by Ajahn Chah
This is true, but only in the way of wrong understanding, insofar as it is wrong view. It does not actually accord with the truth. If we really see according to the truth, we realize that the Buddha’s teaching is not something that changes. Whatever happens, the truth that the Buddha awakened to is something fixed and certain. The truth is always the truth. When it appears as untruth that is because of the wrong understanding of human beings.
For example, Mr. A. might be arrested and accused of some crime. He is perfectly innocent of the charges, but he doesn’t have any witnesses on his side. The police may bring forth a parade of witnesses to testify against him, while his only witness is his own awareness and integrity. In this case, he can’t win. Because he can’t prove the other witnesses wrong, he ends up going to jail. Still, he is in the right, and it will only be his body that is incarcerated; his mind will not be locked up.
If this happened to most of us, we would probably feel wronged and get pretty depressed. But according to the Buddha there is never any valid cause for feeling wronged. If such things happen to us, if we have not done anything wrong yet must pay a price and experience suffering, we have to place the blame on karma, our actions. Though we haven’t done anything wrong today, we may have done so yesterday; if we didn’t do it yesterday, we may have done it some time in the past. We can conclude that we did something previously and thus have this experience in the present because of the principle that nothing happens without a cause. If there is no cause, phenomena do not arise. All phenomena appear due to causes—if we can always contemplate this principle and consider things in this way, our lives will be joyous.
To find people who really trust the Buddha’s teachings like this is very rare. For example, I established this monastery together with the lay supporters and monastic disciples more than twenty years ago. You may have heard the history of Wat Pah Pong. We were able to create a monastery here and bear many hardships over the years because people had appreciation for the truth and were not afraid. This is not just talk. Many of us had malaria for three years, and there was no way to get treatment. We often had no candles, flashlight batteries, or oil for lamps. There were even more snakes and other poisonous creatures than there are now, so when we walked at night we recited verses of lovingkindness and protection. If we died, we died; if we lived, we lived. We could have this attitude because we were following a virtuous way, and we could trust our own minds.
So the Buddha taught to look into yourself, know yourself, and train yourself. Don’t be too eager to train others. You should be looking at yourself. If others say we are good, that’s not our standard to measure by. If others say we aren’t good, that is not to be taken as a standard, either. Don’t get too happy or depressed by what others say. Turn inward and seek out the truth of the matter within yourself. When they are saying we are not good, where is it that we aren’t good? Is there such a deficiency? If there’s something amiss, correct that. Give up what is wrong. Don’t get upset with others for speaking. If what they say isn’t true, never mind; they are just seeing things incorrectly, and you can have confidence in what you are doing. You should trust yourself, not reacting to praise or criticism with enchantment or unhappiness. Whether others’ speech is right or wrong, never mind. If it’s right, what is there to be upset and argue about? If it is wrong, why should you want to contend with them? In this way there is no loss or wrong for yourself. The mind remains happy and satisfied within the practice. So it is said: “Morality is the vehicle for happiness, morality is wealth and treasure; morality leads to dispassion, thus may your morality be pure.”
We should think about this and realize that the five precepts are the moral standard of a genuine human being. All of you who are laypeople within the Buddhist fold, have you ever really vowed to maintain these five precepts purely? Have any of you made that determination? Think about it. This is something good and true, but there are probably those who will respond, “I can’t do it. The world insists that I behave contrary to the precepts. Society forces me to act in certain ways that violate the precepts, and I have to go along with society’s ways.”
