The teachings of Ajahn Suchart.
5 December 2023
“Being born is to satisfy your cravings.”
Question: What is the purpose of being born in this earth?
Than Ajahn: There’s no purpose for being born. Being born is the result of your cravings or desires. Being born is to satisfy your cravings or desires because you need a body to see and to hear things. You have cravings to see, to hear, to touch, and to feel things, so you need to have a body.
As soon as you lose this body, your mind will look for a new body. And when you get a new body, then you come back to do what your mind wants to do, i.e. to see, to hear, to feel, to touch. So, this is the reason why we are born.
This is the cause of our rebirths.
According to the Wise men, being born is not good.
Because there is not only happiness in this world, but there is also unhappiness or sadness. The nature of the happiness is temporary.
When we lose those happiness, what’s next is sadness or unhappiness. It’s the same with the body. When the body is young, it’s strong and healthy. It can do a lot of thing, it brings a lot of happiness. But when it gets old, gets sick and dies, it brings you a lot of unhappiness.
So, according to the Wise men, being born is not good.
It’s better not to be reborn again. The way not to be reborn again is by getting rid of your cravings or your desires. And the way to get rid of your cravings or your desires is by practising meditation.
There are 2 levels of meditation: calming the mind and teaching the mind that cravings are bad for you.
Cravings will only lead you to sadness and suffering.
Once you have developed this understanding, and developed the ability to stop your cravings, you won’t have to come back and be reborn again.
Not being reborn doesn’t mean you disappear.
The mind is still there but in the state where you don’t need to have a physical body to make you happy. You can be happy forever and eternally without having a physical body.
Youtube: “Dhamma in English, Nov 9, 2018.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
Latest Dhamma talks on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
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