Arisings Rare In This World | 15 Sep 2023

The birth of a Buddha is something incredibly difficult.

And there are various things that are difficult.

It's very troublesome and hard for it to arise.

Before the Buddha could come to be born,

Enlightened and attaining parinibbana was so hard.

For us human beings,

To be born as 100% human is hard as well.

The five moral precepts,

Or sila,

Translates as solid or translates as head.

If humans have no head,

Then they would die.

So sila or sila means solid,

Strength,

Foundation.

It means to have hirit,

Wise,

Shame,

Uttapa,

Fear of wrongdoing,

Towards karma,

Then trying to build good karma,

Having been born to build good karma,

Giving up the bad and building good karma,

Living life in a correct way.

And to do this for one's whole life is difficult,

Because mostly those without wisdom will fall lower,

Even though this body may not yet have broken apart,

But the mind has fallen lower already.

And this is going on the wrong path,

Out of delusion,

And there is a lot of suffering and troubles.

This is simply the blame from ignorance.

And there are those who are born and are interested in the Dhamma teachings of the Sammasambuddha,

The perfectly self-awakened Buddha.

In the Buddha's time,

There were many who met the Buddha and were not interested in the Dhamma.

Sometimes we may think that if we were born in time to see the Sammasambuddha,

We would listen to the Dhamma,

We would be determined to practice.

Or if we met a venerable arahant like Ajahn Chah,

Then we would have practiced fully.

But all this has passed already.

But in this present,

We have been born again,

And the Dhamma teachings are still here.

Contained within the texts,

It is within the Tripitaka.

And the krubarjuns,

The great teachers,

They teach the Dhamma,

Which are the Sammasambuddha's teachings.

Venerable Ajahn Chah said to his disciples,

Don't attach to me as your path of practice.

Go attach to the Sammasambuddha's path of practice.

This is the foundation.

So having been born,

These are the four things that are hard to meet with.

Having been born,

There is a question as well.

The Sammasambuddha had wisdom,

And he asked,

Why do we have to be born as well?

And being born,

Why do we have to have separation as well?

Why do we have to experience suffering as well?

In life,

Why must we experience hardships like this?

Why must we age,

Get sick,

And die too?

Why do people have various sorrows?

The Sammasambuddha brought this question up in his heart.

It wasn't that he didn't have any questions.

And he also sought the way out,

Until he came to the thought that,

If there is hot,

Then there is cold.

It is a pair.

There is darkness and brightness.

There is night and day.

There is birth and death.

It is a pair.

Then there should be that of no birth and no death as well.

He was able to think this way.

This was the barami,

The spiritual accumulations of the Sammasambuddha,

The parama bodhisattva,

The great Buddha-to-be,

With full barami.

He set up the question and would seek to find the answer.

And we have to remember that his barami and insight knowledges was full already.

He had firm determination and could do it until he succeeded.

And what about for us?

We are born as well.

It is according to our karma.

We have karma as our birthplace,

Which differs between individuals.

Some people meet suffering as a child,

But grow up and get happiness.

They have everything of all sorts.

Some have happiness when they are born,

But at the end of life meet with suffering.

It's called coming from darkness and going to darkness,

Or coming from darkness and going to brightness.

Some people have a lot of merit,

Coming from all brightness,

And going to brightness again.

Like there were the savakas,

Noble disciples of the Sammasambuddha.

Some of them had full brightness in the mind.

It was the brightness of barami,

Having brightness coming out to see,

And it was amazing.

So this is in regards to someone with merit and spiritual development coming to be born.

And when they are born,

They have a thought unlike others.

They have a lot of wisdom.

They don't need to sit meditation a lot,

But have a lot of wisdom.

They sit meditation and see it go still.

It shows that they must have passed samadhi,

Meditative concentration,

Before.

They sit meditation and it is still and empty.

They taste the flavor of samadhi,

Having rapture and bliss.

So in this way they see that they have a lot of happiness,

Of which the happiness of the world can't compare to.

But someone who receives this type of happiness all the time,

Regularly,

Comes out of samadhi,

And then they'll see that though this samadhi is good,

But wisdom hasn't arisen yet.

And they aren't able to stop birth as well.

They set up the question,

So why am I born?

What am I born for?

And where am I going?

They search for the answer as well.

When they get an answer that they understand clearly,

Then they attain to arahantship.

Why am I born?

People are born according to causes and conditions.

Because karma is one's birthplace,

So then one is born.

If a person is deluded,

They build delusion onwards.

But a person may be deluded.

But they aspire in the present to have true knowing,

To have wisdom.

And then the delusion reduces,

The suffering reduces.

