DHARMA IN EVERYDAY LIFE

By Nhat Quan

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Whether a person lives joyfully or not, happy or not, the key is in your heart, not in other people and the things you gain and lose every day. Deciding your mood is not someone else's decision, but yourself. Each person's mind is like a field. If you sow good causes, you will reap good results. If you sow bad causes, you will reap bad results.

- Your mind is a field

The pain and suffering planted by yourself.

If you can happily live each day of your life, making your body and mind naturally healthy like plants and flowers blooming with fragrance, then healthy newcomers will congratulate you. Yes. Because happiness can make you charming and beautiful, while hatred, resentment, and suffering can only make you uglier. Therefore, there is a saying that your appearance is beautiful or ugly is caused by the mind, the smile is the bright mirror of the soul, shining all the seeds planted in the mind:

- If in your mind is a seed of joy, then the fruit that will come to fruition is definitely a smile.

- If in your mind is the seed of suffering, then the fruit that is produced is bound to be pain.

- If in your mind is a seed of blame, then the fruit that comes out is bound to be resentment.

- If your heart is filled with love, then the fruit that is produced is bound to be tolerance.

- If there is evil in your mind, then the fruit that emerges is bound to be a fall and perversion.

There is also a saying:

- You can't change the weather, but you can change the mood.

You don't have to be bothered because it's always raining, because it's raining and you don't need to go out in the sun. You also don't need to worry about sunburn, because the bright sunlight will help you avoid the mud.

If there is greed, the mind does not know enough, then anything will feel inadequate. Once greed abounds, calamities arise, not one disease arises, another arises. It is not this misery that arises, the other misery that arises.

Most people in the world often race and chase after material things, not knowing how much to fit. Those who are poor have lust, but those who are rich, have money measured by a yardstick, yet they still covet.

If you are greedy, you will never be fully satisfied. There is a proverb that says:

- The sea is easy to fill, and the pockets of greed are hard to fill

It's true, greed has no bottom, it can't be filled.

To combat greed, Buddha advised us to know enough. In the Sutra it says:

- Those who know enough, even lying on sandy soil, are still at peace; on the contrary, those who do not know enough, even in the palace of heaven, are not satisfied.

So to be joyful and happy, you need to know enough. Ordinary people are driven by the following five desires:

  - Lust for money

- Desire for beauty

- Desire for fame

- Craving for good food

- Desire to sleep well.

People who are greedy for money, the money in the treasury piles up, the houses are horizontal and vertical, the fields and gardens birds fly straight, it's not enough, but still want to get richer.

People who desire beauty spend their whole life searching for beautiful girls. Seeing someone with beauty is infatuated, looking for ways to get close to them. Once satisfied, they abandon this beauty to run after another beauty; always being manipulated by sex, losing all personality.

Those who desire fame spend their whole lives chasing titles, high power, and fame. They also bowed down from place to place, hoping for an elevated position. They work hard, suffer, and find ways to keep their vanity.

Those who are greedy for good food spend their whole life wandering around delicious foods, hanging around at banquets, and finding pleasure in delicious wine with strange flavors. Their world narrows to food and wine friends.

A greedy person who wants to sleep stays in bed all his life. After eating, they go to sleep, and after sleeping, they want to sleep again, losing their self-control.

Boundless ambition reduces your dignity. Ambition degrades personality, and is also the root of war, destroying human life, and losing peace in the social community. There are so many wars in the world today, because of the greed for power and wealth. All wars are formed from the basic evil of wanting to have, and then wanting more. The journey leads to conflict on many levels all for profit, the desire to gather wealth and dominate others.

When you fight for wealth and power, you believe that it will last forever in your arms, but in reality, wealth and power by its very nature change without existing with an individual who is forever. Therefore, it is too bad when you are so preoccupied with them that you forget time, forget what really makes you peaceful and free for yourself.

You should know, life is ephemeral like a dewdrop on a blade of grass. The pain of life's gain and loss that you have to face ceaselessly consumes your mind. Excessive concern about the trivial things of money, materiality, fame, and gain in this life takes up most of your life. That's why you usually start your day by generating a desire to achieve something, in the evening you consider all that you have done during the day, and weigh the gains and losses...

However, not everything is stable in the trajectory you have outlined, as you feel. In a time of crisis like today, you must accept the challenge of truth: Material achievements and even modern guns cannot pave the way for humanity to access peace people and appreciate what you need. The state of human life today challenges each individual to assume their future and the human community with the spirit and responsibility of an informed, adult:

- How to make mankind peaceful, happy, and prosperous?

Life is a long journey, the journey of taking steps to discover the wilderness. Enter the peace from the very civilization, destroy the ambition to overcome all. What is true and noble, what is endearing and brings a good reputation, and what is commendable virtue, please pay attention. So how do you have a free life, not tied up in wealth and fame?

- In the midst of serenity, free from attachment to the five pleasures of life

You should know, keeping a peaceful, free mind does not mean being away from the reality of life, does not mean that you get rid of the fact that you need material things to live. What I want to say here is that peace and freedom is a methods of inner training, limiting unnecessary needs through patience and diligence.

