In two days,
It will be the end of the year of 2023.
So we take a look at the year that has passed,
In our family life,
In our studies,
And so on.
How has it all been?
We do the accounts,
To inspect it.
For children,
They do the accounts,
And see if their studies have gotten better.
Has determination to study improved?
And take a look at what we have done wrong in the past year.
What are the negative points about it?
In doing our work,
Have we developed it to be better than before?
Has it improved?
How should we improve and adjust it,
So that it will be better than before?
And looking all the way to how our income has been.
Are they sufficient for our expenses?
What is the deficit?
Since birth,
People have had to struggle constantly,
And to make an effort.
Since we were born,
We've had to struggle so that we could survive.
It was very hard.
Sometimes a baby is born,
And their heart doesn't really beat,
And it's uncertain whether they'll survive.
The doctor and nurses try to save them,
And try to stimulate the heart.
They try hard to get the baby to be conscious,
And finally it can survive.
So getting to be born,
And opening your eyes to see the world,
Is not easy.
So when it's hard like this,
And we do have life,
Then what will we do?
How will we be mindful,
So that we live in this world well?
Human beings,
Since birth,
Have hope.
We have hopes,
Wishes and aspirations.
To gain wealth,
Status,
Praise,
To experience happiness,
To have a long life.
And we aspire that after death,
May I have greater happiness.
But these are hard to obtain.
If we people have little or no wealth,
We still have hopes.
We want to get wealth,
The things that will make us happy.
Whether we have a little or a lot of status,
Then we aspire for higher status.
Status can mean to have followers,
Or to have fame and be well known.
So we people want to have wealth,
Status,
Want to have people praising us in society,
We want happiness,
We want a long life.
But when we do have it all,
We have the wealth,
Status,
People praising us,
Have happiness in the world,
Then we want it to last forever.
We don't want to be parted from this world.
But this hope cannot come true.
And there are many of those who don't have,
For whom it is so hard for them,
And they think they don't want to live in this world anymore.
And those who already have happiness in this world,
They will hope for more.
But they aren't able to stop from being parted from it,
As they must die.
And then dying,
Where will they go?
They don't want to have to endure suffering.
And because they believe in merit and demerit,
So they want to go to heaven.
But this aspiration is difficult to gain.
So what should be done?
There are four virtues that will make us succeed.
So these four virtues must be built to give us benefit.
We must be imbued with faith.
Faith in what?
We believe in the law of karma and the results of karma.
Whatever karma beings do,
They will receive the results of that karma.
So we see that people who have a little or a lot of wealth,
A little or a lot of merit,
A little or a lot of status,
This is up to their karma.
There are those who are born without much wealth,
But then later they have lots of wealth.
This is about good karma.
Some people are born with no status or renown.
But from their merit and spiritual development,
They can gain status.
They need to have had merit.
But not everyone will be able to get it.
They must have built merit and spiritual goodness.
So this is about the good karma that has been built and the karmic results from that.
And sometimes there is suffering and difficulties,
So where does it come from?
It's because we have our karma.
But we are able to make our mind still when experiencing it.
It is possible.
We may think,
Why do other people get it good?
Before they were poorer than us.
They had no rank or status,
No renown in society.
Now they are richer than us.
They have more rank and status than us.
There are more people praising them than us.
We can't handle it.
It is jealousy and envy.
Our heart gets burnt by jealousy and envy.
It's like a log fire that has been started.
The more jealousy there is,
The higher the fire gets.
The heart has nowhere left to stay.
We think only of the past,
That we used to have more than them.
They had less than us,
But now they have more than us.
Before we looked down on them a lot.
Now we are scared they'll look down on us.
It's karma.
But we can accept it.
We can mudita,
Rejoice with them.
And we can see it as something normal.
That this is about the merit of people.
A person who it doesn't go well for,
It's from their karma that is giving its results.
But when their good merit gives results,
Then they are born as a good person and have everything complete.
Here we can't say anything about it,
Because they must have their merit.
If we can accept this,
Then our heart is at ease.
This is believing in karma,
In the result of karma.
And there is the saddha,
The faith in the wisdom of the fully awakened Buddha.
This is very important.
When we believe it,
Then we practice following it.
And then we will get to know and see the Dhamma.
But if we don't believe in the wisdom of the Buddha,
Then it's over.
We may have wealth,
But it's just outer wealth.
We may have status,
But it's outer status.
We may have happiness,
But it's outer happiness.
It's all not permanent.
And we don't see the bright path to go.
We are ignorant of the cycle of birth and death.
But when we have faith in the Sama Sambuddha,
The perfectly self-awakened Buddha,
Then there is the chance for us to raise the level of our minds,
Until we can close off the lower realms.
And our aspiration to get to the heavenly realms succeeds as well,
So this is the highest.
We can see that there are people with lots of wealth,
Lots of status,
Lots of people praising them.
But what they lack is sila,
Morality,
Virtue.
They are not complete with sila.
They may do some killing.
They may break the moral precepts.
They are rich and want to be richer,
So then they cheat others and break precepts again.
