The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart.
28 January 2024
Question: What is the teachings of the Buddha?
Than Ajahn: The teachings of the Buddha is the teachings about the truth of life: what makes us happy and what makes us sad. The Buddha said that what make us happy is when we do good kamma and what makes us sad is when we do bad kamma. He said that we should only do good kamma and we should abstain from doing bad kamma. What are the bad kamma to avoid? They are killing, stealing, committing adultery, lying and drinking—these are bad kamma.
- - - - -
Question: How come there are many religions in the world? We’ve got Christianity, Buddhism, Islamic.
Than Ajahn: Because each religion has its own interpretation about life. Each religion interprets differently about what life is. They all teach almost the same things.
Each religion teaches you to do good kamma and to abstain from doing bad kamma because this is the truth—this is what makes life good or bad, happy or sad.
However, we tend to ignore the teachings of the religion because our delusion thinks in the opposite direction: we think that doing bad kamma is a good thing and doing good kamma is a bad thing. Like people go drinking, they think that it will make them happy, but this is a false sense of happiness—they feel happy when they drink; when they don’t drink, they feel bad, then they become addicted to drinking and eventually, it will kill them if they drink too much: this is the result of doing bad kamma. But people don’t want to think, because they need the bad kamma to make them feel good although it’s just a brief sense of well-being, a temporary sense of goodness or happiness; there is a host of bad things coming afterwards from doing bad kamma.
- - -
Question: When the Dalai Lama dies, all the local village know that he will come back.
Than Ajahn: This is partly true, but it isn’t always true because once you die, you cannot direct your mind to go and be reborn in a certain place. The law of kamma will take over; the law of chances and opportunity will take place. So, you cannot decide that you are going to come back and be reborn as an Australian next life.
- - -
Question: Getting back to when the world was created, in Christianity, there is an initial point which is the god who spread out and its energy is everywhere.
Than Ajahn: This is just the human interpretation of the phenomena, the universe.
Question: In Buddhism, what is the starting point?
Than Ajahn: There is no starting point and it is not important to know because it has no bearing on our happiness or sadness. So, we don’t need to worry about them.
What we need to worry is our kamma: what we do, what we think and what we say.
- - -
Question (F): I don’t know if in Buddhism there is a god or creator, so how was the world created?
Than Ajahn: We are not interested in this type of question because it doesn’t have anything to do with us.
Buddhism is more concerned about what happens to us, and what happens to us is determined by our own actions.
We feel good or bad due to our kamma, due to what we do—this is our concern. We are not concerned about who built the world or where the world came from because it has no bearing on us. By knowing who built the world doesn’t change anything in us. What cause changes in us is our kamma: if we do good kamma, it makes us feel good, makes us happy; if we do bad kamma, it makes us feel bad, makes us unhappy. So this is what we are more concerned with: our kamma.
The Buddha teaches us to stop doing bad kamma and to develop good kamma.
“Dhamma in English, Jan 3, 2019.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com
Latest Dhamma talks on Youtube:
No comments:
Post a Comment