DHARMA IN EVERYDAY LIFE

A LONG OR SHORT YEAR
By Nhất Quán

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The phrase a year-long or short, makes us understand this is a question, so the answer must of course be.
One year goes by, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, going through four seasons, including three hundred and sixty-five days. With such time, to answer the question: A long or short year will be:
- A year is neither short nor long.
Indeed, three hundred and sixty fifteen days in a year is not long, but not short. Because for those who are healthy or doing well, these days are not enough for them to plan their business plans... But for those who are poor, or sick, the number of days of such a year must not be short for them. According to the Venerable Monks suggests some tips to help you temporarily peace of mind, calmly continue to be happy and live well for a human being. First, let's get used to the concept of the Five Blessings of a human life, then we will learn how to feel secure during the journey. Five blessings of a human life  are:
1-   Peace Is Blessed:
In this world, there are many people who are suffering from the war of disorder, living in the struggle, danger. There are people who are homeless, do not eat, do not have clothes to wear, due to war, natural disasters or floods, or fires. We can live in peace, and we must be blessed.
2-   Healthy Is Blessed:
Every day in the world there are many dead people, many are injured, many are hospitalized. Especially when the old year is about to end, the new year is coming, there are many people struggling with the pain, or counting every hour, every day to see a doctor or wait for hospitalization. While we are healthy, robust, happy with family and friends. So it can be said that this is the second blessing.
3-   Ignorance Is Blessed:
Ancient people often say:
- Wisdom also dies, foolish also dies, knowledge is life.
The foolishness that we mean here is understanding, there are times when it is necessary to express intelligence and there are times when it is necessary to express ignorance. Because in the past to the present, there were so many smart people who were harmed by intelligence, so sometimes it was necessary to be a fool. Being an intelligent person is difficult while being a fool is even harder. From an intelligent person pretending to be a foolish person is even more difficult. Release your hand, take a step back, calm down in your heart. That is the third blessing.
4-   Disadvantage Is Blessed:
There are so many clever people in the world, how many people are truly wise after all. There are many people who are disadvantaged, always yield to others, but from the past to the present, people who are disadvantaged compared to the wise are always happier.
5-   To Give Is A Blessing:
Since ancient times, many scientists have determined the age of the earth, they think that the earth has formed billions of billion years... The number is only speculation, but in fact, we don't know how long it has been, but it's been a long time. The question of why heaven and earth can exist so long. In fact, heaven and earth are not for themselves, but the sun and air are similar to heaven and earth, so they exist for a long time. Because the earth is willing to give to anyone who wants to open up to do whatever they want, the sun and the air are also willing to give everything to all, so it will last for a long time.
The example of the ancients as we see a prince Siddhartha (Tat Dat Da), he gave up the position of King to become an enlightened being and was always reminded by social life. A rich man named Anathapindika(Cap Co Doc), dedicated to nurturing the poor without friends and relatives, so he was always remembered forever by the people. Because he is impartial and does not have an ego, he just wants to do good for all people, so humanity always remembers his name. From the past to the present, those who know how to give away are the fifth blessed.
Ancient people teach:
- In times of money, talent, fame, you must remember the days without money, losing your fame.
Because of life, there are people who are rich after poverty, or before being poor after being rich, or before being poor between being rich and being poor after all ...... So the saying must remember the days when there is no money very important. This teaching is simple but very important. In order to do the teaching, remember the days when there is no money, please suggest ten things to cultivate:
1-   Honest Work Nourish Merit:
Every day doing good deeds, accumulating good deeds means accumulating merit.
2. Smile Nourishes Longevity:
There is a saying, one laugh, ten years younger; laugh every year, never grow old.
3. Avoid Disaster To Nourish Merit:
Good luck or disaster no one knows, but it is better to avoid disaster. So saying avoid disaster is blessed.
4. Detachment Nourish Successful
Happy heart, happy with the happiness of others. Having detach all will be much success.
5. Honestly Raising Friends:
Treating people sincerely and wholeheartedly, the friendship will last long.
6. Silence Nourishes The Mind
In quiet places, making the mind comfortable and peaceful
7. Movement To Nourish The Body
Often exercising to regulate your body will help your body to be healthy.
8. Learn To Foster Knowledge:
Learning a lot will expand knowledge, reading books will help us understand the reason.
9. Diligently Cultivate Wealth
People who work hard, diligently know how to accumulate wealth, people like that who are not billionaires are also millionaires.
10. Loving Nurturing The Family:
People in the family know how to get along, everything flourishes, family members who love each other do what they want to do.
