DHARMA IN EVERYDAY LIFE

By Nhat Quan

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There are two forms of freedom in life:

- Freedom to desire

- Freedom from desire.

Western culture chooses the first type of freedom, worships it, and puts it on the first page of the national constitution and the Declaration of Human Rights. It can be said that most Western democracies contain a creed:

1- Protecting human freedom so that they have the full right to do what they want.

But unfortunately, in those democracies, people are often not truly completely free, because you think that because you are free, you can do what you like. That is why everyone thinks that they have the right to speak their mind. They say what is right and what is wrong. They say what is good and what is bad. They say what is beneficial and what is harmful. The concept of this kind of freedom is like a driver who goes out on the road, thinking that he has the right to freedom so he can drive freely, which is either dangerous for himself or dangerous for others. There is a true story:

- I know a very rich specialist doctor. He likes and buys a very powerful and expensive sports car. Of course, he did not buy such a car to drive in a crowded city. One day, the sky was clear and cloudless, and he took his car out for a drive on a deserted country road. Just past the area with a speed detector, he stepped on the gas and the car sped away, leaving behind a roar. He smiled with delight.

But what was not amusing was the countryman with muddy hands and feet leaning against the gate of his garden. He strained his neck and roared Pig!

The doctor thought he was stubborn and was disturbing the tranquility of the countryside, but he thought:

- Oh, never mind, I also have the right to satisfy my private interests!

At the same time, he turned back to look at the farmer and asked:

- Who are you calling a pig?

While he turned to ask the farmer, he bumped into a pig running in the middle of the road. His newly bought car was destroyed. He was seriously injured, and although he did not die, he was disabled for life.

This kind of freedom is very dangerous

2- The second kind of freedom from desire

This kind of freedom is only found in religious communities. No desire or non-greed is marked by contentment, that is, a state of freedom not controlled by desire. In a community of practice, everyone is truly completely free.

The concept of freedom, people often compare the scene:

- Fish in an aquarium, birds in a cage

This means that the scene of fish raised in an aquarium, although they are free to swim, swimming back and forth is still in the aquarium. Birds can fly and jump but still cannot escape from their cage. That is the common concept, but in a free sense to achieve happiness, you need to understand it in another sense. The story goes:

- Two monks were invited by a family to their home to offer alms to the monks. The two were brought into the living room with an aquarium with many beautiful and colorful fish. Looking at the fish, one complained:

- Keeping fish in the aquarium is no different from keeping prisoners in jail. What crime did the fish commit that they have to be locked up like that? It is against the compassionate principles of Buddhism.

According to this monk, fish should be free to live in rivers, canals, ponds, and lakes and swim wherever they want. The other elder disagreed and argued that in the aquarium the fish are not free but they avoid the dangers that are always lurking. He cited some evidence as follows:

- They are not caught, because no one puts bait in the aquarium.

Certainly not. Meanwhile, fish live in the wild. Every time they see a worm wriggling, they are not sure if it is real or fake. If it encounters a worm, it will get hooked, pulled straight up out of the water, and die for sure. Wild fish are always afraid when their stomachs are growling with hunger.

- Being eaten. Wild fish are always afraid of bigger fish biting them. In addition, they are also afraid of unsafe nooks and crannies of many dark and polluted streams and ditches.

- Wild fish sometimes don't have enough food, but aquarium fish are always full. They live in a restaurant, with nutritious food delivered to their mouths twice a day. So they never fear hunger.

- Living in regulated water. The water in the aquarium is always regulated in temperature, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen, etc. Aquarium fish do not have to worry about hot, cold, or dry weather like wild fish.

- Fish in aquariums have free and very good health insurance. They also do not need to go anywhere, the veterinarian comes to their home. Wild fish do not have these advantages!

