DHARMA IN EVERYDAY LIFE

By Nhat Quan

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Considering the three karmas that you create on a daily basis, oral karma is arguably the most in need of attention. Of course, an evil mind speaks evil, a good mind speaks good. As a Buddhist, you have taken refuge in the Three Jewels, surely you have a clear understanding of the Five Precepts and other regulations as well as practice according to the Buddha's teachings.

In the spirit of monasticism, Buddhists need to adjust your behavior and words in accordance with the principle of upward direction and good direction. So if you want to accumulate merit, you must cultivate good karma, especially oral karma. Cultivation means to tame and train, but once trained, there must be discipline. Cultivation here means building your body and mind, bringing your body and mind into a pure and upward trajectory. Cultivation has two parts, collective cultivation, and individual cultivation. But whether it is a group or an individual, the main purpose is still to create a consensus to live together and rely on each other.

The venerable ones often teach:

- Cultivating the mouth is more than 50% of the practices.

If you want to practice diligently and achieve success, you must avoid right and wrong things, because right and wrong things take a lot of time in vain, but create a lot of karma of the mouth and wrongdoing. In the Sutras, the Buddha taught:

- Considering people in the world, the hammer is in the mouth, and the reason for killing is due to evil words.

Therefore, the sutra also teaches that in daily life there are four types of people you should avoid:

- Often say the fault of others

- Often talks about superstition and wrong views

- Good mouth, bad mind means that the speech is as gentle as the Buddha, but the mind is as poisonous as a poisonous snake.

- Those who do little but often boast of doing much.

From the mouth you can know the mind and judge others, to have an appropriate behavior.

As you have seen, even though the wealth is as big as a mountain, the mouth that has been eaten for a long time will also run out. Virtue even though it is hard work to create many lives, but due to the mouth creating karma, criticizing, saying bad words... it can be destroyed in a moment. The mouth also has many advantages, such as being used to eat well, nourish the body, and use it to communicate in everyday life. Create intimate relationships, harmonious relations, and mutual understanding. Used to preach, chant, teach, and transmit knowledge and beneficial things to many people. And the mouth is also harmful when the mood is bad...

There is a story in the textbook about the advantages and disadvantages of the mouth and tongue:

One day the rich man ordered the housekeeper to kill the pig and choose the most precious part of the pig to make him a dish. The employee obeyed and then offered him a dish whose most precious part was the pork tongue. The rich man asked the employee:

- Why did you choose pork tongue as the most precious?

Then the worker replied:

- The tongue is the most precious part, because thanks to the tongue, people can express sincere feelings, and sublime ideas, which benefit the country and the people and humanity.

Not long after, the rich man ordered the housekeeper to kill the pig and choose the worst part to make him a dish. The servant obeyed and then offered the rich man a plate of food whose worst part was also the pig's tongue. The rich man asked:

- Why,

Then the worker replied:

- Because the tongue can speak the most evil, cruel words that destroy families and society, and can turn the country over and even harm humanity.

The rich man greatly praised the intelligence of the workers in the house. What a wiggling boneless tongue. The ancients also said:

- One word can build a country, but can also tear a country.

Briefly summarize the benefits, then you have seen that the mouth and tongue of worldly people will do more harm than good. Therefore, the Creator created man with two ears but only one mouth, so it is necessary to listen more than speak and be true to nature. Having a human body is difficult, having all the six faculties, and having a perfect tongue is a blessing. If you use this blessed capital to plant more blessings, you will be a wise person, so you have to take care of:

- Cultivating the mouth is the most necessary thing and considers it to be more than 50% of the practices.

Because of all the types of karma, the karma caused by words spoken from the mouth is the karma that an ordinary person is most likely to commit. Whether a person's destiny is good or not, see if that person has a lot of verbal karma or not. Therefore, oral karma is very important. In a person's life, it is not every day to do immoral things, but speaking immoral, unethical, harsh, and indecent words can happen every day.

So, even if you accumulate blessings for many months and years, because of creating verbal karma, you will damage your blessings and lose all your blessings very quickly. Therefore, if you talk without preserving merit for your mouth, your whole life will often encounter unfortunate, miserable, and even dreary things, not to mention that creating oral karma is still harmful, causing harm to family, loved ones, and children. The harmful effects of your mouth's karma have always been evident in reality from ancient times to the present day.

Why can the mouth damage blessings?