In order to be fully successful in cultivating to fortify more blessings, we also need to know three things:
1. Know People:
First, knowing people, is also the most important thing, knowing people and working will be advantageous, will succeed. Knowing the wrong person, working will have many obstacles, will fail. So, doing business needs to find the right people. Considered the right person such as:
- Need Those Who Have Succeeded To Support
Must find those who have succeeded to support you. There are successful people who support, like your back leaning against an ancient tree while sitting in the cool wind, the business career will grow like a kite with the wind and fly up.
- Relatives Trust:
Must find family members to help, because behind the success of one person has a hand of a good family member. There are relatives in the family to help, it is like playing a game that is really successful.
- Good friends:
Must find friends to support, because the old people often say:
- People who go sailing, need someone who knows how to row.
With good paddles and support friends, the boat will definitely arrive. The conspiracy of bad people must be avoided: It is better to quarrel with someone who knows than to talk to small people. Encountering small people, 36 methods, fleeing is the first method.
2-   Work Calculations.
People as long as they live, always have to work or think about work. It can be said that the work does not leave itself, and also do not leave the job. The difference between people and people is the ability to calculate business. Accurate calculation in trade negotiations will make a lot of profit. Accurately calculating the political situation, it is possible to make a great position easily. In life we will often face big things, small things, good things, bad things, urgent things, hard work. When dealing with complicated problems, the first thing you must do is to think of good and bad things, identify things big or small, difficult or easy, things to do urgently, things that can be rescheduled. Be sure to think about what you will do, think correctly and then do it.
3. Nurture Life
Health is the most important asset in life. Therefore, you must know to nourish your life for health. To keep your life healthy, you need to do two things first:
- Nurturing The Mind:
In order to nourish life for health, we must first cultivate the mind, because the disease is mostly from the mind. There are many diseases mainly due to bad psychology. A happy, refreshing, pleasant mood is the root of a robust body. Anyway, for whatever reason, think, sulk, worry for no reason, and torment yourself.
- Nourish The Body
Want to nourish the body, first of all, respect the nourishment of the stomach, the ancients tell us:
- Disease from the mouth.
Indeed, there are many types of diseases caused by eating. When preparing to eat something, be sure to pay close attention and think a bit, consider whether to eat or not, eat more or less. Eating it is hard to release, so don't like to eat anything, don't let your mouth harm your health.
In the life of each of us, or in other words, in a year of three hundred and sixty-five days, the most interesting thing is definitely ourselves. In the matter of ourselves, the most important thing is destiny. Regarding the way of looking at destiny, some people feel that anything of themselves is not equal to others, it is thought that it is a bad destiny, so angry with the sky, blaming people. Some people believe that all calamities or blessed, rich or poor are due to the fate of each person, so when encountering difficulties, only doomed fate. So they no longer fear anything, for the difficulties and misery in life, they consider it to be a karma. In the course of a life, there are many factors that can affect our destiny, such as the expectations of parents, ancestors, or hatred of friends. The use of money and material can govern the development of our path ahead. A saying, a thought, all can completely change our lives. To be able to understand deeply, and possibly face the day, month and year of life, Buddhism teaches us that the union and dissolution, success and failure of all human beings in this world are inseparable from the principle:
- Conditions and karma.
The principle of cause and effect Three lives tell us:
- You want to know the past life, You see what you have in this life
And:
- You want to know the result in the next life, then you see what you are doing in this life.
Therefore, it can be deduced(đề-đu):
 - All favorable or adverse circumstances encountered by people in this life are due to the manipulations of past acts that form, this is the retribution of this life. And, the actions and words of this life, are the fate of the future. So, our destiny depends on karma changing in every moment and is not controlled by any god. Dominating, controlling human destiny is still yourself. Factors affecting destiny are attributed as follows:
1. Custom
Buddhism believes that defilements are difficult to destroy, but there is one more difficult to eliminate than that of old habits. Old habits or habits are fixed patterns in our lives. Every human being is good and bad, but after a long time, bad habits will turn into old habits and penetrate deeply in the mind. So from life to life, it is difficult to eliminate. Therefore, for nursing into a habit, be careful. Bad habits include:
- Smoking
- Injecting drugs
- Wine, beer, gambling, etc.
These unhealthy habits are capable of devastating, harming the body, health. In addition, the habits of lying, conceit, stingy, greed, etc., are also capable of ruining one's own morality.
Contrary to bad habits, good habits include normal working and resting regimes, eating, moving, optimistic spirits, etc., can extend life expectancy. In addition, good habits such as diligence, neat and clean, enthusiastic, etc., can benefit yourself but also benefit people.