If someone understands this,

Then they only build merit and build goodness.

They build good karma.

Because they see that however it is,

They won't be in this world for long.

They are one who stands here temporarily,

Not being here long.

They are not the owner,

And all things are simply being borrowed.

And whether we have a lot or a little,

It is equal,

Because it has to be separated from.

So one with wisdom builds just merit and goodness in this world.

They build and accumulate good karma.

They build merit and barami,

Which can be for the ending of suffering,

For Nibbana.

Or building merit and barami to be in heaven,

Or to be in a heaven realm to continue to build barami.

These realms that have happiness,

And there are just the experiences of merit and goodness there.

But if we are born just to use up our karma,

And do not try to build good karma,

If we just let it go according to karma,

Then this is someone without wisdom.

They have suffering arise,

And they have no wisdom to look for the way out.

One who has wisdom has to find the way out.

But usually people with suffering can't find the way out.

This is because it's the path of karma that has given results,

That has been destined to be like that.

And sometimes this will lead one to pray for a way out.

Why pray?

Because all dhammas,

All things,

Have causes for it to arise.

When we have made the causes,

Then we will receive the result of that cause.

It is the fruit.

If we accept it,

Then the heart doesn't suffer.

And we can see that people being born have merit and goodness following them.

Be it our child or relative,

Each person has love for themself.

They love their family,

Their children.

Though sometimes in the family,

We teach our child the best we possibly can,

But they can only receive that much,

Because they have their own way to go,

Their own karma.

We can't pull them to be good,

Even though we have the best of hopes for them.

And if we have many children,

Not all of them will succeed.

If we look at the fruit of a tree,

There will be good fruit with good taste,

But some fruits will be rotten and spoiled.

It is normal to be like that.

Sometimes our child or relative gains success,

But many may not succeed.

It goes according to karma,

Following the way of their karma,

Following the destiny of their karma,

According to their merit and spiritual development.

So why do we worry so much?

Though there will be some worries,

It shouldn't be to the point where we have suffering which doesn't end,

And we aren't able to put it down.

So we contemplate that our life,

Ever since studying and working,

The wealth we could earn,

It was because we wanted to gain happiness and wealth in this world.

And this is the same for everyone.

The more of it we have,

The better.

But this wealth gives problems to the heart as well.

We can notice that the more we have,

The more the heart attaches to it.

And for one with no wisdom,

It will be harder for the heart to be charitable with it,

To give it away.

So this is dangerous.

But those with wisdom,

Who have a lot,

Are pleased and delighted that they can make more barami.

The Sama Sambuddha,

In the life when he was Vesantara,

He had a lot and he gave a lot as dana,

Where no one could do it to that level.

For the lay supporters of the Sama Sambuddha,

Anatta Pindika and Lady Visakha,

They had a lot and continued to do a lot.

Anatta Pindika even gave dana till the Deva,

The divine being,

Was bothered by it.

They wanted to forbid him to do it,

Because his wealth would be gone.

So being a Sotapanna,

Stream-enterer,

Who had barami,

He kicked the Deva out.

The Deva couldn't stay in his house.

He had sent away the Deva,

Who was then troubled by it and in the end had nowhere to stay and so had to ask for forgiveness.

The Sama Sambuddha had metta,

Goodwill,

And had the Deva to ask for forgiveness from Anatta Pindika and had to make him rich like before.

And so gold arose in his field.

Like the present day,

Some countries may find an abundant gold field under the ground.

It arises depending on the spiritual accumulations of a person or the country.

So we see the causes that we have are a lot or a little,

Which results in life being difficult,

Being born,

And it's hard.

But we have to think,

It's because we didn't do it before.

We never practiced and made merit,

So we have hardships and troubles.

If someone has done it a lot,

Then they have people supporting and looking after them.

And even if they fall into troubles and hardships,

There are people coming to help and look after them.

We are born and have grown up like this.

We gather and live together in society,

And we can see that society can be chaotic.

All people have good and bad in our hearts.

But we people argue and dispute constantly.

That we are good,

That person is not good,

So we have troubles arising.

So this birth of ours is our good fortune.

That we can have completeness and have life to the present day is our great merit.

Some people have lived till sixty years,

Seventy years,

Or older than seventy years.

Some people live to one hundred years.

But a hundred whose body has good health.

A hundred years with good memory.

A hundred years that the body has little decline.

A hundred years of building merit and goodness.

This is held as being that this birth of ours in this life has merit and goodness.

And that we have been born with a body and mind that is fully human.

So may you have effort and be determined to lead your life in the path of a good mind,

With the whole of your life.

May all the ease,

Wellness,

And good things be with you all.