Good Beginnings To Welcome The New Year | 3 Jan 2025

For the lay people,

In the many years that have passed,

You have had many obstacles from living your life and earning a living,

And you have passed it and could overcome it through your qualities of forbearance,

Patience,

And with mindfulness and wisdom.

So if we look at our minds,

We will see that whether it is happiness or suffering that arises,

It persists,

And then it ceases,

Going on constantly like this.

It's called vedana,

Feeling,

Or feeling tone.

There are pleasant feelings,

Painful feelings,

And neither pleasant nor painful feelings.

It arises,

Persists,

Then ceases.

If we have wisdom,

And we contemplate,

Then we will see it that way.

We'll see it clearly.

No matter how much suffering you may experience,

May you have mindfulness with it.

Have your samadhi concentration be well established and have wisdom arise.

Then we will see that we don't experience suffering all day and all night,

All the time.

But we must be careful as well.

We're careful at the times when we have the loka dhammas,

Which is that in this world there are the eight worldly conditions.

We have gain and loss of wealth,

Have rank and status and loss of it,

Have praise and blame,

Have happiness and suffering.

There are meetings and partings.

And in reality,

This is following the natural and normal way of things.

If one has deep wisdom,

Then there is nothing.

It is empty.

This is the paramattha dhamma,

The ultimate truth.

Those who enter to the ultimate truth,

To emptiness,

Then there isn't anything anymore.

There is no self,

It's emptiness.

All things are emptiness.

Rupa and nama,

Material and mental phenomena,

Are empty.

If our heart has wisdom that arises like this,

Then the mental defilements can't do anything to our hearts.

Machu Raja,

The lord of death,

Can't follow us in time.

The Buddha said to Moggaraja,

Moggaraja,

You should see this world as empty.

Then the lord of death won't be able to follow you.

But it's normal for us that we are still training and developing ourselves,

And so we will have this sense of me and mine there.

We have a family.

So what are we to do?

The Buddha teaches us to begin with having dana,

Generosity,

And sila,

Moral conduct.

The benefit of dana and sila is the mind is peaceful and at ease to one level.

In one's family,

It is peaceful because we have sila,

Keeping the five moral precepts.

The precept of speech is to not speak lies,

Divisive speech,

Harsh speech,

Idle chatter.

Just this one precept will make it very peaceful.

And we don't kill living beings,

Don't steal,

Don't commit sexual misconduct,

And don't drink alcohol and intoxicants.

When we work and we can gain rank and position,

It's not that we just gain more rank,

But we get more duties,

And all the responsibilities come in as well in our work.

So our life needs to have a foundation of forbearance,

Patience.

We need to have even more barami,

Spiritual virtues.

And more so when we have a higher rank and position,

Then we have to have an even higher level of forbearance.

We need to use more mindfulness and wisdom.

So therefore we must build and develop our minds to have a lot of wisdom.

And what is in the past,

From the time we can remember,

That which will be with us,

Is our memories,

Or what we call sanya.

Sanya is memories,

Perceptions,

The quality of recognition,

Of things of the past that have gone already.

Sometimes it arises,

Especially when sitting meditation in a quiet place,

And then the stories and things of the past can come up.

This is sanya.

And according to nature,

This sanya will arise,

Persist and cease.

That is if we have wisdom.

We will see clearly that the memories are not us.

But when the mind objects of memories arise,

Both the memories that we like and dislike,

They arise,

And then the mind will attach to that memory.

It has a sense of self in the past.

We have stories and our things of the past.

It shows that the sense of self arises in the present moment.

It has attached to objects of memories or perceptions.

So we need to use wisdom to contemplate further,

That there is not anyone here.

There is no I.

In the present moment here,

Sitting here,

Is not us.

The breath goes in and out,

And we are supported by nature.

We use food and water.

The body here has no self to it.

The body that is in the past,

One hour ago,

Or last month,

Or last year,

Way back then,

Is not us.

The mind attaches to it as a self,

And then we have happiness and suffering arise again.

This is not peaceful.

So here we have to be careful.

We need to bhavana,

Meditate.

If we don't meditate,

Then whatever arises over many years,

It's all taken as ours.

So even when 2024 ends,

And the next year comes,

On 1st January 2025,

But that has passed already,

And we take it that there is an I that has passed it,

So there is us again.

So if it's like this,

And we have this sense of self,

Then we will try to give up the self that is bad.

And the self that is good,

We will try to remember it.

So that is,

We give up the bad,

The wrongdoing,

And we develop the good and skillful.

We are determined that,

This year,

We need to be diligent in whatever we have made mistakes on.

We will renew our intentions to make it good.

So if we have bad health,

We try to look after the body's health better and be more fit.

And especially we need to look after the mind as being the most important thing.

We need to make our minds be better than before.

If our mind is not better than the old one,

Then,

Since childhood,

We will have just been accumulating delusion,

Taking it as an I,

A self,

That is,

Delusion.

And it will keep accumulating continually,

Until when we pass away from this world,

According to the nature and normal way of things.

So we need to have a lot of wisdom.

We need to think and contemplate that,

When we have a breath here,

We need to build our minds to be better.

