THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS
RIGHT KARMA
A newspaper told a story that there was a repair moto shop that had a lot of customers, because its workers-to-be were very polite to the customers, and responsible for their job. Their instructor was the shop owner who trained his trainees with good manners, polite attitudes, professional ethics, and responsible spirit of working. Thank to these characters, his shop had prestige in its customers. And thanks to having a lot of customers, the trainees had so much work to be trained and got sooner progress. Thus, the success of the shop included many elements such as good manners, polite attitudes, responsible spirit, and professional ethics.
Like that, our practice to get our minds tranquil is not simple to stop thinking, then it works. Many people have practiced Buddhism in this way and they have never gained good result. Thinking by itself comes overwhelming, it’s not under our control. All thinking of this person and that person, thinking about future, thinking back to past can’t stop. Although we don’t want to think anything, we can’t keep our minds peaceful. In fact, what that can keep our minds peaceful is our merits. Our very merits are a secret element that can help keep our minds peaceful. Instead of doing nothing good for people, we should try our best do good deeds as much as possible, to take good care of people, then every time we are in practice our minds will be naturally tranquil.
We must be aware that the Eight-Fold Path that our Buddha brought to light leads us to Nirvana, and Right Karma is the part of that to help us create merits. This is our merits that guide our minds to go deep into concentration. When we are aware of it, then all our monks and nun and Buddhists must try the best to create as much merits as possible so that we can come to our goal that’s Enlightenment.
Talking about Right Karma is talking about merit that is the strength bringing us to the way of Nirvana. To create merit is to practice Right Karma. Creating merit is very important for our practice. It helps us overcome our obstacles to get our minds deep into concentration, to make good our mistakes, then we can defeat our clinging to ego.
We have three things that we must face while practicing.
-First is an obstacle of situation. If we are too poor, we can find it hard to practice. Blessing is what that can help us worry nothing about life so that we can only pay attention to our practice. Or if some adversity happens to us, our blessings can help us block it. It’s merit and blessing that help us overcome any difficult situation to completely practice.
-Second, our minds are easy to get tranquil. We already talked about the strength of merits that can control our brain to lead our minds to absolute peace.
-Third, the function of merit helps us realize our faults, then correct them. People usually think that they can let it go, but in fact they can’t. For example, a person is hot-tempered, he easily gets angry with anyone who just annoys or teases him. He knows well his bad temper and wants to unlearn it, but he finds it hard to do that. He’s still angry at something annoying him. So, what should he do to unlearn his bad habit? He must come to pagodas to do work-free, help poor people, worship the Buddha, pay his honor to Sangha. All those things are supposed to be unimportant, but they turn out to create his merits that can help him unlearn his hot temper. The secret strength of mind is the very merit that help people overcome any difficulty in life and correct their faults. People who easily make mistakes have lack of merit. When we recognize this cause, we should feel empathetic with people at fault, instead of blaming them.
Authorized by Thích Chân Quang
