Persist In Developing Noble Inner Wealth

When people do not have Sila (virtue, moral conduct), it comes from not believing in the law of karma. But wrong livelihood harms ourselves as well as others. The mind of a human being can be more scary than a ghost.

Ajahn Chah once said that we are scared of a skeleton but we are not afraid of our own skeleton. It is because we think that the body is ours but if our mind is peaceful and still we see that that mind and the body are separate things.

A person with material wealth may not have any happiness as there is clinging and attachment due to greed. However, spiritual wealth provides inner fulfillment and happiness that is beyond this world and follows our mind (onto the next lives).

Transcript

Samadhi is the firm concentration of the mind.

This concentration of mind we need to see if it is sama.

Sama in Pali translates as it's right,

Correct.

This is important.

But we will usually say it as sitting meditation,

To develop in mindfulness.

But the meaning is right sati,

Mindfulness,

And right concentration.

If we establish our mind,

But recollect wrongly,

Then it is a firmly established mind that is wrong.

It is mithya,

It is incorrect.

And it is dangerous as well.

The mindfulness is good,

But it is wrong.

Samadhi is firmly concentrated,

But it is wrong.

Wisdom is used to harm ourselves or harm others.

So we can see that there is no sila,

Morality,

Virtue as a basis.

So the samadhi or mindfulness that is correct needs to have sila as a foundation.

Kama ajiwo is earning a livelihood in a correct way,

Not harming ourselves,

Not harming others.

These days,

There are very strange occupations.

They may even help us,

But end up being harmed,

And even many lose their lives through mithya ajiwo,

Wrong livelihood.

This comes from not believing in the law of kama.

They don't see that doing good,

They will receive good.

Doing bad,

They will receive bad.

And we can see that the Thai people of the past,

Or even in these days,

There are many who since being born believe in life after death,

Believe in spirits,

Believe in devatas,

Divine beings.

And we have fear as well in the things that we can't see.

The things that we can see,

We don't really fear them.

And I've asked people from many other countries,

And one western monk answered that ghosts aren't really that scary,

But they are more scared of crazy people.

They don't know where they come out from.

We are sitting alone in the forest,

And they may even come and take our life,

Without any reason.

And there is a lot like this.

So we can see what is even more scary is the mind of a person,

That is,

Not a human being.

This is even more scary than those who have died already,

And have gone somewhere else.

Those who die are just left with the mind.

They aren't able to pick up a weapon or kill someone and take their life.

Like the skeleton kept in this glass cupboard,

Some people are scared of it.

They sleep close to a skeleton,

And fear comes up.

We'll be scared of whichever bones of someone who has died that we keep.

Fear is like this.

It's because we love ourselves.

But the skeleton in the cupboard,

I've never seen it come out of the cupboard.

But we are afraid of it.

What are we afraid of?

We are afraid of death.

We don't want to be like that there.

Sometimes Venerable Ajahn Chah would speak about this in terms of wisdom.

We are scared of the skeleton,

But that which we slept with last night.

Who did we put clothes on with?

He would ask like this.

We think the body is ours already,

So we aren't scared of it.

But if our mind is peaceful and still,

We see that the body is one thing,

And the mind is another thing.

The mind is supported by this body.

It puts on clothes with this body,

Which is just this skeleton here.

With this skeleton,

Then we can sit,

Stand,

Walk,

Lie down.

We can use it to make benefit,

And it can be used to build goodness.

But if it decays,

Then there are problems arising with our physical health,

And we need to look after it.

But one who doesn't have mindfulness and wisdom will take this body to do bad things.

This we call doing bhava,

Or evil.

This develops bad mindfulness,

And samadhi is not well established in goodness.

So one who has wisdom sees the blame in that.

And when we are born in this era,

2,

566 years since the time of the Buddha,

And the minds of humans have deteriorated a lot,

But in another hundred years,

It will be worse than this.

It'll get worse and worse.

We are here in this world temporarily.

We need to give up and throw away all things.

One venerable elder contemplated that in this world,

There is no one that is chief of it.

It is chief in itself.

You must throw and give up everything.

There is no being full.

It is a slave to craving.

There is no satisfaction.

It is never enough.

But one with success in life,

In work,

Gets rank and status,

Makes a big business in terms of the country or the world,

And has everything already,

But they may not have any happiness at all.

Because that is happiness that arises from wealth and material things.

But that rich person will have happiness when he's able to sacrifice it away,

To make merit and give dana,

Practice generosity with it.

They see the eyes of those who are poor and in difficulties.

They see the pure love that they experience from the one that has received.

It is inner happiness.

It is an inner power,

This happiness.

So giving dana is to knock out the upadana,

The clinging and attachment in our hearts.

Because loba,

Greed,

Makes our mind darker and darker.

But if we can let go of greed,

Then the mind will become bright.

