Dharma talk Obstacles to Being a Noble Person preaching by Senior Thich Tri Chon in the 103rd Seven-day Retreat

On the 7th day in the 103rd Retreat of Aug. 31st, 2024, Senior Thich Tri Chon, Member of Central Executive Committee of Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha (VBS), Deputy of Central Propaganda Department, Head of Culture Department of HCMC ‘s VBS, Abbot of Khanh An Monastery in District 12, had delivered a Dhamma talk named Obstacles to Being a Noble Person to practitioners.

Living in a world of desire, passionate about the five desires, a person who enters the path of practice is building for himself the character of a noble person, practicing to give up bad habits. On the path to sainthood, there are five obstacles:

1. Satisfaction in desires, pleasures, ... (belonging to greed)

2. Dissatisfaction in desires (belonging to anger)

3. Fatigue, laziness, boredom, like sleeping.

4. Hyperactivity, restless mind due to remorseful conscience.

5. Doubtful mind, hesitation, lack of strong faith.

These are five obstacles to becoming a noble person, building for oneself a dignified, standard character.

To deal with greed, the Buddha taught us to contemplate all dharma as impure; with anger, practice loving-kindness and compassion; with fatigue, boredom, and sleepiness, practice the four right efforts and diligence; with agitation, practice concentration; with doubt, note things as they are.

*. There are two solutions to eliminate greed, anger, drowsiness, agitation, and doubt:

1. Use the Buddha's name and the Dharma sutras to suppress: When reciting the Buddha's name, we will greatly reduce our tiredness, boredom, and desire to sleep; Tying our mind to the Buddha's name or breathing will reduce our doubts; When our mind is focused on the Buddha's name, joy will arise, and there will be no more anger, agitation, or greed.

2. We look and see it right away. When our mind starts thinking about something, we see it right away and stop it, this is an extremely miraculous practice.

As ordinary people on the path to building the character of a noble person, we should try to practice the methods taught by the Buddha to achieve certain achievements.

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