Chua Duoc Su

The life of each of you in this world is inherently diverse, colorful, and always different. The truth is, each of you has a completely different psycho-physiological structure, circumstances, and living conditions.

As you can see, they are the same people, but one person is extremely beautiful and has a delicate figure, and white skin, and the other has not-so-beautiful skin, a face that is not cute.

Or there are people who suddenly hit the jackpot and become rich, while others continuously lose money and struggle to make a living every day. Therefore, the problem of superstition is increasing in society, especially the concept of fate, luck, and bad luck. So everyone jumped into the debate, every opinion has a point. Therefore, in order to explain things that are so confusing, and so mysterious that sometimes you can't understand, you can only believe in a blind way, you need to have a multi-dimensional view.

In folklore, there are many people who believe that luck or bad luck is related to 5 beliefs:

- Buddha, Devas, God, Saint, Devil.

So there are many theories that have been put forward to explain the fate and destiny of each of you. However, no theory has been able to fully explain fate. In Confucianism, fate is the concept of philosophical schools such as the Previous Life treatise, Fatalism treatise, and Decree of God and Destiny treatise. Accordingly:

- Previous life argument that each person has a destiny arranged and arranged by the past, and all efforts are in vain.

- Fatalism has the same concept as Theosophy but is more exaggerated. Fate, once decided, cannot be changed and completely negates all individual efforts.

- The Decree of God and Destiny of Confucianism believe that Heaven's destiny is determined by Heaven. So no matter how hard you try, the fate of each person's suffering and luck can hardly escape the will of God.

According to these three theories, each person has a destiny that has been arranged and decided by someone, a god, a saint, or a supernatural being. And when fate arranges, people just need to accept, forever never change that fate.

For example, a person was born blind. Neither their parents nor themselves wanted that to happen to them, but had to suffer the fate of blindness because they were so determined by God.

Recently, there have been many scientific conferences talking about this issue. For example, a seminar on Spiritual Culture. International Conference on Spiritual Tourism, do people have a destiny?... Scientists have suggested that there are 4 factors that make up human destiny:

1- Social environment.

2- Genetic inheritance.

3- Your own efforts will change your destiny.

4- Luck or bad luck.

There are many different opinions, but there is one thing in common: Fate is what is predetermined, such as what day, month, or year you were born, who your parents are, come from rich or poor...

It is a fact that in life, there are people who are often unhappy, but there are also people who are always lucky. Luck or unhappiness is something that people have been interested in for a long time and in fact, there have been many stories about this issue.

For example, Violet Jessop, a stewardess on the Titanic in 1912, miraculously survived when the ship crashed in the North Atlantic. Four years later, while working as a nurse on the Britannic, she once again escaped death when the ship sank in the Aegean Sea in Europe.

And, Jason and Jenny Cairns-Lawrence are the unluckiest couple in the world. They were visiting New York City when hijackers attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. They accidentally went to London when the city's public transport system was attacked by the same terrorists in 2005. And they were traveling in Mumbai, India in October 2008, when the terrorist attack happened.

Two stories of two Malaysian planes crashed recently, there were 3 passengers who delayed the trip until the last minute due to family reasons, so they did not suffer the same fate as the other hundreds of unfortunate people...

Luck or unhappiness is something that people have been interested in for a long time, and throughout history, there have been countless unbelievable stories on the subject.

It is true that in life, some people encounter many misfortunes. Sociologists suggest that this result could be influenced by several factors:

- Randomness is caused by the actions of others and the surrounding environment, ...

- And subjective is due to personal capacity, education, experience...

Mr. Rami Zwick, a professor at the University of California-Riverside (USA), pointed out that subjective factors have a great influence on luck or bad luck. Indeed, just like the United States is a country where the law or the country requires a degree and the ability to practice, with a degree, the salary and living standards are different...

In addition, Mr. Bentley also said that luck or bad luck largely depends on the thoughts of each person when facing an event.

Some of you learn valuable lessons from misfortunes. You see the positive side and don't feel too upset. Meanwhile, the others kept digging through their bad luck and found things to be terrible.

For example, when you miss the bus, you might assume he has a chance to walk, and see the city. But others of you will fall into boredom because things are not going as you expected.

However, bad luck also has… its benefits. Research by Zwick and colleagues in 2012 shows that those who are often unlucky are more willing to take risks again. And scientists who study the phenomenon of unhappiness have applied probability and statistics to give the answer:

- It is true that in life, some people encounter many misfortunes and the cause may be influenced by many factors at the same time: Random means the actions of others, and the surrounding environment, ... along with Subjective factors ie personal ability, education...

