Behind their altruistic life is eternal happiness.
Those who want to live for themselves will be suffering and lonely. So, you should never keep anything private and remember to recite the sentence "In this life, we share everything with others" every day. When we keep on reminding ourselves of this sentence, we will see a change to many different people full of altruism.
HAPPINESS COMES FROM THE LIFE OF ALTRUISM AND SELFLESSNESS.
We can also find happiness behind a life of altruism and selflessness. In this life, people have many similar things. We walk on the same road, we breathe the same air, we bathe in the same river, and we drink from the same stream... Yet, we like to keep our things separate from others, so we may say: "This amount of money is mine, this house is mine, this pot is mine, this bowl is mine..."
If we like to keep our things separate from others, it will make us miserable. Only those who can understand that we all share everything will have happiness. Our ancestors had a saying: "In this life, we share everything with others. One person may be superior to others because of his heroic deeds."
The statement "One is superior to others because of his heroic deeds." is just a joke. The point is the first philosophy: "In this life, we share everything with others." We should live in a way that we see nothing private; everything should be shared. If you can behave this way, you are making progress in practicing Buddhism and you are worthy of being a disciple of the Buddha. Those who still separate their things from others are standing outside the door to Buddhism. We have to remind ourselves: "In this life we share everything with others" and consider it your mantra and repeat it several times a day. This mantra is as efficacious as the mantra "Omani pad me hum."
We say this quite seriously and those who do not believe us should give it a try. Suppose someday you have a headache, or a runny nose, instead of reciting "Omani pad me hum", you recite, "In this life, we share everything with others," you will see that you recover very quickly and mysteriously. Anyone who regularly recites this statement to themselves will have a different life. They will often help and share with others and will become selfless. And behind their altruistic life is eternal happiness. Those who want to live for themselves will be suffering and lonely. So, you should never keep anything private and remember to recite the sentence "In this life, we share everything with others" every day. When we keep on reminding ourselves of this sentence, we will see a change to many different people full of altruism.
From that time on, we will be kind to others and live in harmony with them, and then we will find great joy from our altruistic life.
Conversely, what will happen if we are selfish? For example, we went to the kitchen and found that everybody was eating a loaf of bread with vegetarian food inside. However, unexpectedly, we took a loaf of bread with meat inside. We then took our bread to a place that no one could discover us until we finished our bread. We had a different loaf of bread from others and we thought that we were happier than them. The truth is, it was suffering. Those who always take care of others, and give up whatever is better to others, will then find happiness.
Have you ever experienced this? If not, you have not yet made any progress in your cultivation. We do not have to wait for our good results in the future. Right at this time, you should love and help others, and you will find happiness.
The last thing we want to remind you all is that wherever you live, remote areas, or under poor living conditions, or facing many difficulties, or the Dharma is underdeveloped, but we have monks who volunteered to travel there to build Buddhism. They stand a lot of hardships and difficulties to build temples to spread the Dharma. They are great examples to us.
And, to express our reverence to the Buddha, and also our Masters who are not afraid of difficulties to preserve and spread the Dharma, we must diligently practice Buddhism and cooperate with monks and nuns to build the Dharma.
We know that living in this world, every being is searching for happiness, and this is a nature of beings. A fly, a mosquito, or a human is seeking happiness, but in different ways. However, keep in mind that what's behind happiness is most important.
Through our analysis, we discover that behind what people think is happiness, is actually, sin and suffering. As for Buddhists, we search for another kind of happiness. That is the practice of Buddhism, liberation, enlightenment, compassion, love and kindness. This is the kind of happiness that we are seeking, and this will bring us lasting happiness. Other kinds of happiness will meet their doom. And when we go in the right direction in Buddhism, we will achieve true happiness, and this kind of happiness never comes to its doom.
Written by:
Janna
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