Dhamma Talks - The Question Which Can Change Our Life :: Buddhapadipa Thai Temple

Good afternoon, today is Sunday, 25th of July, 2004. The time flies quickly, one month has just passed since new year. “What are we doing now?” This is a good question to ask ourselves. In fact, we have the question in our mind all the time. I also have one question, I would like you all to help me answer it “Why can’t we be happy, how can we escape from all kind of unsatifactoriness?”

5 minutes have passed or maybe one year has passed, but we still don’t have the right or complete answer to this question. Why? Because we are finding an answer to fit our desire, rather than the truth. Sometimes when we are asked, we can not answer that question. That is because we intend to answer so much that we forget the question. We first have to understand the question. Some questions are silly, they don’t benefit us at all. So some questions we should ignore, some we should answer. Believe it or not, to change the question is possibly to change our way of life.

The relationship between partners is often difficult, because everyone needs understanding or love from others. But if he has never tried to understand or love others, he always has the question in his mind ’Why doesn’t he understand or love me?’ In fact we have to think, ‘Why don’t we understand or love him?’ and ‘How can we understand or love him?’

In the same way, people would not lose heart if, instead of complaining about their situation they were to ask themselves why they are complaining?

To think properly is the best skill to have learned and to have made ourselves understand it. For myself, by studying the Buddha’s teachings, I have learned that we have two systems to use; the physical system and the mental system. The physical system is easy to use, like knowing moderation in eating, what food we should eat, taking exercise, then it is OK. The mental system is difficult to understand, we have to learn how to think properly, as I said “To spend a useful life, we have to be trained to do what is suitable for ourselves and society, to be moderate in all things and to behave properly as regards time and place.”

Nowadays we are taught to expect to get complete happiness, but we forget to ask ourselves how we shall do this. Sometimes we don’t understand the reason for our dissatisfaction, but we start to look for an answer. But how can we find the answer if we don’t understand the question? So we have to understand the question first, then we may find the answer. In other words, understanding the question directs our thoughts and action. If we don’t understand the question, or have the wrong question, we will be deceived or mistaken.

Children or adults may feel dismayed when they see a lot of work in front of them. “How on earth can I finish this work?” This question will make them lose heart. But the feeling will change if we set the new question “Why can I not do it?”

However the question doesn’t depend on the answers “Can do, or can not do” but it depends on motivation.

One question which it is better not to ask is “What is the reward if I can do it?” This is a selfish question which makes the human mind more selfish and narrow. We can not find happiness or peace in the mind if we always want something in return, after finishing some work

It‘s better if we ask the new question, “If we do this, what benefit will society receive?” To think of society, or the community, creates a good mind. It is very rare to find people who do ask such a question and who work for society. Helping people is a great job, and those who can do this are very good hearted. To help people is to help oneself, why? I say this because if people are happy, the society or community is happy. As we are one member of the society or community, we are surely happy

To ask “Who” and “How” gives different results. When a bad event happens, most people ask who did it, but no one asks how it happened. The first question “Who did it?” is for curiosity, it is not creative. But the second question “How did it happen?” is to find out the cause of the problem, and then we can solve it or take it as a lesson of life

To give an example of this question. A business man in Thailand, Mr. Sopon Supapong said when he first administered the Bangjak company, the factory was very old and accidents kept happening, so he suffered a loss. Also his employees were insecure because the company was not stable, this stemmed from the time of the old owner. Mr. Sopon said that when accidents happened, he never asked who did it but he asked how it happened. By asking how it happened, all the workers tried to find out the cause of the problem, then they found the way to solve it and tried to find a way of not letting it happen again. All the employees were united because nobody said anything against the other. It was not long before the company got better and more stable, and accidents rarely happened. The workers were happy to work, and produced good work for the company

However, there is no more important question than the question concerning our life. The most commonly asked question is “When shall we be rich, or when shall we have a lot of money?” This question also makes us tired of life and work. We should encourage ourselves by changing the question to “When shall we be contented with what we have?” You can look around at people, and you will know that now you are rich, but you are not contented. Even if you are not rich, but are contented, you will see the richness that no one can snatch from you.