Question: How does the joy arising from dāna or helping others help us to meditate better?
Tan Ajahn: The joy that arises will make your mind more peaceful and calm; it will enable you to be able to keep the precepts, making your mind calmer. You need a calm mind to meditate effectively.
If your mind is still agitating for money, for things, you will find it difficult to sit and meditate; your mind wants to have more money, thinking that if you have more money, you will become happier. But instead you become more agitated. When you do the opposite and give dāna, you give money away. Your action signals that you don’t want any more money, that you want to have less money, or that you want to have just enough money for maintaining your life. If you have that attitude, then your mind will not be agitated by your desire for money, and at the same time when you help other people with your money, you have compassion, mettā, and karuṇā. This will make you not want to hurt other people, and you will find that keeping the precepts is very easy.
When you break the precepts, your mind will become agitated, anxious, and worried. When you do not break the precepts, your mind will be peaceful and calm, so it will be easy for you to develop mindfulness and to meditate. They are the prerequisites for your bhāvanā.
Sīla is the prerequisite for your bhāvanā, and dāna is the prerequisite for your sīla. If you cannot give away your money or you want more money, you will find it difficult to keep the precepts because when you want more money, you will do anything to get it. If you have to cheat, you will cheat. If you have to lie, you will lie. But when you don’t have the desire for more money, but have the desire to help other people, then you will find that keeping the precepts is easy.
“Dhamma for the Asking, Dec 9, 2014”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com
Latest Dhamma talks on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
No comments:
Post a Comment