They break their sila-dhamma,
The basic level of morality.
And later,
They tell lies and do all sorts of trickery in order to get our wealth.
Or they have everything already,
Then they indulge in intoxicants.
Some people drink in a restrained way,
But way too many people do not.
Then instead of anything good,
The intoxicants damages all that they have.
This is because of having no mindfulness.
When there is no mindfulness,
Then greed arises,
And they can act following it.
Anger arises just a bit,
And they can harm and kill.
Being drunk,
They can make mistakes.
So alcohol is dangerous.
The mindfulness is gone.
And when mindfulness is lacking,
Then there is a chance that the first,
Second,
Third,
Fourth precept can be broken as well.
The wealth one has can disappear.
So you must be complete with sila.
If you have no sila,
Then all things can collapse.
And here,
If a person possesses a lot of everything already,
And they keep it all for themselves,
Is that good?
If there is no sharing,
They just keep and use it for themselves,
Will they have happiness?
So they should share it with their wife or husband,
Share it with their children,
Share to the people around them,
And give offerings to monastics,
Doing it to the appropriate amount,
And not so it creates troubles.
So we share some of what we have.
It's not to the point where we are just stingy and do none at all.
But those who are frugal know about consumption.
They are not called stingy,
But they are one with wisdom.
They know how to use the wealth to have the highest benefit.
So wisdom is important.
We must develop wisdom often.
We can't be without wisdom.
In the aspect of faith,
We also need to have wisdom.
When we believe in karma,
We have wisdom.
We believe in vipaka,
The results of karma.
This is someone with wisdom.
And to believe in the awakening of the Buddha and his wisdom,
We need our own wisdom.
Those who give and share wealth to others are ones who have wisdom.
They don't keep it for themselves alone.
So we have to train our minds well to have these virtues,
And then we will be able to succeed.
And are we able to fulfill the aspiration that after dying,
We go to a heavenly realm?
It is hard to get.
But if we are complete with this determination to have these qualities,
Then when life ends,
There will be a high chance to go to heaven.
So when it's like this,
We need to make an effort.
Practice following the Dhamma of the Sama Sambuddha.
We can examine how this year that has passed has been.
How have we been lacking?
What have we been deficient in?
And then we fix it.
For that which we can't fix,
We can't only keep thinking endlessly about the past.
Then we will waste all our time living in the past.
To not be able to shed off the past is troublesome.
The five khandhas,
The aggregates of body and mind,
Are something heavy.
So we people carry a heavy burden.
But carrying the past is like carrying it up a mountain,
Which is even harder.
So the past is simply just an object of the mind.
So we get to the end of the year,
And we are still alive.
There may have been people we know,
Good friends,
Grandparents or parents who have passed away this year.
Or in the news we hear about those who have passed away,
Who used to be famous,
Who had wealth,
Who were in a high position and were famous.
And then there are those who have had happiness and then go through suffering.
This is about the laws of nature.
The law of aniccaṁ dukkhaṁ anatta,
Impermanence,
Unsatisfactoriness and not-self.
But whatever the case is,
May those who have passed away have happiness in a high realm.
We spread our mind of metta,
Goodwill.
And for us,
We are still fortunate.
And so we will have a lot of mindfulness with the present moment.
What has passed has gone already.
We will solve it in the new year.
The defilements and desire in our hearts,
Everyone has them.
But we will know contentment.
If we have a little,
It is just right.
If we have a lot,
It's just right.
If it's not just right,
Then they say it's like the water of the ocean which never gets full of water.
How much ever water comes in,
It is not more vast than the ocean.
Or it's like we have a fire that when we feed it fuel,
The fire will spark up.
There is no stopping it.
The more we fuel it,
The more it grows.
This is about desire.
So we need to stop.
How to stop?
It's by us coming to bhavana,
To train our mind.
For children,
They train to make their learning better.
They make their reading and writing better.
We make doing our work better.
We improve and develop.
This is called bhavana.
And especially for our minds,
We make our bhavana better through listening,
Reading,
Knowing and contemplating,
Until we understand and get to the heartwood of the teachings that all things are emptiness.
So may we get some experience with the feeling that all things are emptiness.
That it is not me,
Not mine.
Then we can see somewhat that everything in the world are simply conventions.
We are in this world,
But when we know that it is supposed into being,
Then our minds can be somewhat liberated from it.
We see the bright path,
The path of the Dhamma,
The path of wisdom that the Sama Sambuddha had attained to.
So it's close to the end of the year.
May you gain the good fortune and happiness which is difficult to gain.
May you obtain all the wealth,
Status,
Praise and happiness.
May you have all the noble virtues such as faith,
Wisdom and self-sacrifice.
These are the qualities that will look after your mind and will bring you only spiritual growth and prosperity.
For that which has passed,
May it be gone.
May the new things that come in be only good and lead to happiness.
May all this come to you and your families,
Together with bright minds imbued with mindfulness and wisdom,
And which has a lifelong refuge in the Buddha,
Dhamma,
Sangha.
May you grow in blessings.