We build more goodness in this world by having metta,

Goodwill,

And compassion for each other.

This is the foundation that leads our life.

So we need to make an effort.

When we have a sense of self,

We have family and children,

We have work and duties.

Then we need to be diligent.

Since we were born,

Everyone has had hopes in the heart,

And we have walked forward since our first step.

We grow up and have duties and work.

Some people are determined to be a doctor,

A nurse,

Or an engineer,

And so we start to learn and study it.

We step and overcome that which is bad and unskillful a lot.

We need to keep stepping forward,

Even in the face of obstacles.

We need to take steps to overcome them.

We need to have wisdom to step with mindfulness and clear comprehension in learning and doing work,

And especially for meditation,

Which is very important.

If we meditate and can have results arise,

Then we will see meditation as a part of our life.

If we lack meditation,

Developing the mind,

Then there is nothing that gets better.

The days we live in the world will pass by.

It will pass by constantly.

But if we have progressed the mind,

Then,

Oh,

The mind is newer.

The mind is better.

And in our lives we want to have all sorts of new things.

New clothes,

A clean house,

New food,

Because we can't eat old food.

So when the mind is new,

And it's really good,

It's a new birth.

A new birth in this human realm and life.

Because before we knew nothing.

We were a patugina,

A person thick with defilements.

And now we become a complete human.

And we can be proud of this.

So we try to make the mind be more newer.

If our mind attaches to something,

Then it's an old mind.

The mental defilements are making the mind be like that.

So we need to keep walking,

Following the Buddha's path that he leads us in and teaches us.

We walk and follow the Buddha's footsteps.

The steps of the Sasadhar,

The founder of the dispensation.

We puja,

Give homage to the virtues of the Buddha.

The highest spiritual perfections of the Buddha.

In the new year,

There is the New Year's Eve chanting through to the new year.

And here we recollect the virtues of the Buddha,

Dhamma,

Sangha.

We establish our inner foundations and we start anew in our life.

Some people may look at this that there is just chanting like this.

How will things get better this way?

One who has no wisdom,

Chants of the type without wisdom.

Then nothing really gets better.

But one who has wisdom is someone who is determined.

Like we may have been determined to chant over the new year since the start of December.

And we recollect constantly that we will chant and we will meditate and recollect the virtues of the Buddha.

And this is merit since when we recollect it.

It's not just merit when we come to actually do the chanting.

We are determined that we will chant and meditate like that.

So we recollect it and it's merit already.

We can see it.

And having to come from near or far away is merit as well.

And in the time we are chanting,

It's merit again.

And we may be able to see and know the Dhamma from the chanting.

If our parami,

Spiritual accumulations are full.

So we can't be careless.

The Dhamma can give its results regardless of time.

And when we chant,

The mind is joyous and we may be able to understand into the Dhamma.

We can see everything as empty and it can be at the time that we are chanting.

We contemplate deeply into each of the chants and we can understand the Dhamma.

This is of great benefit to us then.

So we chant with mindfulness and wisdom.

But for one who doesn't understand this,

They may see chanting as like being a parrot or minor bird.

If one chants and does not follow doing what they chant,

Then there is nothing.

But when we understand that when we do it often,

More and more,

Then one day there will be the feeling arise that,

Hey,

We're chanting and we should follow what we're chanting and praising.

And even those who hear the chanting can take it to contemplate and think about and can have Dhamma arise.

It can enter deep within their heart and they're able to see and attain to the Dhamma.

At that time,

They are reciting the Dhamma.

So one who recites the Dhamma gains a lot of benefits.

So this is the deep meaning of chanting.

It's not just seen in the view that it gives little results.

To praise the virtues of the Buddha,

Dhamma,

Sangha has great benefits.

The old year 2024 has passed and the new year has come.

So we have to do new things in our life.

We may begin from the feeling that we should start the new year with meditation for 2 or 3 minutes.

When I was younger and working,

I had the feeling of being bored with going out here or there in the new year.

It was doing the same things over and over again.

And so I invited my friends to sit meditation.

I had this thought coming up to sit meditation together.

We started meditation at 11.

55pm and we sat meditation for 5 to 6 minutes.

When the new year came,

Then after another minute,

We stopped sitting.

So it was taken that we built goodness over the new year.

About 6 minutes.

I can still remember it.

So it can be from 6 minutes,

Which is a good start and which we grow on more and more.

So being determined to chant through the new year and for the people who practice the Nesajika practice,

Going without sleep,

Is a practice which brings a lot of benefit.

In the new year that has come,

May you all have happiness and prosperity.

May you receive all the blessings that are excellent and supreme.

Having the Buddha,

Dhamma,

Sangha and all the sacred things that we respect and homage.

May you all have happiness,

Growth and progress in all things and all aspects.

May you have mindfulness and wisdom to overcome all obstacles.

Whether in studies,

Learning,

Work,

In all things,

Including your bhavana,

The cultivation of your minds.

May your mind be in the present to see the arising and ceasing of all things until you're able to fully understand the Dhamma of the Sama Sambuddha,

The perfectly self-awakened one.

May you enter to the heart of the Dhamma.

May you all grow in blessings.