Today, many of you often find peace in Buddhism. Going to the temple to visit the scene, chanting, helping others, giving alms, avoiding noisy places, right and wrong… That's very good. But it is better to make the mind enlightened that is what needs to be done. In this way, first, understand yourself, understand the nature of all life, and then return to shine clearly into the hectic life to find peace. The human mind is like the surface of water in a lake, if it doesn't have waves, the reflection will be clear. Therefore, the greatest corner of peace is still a thorough understanding of yourself. That is, if you think that you are happy, you will immediately be happy, living in hell is like being in Nirvana, and even being happy or sad doesn't matter anymore.

In theory, anyone can know that, but most of you in the world can't overcome the whirlpool of livelihood, food, money, work, family, personal emotional life, etc. The shirt of fame and fortune, once worn by a person hungry for fame, is not easy to take off. If you want to take off the shirt of fame and profit, you have to cultivate it. Cultivating in the temple, practicing on the street, practicing in the middle of the market, or anywhere, as long as you find joy and peace in every daily working movement, is the way that people of the information, public society, and high-tech selection. So the peaceful little corner doesn't have to be somewhere, it can move with you, depending on the situation. Sitting in a corner somewhere, reading a few pages of a novel is also peaceful, or on the way to the office, looking at the bonsai on both sides of the road is also peaceful. In the main hall, or in the meditation hall, you can chant sutras, recite the Buddha's name, and meditate, and you can find peace in your soul.

As you know, Saints are cultivated by humans, and Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are also cultivated by people. Likewise, peace, freedom, and happiness also come from humans…etc. One can become a Saint, a sage, a Buddha, a Bodhisattva… And one can be at peace, happy, why can't you?

People can let go of greed, selfishness ... down, you can also let go. Can't let go, there is greed, anger, delusion, and conceit, ie ordinary people. According to the advice of the venerable ones, if you want to let go of greed, anger, delusion, and pride, you must first let go of the object, that is, let go of talent, beauty, fame, eating, and sleeping. Your body in this world can't be without these things, but it's okay, don't have greed. Therefore, knowing when to stop is close to the Way! From the Sutras you have read and know, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, before becoming Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, cultivated their way at the inner court of the Tusita heaven or Tusita heaven palace. The question is:

- Then what do you cultivate?

It's the practice of stopping. Tusita means knowing enough, so it's also called Tusita heaven. You know enough about everything, in the future you will be born in the inner court of the Tusita heaven. Those who do not know enough will not be able to be reborn in that heaven! This tells you:

- It really is enough, whoever knows one hundred percent will become a Buddha

Because when they have coveted those things, the life of those who want them will only be reduced to their own desires, and become slaves to lust. You already know that mankind needs to eat many things to live and work because if you eat poorly, your body will have to be thin or sick. And so are other things. But excessive desires make people's hearts flutter, lose all self-control, and are only slaves to their desires. Once controlled by greed, you commit many sins, and you dare to do evil things without disgust. It's because greed doesn't stop, and you don't realize it yourself, so when you want to and can't get it, you blame others, thereby creating competition, and conflict, causing humanity to suffer a lot of harm. Excessive greed, blinding you to what is right and wrong, drives people to sin. For example, if you do not have the ability and morality, but want to be rich and have great power, you must use cunning, dark, and barbaric schemes to achieve your will. Or perhaps, also because of wanting to be like his beloved wife, there are many husbands who are forced to do things against their conscience, so they lose their lives. The bag of greed has no bottom, the more greedy you see the more lacking, the more miserable. Buddha taught:

- The more you want, the more you suffer.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that:

- Once the desire is satisfied, there is no desire.

You must know that:

- As long as there is wood, the fire is still burning. The desire to be satisfied, the greater the desire.

To combat insatiable greed, Buddhism teaches you to know enough. As much as you enjoy, you must realize for yourself that you lack nothing. If you want to be like that, then don't look up to the rich and luxurious than you, that's enough.

With one man possessing all the wealth in the world, with the poor without covetousness, both are equally rich. Contemplate these meaningful teachings. The master of your life is your heart. Rich or poor, high or low, is just a matter of dependence. If you control lust, desire makes you rich; If you cannot control your desires, you are poor.

If there is a time when greed makes you miserable, knowing enough will make you so much happier. That is natural. Thanks to little desire, the ghost of lust cannot induce you. Thanks to knowing enough, the greedy demon has no power to manipulate you anymore. Once you are no longer a slave to lowly material things, your heart begins to free itself. At that time, you deserve to be a human, have enough personality, and not be ashamed of your position as the brother of all species. Only then can you consider yourself happy; And even though you still eat rice and vegetable soup every day, you still feel relaxed, joyful, and happy in your heart. Moreover, thanks to knowing enough, the family and society can be happy and peaceful, no one will fight for anyone's wealth, fame, delicious food, or happiness anymore. The benefits of knowing enough are indescribable.

In short, for people in the world and people in the religion, if you want to be truly happy, then you should practice the conduct of knowing enough. For truly, those who are not so demanding in material things, so do not need comparable to those who are rich; Therefore, you do not feel material deprivation, so there is little or no suffering. And if you compare with the poorer, you see that you are richer, more complete, so it is easy to be satisfied.

In order to avoid worries and insecurities in the family and in society, all of you in this world must keep common sense, don't be too greedy, beyond your ability to have. In the world, throughout the five continents today, if you want every home and everyone to enjoy eternal peace and joy, you should practice the conduct of knowing enough.

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