Dhamma Talks - Wisdom Begins With Simplicity :: Buddhapadipa Thai Temple

In the old days, Thai people encouraged their children to become a novice or monk in order to know the teaching of the Buddha and the good way of life. This is a very necessary thing to do in early life; learning and putting knowledge into action. As I myself have experienced. My parents told me to become a Buddhist monk when I was 20 years of age. With respect and gratitude, I said “Yes”, since then I have been learning. I realise that education is the right thing to get first. Knowledge makes us know how to make use of life. With right knowledge, destruction and pollution are not caused. This is the path leading to the realization of the truth.

I began the path with learning the monk’s way of life. When I first became a monk, I was equipped with four requisites; alms food, clothes, accommodation and medical care. With the four requisites, I was taught how to eat in moderation, wear such a simple robe, stay in a simple place and sleep on the floor, even on the earth, and care for my health. All the four requisites, I must use with discipline which is called “Consuming things with wisdom”. My life was fully regulated; I had to do things at regular times which is called “Doing the right thing in the right time and place.”

Another thing I have learned from discipline is “Sense-restraint.” The Buddha stressed that monks should know how to use the sense-faculties, for instance seeing, listening etc. with right mindfulness. This is very important for a Buddhist monk, especially a new monk. He should see and listen to things with right mindfulness and then follow with wisdom. By doing so, there is only wholesomeness happening, there is no chance for greed, hatred and delusion to arise.

One very important thing supporting monastic life is contentment. This means that I must be satisfied with whatever (four requisites) I have, they are just for maintaining life. They are not to be wasted. Most of my time must be spent on education, investigation and the development of wisdom. This is not limited to monks, but is also for lay people. They should learn this and makes use of it. This can be of great benefit to society, because without right knowledge, our society cannot be peaceful, it will be filled with greed, hatred and delusion. Daily life is ruined by distraction and illusion, for instance, not knowing how to watch TV; in spite of having knowledge, it will waste our time. We cannot distinguish right from wrong.

The way of life, begun with education, is good because we have to use it throughout our life. Buddhist education begins with the contact between the internal senses (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind) and the external objects (visible object, audio object, odour, taste, tangible object and mental object). They are regarded as the first points of education, so at first I was trained to use sense-restraint or be self-controlled. This becomes the way of monastic life; we restrain ourselves from looking for unnecessary form, listening to frivolous talk etc. To practise so, we need to be trained in mindfulness so that we don’t let any unwholesome feelings overwhelm us. When we make contact with the outside world, we receive the right information with mindfulness and this gives rise to wisdom.

Without wisdom, we will perceive things without consideration; everything seen, heard, smelt, tasted, touched and thought is just for fun. The life is wasted, without any benefit, if we don’t know how to learn to be wise or reflective. Looking at any action we do now, we should ask the following questions:

“Does it give rise to any knowledge?”, for instance, what we see or hear, does it bring any knowledge or wisdom to us? If it does, then we can develop that. It is a path leading us to the truth.

“Is it useful or helpful?”, especially whether it supports or develops life or not. If it does, then our life is supported by good actions. With this support, we can have true happiness in life.
If these two questions get the proper answers, it shows that we have the wisdom to gain knowledge and to make use of it. It is the same with other things, we perceive if they have the proper qualities. This can be applied in our daily life, for example watching TV, listening to Radio etc. “Do they give rise to any knowledge, or are they beneficial to life?” With these questions, we can gain knowledge from whatever action we are doing. Remember one thing “Don’t do it just for fun.” If we do it for fun, we will get fun, but if we do it for knowledge, we will get knowledge.

In the monastic rule, we don’t do anything for fun. We are trained to do everything to develop our life. We have to consider our actions; reflecting on those in the past (for our development) and in the present so that we do not let ourselves be distracted or deluded. We do this two times a day, in the morning it is called “morning reflection”, and in the evening it is called “evening reflection.” These reflections are very important because they can remind us of what we have done, and are going to do next, so that we can be aware of our own actions. With this discipline we don’t follow, or satisfy our desire and we know the right thing to do in life.

Without consideration or reflection, we will lack the high standard of living and quality of life. We can see some people, nowadays, who lack the high standard of living and quality of life, even though they are rich, but they are not wise in consuming things such as food, clothing etc. For instance, they eat luxurious food, but are not healthy. They live their life in the wrong way. Much money does not guarantee the standard of living and quality of life, but consideration or reflection does.

In the old days people aimed to have a high standard of living and quality of life, so they searched for that. The Buddha was one of those who could not get true happiness from a luxurious life so he left the throne and searched for the truth of life. He had been searching for it everywhere outside himself so he spent almost six years in vain. At the end he settled down in Buddhagaya and fully practised meditation. Then he realised that what he had been searching for was inside himself; there was nowhere to search, nowhere to go and no self, on the dawn of Vesakha day, he became enlightened. Since then he was known as the Buddha, a great teacher of the world, and he started delivering this way of life to the world. Lots of people, from generation to generation, have got this benefit, including myself.

The important aspect of the way of life the Buddha taught to his disciples is “The middle way or moderate way” which balances everything; food to eat, clothes to wear, accommodation and medical care for health. In the monastic rule, when we are going to eat, we should consider the food before eating; it is neither for fun nor for wasting, but for living a life. In the same way, when we consume other requisites, we have the same consideration or reflection. These are the basic rules of consumption as follows;

1. No impact on oneself means that whatever we consume does not weaken life.
2. No impact on others means that whatever we consume does not destroy the society or take advantage of others.
3. No impact on nature means that whatever we consume does not destroy nature or our surroundings.

With these monastic rules, we are, automatically, trained to be content with whatever we have; to live a simple life. What are we content with? It is explained that they are four requisites. This is because that we don’t want to make any trouble for ourselves or others. Contentment helps us to be easy with life. Most of our time is dedicated to the learning of scriptures and to practising meditation. If we are not content with what we have, we will get into trouble in searching for something unnecessary to life; being worried about what we are going to eat, or do etc. etc. Contentment is very important because it can give life happiness easily, without any conditions. One thing we should not be content with is the investigation of knowledge, as the Buddha said that, with the factors of enlightenment, and keen investigation of knowledge, a person could become enlightened.

Conclusion

All of these form monastic life. It can be summarized as follows; in life we should find the way to develop our understanding, wisdom, virtue. The way to develop life is simple; it can begin with learning about daily life, for instance, in monastic life, we just follow the routine and learn by that. The first point of education in monastic life is to realise the contact between ourselves and things around us and also know how to consume things for the development of knowledge and wisdom. The monk’s life is dedicated to education or investigation; it is right here and now in daily life.