Đến cửa chùa rũ bỏ trần duyên tính xấu
Vào điện Phật giữ gìn mối đạo tâm lành.
Posting Essays
Nibbana Is Giving Up, Letting Go, and Being Free (4)
Update: 31/10/2016
Ajahn Tongrat didn’t teach a lot; he always told us, “Be really careful! Be really careful!” That’s how he taught.
“Be really careful! If you’re not really careful,\r\nyou’ll catch it on the chin!†This is really how it is. Even if he hadn’t said\r\nit, it’s still how it is. If you’re not really careful, you’ll catch it on the\r\nchin. Please understand this. It’s not someone else’s concern. The problem\r\nisn’t other people loving or hating us. Others far away somewhere don’t make us\r\ncreate kamma and suffering. It’s our possessions, our homes, our families where\r\nwe have to pay attention. Or what do you think? These days, where do you\r\nexperience suffering? Where are you involved in love, hate, and fear?
\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n
Control yourselves, take care of yourselves. Watch\r\nout you don’t get bitten. If they don’t bite, they might kick. Don’t think that\r\nthese things won’t bite or kick. If you do get bitten, make sure it’s only a\r\nlittle bit. Don’t get kicked and bitten to pieces. Don’t try to tell yourselves\r\nthere’s no danger. Possessions, wealth, fame, loved ones—all these can kick and\r\nbite if you’re not mindful. If you are mindful, you’ll be at ease. Be cautious\r\nand restrained.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n
When the mind starts grasping at things and making a\r\nbig deal out of them, you have to stop it. It will argue with you, but you have\r\nto put your foot down. Stay in the middle as the mind comes and goes. Put\r\nsensual indulgence away to one side. Put self-torment away to the other side.\r\nLove to one side, hate to the other side. Happiness to one side, suffering to\r\nthe other side. Remain in the middle without letting the mind go in either\r\ndirection.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n
These bodies of ours are made up of the elements of\r\nearth, water, fire, and wind—so where is the person? There isn’t any person.\r\nThese few different things are put together, and it’s called a person. That’s a\r\nfalsehood. It’s not real; it’s only real in the way of convention. When the\r\ntime comes, the elements return to their old state. We’ve only come to stay\r\nwith them for a while, so we have to let them return. The part that is earth,\r\nsend back to be earth. The part that is water, send back to be water. The part\r\nthat is fire, send back to be fire. The part that is wind, send back to be\r\nwind. Or will you try to go with them and keep something? We come to rely on\r\nthem for a while; but when it’s time for them to go, let them go. When they\r\ncome, let them come. All these phenomena (sabhava) appear and then disappear.\r\nThat’s all. We understand that all these things are flowing, constantly\r\nappearing and disappearing.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n
Making offerings, listening to teachings, practicing\r\nmeditation—whatever we do should be done for the purpose of developing wisdom.\r\nDeveloping wisdom is for the purpose of liberation, freedom from all these\r\nconditions and phenomena. When we are free, then no matter what our situation,\r\nwe don’t have to suffer. If we have children, we don’t have to suffer. If we\r\nwork, we don’t have to suffer. If we have a house, we don’t have to suffer.\r\nIt’s like being a lotus in the water: “I grow in the water, but I don’t suffer\r\nbecause of the water. I can’t be drowned or burned, because I live in the\r\nwater.†When the water ebbs and flows, it doesn’t affect the lotus. The water\r\nand the lotus can exist together without conflict. They are together yet\r\nseparate. Whatever is in the water nourishes the lotus and helps it grow into\r\nsomething beautiful.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n
Here it’s the same for us. Wealth, home, family, and\r\nall defilements of mind—they no longer defile us, but rather they help us\r\ndevelop parami, the spiritual perfections. In a grove of bamboo, the old leaves\r\npile up around the trees, and when the rain falls they decompose and become\r\nfertilizer. Shoots grow and the trees develop because of the fertilizer, and we\r\nhave a source of food and income. But it didn’t look like anything good at all.\r\nSo be careful—in the dry season, if you set fires in the forest, they’ll burn\r\nup all the future fertilizer, and the fertilizer will turn into fire that burns\r\nthe bamboo. Then you won’t have any bamboo shoots to eat. So if you burn the\r\nforest, you burn the bamboo fertilizer. If you burn the fertilizer, you burn\r\nthe trees and the grove dies.
\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n
Do you understand? You and your families can live in\r\nhappiness and harmony with your homes and possessions, free of danger from\r\nfloods or fire. If a family is flooded or burned, it is only because of the\r\npeople in that family. It’s just like the bamboo’s fertilizer. The grove can be\r\nburned because of it, or the grove can grow beautifully because of it.