Nothing is really ours.

 Nothing is really ours.

Think about the things that you hold to as your own external wealth, the possessions with and without consciousness that are said to be yours. Can you really take them with you when you go? Your land, your home, your furnishings, all the things that the mind holds on to: can you really claim them to be your own? Can the mind take them along as its own belongings when it goes to be reborn? When you have no more breath to breathe, you have no more rights to these things. You can't continue to hold onto them as "my children," "my husband," "my wife," "my grandchildren," "my home," "my millions and thousands in the bank."

Adhuvo loko. Sabbam pahaya gamaniyam.

The world is unstable. One must go on, abandoning everything.

None of the world's wealth belongs to us. And we don't belong to it. There's nothing but "gaminiyam": there's nothing but leaving and dying. In other words, you can't really hold to these things as your own. 

You have rights over them only for this life.

After death the body lies rotting on the ground and is cremated. People come in this world never ask permission from parents, When they go also without asking permission. From where they had come, where will they go, Its unknown for all.

Look at other people, Parents and grandparents, where have they all gone? They are dead.

There is nothing to cling to in this world. Ask yourself, ‘What can I take with me when I die?

Make up your mind to be courageous in doing only the good, without fear or apprehension for any obstacle whatsoever. The person who trusts in the Triple Gem, the person with true happiness, the person who prospers, achieving his or her desired goals, is the person who does only the good.

Like all good deeds, an act of giving will bring us happiness. From little one should little give, from moderate means likewise,

From much give much: of giving nothing no question can arise.

Give alms of that is thine:

Eat not alone, no bliss is his that by himself shall dine,

By charity you may ascend the noble path divine.

Giving (dana) is one of the essential preliminary steps of Buddhist practice. When practiced in itself, it is a basis of merit or wholesome kamma. When coupled with morality, concentration and insight, it leads ultimately to liberation from samsara, the cycle of repeated existence.

The Buddha taught that the supreme means of accumulating merit and wisdom through our body, speech, and mind is through building monasteries and teaching centres, especially where there have been none before. Of the three types of generosity—material generosity, generosity of giving protection, and generosity of giving the Dharma—the highest is Dharma generosity.

But just wishing to provide the Dharma is not enough—there must be a place for people who need the Dharma to meet. Once the monastery is completed, it will not be a place where only one person comes; it will be a place where thousands of people come. And it will not be a place where only one person teaches, as there will be many different teachers. And with many teachers and limitless students meeting in a place where there was no monastery ever before, there is a tremendous benefit. The peerless benefit of making the teachers and the Dharma available continues not for one day or a year, but for generations. And within those generations, the benefit that comes from this project will be limitless.

There is a reason why the Buddha said that building teaching centers and monasteries where none existed before is a supreme means of accumulating merit. When you truly help one individual through material generosity, or protection, or by giving the Dharma, there is a great benefit indeed. But the help that you are providing is to only one person. When you build a monastery, you benefit countless beings, and the merit that you accumulate is supreme.

Even when there is no teaching going on within the monastery, by simply being there it inspires the mind and develops the devotion of people who visit. Through such inspiration, people come to follow the path and are led to its fruition; this could be the result of their initial contact with the monastery and the Dharma. The merit in this is beyond any conception.

To establish a Vihara for the Sangha of The Buddha, soothing somebody with the words, ‘please help to build,’ ‘please donate,’ ‘please give a hand with the work’…”—any group of people who help to build a monastery, even during sleep, while standing up, eating, whatever they do, the merit of building the temple continuously increases, immeasurably.

 

 May All Beings Be Well And Happy