It must be known that the blessing is due to predestined conditions, which is also the manifestation of a form of energy. For example, if you go to the temple to do volunteer work, the act of sweeping the trash or wiping the table will bring good fortune. It's not really good deeds that have merit, but because of your good intentions, it has brought blessings. You generate the mind for the benefit of sentient beings, sweep the garbage, clean the toilet, and make a good relationships with sentient beings. When thoughts arise, touch the pure and compassionate energy of the universe, and now have the blessing energy of righteous thoughts, which is the source of blessings. The blessing was born like that.

Blessings come from the heart, then there is action. Those who resent the heavens and the earth do not appreciate what is inherent, hold grudges, and talk through their mouths. At this time, the damage of the blessings is very quick, and the loss of the blessings also comes from the mind. Remember, in the mind selfishness, resentment, jealousy, greed, and miserliness will cause the loss of blessings.

Therefore, to cultivate oral karma is to speak good words with the mouth, and to maintain good thoughts with the mind. The Buddhist scriptures say that the Buddha's words are gentle and make sentient beings happy. Say good things with your mouth, and have kindness in your heart, the universe will emit a good magnetic field, and receiving it is also a good response. That is why it only takes three or five years to cultivate, to learn to think and to speak, but to learn to be silent takes a lifetime. Speaking is a kind of ability, a kind of wisdom.

From the point of view of Buddhists, the karma of the mouth caused by bad speech is very important. Talking and uttering unpleasant things, and hurting others, the blessings will also be dissipated. The lives of people who often use sharp words to hurt others are often lonely people with few friends. So the ancients say:

- Words born of mind

What kind of mentality a person will say such words? People who are tolerant of their words will be gentle and peaceful, those who are full of resentment, of their words will be aggressive and unpleasant. Those who are humble will speak modestly. People who are proud of their words are often exaggerated.

Usually, it's because you're controlled by your bad inner emotions. A person who can control bad emotions can knock down a castle. Therefore, if you want to cultivate oral karma, you must carefully follow the principle:

1- When there is a problem.

When you encounter problems, no matter what, you must calm down and think for a while, then slowly clarify the main topic, which will make the listener feel stable, thereby increasing the credibility of everyone. people for you.

2- Remind the necessary

When you need to remind someone or something, especially a few well-meaning reminders. If possible, you should use funny jokes, which will make people not feel rigid and heavy. You joke a little to make big things small, they not only happily accept your reminder but also increase their goodwill with you.

3. Be careful when speaking.

For things you don't quite understand, consider expressing them carefully, so that the listener feels that you are trustworthy. Do not arbitrarily use words to hurt others, especially loved ones. This way people will feel that you are an honest person, helping to maintain and increase affection.

4. Take care of what is shared

When you are hurt in your heart, you want to confess to others, but if you talk to everyone every time you meet, it will put the listener under a great deal of pressure, it is easy to create suspicion and alienate you. At the same time, you will leave the impression of wanting to vent your suffering to others.

5. Don't comment on people's stories

For things that have nothing to do with you, you should be careful in what you say. There should be a safe distance between people and people, not to comment or talk about other people's things. Because it will give a sense of security to the people you communicate with.

6. Honestly listen

It's your own business, honestly listen to the commenter, listen to other people's views when talking about you. That can leave a humble impression on others, and at the same time show that you are a reasonable human being.

Speaking is just an ability, but knowing what not to say is wisdom. Because talking is an art, whether it's a beautiful word or a good idea, you have to think before you speak. Saying something bad that makes both parties lose interest, of course, you shouldn't say it.

So what words are not good and should not be said?

1. Don't say depressing words.

There are ordinary people who like to say depressing words to discourage others. In fact, in life, it is very necessary to encourage words of encouragement from others, even if no one encourages you, you must encourage yourself. You do not support your will, on the contrary, if you say disheartening words, you will naturally fall into the abyss of depression.

2. Don't say angry words

When you are angry, you often can't control yourself but say angry words, sometimes hurting others, and sometimes you hurt yourself. When you are offended, the most important thing is to stay awake, not to arbitrarily speak. Because speech in anger is often difficult to hear, so definitely don't say it.

3- Do not say reproachful words

When you are not satisfied, you often say disgruntled words, resent your boss, resent your friends, and even resent your family. If you often say reproachful words, others will hear them later on, they will use it as a topic to talk about you, cause discord, and create right and wrong things that make you have to deal with this person, deal with this person. other, end up hurting yourself.

4- Do not say hurtful words

When you brazenly speak arbitrarily, do not know how to tolerate and respect others, and often say hurtful words to others. That way sometimes it harms people but it benefits you, but sometimes it harms people but also harms you. Words that hurt others may only be temporary, but your personality has been looked down on, the damage is permanent!

