Some would question "how do we know how much or little blessings has
been accumulated?" The key answer to this mysterious question is to assess whether we currently lack or are in excess of blessing/good fortune.
IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO BENEFIT FROM ALL OUR BLESSINGS.
This statement has been passed down from our Patriarchs, Highly Honored Monks to the present generation. Today, we will thoroughly disseminate this statement to ascertain its meaning. Once we gain understanding of this statement, we will be able to avoid many mistakes in our life and our application/practice will be more seamless.
What is blessing that it can determine our fate? Why is this person kind and gentle but poor and suffering? Why is that person cruel but wealthy?
In reality there are many ironies. There are some people who can be hot tempered and brash but at the same time are so generous and caring. These people, in their next life, will remain hot tempered and brash but wealthy. On the contrary, those who are nice but rarely do charity or perform good deeds will remain poor. They neither harm nor help anybody.
Therefore, it is quite complicated and difficult to use blessing to measure a person. Only if you were enlightened, and you could see people's true nature and karma throughout their past lives, you will find that blessing influences on people's karma in an extremely mysterious way. Let's take a look at Major-General Le Ma Luong example - Hero of the Vietnamese People's Army who has just become a Buddhist today - who talks about his fierce battles, among which there was one battle where all but 17 soldiers from a platoon of 150 remained alive. Even when a grenade exploded right in front of him but did not kill him, he still managed to survive with just one eye and shrapnel scars on his body, he did not understand why it could be so. It is believed that people like Major-General Le, are people of great fate.
People of great fate are those who, in their previous lives, regularly ate vegetarian, avoided taking life and helped others. That is why in this lifetime, they are blessed with great fate. They are able to walk in the path of danger and remain unharmed. Over the past few days Luong has stayed in the temple, eating vegetarian food. We have advised him to try practising eating vegetables because he is getting old. He has promised to try when he returns home. This means he has not eaten vegetarian previously. However, it is almost certain that a person of great fate such as he must have been a vegetarian in his previous life. This is a truth.
Therefore as Buddhist practitioners if we often eat vegetarian food, in our next life we will not die in vain full of regrets. It is difficult to rationalise this because the answer lies within our past lives. It is often said in war that it is the bomb shrapnel that avoids us but we cannot avoid it. This is entirely based on the good deeds of our past life.
In fact, a person's fate is determined by the amount of blessings/good deeds accumulated from their past lives, and in battle it is the person who has more accumulated blessings who will always be the victor. We need to understand that the law of karma is a totally different concept from what is just and unjust. In our present life, our winnings and achievements are dependent on the blessings we inherited from our past lives, similarly the blessings and good deeds we accumulate in our present lifetime will dictate our blessings for our future.
Our Patriarch in his teachings of: "It is not possible to enjoy all our blessings", explains everyone living has inherited some blessings from their previous life. Some inherit more blessing than others that is why there are people who are very wealthy, healthy, and physically attractive as opposed to those who are less fortunate (e.g. sickly, poor, deformed etc).
In saying this, some would question "how do we know how much or little blessings has been accumulated?"
The key answer to this mysterious question is to assess whether we currently lack or are in excess of blessing/good fortune.
Written by:
Janna
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