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An unshaken mind

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27 June 2018 12:02 am - 0     - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

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“These eight worldly conditions revolve around the world, and the world revolves around these eight worldly conditions. What eight? Gain and loss, disrepute and fame, blame and praise, and pleasure and pain.”


 

Human life is comparable to a flowing river. It initially starts off as a small stream. This small stream meets numerous challenges, obstacles, and barricades before it flows down and meets the great ocean.   

The path of the stream is not easy and not always clear, but full of difficulties and sometimes with blockages. Somehow it will never return nor revert to the origin and inception. The dream and prospect of the small stream is to meet the great ocean. Till it’s conclusion it keeps flowing day by day. Ultimately a small stream embraces the great ocean as a large river.  

 

Likewise, there are eight vicissitudes and asperities in our lives. I call them LIFE CHALLENGES.   

Once the Buddha said thus:   
“These eight worldly conditions revolve around the world, and the world revolves around these eight worldly conditions. What eight? Gain and loss, disrepute and fame, blame and praise, and pleasure and pain.”

No one is capable of avoiding them and escaping from them, nobody can get away from any of them and nobody can flee from them all. Meeting all of them is obvious. Even renowned Masters, both the Gautama Buddha and the Jesus Christ met these challenges. Their tolerance and endurance are incomparable. To overcome and conquer these challenges we need to train and tame our minds. Generally untrained and untamed minds are shaken, agitated, distressed and trembled.   

Purification and training of the mind are very important to have peace within. As much as and as long as you train your mind you will be able to perceive and comprehend the positive improvement and efficacious outcome of your own dedication.   

You may spend hundreds and thousands of your own currencies to make yourself happy and comfortable. But, will you be really HAPPY?  

Until you train and tame your mind to have that unshakable capability and efficiency, you would not be able to achieve innermost peace and happiness.   

Everyone prefers to embrace only positive factors, but no one is fortunate enough only to receive the positive factors. All of us are reluctant to encounter negative factors and no one wishes to accept any unsatisfactory vicissitudes of human life.  


 


  • Purification and training of the mind are very important to have peace within
     
  • Karma is a very important and fundamental teaching in Buddhism
     
  • We should train and tame our minds to accept both negative and positive worldly conditions
     
  • Most life factors are completely depended on and determined by our previous karma


 

Karma is a very important and fundamental teaching in Buddhism. Though most of us talk and write about it, we have not comprehensively and practically understood it. One’s own life is a classic and pragmatic example that’ll help understand this fact.  

We all have carried out both wholesome and unwholesome karma in our previous lives and in this very life. Unwholesome karma originates from the roots of craving, hatred, and delusion while wholesome karma originates from the roots of non-craving, non-hatred and non-delusion. These prime volitions and foremost intentions are the originators of karma and all the pleasant and unpleasant situations we experience at present are the consequences of lingering karma.   

People try their utmost to avoid unpleasant situations, but there is no way or any avenue to elude from asperity. Some may even blame others and hold responsibility for the incidents or the phenomenon, but the reality and the truth are utterly different.  

You are responsible for yourself. No one is accountable or liable for deeds committed by others. When one is engaged in verbal, physical and mental activities one must be very careful and conscious of one’s own intention and outcome. If the intention is good and pure, then the result will be very comfortable and congenial. If the volition is impure and immoral, then the consequences would be very unpleasant and grave.  

Once Gautama Buddha said that these eight worldly conditions revolve around the world, and the world revolves around these eight worldly conditions. This universal law always exists in this world. Unfortunately as unenlightened people we are not yet ready and wise enough to understand this.   
Twenty six centuries ago, during the Buddha’s time, one of the youth from a wealthy and affluent family by the name of Subha asked the Blessed One, the Buddha about the disparity of our human society.  

“Master Gautama, what is the cause and condition why human beings are seen to be inferior and superior? For people are seen to be short-lived and long-lived, sickly and healthy, ugly and beautiful (pleasant and unpleasant), uninfluential and influential, poor and wealthy, low-born and high-born, unwise and wise (unintelligent and intelligent)”

“Student, beings are owners of their actions, heirs of their actions; they originate from their actions, are bound to their actions, have their actions as their refuge. It is action that distinguishes beings as inferior and superior”.

The Buddha descriptively has expounded and elucidated exposition of karma to the young student Subha in The Shorter Exposition of Action (Culakammavibhanga Sutta)  

Once the Buddha said:  
“Bhikkhus, greed is a source and origin of karma; hatred is a source and origin of karma: delusion is a source and origin of karma. With the destruction of greed, a source of karma is extinguished. With the destruction of hatred, a source of karma is extinguished. With the destruction of delusion, a source of karma is extinguished.”

“Bhikkus, there are these four kinds of karma proclaimed by me after I realized them for myself with direct knowledge. 
What four?

There is dark karma with dark result; there is bright karma with bright result; there is dark-and- bright karma with dark-and-bright result; and there is neither dark nor bright with neither-dark-nor-bright result, karma that leads to the destruction of karma. These are the four kinds of karma proclaimed by me after I realized them for myself with direct knowledge.”

“Bhikkhus, what is the dark karma with dark result?

Here, someone performs an afflictive bodily volitional activity, an afflictive verbal volitional activity, an afflictive mental volitional activity. As a consequence, he is reborn in an afflictive world. When he is reborn in such a world, afflictive contacts touch him. Being touched by afflictive contacts, he feels afflictive feelings, exclusively painful, as in case of hell beings. This is called dark karma with dark result……………..”

We meet all vicissitudes of life and worldly conditions from birth to death. They are unavoidable and inescapable factors. Some unwise and unmindful people fabricate and concoct false stories to obliterate and disrepute some innocent and reputed characters. While victims are traumatized by the fabrications as a result of their own previous conducts, those who design and fabricate false accusations and wrongdoings would accumulate unwholesome energy.  

We should train and tame our minds to accept both negative and positive worldly conditions at all times. These eight vicissitudes and asperities of life are not permanent and everlasting. They are subject to change and are uncertain. When we have positive factors such as gain, fame, praise and pleasure we should not be elated and intoxicated because nothing is permanent.  

Most life factors are completely depended on and determined by our previous karma. All capabilities and abilities are inherited according to our previous propensities and proclivities. In brief, it is karma and outcome of karma. ( karmma vipaka) – cause and effect.  

Following profound words of Gautama Buddha will help you to properly understand the true nature of the life and importance of an unshaken mind.  

 

“The fools worry, thinking, “I have sons, I have wealth”.Indeed, when he himself is not his own, whence are sons, whence are wealth?’

May all beings be well and happy! 

 

(The writer is the founder of Samadhi Buddhist Meditation Centre, AUSTRALIA)


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