Dear Son,
The life and work of an ordinary man are destroyed by tension,
unacceptability, forgetfulness, commotions, dim knowledge and barriers,
which arise from problems and time and cause mistakes. The causes
of these mistakes come unaware. These make me worry a great deal
about you. I am afraid that in your life and work you will face endless
mistakes. If you want to prevent mistakes from occurring or occur at
least ,you must understand that work is the road to deep happiness of
life. Work gives people opportunities to best develop the potentials of
their bodies and mind. Work increases opportunities to learn more about
one"s life and soul. Besides, work is a process to enrich strength, bravery
and tolerance. If you work sincerely, work will give you love, kindness
and generosity for your companions in birth, sickness and death, as well
as cooperation for living together. Work will enable you to see correctly
the stark truth of religion, because you have touched it by yourself. The
teaching that we should know suffering, means to get rid of suffering,
practices which lead to the extinction of suffering. If you understand these
meanings of work, you will know that life is work. Life and work are
unanimous.
Dear son,
I understand that the demonstration of natural strength closest to us is
"the strength to work". Work helps you to make full use of your strength. It
is work that opens your body, your brain and your heart, so that you gain wide
experiences, hidden in small and most delicate work. Work will enable you to
learn to use your natural inner force with skill, bravery and wisdom. Almost all
happiness of life comes from your successful work. You will be overwhelmed
with happiness which will smooth and brighten your life. At the same time,
work is capable of building up harmony and balance between you and nature.
To work is to make use of what you have in yourself, i.e. strength, thoughts
and actions arising from your body. Your work leads you to create your full
life. Besides, it is a sample to inspire others to share that with you. Therefore,
you should be aware of the importance of work to your life, and you should also
know that work enables you to bring out all your potentials to make full use of
them.
Dear Son,
I would like to tell you about my past life. Whenever I was able to work,
I felt and touched deep happiness, arising from clear cut work with my heart
and soul. On the contrary, if you do not pay attention to your work, do not
give all the heart and thoughts to it, but work lousily, without attention and love
for the work, you will aim at its result more than its process. For example, you
may work for rank, power and fame, without considering how much attention
you give to make the work excellent. To me, this condition of work makes you
narrow-minded, coarse, selfish and greedy.
I say narrow because you merely think of your own benefits. You are
not considering the success of the work. When the doer does not gain any
benefit, he may not do it at all. When the outcome of work is incomplete, he
will be desperate, feel hopeless and does not have any inner strength to go on
with the work. Do you know or not when the common good is refused, your
association will be limited and thus become narrow ? Society is limited by you
yourself, or by the association which refuses you. I hold that your knowledge,
ability and experience will bog down and be made narrow commotions. When
your association is limited by you yourself or by the association which refuses
you, I believe your knowledge, ability and experience will be enclosed. Your
common sense, sense of responsibility, your soul, in accepting and refusing will
become coarse, because of your selfishness and lust for minor things. Actually,
in doing each kind of work, the results are not only for rank, honour or an increase
of salary or praise. There are many results for each kind of work, as I said before.
If you only work for such goals, you will become coarse, selfish and greedy.
What I have just said may confuse you. I will cite some samples to make your
clear.
A person attentively grows a mango tree with its seed in order to get the
fruits. When that mango tree becomes a big tree with many branches and leaves
and gives shade, the person watches the mango tree with discontent and outs off
the branches and leaves of the tree. He will explain that he grows the mango tree
for fruits, not for branches and leaves and shade, when he is asked. The air and
organic substance come from the roots and the leaves of the mango tree. If you
do not say that this person is coarse, selfish, greedy and stupid, what else can you
say about him ?
Son, as for me, to live without working is to take us away from the core of
life, and refuse to use the inner force to do the work. This decreases the values
of your life. You will live with fear and unsteadiness, when life is of no value.
When you don"t see the usefulness of work, you will not find any means to
usefulness and deep values.
Dear Son,
Only work and knowledge of life help you to see human values clearly.
It will lead to acceptance, respect and relationship which harmonize with all
things and all creatures. Different skills which you have learned while you
are working will motivate growth and arouse satisfaction and all the meaning
of life every instant of your life and other lives. Your heart will be filled with
joy, fresh and free like nature.
Work for Freshness and Happiness
I should warn you formally to make you understand development
and self improvement. After having told you how I spent my life, I shall
talk about principles to which you should pay attention.
Dear Son,
When your mind has turned to fresh nature, you will find happiness,
freshness and plenty of sources of wealth in yourself; that is love, warmth,
happiness and calmness; you will touch a deep beauty of life. You will
recognize and get in touch with all experiences that come in your life.