From what I have seen, among all the groups of people I encounter, if people have happy lives they will not be very interested in these things. It’s usually only the old and infirm with whom I can really communicate. They’re the old-fashioned ones who come here and want to keep precepts. Modern-minded people don’t see anything of value here. They don’t feel it necessary to have any standards or principles to go by. Thus in our society we have increased trouble, conflict, and distress. It’s like a burning charcoal. We somehow get the idea that it isn’t hot. If we pick it up, however, will it be hot or cool? There’s some wrong understanding here. Of course, it is really hot. So the populace today is very hot and troubled. Take a look around you. Look at ajahns and their disciples. Look at parents and children. Look at our leaders and the people. There is not much harmony. Why is this? No one can figure it out. It is just because we lack morality. There is no honesty or integrity, and when everyone becomes like this there can be only heat and torment. This heat is hellfire. Living in a hellish environment, people do all sorts of wrong actions and become hell-realm beings. It’s called going to hell while still alive.
Honesty and integrity are being lost—we could say they are about half gone—so we can see there is a lot of turmoil and strife in many places. The reason for this is only that morality and Dharma are lost to people, and the pursuit of pleasure and excitement has taken their place. Virtue is constantly declining these days, and the only result is the increase of misery and trouble. Unhappy conditions appear, and we can’t figure out any solution. What can we do? What’s going on? It happens like this.
Morality and Dharma are true and correct. There is nothing incorrect in them. A poor person can practice; a rich person can practice; any type of person can practice the path of good. This good is like the backbone for all humans. A life that is established on a foundation of goodness will shine brilliant and supreme. We needn’t worry that any good we do will be wasted. Even after we die, the virtue we have created will remain in the world. This is something we can observe. Virtue does not die. Our children can carry it on, and when others meet our children or see anything that was connected with us, they will think about us and feel happy. In this way we are still giving refuge and assistance to others in the world.
The Brahmaviharas, or “divine abidings,” of lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity, should be the foundation of our awareness. We should have love and compassion equally toward all people we meet. We can’t just think, this one is not a friend or a relative, so therefore we don’t need to have any concern for her. Actually, we are all friends and relatives in birth. There are no “other people.” Even though we are from different townships or provinces, we are like grains of rice. They grow from one plant or in one field, and as they grow and increase, they are spread around and planted in other places. One grain makes a plant, one plant makes many grains that seed new plants. But it is still rice from the same plant spreading the species far and wide.
We people are the same. From a common ancestry, we end up following our predilections and spreading out in the four directions. When we have scattered far enough, we start to forget ourselves. So we encounter different people and think, This is no relation of mine. When we travel to another village, we think, This is not my home village. The truth is that we are relatives in birth, aging, illness, and death. So our Supreme Teacher instructed us to turn our minds to Dharma and establish Dharma as the foundation of our lives. This means helping each other, without exception. Whoever is suffering, whoever is in difficulty, we should try to help as well as we can. Please think about this and try to have this attitude. Living in this world together, we should think of each other as parents, relatives, and children. But it’s as if we’ve been separated for many years, so we forget who we are, and we begin to fight and cause all sorts of strife with each other, becoming like animals just be
cause of this forgetfulness. Forgetting becomes the cause of fighting, struggling, and even killing each other. Yet we really are one people; we are all relatives, brothers and sisters.
Let’s try to be people with Dharma in our hearts, meaning metta, or “lovingkindness.” When you meet a female elder, you should have the attitude that this is your mother. When you meet a male elder, you should think, this is my father. If someone is older than you, think of him or her as your older sibling. Like this, everyone is your sibling, your child, your parent. Please make an effort to have this kind of attitude and give equal help to all those in difficulty.
Metta is love. There are two types of love. In one we love selectively, as suits our own purposes. The other is all-inclusive love. In the first way, we love ourselves and those close to us. We won’t care about anyone outside of our own family; we just won’t have any interest. Caring about our own is good, but it’s too limited. It’s narrow-minded thinking. It is love, also, but it isn’t the love of Brahmavihara. The Buddha wanted us to have measureless, all-inclusive metta. No matter where anyone comes from, we should have the same caring attitude. Whether someone is close to us or distant, we have the same love toward them. In this way, our tranquil mind is said to be all-inclusive, a boundless Dharma. This should become our natural habit.