This second elder concluded that although fish in aquariums have a little less freedom, their lives are more secure than wild fish. Likewise, the elder said, people who live a holy life like monks and nuns do not have the freedom to fly around as they please like people in the secular world, but they avoid unforeseen troubles. The life of a Buddhist, although austere, is a source of endless happiness. Many people have not seen this happiness, so they look down on it and even condemn it. Some people even compare monastic life to being in prison. Because you know, being in prison, especially in this country, is very different from being in prison in underdeveloped countries.

A long time ago, I was invited by an American charity organization to give a sermon in the prison in Clam Bay. The people here were all criminals with serious sentences. When they met me, most of the prisoners were very polite and friendly. Someone asked about life in the Temple. I said:

- We get up at 5:00 a.m. Regardless of summer or winter, we only eat vegetables for meals, we talk little, work a lot, and spend our free time sitting down to meditate and follow our breath.

The prisoners were very surprised, they did not expect the monks to live such an austere monastic life. In comparison, they felt like they were in a five-star hotel. A prisoner heard me say that and felt sorry for the monks and nuns, so he said:

- Please come and live with us.

Although this prisoner's words seemed like a joke, I thought about it. The life of monks in the Temple seems to be more ascetic than the most severe prisons of cruel criminals, but the Temple is a place to practice and change evil into good, giving everyone complete freedom and happiness. And a prison, no matter how well-equipped, is still a prison, meaning a place where prisoners are not free and are unhappy. Therefore, the Temple is a place people want to go to, while the prison is a place people want to escape.

After all, any place you don't want to be is a prison to you. That is the true meaning of the two words prison. If you don't like the job you are doing, you are in prison. If your body is sick, you are in prison. Prison is a state in which you do not find happiness. The question is:

- So how do you get out of the prisons of life?

Answer:

- It is easy. You just need to change your perception and accept all situations with a spirit of awareness and mindfulness.

So the prison at Clam Bay is harsh when you do not want to be in it, and Duoc Su Temple cannot be called a prison if you want to be in it to practice. Change your perception about work, illness, or a certain state of the situation, you will eliminate the related prisons. When you are satisfied, you will feel free and happy.

Freedom goes hand in hand with satisfaction, just like when you say prison, you immediately see the desire to escape.

The free in this world cannot have freedom. And, true freedom is freedom from lust, not freedom to pursue lust. Freedom from the praise and criticism of others is the only way to escape suffering and happiness. This was a long time ago, and I would like to share it with you today about the robes of the monks. When I was a novice, one day, on the way back from school to the temple. The way to the temple had to pass through a Catholic neighborhood, at that time a girl of about ten or twelve years old came out to see curiously. She stood with her hands on her hips, looking at me contemptuously from head to toe. A moment later, in a very indignant voice, she scolded me:

- The novice is dressed like a woman! It's disgusting!

Her comment made me laugh. Then I remembered what my teacher taught me:

- If someone calls you a dog, look behind you. If you don't see a tail, you are not a dog. Period.

Sometimes my clothes also bring me compliments, even in the middle of a crowd. That compliment should not be taken to heart because be careful, you might be given sugar water without knowing it, so there are many ways to measure who is a person who cares for the Three Jewels or who is truly working for the cause of liberation. Especially in the Zen sect, there are many Zen Masters and Elders who often test their disciples who think they have achieved. One way to test how far they have reached is to treat them harshly to measure their reaction, or to praise them to the utmost. As all monks and nuns know, the Buddha's teachings are very clear:

- Whoever is angry cannot be said to be enlightened, whoever has not stopped being angry cannot be called free.