So our mind has greater value compared to other things.

If we develop our minds through dana,

Through sila,

It is a wealth,

A noble wealth.

And especially if we have trained in developing samadhi,

Making our mind still and peaceful,

Then there is a feeling of inner fulfillment and happiness.

We can't compare it to anything.

It is full.

It is empty.

It is light.

So we will see that we can find this type of happiness through stopping the thinking,

Stopping the proliferating,

Stopping worry.

The mind is peaceful.

If the mind is proliferating and worry arises,

Then it isn't peaceful.

It is chaotic.

And we see that these days,

The people in the West are looking for this.

Because they're full of all the material things,

So they're searching for the dhamma.

Searching for goodness.

The mind is joyous from giving.

This is someone who has a lot of wisdom.

They know how to practice charity.

They help education in children's schools.

They set up a foundation to help the poor and unfortunate.

They support Buddhism,

Spreading dhamma to reach further.

And they receive inner happiness and fulfillment from building goodness.

This is someone with wisdom.

Even if they have wealth,

They use that wealth to have benefit for themselves and for others as well.

When they practice dharma,

Their mind is bright and radiant.

And they practice samadhi,

And they are peaceful,

With sila as a foundation.

Can we see that this real happiness is the happiness from giving,

And giving things up,

And being restrained with sila,

And then wisdom arises?

In the beginning,

Wisdom arises bit by bit.

And we also want to know what the wisdom of seeing into not-self is like.

It seems so difficult,

Because we take everything as a self.

The body contains blood,

A water element,

And the blood is us.

Anything in this body is us.

The mind has attached to it all.

It is so sticky and firm.

If we take out just 300ml of blood,

And we think that this is not us,

We feel that when it comes out from our body,

Then it's not ours.

But then why is it that when it's in our body,

It is ours?

However we try to think about it,

We can't get it to think in this way.

We try to think in this way,

But it's blocked.

The power of samadhi is not there yet.

The wisdom that arises from thoughts amounts to just this much.

It is not clear.

So we need to train in having firm mindfulness and samadhi,

So that wisdom arises,

So that knowing arises on another level,

Seeing that it is not-self.

All the wealth we find is with difficulty,

But we can still give it.

Because we know that by giving,

Merit arises.

It doesn't disappear anywhere.

It's just changed from being a material thing,

To being a mental thing,

To merit in our heart.

We can see that scientists and chemists can change and convert things into energy,

So that humans can live with more convenience.

But the science of Buddhism has known about this for a long time,

And has converted things already long ago,

Changed that which is coarse to something that is refined within the mind.

It's like the filtering of the mind,

And it is just this mind that will have happiness from self-sacrificing for the benefit of others,

And ultimately we will have the wisdom to know what is it in this world that we want.

Even if we have a lot,

We still have to die.

We have to throw it away in this world.

So we build goodness,

We make merit and self-sacrifice,

And help society in various ways.

The mind is joyous and fulfilled.

Like the wealthy merchant Anattapindika and Lady Visakha,

We hear and praise their virtues,

Even till this present day.

It's not something easy to do.

How is it possible that someone could spread gold coins on every part of the land of Jetavana Monastery?

Well,

Have we thought about this?

He was rich to that level,

But he could sacrifice it away.

It's not something ordinary.

This is from the Bharami,

The spiritual perfections of the Buddha.

Anattapindika's heart had to be more full than with possessing the wealth.

His heart had to have inner fulfillment,

And to have the power of rapture.

He saw that exterior wealth had little value,

But he took it to build benefit in the Buddha sasana,

The dispensation.

And so we can reflect on Anattapindika and Lady Visakha,

And we practice dana,

Keep sila,

Practice bhavana,

Cultivating the mind.

And we change the coarse wealth to be a refined wealth,

Until we have the knowing that is beyond the world,

That we call lakuttara,

Seeing everything as being emptiness.

And this starts from someone who has faith bit by bit,

Who regularly gives alms,

Listens to dhamma,

Makes merit,

And gives dana.

This starts from the first step,

From samadhiti,

Right view.

Then establishing right mindfulness and well-established samadhi,

It is all correct.

This makes us meet with true inner happiness and fulfillment in our lives.

It is lakuttara,

Beyond the world.

It is wealth that follows our mind,

Until our lives and existences get less.

So try to achieve this in this life.

If we still have to be born again,

And are born in a time that has declined in terms of the basic level of sila,

Then we will have to meet with people who are evil-minded.

So to try to escape these things,

We have to build goodness,

Build merit and goodness,

Until we can overcome lives and existences,

And at the minimum,

Not having an eighth life,

Achieving this in this life,

Seeing rupa,

Materiality,

And nama mentality as being not me,

Not mine,

Changing wrong view to be right view,

Which we call seeing the dhamma.

May you all grow in the dhamma.

May you have happiness and grow in blessings.

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