DHARMA IN EVERYDAY LIFE

By Nhat Quan

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There are three types of people in this life:

- Lucky person,

- Unlucky people and

- Normal people, that is, neither lucky nor unlucky.

Among these three types of people, the common mentality is that everyone wants you to be lucky. Wanting is one thing, but not everyone can do that. However, if your intention is accompanied by the desired action, and you know how, then you will also be a lucky person.

As you know, each of you, more or less, has experienced good, bad, and unfortunate things. That is the general rule of life. However, if you can proactively control your destiny, your life will not spiral into luck and misfortune like dice. Talking about luck, Chinese classics once recorded the main story as:

- Mr. Tai lost his horse.

The story begins with an old man living in the border region losing his precious horse. The villagers expressed regret while the old man still leisurely said:

- Maybe losing my horse will bring me a good omen.

A few months later, the missing horse suddenly returned, leading another horse. Neighbors saw this and quickly congratulated him. The old man still calmly said:

- Not sure having more horses is luck.

The old man's son liked to ride horses, but precious horses were not easy to tame. One day, he fell off his horse and broke his leg. Neighbors near and far knew what had happened and comforted him, but he still replied calmly:

- Who knows, maybe a broken leg will lead to good luck.

Until we get to the end, you cannot say what is luck. One year later, the country was at war, and all the young men in the village had to become soldiers. The fierce war took countless lives of young men. Only the old man's son did not join the army because he had a broken leg, thus he escaped death.

Blessings can turn into misfortunes, and misfortunes can also turn into blessings. Therefore, folk people also mentioned:

- In misfortune there is luck, and in so-called luck, there is also misfortune.

Therefore, if you know how to operate it, you can turn something as unlucky as a punch in the face into something lucky as a kiss on the cheek. To be like that, the condition that requires you to have a positive attitude is the condition that determines whether luck will come to you or not. Psychologists call this phenomenon counterfactual thinking. Know how to turn bad luck into a feeling of luck, then you are already a very lucky person.

Psychologists say that lucky people are often very optimistic, in a relaxed mood, and more agile in finding and realizing opportunities that come their way.

To have luck help you succeed, it depends on your ability to be quick and wise to recognize the help of others, and you grasp the crux of the matter, luckily.

To have joy, success, and happiness in life, you will need a very important factor: luck. Luck can come to you from everywhere, in many different situations that you do not expect. Therefore, up to now, many people believe that luck will only come randomly and people cannot decide when it will come. But you are your boss, you want to know how to get a lot of luck, within a certain range.

As a Buddhist, you know the law of cause and effect. If you want to have fortune to reap, you must sow seeds. Luck does not lie in the sprouts that have just sprouted from the tree trunk, but is within your reach. What matters is whether you can awaken your lucky god or not. Imagine you are in a house with a large apple orchard surrounding it. Assume that luck is apples. Your job every day is to harvest a certain amount of apples.

On the first day, you don't have to go far, just step one foot out the door, and you still have a basket full of apples. On the second day, you go around the house to harvest a full basket. On the third day, you have to go further to collect enough apples to meet your quota. It becomes more and more difficult to harvest because the number of apples decreases over time. Until one day you don't get anything, you sit down and lament:

- Unlucky!

If you just stop at the available apples, you will run out of apples. However, if you regularly fertilize and create an additional number of apple trees, you will harvest enough or more apples than you need. That is the secret to finding luck. Always hone your skills and prepare yourself mentally to be ready to receive luck. Opportunities can take a long time to appear and only come once. The person who is quickest and knows how to invest will be the lucky one.

Some warning signs let you know that bad luck is coming, such as:

- A mirror breaks or a black cat runs into the house

- Or recently you have continuously encountered bad luck in all areas of life.

- Career decline, poor health, unsatisfactory love life...

To neutralize bad luck. According to some things that happen in life. Below are eight methods that ancient ancestors often used to ward off negative energies lingering around, and develop your luck such as:

1- Use salt

In folklore there is a saying:

- At the beginning of the year, buy salt and at the end of the year, buy lime.

But first let you reflect that it is no coincidence that our ancestors said:

- At the beginning of the year, buy salt and at the end of the year, buy lime.

According to ancient beliefs, salt can ward off evil spirits and bring good luck to the family. Besides, the custom of buying salt also prays for richness and harmony in family love, and warmth in business relationships like the rich taste of salt. Vietnamese people often sprinkle sea salt in each room and in front of the house to ward off evil spirits and welcome good luck.

Not only in Vietnam but many cultures around the world consider salt to be a good omen. To get rid of bad luck, you can take a handful of salt and throw it over your left shoulder. Remember, only the left shoulder, because if you throw salt over the right shoulder, it will bring double bad luck. Additionally, you can purify your body by taking a saltwater bath. Simply add two tablespoons of salt to warm bath water. I don't know if it's effective, but at least your skin will be clean and your spirit will be more refreshed.

2- Resolve the broken mirror

Since ancient times, broken mirrors have been considered very poisonous. When you accidentally break a mirror, you should not throw the broken mirror pieces in the trash. After carefully cleaning up to avoid debris causing injury to family members, you should wrap it all in a bag and bury it or throw it into the river.