5- Don't say boastful words

You talk often like to propagate yourself, you advertise yourself, inflate yourself, and others will definitely disagree after hearing it. It doesn't do you any good to brag about the fact, on the contrary, it hurts you. If you want to be great, you have to do great things, greatness is to let others say, you can't get it yourself, it's better to be humble yourself.

6- Don't say private things

Each of you has private things, your own affairs of course do not want others to know, so other people's private affairs cannot be talked about. Even if you say all the private things of other people without them protesting, your bad character has already been revealed.

Therefore, the ancients often remind us, when talking, it is necessary to keep merit for the mouth, and not speak cold, hard-to-hear words that harm others. Saying good words, keeping good things in mind, and always thinking good for others are creating happiness for yourself

Sometimes just one word of encouragement from you can make someone else find their way forward. But sometimes, just because of your unkind words, it also causes others to go to a dead end. So there are six reasons you should be silent at the right time to have a better life, these six reasons are:

- Be silent if you can't verify the information you have

- Be silent when your words are a knife that cuts someone's heart

- Be silent when you feel the other person doesn't need to listen

- Be silent when you have nothing to say

- Be silent before insensitive words, malicious words that harm people.

- Be quiet when you realize you have the desire to speak ill of someone.

As a cultivator, a word must help many people understand, peace and benefit, you will not regret saying it, because it will create infinite merit and virtue. But be very careful, careful when you have to say words that make others suffer and damage, then you will have to reap the corresponding things.

Create merit for a lifetime, but just a word of evil words is dissipated in a moment. So if you want to practice diligently and achieve success, you must avoid right and wrong things. Because the story of right and wrong takes a lot of time in vain but creates a lot of bad karma.

The benefits and harms are like that, so each of you should take care of your mouth. In daily life you often treat each other, the mouth must always smile, be quick to apologize, and appreciate the thank you. Must respect, use loving language, do not spare praise, spread good people, good deeds, good things, and right to receive good examples to add more beauty to life. Must be very careful with criticism. These are the practices for the mouth, very good, and very useful, and you need to follow, to reap many blessings. At that time, your life, family, and society, in the present, will be peaceful and beautiful, and in the future will be born in a peaceful, happy place, nothing can compare.

In short, say whatever you want, for me, cultivating speech is something that should be done immediately. Don't let yourself fall into one of four categories to avoid:

- Often say the fault of others

- Often talks about superstition and wrong views

- Good mouth, bad mind means that the speech is as gentle as the Buddha, but the mind is as poisonous as a poisonous snake.

- Those who do little but often boast of doing much.

If you lied to others, you lied to yourself first. In other words, practicing your own oral karma is as arduous as tying a rope around your neck. Because many of you, when buying and selling, there is a problem of profit and loss. Doing something for other people also credits or receives a share of the benefits. So saying it so well, so seductively to bring your benefit is fully promoted, doing right and wrong is also from the mouth. So false speaking emerged.

Living in a group, a community, or an association with many different personalities, it is impossible not to touch and not talk to each other, it is also natural that often happens. But you should remember, life also exists because of the good treatment of each other.

Therefore, for me, keeping the fourth rule of not lying and also the way to cultivate oral karma accounts for nearly half of the ten good deeds, is the most difficult. A large part of human life's success and failure also comes from the mouth, so on the way to cultivating your oral karma, you must consider dignified:

- If you hum to let it go, or say it means neither reward nor punishment, or you have to equivocate without meaning at all...

If you choose to act that way, you have lost yourself and lack the courage and wisdom, then that silence is not compassion.

Living in the spirit of the Six Harmony is the same, fellow initiates and co-workers must advise each other to practice the right thing. To progress together and purify yourself and the community. The way to cultivate oral karma is to choose the right words to speak, speak at the right time, at the right place, and speak to the right person with the right intention. To avoid the problem of blasphemy and then causing conflicts, quarrels, and anger that are not worth it. Nor should you prove that you are the central figure, the light in the dark, the rose in the weeds. And it is not necessary to choose words to please each other while speaking is to help each other but the heart is not sincere.

So when you know how to cultivate oral karma, you should practice speaking softly so that it is easy to hear. So you need to practice. need to fix, fix... fix! If you are born with a mouth and don't speak, you will waste your parents' life, and if you are afraid of stumbling, you should restrain yourself and be more careful.

If you can perform the transformation of speech and karma, your mind will be more pure and your body will no longer have to suffer.

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