Know Yourself!

In the Buddhist way of life, the Buddha taught his followers to study in order to gain wisdom to guide their life. And what did the Buddha advise them to study? He advised them to study two sources: the first source from which to learn is the outside world, which means that they learn from each other; the second source is the inside world, which means that they learn from their own physical and mental life. The Buddha explained that the outside world consists of six sense objects; physical objects; sense objects such as sound, smell and taste; tangible objects and mental objects. By the inside world he meant the six sense doors; eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. The two worlds that we live in are wonderful. If we understand them, we can live life happily and peacefully. Without wisdom or understanding the two worlds can turn into hell.

There is a saying that we consist of mind and body, so to have a rich, happy and peaceful life we must live our life carefully, mindfully, patiently and wisely. Otherwise we will lose it to the three demons of greed, hatred and delusion. We can live life carefully, mindfully, patiently and wisely in the sense of knowing and understanding ourselves, and being mindful of our mind and body. To further our understanding, there is a Chinese story which gives a good example of this. Here is the story:

There once lived a king who ruled a rich kingdom. This king was not wise; he did not know how to rule the kingdom. Day by day he fooled around. There were many old wise men who tried to help or give him advice. But he would not listen to them. One day there was an evil-spirited man who was good at gambling. He challenged the king to a bet, betting that if the king lost, he should give his kingdom over to him, but if the king won, he would give his life to the king. The king accepted the challenge without listening to the advice of the old, wise advisors, who advised him not to accept the challenge, because they could see that the man was cunning. But the king did not see that. Finally the king lost his kingdom to the evil- spirited man.

The moral of the story is that we must know what type of person we are, so that we can get help from others. It is important to know who we are. Otherwise, we will lose our life to evil influences, like the king lost his kingdom to the evil-spirited man. Put another way, the king stands for the mind which must be wise, so he can take good care of the kingdom, which means the body. The evil-spirited man represents all of the temptations, expectations, greed, hatred and ignorance which wait to take over the happy and peaceful life.

How about you, do you know what type of person you are? If you know, there is no problem, as you know what to do in life. If you don’t know, you are in trouble as you can be distracted or deluded by evil-influences e.g. greed, hatred and delusion. You need to learn to have wisdom to guide your life out of the darkness.

A wisely lived life is a blessed life.