DHARMA IN EVERYDAY LIFE

By Nhat Quan

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Human life sometimes seems very difficult to die, and sometimes it seems very easy to die. Even if it is difficult to die, you cannot decide; if it is easy to die, you cannot decide. So the question is, who decides for you?

This question is easy for us Buddhists to answer. The answer is determined by your blessings or karma.

Take me specifically, since the beginning of the new year, you have not seen any signs of illness in me, but when the incident happened, many Buddhists later told me that they were very shocked when they heard that I was hospitalized. I was shocked and felt like I had just experienced a nightmare.

I said I had just experienced a nightmare because that day, I and other Buddhists went together to pray for a funeral. Speaking of which, I would like to share with you some very important things that you need to know. According to the deceased's family, and if I remember correctly, this old man was lying on the massage chair, massaging his back, but suddenly fainted. When he was taken to the hospital, it was discovered that the massage chair had caused a ruptured cerebral blood vessel and he passed away.

The family went to the Temple, at first they asked me to choose the date, but then they decided on the time themselves. The funeral was scheduled to move out at 9:00 AM, but the family insisted on picking me up at 6:00 AM. Moreover, when I arrived at the funeral home, the deceased's mother also asked me to bring the coffin to the grave at 9:45 AM. Seeing this unreasonable request, I was not happy, because waiting for nearly 3 hours was a long time, while there was a lot of work at the Temple, and the Buddhists in the funeral committee had to leave their children with friends to look after, some people left their housework to help me. But because life is only once, I consoled myself and encouraged Buddhists not to be sad, and to try to make their families happy.

Time passed by and it was almost 8:00. I was about to recite the sutras, and my head started to hurt. However, this headache was different from the others. The pain kept getting worse, and I thought something was wrong, so I asked the funeral home staff to call 911. While the funeral home staff helped us lie down on the sofa. I didn't know how long it took, I heard the emergency staff ask for my date of birth, and insurance, and then I didn't know anything else.

I guessed it was almost evening, and someone held my hand and called, I opened my eyes, and the nurse introduced herself, I was a nurse, do you know where this is?

I answered:

- No.

She continued:

This is Northwest Hospital, and you have been treated and are out of danger.

To be honest, when I first woke up and the nurse told me I thought I was waiting for the surgeon, while she asked me to hold her hand and squeeze it hard, when I squeezed her hand too hard she cried out in pain, but her face showed joy and her mouth said very well. But later I understood that when I just arrived at the hospital, the doctor on duty in the emergency room told me that a large blood vessel in my head had ruptured and the doctors had to perform emergency surgery.

Lying in the IUC room, I thought of many cases that had happened. Similar to me, some people passed away immediately, and some people were bedridden for the rest of their lives, while I still had a little bit of extra luck, which was a great joy in life.

As I once said:

- If it is difficult to die, you cannot decide, and if it is easy to die, you cannot decide either, but it is your luck or karma that decides.

Take my case, if the ambulance arrives at the hospital while the surgeon is not there for some reason, the patient's life is unknown. For that reason, I see the saying:

- Talent is not as good as luck.

Here, I mean talent, even if you have a lot of money, great fame, high position, it cannot save you at this time. As for luck, or I mean the merits and virtues of each individual, thanks to which big disasters can turn into small ones, and small ones will disappear forever.

Here I would like to share another event, as you often read the Medicine Master Sutra, which talks about nine types of untimely death. One of the nine types of untimely death is:

- Illness that does not deserve death, but in the end must die

I also encountered this case on the first day when I was transferred to the recovery room to wait for discharge from the hospital.

Because of my high blood pressure, the treating doctor's wish was to take medicine to keep the average level at 120-150/90-95, then the doctor would discharge me from the hospital. On the first night when I was transferred to the nursing area, the first nurse I met made me panic and kept calling out to Buddha for help. The reason was when he introduced me as the nurse who was taking care of me today. After the social introduction, he started measuring my blood pressure and temperature. As for the blood pressure measurement, when he saw that my blood pressure was 195/120, he injected me with a blood pressure-lowering drug. After the injection, he continued to measure the blood pressure, but it still did not decrease, so he injected more medicine. He continuously injected 4 shots like that, but the blood pressure did not decrease at all, on the contrary, it increased even more. Only then did I speak up, injecting so much medicine is very dangerous for me. He smiled and said:

- Don't worry, I can still inject you 4 more shots, and it will also go down.

At that time, I suggested:

- You don't need to inject anything, you wait patiently for 10 minutes and then you will measure the blood pressure again to see if there is any change.

Indeed, after he went out for about 20 minutes, when he measured again, my blood pressure dropped too low, this nurse again panicked and he demanded to inject medicine to increase my blood pressure. This is a very serious carelessness and can cause death. Therefore, among the nine types of sudden death, there is one type:

- The disease is not worth dying, but death is like that.

Back to the issue, the facts you need to know. Of course, any disease has its cause, but in any case, it takes time to make the patient suffer, and languish in bed before passing away. There are only two types of diseases that make the patient die very quickly:

- Cerebral hemorrhage, and

- Myocardial infarction

Although the two diseases have different names, they have the same cause:

- High platelets

- High blood pressure

These two factors are the fastest killers

In short, being born as a human is difficult, but keeping the body healthy and having a peaceful and happy life is even more difficult. But no matter how difficult it is, in addition to working to earn a living, you also need to take care of your health and especially should regularly check your health to prevent these two killers:

- High platelets

- High blood pressure.

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