Buddha attained supreme enlightenment through meditation and then spent His whole life converting sentient beings. The Four Foundations of Mindfulness Sutra teaches a method of meditation to gain no-self, and to enter Nirvana.
Why are there many people gentle but miserable?
There may be a question, “Why are there many people gentle but miserable and many people aggressive but wealthy?” Do not be mistaken that gentle people are good ones. Many people who are gentle but very passive; they neither have harmed anyone nor helped anyone. They won’t get angry and beat the person who has beaten them. And they won’t help the person who is dying on the street. These people will be poor and unhappy according to the law of Karma.
So, what should we be? We should be gentle but have to help others. If we are gentle but do not help people in need, then we will be poor and miserable and terrible retribution is waiting for us.
There was a very gentle person, who always smiled and said nothing even when his feelings were hurt. One day, while he went across a bridge he saw a child falling down into the river. He saw no one around and he didn’t shout for help; he did nothing and the child was slowly sinking and died. He has eyes but is like blind; he has a mouth but is like dumb. Although he was very gentle, he never helped anyone in danger, o in his next life he will be extremely miserable.
Another case is that there was a gentle person. His gentleness resulted from his practice of the Dharma in the past life. However, the life before past life, he created a bad karma. So, in the first twenty years of his life, he was very strong and later he joined a gang. This gang specialized in breaking into people’s houses and using knives to threaten them and taking their property away. This gang created so bad karma. When he reached the age of thirty five, he knew Buddhism, so he attempted to give up his job, repented his sin and lived in a temple. He tortured himself by doing heavy work, such as, chopping wood, cooking, repairing poor roads. Thanks to these good deeds, in his next life, he would be gentle but would often be bullied and beaten to pay his karmic debts for having been a thief in his early life. This is the case of being gentle in the later stage and being aggressive in the early stage. So, even though they are gentle now, they still have to pay their karmic debts and will enjoy their blessing later. This thing explains why there are people who are gentle but miserable.
In summary, there are three cases:
– There are people who are gentle but passive.
– There are people who are gentle but do not help others in need.
– There are people who are now gentle but were aggressive before.
And why are there people who are ferocious but wealthy? It is because they seem ferocious but enthusiastic in helping others. When they know someone in their village has a spare house, they will be the first ones who help this person. So they will definitely earn a blessing of being wealthy and also receive retribution for being ferocious. This case is opposite to the case of being gentle but do nothing to help others.
Or there are people who are ferocious but have the quality of a knight. They look very aggressive with a bushy beard. However, if someone in their village has been bullied, or some strangers come to disturb their village’s peace, they will be the first ones who protect their village. Thanks to their protection, they will be rich but aggressive.
Police are so, too. They often look ferocious but deserve well of the people. If they are true police, they will be wealthy at the end of their life. In their next life, they will still wealthy but ferocious. Their wealth does not result from bribery.
Ferocious people who often helped others in their past lives but had arrogance and despised others, will be wealthy first but poor later in their next life. Helping others will make you rich. However, if you do it with your disregard, you will be rich and aggressive and later on be poor.
We have discussed some principles of the law of Karma, so that from now on, we know the ways of directing ourselves to desired places. If you want to become good – looking, we must be gentle and love people; if you want to become rich, you must spend your money on right things; if you want your merit to increase multiple times, you must give alms with all your heart. We will bring these principles of the law of Karma to everyone and make them have belief in the Triple Jewels and the law of Karma.
Fist of all, we must help our families, our neighbors, our relatives, and our friend… to believe in the Dharma. If we can accomplish these tasks, this world will become heaven. So, together, we make our society civilized and humane, our Buddhism prosperous.
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