Different dreams would require different conditions.

Those who wish to benefit everyone's lives without any selfishness will not suffer even when they fail. This is what I really meant.

One of the story in the "Collecting sand and stones" series advised us about Zen Master Thich Nhat Sam, a monk and also a painter. Probably because of his meditation strengh, it helped him paint very beautifully, but he would sell these paintings with a very high price. Therefore, many people did not like him because he was a monk but very greedy for money. One day, there was a girl asking him to paint her portrait. When he told her about the price, the girl angrily shouted him at him and told him that he was mean. Then she turned her back, took off her coat and asked him to draw her skirt, because she wanted to humiliate him. However, the Zen Master still stayed calm and drew a beautiful dress on her back.

After a while, he stopped drawing, then people realised the true three purposes of his behaviour (i.e. selling his drawings with high price):

The first purpose was to build a tower for his teacher since he died long time ago but there was not a tower for him. That was due to his devoted love to his teacher; the second purspose was to fix the damanged road near his temple; and the last purpose was to build a warehouse to store food for the villagers after floods.

When he accomplished those three goals, he gave up paintings to live in seclusion. Until then, people could understand his behaviour and understand that he was so tolerant and generous. So, the key thing is that we need to purify our souls. Sometimes, people assessed us based on the outside i.e. our behaviour, our work and judged that we are selfish. However, that is only the interim assessment and we should not have to be concerned. The important point is that we live for others, and thinking about others from the bottom of our hearts.

Buddhas has always praised meditation as a harmonious synthesis of wisdom and morality. When our mind is calm and peaceful, we think clearly about everything. When our mind is clear, we are able to assess the others' behaviours, and their nature hoslisticly. And also thank to meditation we also can practise to predict our future in more details than those whose minds are not pure. Before practising meditation, we could only see what the others did to us], however with the aid of meditation, we cleared our minds and could see things more clearly and in a different way. Or, for some particular issues, we could not analyse or understand why it was the way it was, now with meditation, it helped us understand the issue and helped analysed it better. Therefore, for those who practise meditation and are good at it, they could be better at seeing and predicting future events than others.

Besides, for those whose minds are pure and calm, they are also very kind and compassionate. Because of this quality, their selfishness is less and they are sensitive and patient. So, meditation itself is a great combination of wisdom and morality. We always wish you to practise meditation throughout your lives. This era is the Information era so it easily makes us stressed. When our minds are weak, it is difficult to understand and assess all information properly. To strengthen our mind we must meditate.

The last thing we want to discuss today is that wise and moral people always find that nothing is permanent in life. Right and wrong, good and evil are only relative. What people consider true sometimes wrong; what they think wrong, sometimes true. That is why we do not always judge and assess thing accurately. However, those people, whose minds are calm and pure, could always and see things from right to wrong, from good to evil right but they are not obstinate about those things.

There was a government official called Tay Mon Bao who lived at Tan Hiep District, where residents had the custom of sending beautiful girls on a raft floating along the river each year to devote to God at seas. He was very surprised at this tradition so he asked the elders to let him know when they had the ceremony so he could see it for himself. When the ceremony occurred, he led the soldiers to the ceremony and asked to see the bride's face. He then said the girl is too ugly for this purpose. He commanded the fortune-teller to go down into the sea to inform God that he should wait for a more beatiful girl. He ordered the soldiers to throw the fortune-teller into the river in a very sincere and respectful way. But the fortune-teller did not return, then he asked the older men of the village who hold the ceremony to do the same thing. Again, noone returned. He was about to ask some more people to do the same thing, but the rest of the village bowed and begged him not to do so.

Since then, the village abandoned this superstitious belief and cruel custom, thanks to Tay Mon Bao.
China has three people ruling the country, and the country was very stable when it was under their administration. When King Tu San ruled, the country was very flourishing because he was so smart that his people could not do anything to deceive him. When King Tu Tien ruled, people could not treat him badly because he was so kind. And with King Tay Mon Bao, people was so scared of him as he was very strick and he would punish those whose did evil things.

Those are the absolute attitudes that required to rule a country: Be wise as Tu San, Be moral and kind as Tu Tien, And be courageous and strict as Tay Mon Bao. Tay Mon Bao was wise but a bit brutal and yet still achieved the goal of ruling a country and its residents. The characteristics of the three leaders we mentioned above are similar to three elements in Buddhism Compassion-Wisdom-Courage. Tu Tien represents Compassion; Tu San represents Wisdom; and Tay Mon Bao represents Courage.

So amongst those elements Compasion, Wisdom and Courage which one would we choose? In fact, we would need all of them and depending on the situations, we would need to decide which one is to be used. I was asked: "Master, we know that we should be ambitious and try to live our dream, but how could we make those dreams come true?"

My answer was that I could not answer your question in a few sentences. This depends on what your dreams and ambitions are. There are many factors and conditions that required to be. Different dreams would require different conditions. But the most important thing is our abilities and again the level of our abilities depend on our blessing that have been accummulated throughout our past lives and current lives. And when we have no blessings we would not be able to succeed. I definitely can confirm this condition.

Written by:
Janna

Related Articles:

Money, Power, Compassion, Wisdom, Success and Failure

Live Wisely with Compassion – The Balance of Wisdom and Kindness

The Three Elements of Kindness: Wisdom, Tolerance and Love

Snake and Dove: The Balance Between Wisdom and Kindness

It Is Not Possible to Enjoy All Our Blessings: Karma and Good Deeds

Instruction on Meditation: Essential Methods and Practice Guide

Our Brains Are Always Working: How to Develop Right Thinking

Meditation Q&A 51–55: Impermanence, Body, Sin and Mindfulness