We people, whatever our station in life, have been born together into this world, so when someone else is suffering it is impossible for us to enjoy happiness by ourselves. For example, if someone is going hungry, we won’t hoard all the food for ourselves. We are different from animals. If you throw a big lump of rice to some dogs, they won’t think about sharing it. They will just run at it and bite each other over it, because they are hungry and that’s all they know. The stronger ones bite the weaker ones, and the losers limp away yelping. If you want each one to get a share, you have to break it up into smaller balls and scatter them around. Then when each dog is eating in its own little territory, they might not fight. People have these tendencies, too.
Why is it that society is deteriorating today? Because metta is not all-inclusive. I’ve seen the elders in a village where the kids are troublemakers. The youngsters go around robbing houses in the neighboring villages, and eventually they end up stealing in their own village. So the old folks round them up and try to teach them. “Hey, you guys, don’t go stealing in our village or our township. If you’re going to steal, do it somewhere far away. The other towns and villages are OK to rob. Just don’t do it here.” This is how they teach the kids. Well, elders are pretty important. We look up to them for their wisdom, but they say things like this. Actually, they are being thoroughly selfish. If the elders in the other villages are telling their youngsters the same thing and sending them to rob this first village, how will things turn out? “This is our home; don’t do that here.” We think of older folks as having wisdom, but this is dark wisdom. It doesn’t have anything to do with Dharma. There is a narrow metta for only a few. But people tend to be this way.
If we don’t have Dharma in our lives, we are no different from animals. Maybe like chickens. What does a chicken do besides eat, sleep, and breed? When someone is raising a chicken, he keeps on feeding it, but for only one purpose. The chicken has no idea; it’s just happy to be fed. The owner keeps feeding it and picking it up to weigh it every day: “Is it two kilos yet? Is it three kilos yet?” The chicken gets to feel that its owner loves it, always picking it up like that. Finally, market day arrives. Still, the chicken doesn’t have a clue. It’s easy to catch because it’s used to being picked up. The owner puts it in the back of the truck—hey, what fun to ride in a truck, never done that before! Even when it’s been sold and its head is on the chopping block, the butcher stretching out its neck to make a clean cut, the chicken is enjoying the pleasant sensation of a massage.
If we don’t have Dharma, but live by envy and ill will, society will have no peace or happiness. Children born into such an environment will be hard to teach. Communication within a family will be difficult and strained. This is only because there is no Dharma. But foolish people ask, “Can you eat Dharma? You go to the monasteries, but what do you get from that? What do you bring back? Where is the Dharma you got? Is it anything you can feed your family with?” Actually, when we don’t eat Dharma we are just asking for trouble. Whoever does eat Dharma only for the purpose of having Dharma, and lives according to Dharma, will naturally be a person of integrity and will enjoy happiness. That way is correct. There is no misery or turmoil in the aftermath. This is called eating Dharma. If we don’t eat Dharma, there is no peace in society, only conflict and struggle.
Wherever you go, you should not be proud or stuck in your ways. In some places, you may not be familiar with the dialect or customs. Don’t put on airs and be pretentious. Not knowing others’ ways and holding on to your inflated self-esteem will not work out very well.
I’ll relate something about Ajahn Mun. He was practicing meditation in the mountains in Pak To, among the hill tribe people. One day after his sitting, a villager came and asked him, “Where did you come from, kid?”
He answered, “I came from Ubon.”
“So, Junior, have you eaten yet?”
“Yes, sir, I ate already.”
The villager spoke in this informal way, with forms of address used when speaking to an inferior, something which we usually think of as impolite—especially so when talking to an ordained person. But those villagers considered it the best way to speak. If we weren’t aware of their custom, it would make us angry. If the villager asked us, “Where have you come from, kid?” we would feel insulted and wouldn’t want to answer. Our throats would get all stiff. But this was not the way of Ajahn Mun. He understood the minds of people. But we don’t understand people like this. When others use forms of address for a superior in talking to an inferior, it doesn’t go down well. In their circle, they considered this the best way to speak, but for us, not understanding the custom, we would probably only get angry.