Buddhism encourages devotees to nurture the habit of reciting Buddha's name and chanting from which can rely on Buddha-dharma, only the Buddha's teachings that lead people through the maze. Once you have nurtured the habit of reciting the Buddha's name, you can rely on this method to evoke the Buddha-nature in your mind and give birth to the Pure Land or transcend the samsara.
A person despite having preeminent conditions is favored by heaven, but his habit is not good, it is difficult to be destined for great wealth. Good habits are also a grace, can help us turn danger into security, everything is as convenient as the sailboat runs smoothly in the direction of the wind.
2- Superstitions:
Many people like to see physiognomy and astrology and guess destiny, in the hope that their things will be as they want, changing bad things into good. Some people focus on building houses to see feng shui, there are people who even pray to gods, consider fortune-telling, without thinking but just close their eyes to believe without knowing right or wrong. Superstitious behavior because of the lack of beliefs thus losing good opportunities, accidentally burying the happiness of a lifetime.
3- Love:
As a person, of course, everyone has feelings, but there are some people who are too attached to love, then lose their mind, even because of love but buried themselves in suffering. Because, love does not know how to handle it satisfactorily, so it often causes sorrow and suffering. So Buddhism advises people to take wisdom to determine love, taking compassion to nurture love. By doing so, love becomes compassion, and thus can not hurt yourself, nor bother others.
4.    Powerful:
The dominance of power is due to too much respect for one's ego and arrogance, which makes people divide rich, poor, luxurious, vile. etc... because, there are also self-lowering themselves excessively, committed to submissive to power, without self-control, living a low life. There are people because of their fame and profit, their hearts become dangerous, so they are ready to use all tricks to usurp, thus losing their minds.
Meanwhile, Buddhism advocates all equal beings, everyone has Buddha-nature, rich or poor the truth is that knowing how to cultivate or not to cultivate blessings. Many people lament their bad luck, or blame because this person or the other person I have bad luck with, but do not think that anything is caused by karma. Success is naturally in itself, but the coordination of external circumstances, even though the wrong failures have passed, but should also look back to reflect, self-discipline such as superstition and love, power and karma, doing good deeds or doing evil deeds are decided by our ideas. Modifying destiny also needs to start purifying from our minds. Now use specific methods of changing the destiny that is inducted as follows:
- Change of Concept:
The conception influences the judgment of a person's value decides to act because of good and evil. Buddhism focuses on nurturing the mind and righteous thoughts. Calling righteousness is because of the correct interpretations and conceptions. Buddhism believes that the basic view of human life has four:
- Right view has the cause, there are results,
- The right view has created karma, there is a report,
- Right view has a saint with a human being,
- Right view has good and evil.
Having an accurate view of humanity, a deep belief in cause and effect, and a clear understanding of interdependent origination, naturally will not start evil, create karma, resentment against the people.
- Behavior Change:
Proverbs say:
How to harvest, you have to plant such seeds.
Karma from the behavior of each creator, once the cause and conditions meet, will produce karmic retribution, so we hope that the future of the future is good, the life is rich and fun, it is necessary to initiate From our own behavior, we hope to transform into merit because all happiness and unhappiness can be manipulated and controlled at our fingertips.
- Promoting good relationships
In life, from predestined to karmic retribution, intermediaries must also be qualified, the results can be formed. A human life, some people are intelligent and capable of acting very well, but on the contrary, this person is not sure to be reaped with great results. Whereas there are ordinary people, there is nothing outstanding, but on the contrary, it is always convenient to do something well, anywhere is the support of the predestined person. Therefore, we need to focus on promoting good relationships. Promoting good relationships is the best job in this world, especially the life of a human being, not only one year but also a lifetime. Those who have knowledge then use the Buddha Dharma to be good and graceful, then the eternal life can all follow the steps of Wisdom Knowledge, naturally, the destiny will be unobstructed.
In short, a year is not short or long though it passes, there will still be a year that is not short or long. We also have to deal with the coming years in our lives. Buddhism for the destiny of human life has a positive optimistic outlook because knowing everything is impermanent, dependent origination, emptiness, bad destiny can be based on good luck to conduct change, although heavy karma can be mitigated.
So we should not be sad with our bad fate, but try to overcome it, change that bad luck. Thus, people cannot assign their destiny to heaven and earth, or give up to destiny, then be gloomy, bored, so that day, month and year can pass by in vain. Therefore, we need to explicitly change, create our own destiny. Whether living in wealth, being successful, or being poor and miserable, should be constantly dependent, develop destiny, and change destiny, so that a new destiny can be better.

 

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