However, the little bad luck that comes your way also has its benefits. That is, you are often unlucky enough to be willing to take the risk again. You will be braver.

Thus, your fate has at least 4 factors at play. Many people only rely on the 4th factor ie luck and bad luck, so they will go in the direction of superstition. Meanwhile, the third factor is the most important in deciding your fate. Therefore, it is not unreasonable for someone to tell you that it is your efforts and bravery that will change your destiny.

Some people feel too guilty because of their ugly appearance or poor family without trying to rise up. Or others rely on a prediction that they will be rich in the future, but hold a tree and wait for rabbits without trying to work...

Many of you think that it is because you believe in the doctrines of Heaven's destiny, and think that fate has arranged ... that has made you not try to overcome difficulties in life.

But those are just subjective speculations accumulated from experience, but the truth is, the above is just your own inference. But those things are your destiny before you were born and cannot be changed. But from the time you are born until you die, the future and career are created by you. If you are poor today without trying to act and think of a way to get rich, all day long thinking only your fate is poor, you will always be poor...

Because from a Buddhist perspective, bad luck or luck in fate is not determined by God, or by a supernatural being. As a philosopher once said:

- You don't have the right to choose who gave birth to you, or choose where you were born, but you have the right to choose how you will live. That way of life may be right, or it may be wrong in the eyes of people, but as long as you always believe that things are right from the bottom of your heart, then it is right.

This will make many people think about the fate of the limbless guy Nick Vujicic. No one thought that with such a body, he could become a talented orator, and marry a beautiful wife. Because it was because he did not submit to fate, he rose and became a famous speaker.

Under the Buddhist lens, luck or fortune in fate is not due to The Decree of God and Destiny or Fatalism fate, but the fate of each person is the result of your actions from one to many lifetimes.

In other words, you exist with different characteristics as a result of Karma, created by yourself in the present and in the past. According to the Cula-karma-vibhanga-sutta, Majjhima Nikaya III says:

- Man is the owner of Karma, the heir of Karma... Karma is the womb, Karma is the fulcrum.

That means, your existence in this world is the existence of your good and bad karma from the past. So sociologists say that luck is both an objective and subjective factor, which is also a little true. Because karma is the owner, actively creating conditions for rebirth in the present life and for future lives. So Karma has a lot of influence on objective and subjective factors. Here you see why some of you were born into a rich family, and some of you were born into a poor family….

So all your sufferings and joys, successes, failures, good looks, smarts or stupid... yours in this life is the perception of karmic results created by yourself from the past, not by any reward or punishment from anyone.

Along with that, the luck or risk that each of you is experiencing right now is created by you. Your life is happy, peaceful, or miserable, insecurity depends on the way you live.

If you have a failure at work, you should find the cause, not say that you have bad luck. According to Buddhism, it is the result that you need to suffer for having created bad karma before. Incompetence in behavior, harsh words... sometimes also cause you to fail.

Therefore, instead of lamenting your own responsibility, you should overcome it by doing more positive and sympathetic things. Then at some point, you will meet a good person to help you again. And if the failure is due to incompetence, inexperience, or laziness, you need to try, improve and learn to overcome failure. Because acting positive and empathetic is when you are on the verge of a career change.

Buddha taught that:

- The good is the wholesome result, arising from good causes, and the bad result can only come from unwholesome causes.

If you always carry an unclean mind and evil actions, it cannot be said that your life is in bad luck. Bad thoughts, evil actions will only create an unhappy life. On the contrary, good thoughts and good deeds will bring you a happy life, and good luck in life.

From a Buddhist perspective, Karma is created by man in the past and every minute and every second in the present through three ways:

- Action (Body Karma),

- Language (Mouth karma) and

- Thinking (Intentional Karma)

Then these karmas come back to dominate you.

Many of you think that the 7th lunar month is the month of the soul and you will have many bad luck. The truth is, there is no chance in life and there is no supernatural force controlling you, making you unlucky. That luck or bad luck is created by you. Good actions, and a pure soul... are factors that help you always have luck in life.

Remember that, no matter how you were born, under what circumstances, always live meaningfully and be useful to society. Life has happiness, suffering, sadness, and joy is up to you to decide the future for yourself.

One study found that people who believe in luck are more likely to have an accident. If you rely on luck alone, will that change your destiny?

In short, luck, bad luck is a real thing, luck is what everyone wants, but unlucky is what no one needs. When you're lucky, you're happy, but when you're unlucky, you blame it on fate, or believing in superstitions is not advisable. As a Buddhist, if you have to find the cause of good luck or bad luck, then you just need to look at your body, mouth, and mind behavior and you will understand where and why all problems come from...