These days I have been considering things. I go to various places to give lectures, and groups of people come here as well, yet in a gathering of a hundred or a thousand people, there might be four or five who really make an effort to practice the Dharma. So I prefer speaking to small groups. It’s easier to instruct and admonish those who really have faith and devotion. If there are a thousand people and only fifty or so are really being mindful of themselves and making some sincere effort, there’s no way to accomplish anything. It’s the same thing when you do your work. When you’re working in the fields, you might go out and work really hard for a few days, transplanting the seedlings for the next rice crop. But someone follows after you, pulling them up after you put them in the ground. No matter how long you keep at it, she just keeps following behind, pulling up all the seedlings. Who could manage like this? Tomorrow you plant again, and she is walking after you to undo what you have done. Can you succeed in your work? Does it create any benefit? When you look back, you see the other person destroying your work, pulling up the seedlings and throwing them into the paddy. What should you do? What are you laboring for? Before too many more days pass, we are going to die, so why should we bother with ignorant people like that?
The Buddha said that whatever actions bring no benefit we need not do. “Morality leads to happiness” is the truth, but people don’t have happiness. If we try to talk about morality and virtue, people become afraid. It seems it has become very difficult to be a moral and spiritual person in society these days. But if people really have an accumulation of merit, if they have faith and mature minds, they will think about things deeply and have the wisdom to disengage themselves and find time to practice Dharma to the best of their ability.
“Morality is a treasure.” All wealth and enjoyment is born of morality. There is the treasure of wealth; the treasure of eyes, ears, of nose, tongue, body, and mind. All these things that we possess as we sit here are treasures and accomplishments, and they are born of past moral conduct, the treasur
e of morality.
When we think of treasure, we only think about the kinds of wealth that can be seen by the eye, such as money, possessions, jewels, and gold. We don’t consider our own eyes and ears themselves, our nose or our body. Think about it. If these limbs and sense organs are not whole, how will we enjoy material riches? We should be taking care of ourselves. Our eyes, ears, and limbs are things we should take care of. If someone were to try to buy an arm from you, offering many thousands of dollars, would you want to cut it off and sell it to him? Would tens of thousands of dollars to pluck out one of your eyes interest you? What is their value to you? That you are whole and enjoy these kinds of wealth because of morality is something you don’t think about. The inner wealth that is born of morality is like this, but we don’t see it as wealth.
Please make some effort to consider this. Sitting in this gathering there might be some half-people, and quarter-people as well. Days and nights keep passing. They don’t stop but keep passing by. Ask yourselves, “Today, what have I done? Have I been living mindfully or heedlessly? Just how have I been doing things? What’s the story here?” All of us need to look at ourselves in this way. Doing this, we will be able to solve our problems. Don’t be too keen on solving others’ problems; work out your own issues first. If you can’t fix yourself, you won’t be able to do anything for others. If you can solve your own problems, and then you do your best to help others but they aren’t able to make use of your help, you needn’t get upset over that. You remain in a state of normalcy, not feeling you’ve lost anything. There is no harm done to you.
The Buddha taught this. Thus, we can say that morality is the parent of all Dharma. Just like the breath is the progenitor of all our limbs and organs: if the breath stopped, could we continue to function? Sila is like this. It means purifying the actions of body and speech. We could say that morality is fifty percent of the path. Of course, there is more to do; for example, a person can speak nicely, yet still have a black heart. But in order for there to be Path, Fruit, and Nirvana, when it comes down to it, there must be morality first. So we have the verses beginning with “Morality leads to happiness . . .” The Lord Buddha urged all his followers to practice pure morality. Just as all of us were born of a mother and a father, so all Dharma, meaning all that is good and noble in the world, is born of morality. Every week on the lunar holiday we talk about this, because it is the parent that will give birth to the child of goodness and excellence from the womb of this existence. But people don’t have much trust in it.
