, the want of people who participate in wars is completely different. This side always wants the other side to be collapsed and destroyed early. Bad karma in this situation will lead to very catastrophic consequences.
We know that a bombing incident will cause casualties and extreme unhappiness. It actually proves an evil want from different powerful forces. Such wants are extremely cruel and fierce, and the consequences are so catastrophic. Wars, hence, will never end. Humans forever would suffer… broken homes, orphaned children. Evil things like this keep going in circle: so until when would the world be completely peaceful?
Now, if we want to make the world a peaceful place, let us together build a generous and holy vow. A holy vow firstly must be a right one. School should be the first cradle to nurture good, unselfish, and kind-hearted wishes. Teachers should be the leaders of the good path and parents are the guides. If, from their childhood, children could have unselfish wishes, the benefits later on would be so great. If all children in the world can have such good wishes, this planet will soon be a happy and peaceful heaven.
It is common that we could not guide our children to have completely pure and holy wishes since their childhood. Therefore, when growing up, they would want everything. Among their wishes, there would be many bad ones for other beings, and deep down in their mind, there are still greed, anger, selfishness, jealousy, etc.
Naturally, good people would have good thoughts and bad people would have bad ones. However, if we try to meditate, try to be compassionate, try to keep the mind pure to eliminate ego, our wishes would be holy ones gradually. We would not harm other people. When our mind is so pure, our wishes could only be good ones, which only would benefit for others. Knowing that someone is sick, we would wish them well; knowing someone poor, we would wish them be wealthier; knowing someone not have enough education, we wish them to go to school to improve their education level; knowing someone not understand much about religion, we wish them to understand Buddhism; knowing someone have bad thoughts and intention, we would wish them to think differently and be a better person… Since our mind is so pure and peaceful, bad thoughts have gone away, we would only want other people to be happy, diligent and religious.
We must control our thoughts and our wishes well. Do not let bad thoughts reside in our mind. If everyone can master his or her wishes and actions, the world would be a better place. Humans would live in harmony, and there would be no war, no killing, no hatred, no disgrace, etc. Everyone would have good karma.
When we start having bad thoughts in mind, we must be aware of them and eliminate them quickly. Then pray to Buddha and remorse for such bad thoughts.
At anytime those bad thoughts arise in our mind, please remember to remorse and pray: “Buddha, please help me always love all beings.”
For the rest of our life, let us try to always have compassionated and mediated mind. We must diligently meditate everyday, concentrate our minds towards purity and peacefulness. Eventually, over a period of time, our mind would always think of good things for others. We may not know the impacts, but others would always feel comfortable, peaceful, and happy to be around us.
Genuinely good thoughts will always lead to good consequences and create good relationship between beings. Once we understand the true meaning of
“You’ll get what you want”, we must vow to ourselves that we will only want good things for all beings. However, good thoughts only come from a mediated and pure mind. Knowing this, we must be diligent in meditating, learning and practising Buddha’s teachings, doing countless good deeds for life, always improving ourselves, and eliminating bad habits, etc. When we become wiser, be more compassionate about everything and everyone, we would be always unselfish and forgiving. When we could achieve that level, and if one wish could become true, it would be the wish: “Wish all beings, sentient and insentient, to attain Buddhahood”.
And now, let us all pray:
“Wish the Dharma will be available everywhere For the world to be peaceful;
Wish everybody’s mind filled up
With Buddha’s teachings”
Namo Shakya muni Buddha.