3- Light incense

Burning incense is an effective way to increase luck and neutralize negative energy. When you are in a bad mood, you can choose to burn incense with a pungent smell like sandalwood or jasmine. And when burning incense for Gods, Buddhas, and ancestors, you should burn odd numbers, not even numbers.

If you are having bad luck in your personal life, you should burn incense at home. If you are having problems at work, light incense in your office.

4- Bring protective objects

Amulets are a great way to bring you good luck. It could be a necklace, bracelet, or something you keep close to you. Some of the most popular feng shui treasures include:

Keys: A key chain has been used to bring good luck since ancient times. Wearing a set of three keys will help you open the door to wealth, health, and love.

- Three-leaf clover: Very rare in a forest of clovers, so anyone who finds a four-leaf clover will be extremely lucky. Each leaf on the branch is considered to represent an aspect of life:

- Money, fame, love, and health.

5- Use feng shui stones

Different types of stones are associated with different legends and bring wonderful things that are not the same. Placing feng shui stones in your office, or home, or always carrying them with you helps you fend off bad energies.

- Pink quartz will increase positive energy to repel evil spirits.

- Sapphire stone will protect you from helpless souls, who are always trying to suck your energy and positive emotions.

- Amethyst protects you from dangers when traveling.

6- Clean the house

Living in a messy house can block positive energy from flowing in, and create negative emotions and bad luck. Clean your home, this simple act can bring you new energy, and empower you to change your luck.

- Throw away all old items that are no longer in use.

- Sweep away cobwebs and dirt in the house.

- Try rearranging your furniture to improve the flow of energy. Repaint your walls to bring a breath of fresh air to your space and life.

- When cleaning the house, you can turn on some music and open the windows to let the sun and wind flow in. This will encourage positive energy to flow into your new living space

7- Do good deeds

One of the best ways to change your luck is to do good deeds. When you give, one day you will receive back. This is a way to pay for any bad things you have done in this life or before. Enhance your good karma by doing charity, helping the homeless elderly, or orphans.

The important thing is that you do good deeds with a sincere desire to help others from the bottom of your heart. If you only do good deeds to hope for luck in your own life, in the end, you will achieve nothing.

Participating in charitable activities will also help you realize many things. At some point, you will realize that being born healthy with your current conditions is much luckier than many unfortunate lives around you. They are people who are fighting day and night with dangerous diseases, babies born without parents, elderly people who are lonely in their twilight years,...

8- Promote love

Love is the most important material in making yourself a lucky person in your daily activities. But love should be combined with wisdom and your every move. You skillfully combine your inner potential with concern for the interests of others. Then, direct your mind to your dreams, to your heartfelt feelings, to let the truth of love shine through your soul, and to benefit others.

Some people think that, when you put all the suffering of others as your suffering, it means you bring suffering on yourself. Maybe, there will be such coincidences happening in real life. But here, it needs to be affirmed that psychological sympathy, experiencing the suffering of others, is the process of sharing suffering in the depths of your heart, but it does not bring suffering to yourself.

For people practicing compassion in the early stages, the mind always experiences and looks at your suffering and gives rise to ideas like you are being taken advantage of and dominated by others. On the contrary, when you wholeheartedly share the suffering of others, you appear loving and approachable, and the truth is that no one takes advantage of anyone else.

Therefore, you should resolutely fight with yourself to practice charitable activities that benefit you and others. When doing this, always think about doing charity work not only for others but also for yourself. Put the interests of others on par with your own, then work will be meaningful, easy to do, and not discouraging.

In short, everyone in life wants to be lucky. However, luck does not come naturally, you have to create yourself to be a lucky person. If you want yourself to be a lucky person, as I once suggested, among the eight things to create luck, the above six things are external to the body, they are just dependent factors outside of life, of a short-term nature. However, the last two things belong to long-term virtue that affects karma and cause and effect. Because, living with a kind, compassionate, and liberated mind is a good condition for cultivating luck and a flower garden of happiness. But, of course, there will be many obstacles and challenges on the path of wishing luck and happiness for yourself and others. The power of faith and ever-growing ideals will cultivate fertilization and water, helping you experience the value of a compassionate heart and love for humanity!

Only love, and sharing your suffering with others is an easy condition to be close to luck, happiness, and peace of mind. Because, through human relationships, great love, compassion, sympathy, and understanding between people people are connected, creating harmony and coming to unity. Furthermore, in the human world, absolute love and compassion are not cheap or luxury goods but are priceless items, produced in the factory of human consciousness.

When the mind truly settles down, boundless love appears and creates real action. At that moment, every ability to survive, and every heart to serve will easily manifest!

Compassion is not only a source of good luck but also can quell violence and bring eternal peace to this planet. On another level, compassion is the source of the virtues of tolerance, generosity, joy, forgiveness, and altruism, and is the substance to build a happy, peaceful, and fresh society!

A peaceful soul and a joyful smile are always your companions in life. It is a blessing and has the power to break down all barriers, and conflicts and destroy all ideas of separation between you personally and everyone in the human social community.

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