..续本文上一页o work hard and produce more.
This brings us to the second of spiritual powers, exertion or viriya. If we want to achieve the lofty goal of Dhamma practice we must be diligent and hardworking. We must come to the temple regularly to give alms, maintain the precepts or sila, listen to Dhamma talks, and make as much merit as we possibly can. Don”t be lazy. The more we sow, the more we will reap. If we don”t put in the effort, we will reap nothing. No one can do it for us, not even the Buddha or his noble disciples. They can only point us the way, instruct us on how to realize the goal. This goal is not to be materially wealthy, but spiritually wealthy. We should be rich with morality, charity, spiritual happiness and contentment. This kind of wealth can never be stolen from us, unlike the worldly possessions. Our husbands and wives can be taken away from us. Our children and our property can be seized. But the real wealth within ourselves can never be stolen from us by anyone.
Meritorious actions or kusala-kamma are truly our possessions. They will protect us; make us happy and content, now and in the future. When we die, we will go to sugati or a happy destination, not to apaya-bhumi or state of deprivation, the four lower levels of existence into which we will be reborn as a result of our past unskilful actions namely rebirth in hell, as a hungry ghost, as an angry demon, or as a common animal. If we could maintain all the meritorious actions such as keeping the five precepts and giving to charity, we would at the least be reborn as a human being endowed with beauty, brain and wealth, and suffered no hardship or injury because we were led by our skillful actions. Without these meritorious actions, we would go to a lower level of existence, to be reborn as an animal such as a cat, a bird, or a buffalo. Such is the consequence of not doing meritorious actions. This is the law of Dhamma, the truth.
Therefore, if we want to improve ourselves, go to a happy destination or sugati, a good existence, a noble plane of existence or ariya-bhumi, we must be diligent and persistent in doing meritorious or skillful actions. We must strive in maintaining our ethical and moral purity, not allowing it to slip away, and push to have more of it. For example, if we now keep the five precepts, we must not slide back but should keep more precepts, going from the five precepts to the eight, ten and eventually to the 227 precepts practiced by the monks or bhikkhu, which is a good and right thing to do.
We must also work hard in preventing ourselves from doing more unwholesome and unskillful actions that we have already discarded. For example, in the past we used to be erratic and emotional. Now we are calm and rational. People may say bad things about us, but we don”t mind, we can forgive and forget. We can now manage our anger and keep it under control, not allowing it to reappear. If we still possess any other unwholesome qualities like holding grudges or being stubborn, we should also strive to eradicate them. We should be rational, rather than being greedy, hateful and delusional. What we haven”t yet discarded we ought to do. What we have already eliminated we must not allow to return. In other words, we must strive to cultivate good, avoid all evil, and cleanse our mind. This is what is meant by exertion or viriya, the second spiritual power.
To begin we must first have faith or saddha. When we have faith in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, we will then have the courage to do what they taught us to do because we know that there will only be good consequences. People who don”t have faith will have doubts about rebirth in heaven or hell, about whether we are being falsely led to believe in performing merito…
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