【The Key to Wisdom” “智慧之瑣”】

(*Due to unforeseen circumstances, Luang Por Kham was unable to be in ZX together with the rest of the monks. Luang Por Damrung delivered the talk in Thai for the nite and translated to English by Ajahn Dton instead.)

The Dhamma talk were summarized as follows:
Try to calm the body, mind and the speech, listening to the Dhamma to captivate the Bhavana, the merit, make the diamond out of carbon, and make treasure out of it!

There is the need to cultivate the wisdom. Cultivate the goodness for many of the future generation, pass the prosperity to ourselves and the people around us, and the future generation. To make future generation good, we have to live to be better. Some people love the children to be good, you cannot say something and do the otherwise. We must do the good things and set the good example for the children. Listening to the Dhamma is very helpful to the next generation. Buddhism is the religion of knowing, we have to do thing with wisdom, the basic is the Dana-Generosity, the sharing and to help the people around, the community, sharing the material things, the basic necessity in life, and do the connection with all living being, the money is easy to get, but the Metta , loving kindness is not so, to have more sensation, must lay the foundation for Buddhism, the Metta, make that as the foundation with Sila or morality or also create harmony in the society, among who are excel.

if you do Dana, you will reborn with wealth, but if you keep the Sila, you will keep the body, if you keep the wisdom, you will reborn with cleverness, so many Kamma and action we do, the Kamma will bring birth to us, if we do wholesome Kamma, we will bring good life, reborn in the heaven, as human; if not, if will be otherwise, like hungry ghost, hell etc.. there are also supportive Kamma for the wholesome Kamma, if wholesome Kamma, will make thing good or otherwise bad. It may manifest this life, some next life, some many life after that. Good Kamma bring good and bad Kamma brings bad result. So, We accumulate PANNA, we will be wealthy, healthy and wise. This is the result of Sila, Samadhi and Panna.

We cultivate peacefulness in the mind. If not, it will be suffering. If you want to train the body, you will have to exercise, but for mind is to do the opposite; to calm the mind. The wisdom is like the light in the world, the worldly wisdom, to work and earn the living, but for virtue wisdom is to escape from the suffering. The day the Buddha enlightened, when Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree, he recollect his many past life, his previous eon of life. He saw many being going and leaving due to the Kamma and live in different form. The Dhamma Panna is different from the worldly wisdom, but to do away with craving. Bhavana Panna is the cultivation and accomplishment of wisdom.

We consider ourself lucky to have Buddha as the teacher, he has the ability to understand and give us advice. The Dhamma can be experienced by the Wise, learning from the Buddha to practice, if we practice, we get a lot; if we don’t practice, we don’t get result. All being are seeking happiness, all wants to be wealthy and healthy, but everybody have different Kamma, and that is why everybody are different. People do Dana and get wealthy, People is Healthy because they keep the Sila, people who looks nice because they keep the Metta, people who have long life because they do not harm the living being. Illness is coming from past bad Kamma, sometimes the Doctor also don’t know what to do. Knowing this, to be born healthy, we should cultivate loving kindness and practice the Sila. The one who associate with the Wise and be born with intelligence. If you want to be wise, must be close to the Wise. The Buddha is pointing the way to Nirvana, we must follows and put in the effort by ourselves.

The Buddha have high expectation from us, and we should follows the teaching of Buddha, the craving, delusion is all inside ourselves. We should not follows liking or disliking. We should spend our life on the path. The Buddha said we love our body and others, we must do merits and have the power to attract good things. People have Panna will have gem which is worthy of keeping, people without will be otherwise. Buddha who can see the past, the present and what can happen in the future.

We learn the Dhamma, we understand the Dhamma. When we learn the Dhamma, it is already there, even the Buddha is not born, the Dhamma is already there... Earth is earth, water is water, wind is wind... the Buddha understand it and he teaches us. The nature doesn’t belongs to anybody, it is just the cause and condition. People do not understand it and have delusion about it. The people is fighting over the property, for sex and for the power .

The nature have no feeling but it is ourself that has the feeling. It is separated, otherwise we have a distorted view. Life is uncertain, life is changing all the time but what is certain is death, all being in this world will pass away, this is the truth of a Dhamma. When the Buddha pass away, he told that every things will change, the Buddha emphasis on us and other people, we must have power of mindfulness now and future moment.

We have the chance to be born because of our parent. That is because of our parent that we were born, we should do our duty not to disappoint our parents. Even they passed away, we must do the merits for them. The Buddha went to heaven to teach the mother. This is the duty of son and very important for the children to pay back to the parents. We should keep the precept and teach them the Bhavana to pay back.

Use the right view to practice and do our body and mental conduct. We create new Kamma every moment, we must do the Wholesome Kamma and we can reborn in the heaven or otherwise. The teaching of Buddha is very straight forward. There is no time and place. If there is Malaysian who like to learn the Dhamma, May you and your family be blessed and accomplished what you wish. Wish all of you well.

Talk on meditation and Vipassana, when you calm, you should contemplate on impermanence, happiness and suffering. And then develop the wisdom to solve the problem. Vipassana is thing that you see your own doing and you stop. Understand what is causing the condition of suffering and put away. This is the Vipassana to learn every time you contemplate. The changing and the impermanence and suffering on one self.