ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ» º º º BuddhaNet: Buddhist Info Network Buddha Dharma Education Assoc. º º Web Site: www.buddhanet.net PO Box K1020 Haymarket NSW 2000 º º Email: bdea@buddhanet.net Tel: +61-2-92123071 AUSTRALIA º º º ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ Where does suffering come from ? - Phra Ratsamee Today is a good day for me. I am always happy to come to talk to the Unibuds. For those of you that are new, please excuse my English. It is still not so good, as I came from Thailand just two years ago. Today I would like to ask you why we should practice. Can anybody tell me.. ?? Buddha taught us that life involves a lot of suffering. The first kind of suffering is that of the body. The second type of suffering is from the mind. Do you understand about the suffering of our body? When one is born one cannot be immortal. Our body must continually grow and change. We must go through old age, sickness, and death. Is this true or not? Most people want this life to be permanent and everlasting but unfortunately this is the nature of life. We also suffer in our minds. Most of this suffering in our minds comes from ignorance. - We do not understand things. We see things happen but we do not understand it. We become attached to our body shape, friends, places, ideas. We cling to our personal things, are confused, and worry. We buy new things expecting them never to deteriorate or change, like a new CD player or car. But after a while, they become scratched, rusty or broken. These things effect our mind all the time, and we feel very disturbed. So if the mind does not understand that everything must change, and is impermanent, then, when we try to attach and cling to things our mind will have suffering. So how can we understand the Buddha's teaching so that we can reduce our suffering? The way to overcome these problems is to follow the precepts (rules). The first precept tells us not to hurt others or ourself. We can use the analogy of a building. Following the precepts we will be able to build a tall solid building. For example, we monks have 227 rules, novice monks 10 precepts, nuns 8 precepts, and lay-people 5 precepts.We monks still have 227 rules to follow even though we are mortal! Secondly, we should not steal. Stealing creates disharmony. and trouble for everyone. Thirdly, we should avoid sexual misconduct. We should not try to have more than one girlfriend or boyfriend, wife or husband. This will create many problems for us. Fourthly we should not lie. This fourth precept is very important. We can have great happiness and security when we know people are honest with us. When people lie it creates much ill will. Fifthly, avoid also drinking alcholol, or taking drugs. To be a good person we must look after our precepts. If we don't have mindfulness and concentration, the body may be healthy but the mind will be running who knows where ...? If we lose our mind, we find anger and lose our way. Even if we have concentration, we may still have suffering. This is because we don't see clearly or understand the cause of suffering. Do you ever wonder where your suffering comes from? It comes from ignorance and lack of wisdom. Everything must change. We must learn how to be free and practice with patience. Otherwise we will not be successful. Wisdom is much more important than knowledge in this life. We have this body, we have this mind. We cannot control the body, it will pass, change, and die. But we can control our mind. We can let go these sufferings... The Buddha did not say to let go your husband or wife, jobs, or family or community responsibilities. But we should let go confusion and things that trouble us. We should develop our loving kindness. We can't expect anyone to understand us fully, as we are all different. Therefore we should take the first step and forgive others and have loving kindness and compassion for all around us. We should try to set the example. The Buddha said that the past is the past.- It is gone already. The future is too far away. We don't know what will come, therefore we must live in the present. We need to keep up our practice. If we don't remind ourself and continue to understand what is suffering, our mind will be like water falling down. It will go everywhere. I hope this talk encourages you. Please feel welcome to come and visit us at Sunnyataram Forest Monastery in Bundanoon. The bush and animals are very peaceful there. It may help you with your practice! May you all be well and happy. Q1. Venerable you emphasise the present life. What about the future? A1. Our future is based on our current and past actions. Q2. How can we measure our current practice progress against the future? A2. We have the collection of present events to measure our future. If we are experiencing satisfaction now, then this must be partly attributable to our current actions as well as our past karma. If we are doing good deeds now, then we may find we will reap some benefit from these in the future, just as our bad actions in the past and present may cause us some anguish in the future also! Abridgement of Dhamma talk given on Saturday, March 4th 1995 at the University of NSW Unibuds "Treasures of the East" Exhibition as reported by Mick Kiddle. Unibuds conducts regular dhamma talks on Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons throughout the University Semesters, and these are open to all students and the general public.