We know that success or failure in our current live depend on what we

THE WAY TO USE MONEY AND POWERS IS BEING QUESTIONED HERE

The way to use money and powers is being questioned here. If we use money and powers for good things then money and power are put in good use; otherwise, they re bad things. If you are always thinking for other people, then money, power in your hands will bring others lots of benefits. In contrast, if the power and money held by an evil man, evil things will spread and dominate this society.

Thus, basically an ethical man should not have personal ambitions. We strongly recommend that all personal ambitions are sins. Only when we really purify our mind, money and power in our hands will create good things for society.

Once upon a time, King Ly Thai To - Ly Cong Uan was predicted to become the king by his teacher - Zen Master Van Hanh. When he grew up, some other Zen Masters also had the same prediction. He lived in a temple since he was a child. Because of this prediction, his teacher prevented him to be a monk but forced him to compete for a government official position. He became a commander, supervising the guards of the capital. When King Le Long Dinh died, the country didn't have a leader, so the court elected King Ly Cong Uan, founder of the Ly dynasty, took the title of Ly Thai To King.

King Ly was very reserved about his power. He always fulfilled his duties even when only a few people predicted that he would be the king. However, when the king died, the court elected him king, he accepted and this was entirely satisfied everyone. The Ly dynasty led the Vietnamese civilization to glory. This example shows us that when power and money come into the hands of a good and ethical person, good things will inevitably happen.

A compassionate man will always have an attitude of meekness, harmony and always living for others without any prejudice. We should always be willing to fight for the rights and benefits of vulnerable people. We are very lenient but not weak, our compassion will be the motivation to master our inner feelings.

However, compassion sometimes will lead to extreme. We are not sure how it happened and to whom, but sometimes the xtreme did happen. In those cases, they do not care what others say and do, they just consitnue pampering and spoiling others. True and genuine morality is not really those sort of actions. A truly moral person must be very clear bout their thinking and actions, when needing to ght, they will fight, when needing peace they will operate to achieve peace. We will compromise our n benefits if peace is beneficial for everyone. We will say tough words if that is what it takes. We will co-operate and fight for the sake of everyone not for ourselves. That is the critial element of compassion and wisdom.

Today, I also would like to talk about success and failure in life. Everyone in this world wants to succeed. We learn, practise many things in order to be successful and contribute towards the society. This is most people's dream. However, not everyone can achieve their dreams, and in fact, there are very few people that do have their dream come true. Life is ups and downs. Some people claim that their success is due to their talent, wisdom and sometimes a little ruthlessness is needed. The poor always fail because they are weak and not capable. Sometimes life has a look and think like that. In the Buddhism philosophers' eyes, these things appear in a completely different way. We try to understand everything on the basis the law of cause and effect or karma law. Success or failure is due to the cause of many things that happen across many generations. Maybe you will disagree with this thinking. You may be thinking without talent you would not succeed in life, especially in the competitive market economy, fierce, only those who are very good, very skillful and talented can be talented can be successful.

Let talk about a simple thing, wire. There are so many types of wire produced and sole in the the market. Whoever has the knowledge about the product and the ability to produce the wire with many superior features with cheap costs and sell it with cheap price will take a lead in the market. But to do so, these people must be talented and also sensitive about the market movements. Therefore, the key factor for success is talent, but it also critically depends on the law of cause and effect. A person, who in a previous life had earned many blessings because of his/her many good deeds, would be more talented that the person who did not have much of blessings because he/she did not do many good deeds in their past lives. However, talent is a complicated thing. We will talk about this in another occasion. We know that success or failure in our current live depend on what we did in our previous lives so we should be calm in any event, either a success or a failure. We should not be too proud when we are successful and not depressed when we fail but we should firmly learn from our mistakes and move on. Those, who are too proud about their current success, may not be achievemnt more success greater in life.

As we strive to do something, let ensure that we put all of our effort to do well, but do not put all our hope to it. If we did, we would be depressed if it failed. So when trying to accomplish a goal, we should only expect about 70 percent for the success and 30 percent for the failure. If it did not work as we expected, the 30-percent component will help us keep us calm, balanced. We should look into those failed scenarios and learn from these mistakes. Only calmness and concentration will help us move on and have another goal to reach. That is the attitude of a very wise and virtuous man.

There have been many questions about big dream, success and failure:
"Do we need to have a big dream or have a great idea of bringing the benefits for mankind?
Why does the person with a big dream become upset, depressed, and suffering or even lose their mind when failed?
And would we rather not have big dreams and not be ambitious so we would not be suffering when failed?"

Based on the above, does it mean that it is not wise to advise people to be ambitious and have dream and working hard towards their goals? We would suffer when we did not achieve our goals but only when these dreams were for our own benefits. For example, when a person walked across the street, he saw many poor and homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk then he dreams of becoming the Prime Minister to provide houses and food for those needy people. Is it a good dream? It is very good, in deed. But will he be able to become the Prime Minister? We cannot be sure about that. Then he comlained that God did not help his dream come true, about not letting him become the Prime Mister so that he could provide houses and food for the homeless. Well, he would suffer from this disappointment because his primary motivation is about having power and fame, his personal ambition, not because of others' needs.

Written by:
Janna

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