When they have learned to practice, many people think they are already Buddhas, many even call themselves saints. But when things happen, they realize that there is still much to be improved, and through this anecdote about Su Dongpo and Zen Master Buddha Seal, you will see that. Su Dongpo was an honest Buddhist official. In his spare time, he often studied Buddhism and was a close friend of Zen Master Buddha Seal. During his time studying and researching Buddhism, the honest official felt very free and peaceful. One day, in his spare time, he wrote a horizontal scroll to express his spiritual practice:

- The eight winds do not shake

After finishing writing, he had the scroll framed into a beautiful horizontal scroll, and he asked his servant to bring it to the Temple to present to Zen Master Buddha Seal. When the servant left, Su Dongpo thought that Buddha Seal would certainly admire him for his steadfastness in his spiritual practice. So Su Dongpo was anxiously waiting for Buddha Seal's praise. Indeed, his wait was not wrong, the servant brought him back a beautifully wrapped horizontal scroll. After carefully peeling off all the wrapping paper, he revealed the scroll he had written himself, and underneath the scroll was the word fart.

Seeing that, without thinking, Su Dongpo quickly urged his servant to bring out the horse and rode alone to the Temple to question Zen Master Buddha Seal. When Su Dongpo's horse reached the Temple gate, he saw Zen Master Buddha Seal in his robes in front of the gate and reciting:

- The eight winds do not shake

A fart can make the horse cross the river

Meaning:

- A practitioner is free, even if eight winds: fame, wealth, etc. cannot shake him

However, just one fart can make him rush to the Temple to argue.

That is not called freedom.

You all have faults and life is where you practice to gradually reduce those faults. When you let go of your ego, you are no longer afraid of anyone teasing you. If someone calls you a crazy guy or a crazy woman, you get angry because you think that person is right. Instead, you do not need to care, if you are not angry, then of course what they say is wrong. Like the time on the way home from school, a little girl stood in front of her house and shouted out into the street:

- The monk's head is cooked in sour soup, it's still sour after three months

I waved and smiled and she waved and smiled too. One time when I was in California, on the way to school, some Spanish boys in a car saw me, rolled down the window, and teased me:

- Hey! Bald monk!

Hearing that, I laughed, when they saw me laughing, those boys laughed too and revved the engine and sped away.

I find it better to laugh when being treated disrespectfully than to feel upset, ashamed, or angry.

In short, if you want to be free to live a carefree life, sometimes you need to be very smart to avoid making regrettable mistakes, but sometimes you have to be an idiot. For example, someone calls you an idiot. What do you do? You might think:

- How dare they call me an idiot? They have no right to call me an idiot! They are so rude to call me an idiot.

After thinking about it, you realize that you have let them call you an idiot three times.

Every time you remember what they said, you allow them to call you an idiot. That is the problem. The solution is that if someone calls you an idiot, you don't care. That way you don't care, and of course, you are not an idiot.

You shouldn't let others control your happiness, to do that you have to have the attitude of an American soldier. According to the monks in Thailand, in the years when the Vietnam War was about to end. The Vietnam War had turned Ubon near the monastery into a bustling air base. The soldiers stationed in the base often went out to the streets to entertain themselves.

At that time, an American soldier was on leave, he asked a driver who drove a tricycle down the street. The car passed by a shop in the suburbs; the shop had many drunk customers, most of whom were the driver's colleagues. They pointed at the soldier, laughing rudely and shouting in Thai:

- Where are you taking that dog?

The driver was a bit impatient because he was afraid that his customer would react. And this American soldier was too big. He peeked and saw that the customer was sober, the driver thought that maybe the American soldier did not understand Thai and was busy admiring the strange scenery around.

Feeling relieved, he wanted to join in the fun so he loudly joined in with his friends:

- I'll take that stinky dog ​​down to the Moon River to bathe it, otherwise, it will stink too much!

His colleagues and he laughed loudly at each other, while the soldier continued to be calm.

When they arrived, the driver held out his hand to ask for money, but the American soldier got out of the car and walked away calmly. The driver ran after him, stammering a few words he had learned in English:

Hey! Pay... dollars, dollars.

The American soldier turned back and said in perfect Thai:

- Dogs don't have dollars!

So, not answering doesn't mean the American soldier doesn't know Thai, and you don't need to argue, it's not because you're stupid, it's because you want to always be free to live freely in all circumstances.

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