You will open your mind to happiness in living. These qualities in you
must arise from fresh and clear mind. However, there are questions:
"How much can you touch the beautiful nature of life and how can you
be related to it; how delicate can you be in your thinking ?" Though you
often touch inner happiness, arising from peace which is light and fresh,
you are likely to hide yourself from it and turn to do things in confusion,
commotions, heaviness and darkness, which causes unhappiness. Many
times you do not allow yourself to touch real happiness. The reason is
because you go astray and have wrong ideas. Therefore, you make
mistakes and try to be happy in the wrong ways. Thus, you are fully
unable to be happy with your success. This may be because you still
doubt and worry about your negative feeling. This takes you away from
the reality of life and makes you go astray and try to find happiness from
outside. It will make you confused and interested in the events around
you dotedly by not believing or believing that those things make you happy.
Unknowingly you spend your energy on finding outside things. It makes
you miss the stream of fine, deep and clear feeling in your mind. If you
are not clear in the stream of thoughts, you will not be able to meet real
knowledge inside you. You will acknowledge these experiences dimly and
crudely. At last what you get is an experience of the lowest quality.
Though you have success in many deeds you have performed,
the fact that you segregate yourself from clear nature of the mind, you
will lose the foundation of your life. Thus, you will feel disturbed, unstable;
you begin to feel that your life is empty and has no value. When you are
not overwhelmed with the knowledge of self, you will often seek other
people or other things to make yourself happy. The reason is that you
don"t know what is lacking in you. Thus, you are not clear in mind what
you really want and therefore you are always disappointed and painful.
The more you are unhappy, the more gloomy you are and you will fall in
the pit of unhappiness. You don"t have any reason for being unhappy and
dismay. Thus, you feel unhappy and dissatisfied and more shaky. The
relationship and different touches by sight, hearing, smell, touches of the
body and recognized emotion will become tasteless. It causes you to want
more and more without any ending. You will perform your deeds unhappily
with a dull mind. You will be confined in anger and doubt. You will lack
delicate common sense and will be attracted and fall in the circle of worry
and wrapped up with unhappiness. But I am sure that you will never find it.
Such search will happen repeatedly until it becomes a habit, which you believe
to be a guideline for living your life.
Dear Son,
I would like to tell you that living in this quickly changing world,
you will be compelled to follow it up. I think everybody, including you,
does not desire to have such changes. Changes naturally occur in all
things, all creatures and all elements. Nobody can escape from them.
What can we do about them ? Society and environment thus mold you
and press you to act out, so that it looks as if you have adjusted yourself
to the changes. But who will confess that you have adjusted your heart
along with the adjustment of your body. When it is like this, people in
society often give the importance to outside appearance, so that he looks
good in the eyes of other people, who think that he is quite free, but inside
your feeling will be destroyed by tension, worries and fear arising from
quick changes. Everybody will so hurry that he has no chance to recognize
thoroughly the emotion which arises and passes by. This is because you
don"t know your feeling. It makes you unable to reach the clear nature of
your heart. You and everybody seem to be at a distant from your beauty
of life. Great energy that you should get from yourself will be confused and
disappear.
While we were young children, we knew how we felt towards other
things. Due to the pressure from our family and friends, we were compelled
to accept narrow attitudes, ideas and expectations of others. When our
thoughts and feelings are stopped, we grow outside the realm of our
happy feeling. Then, the relationships between our mind and body are so
hindered and destroyed that we become unaware of our real feeling.
When this confinement becomes strong and stable, the chances to show
our feelings will decrease and disappear from us. We will be contented with
agreeing with others. Finally, we will become strangers to ourselves. How
could you come back and touch yourself ? What can you do to make yourself
really feel free ? Have you made questions to ask yourselves ? If you ask
yourself these questions, I could be certain that you have begun to look for
beautiful nature in your heart. You will see light or be enlightened which
gives you a well-balanced guideline that will bring you growth in the future.
A clear vision of yourself is the beginning of self-realization, which
will easily happen by observing the work of the mind and the body
consistently. Your are capable to observe your inner self at any time,
wherever you are , regardless of what you are doing. Observe attentively
what is going to happen to the changes of work and thoughts which have
occurred.
You will see that the environment, the changes of emotion have
influences on your body and mind, which is difficult for you to go against.
If you persevere a little more in examining your inner self till it becomes
clear, you will have new force and new concept, which will link your body
to your mind. Mix them and make them harmonize with living a natural
life. The work will flow. Nothing will be in its way. You will have plenty
of force to look clearly, which will lead to the use of your energy with quality.
You will enter the stream of life and perceive means to learn about yourself
with quality. It is an important factor that will push and promote your actions
to become fresh in every movement.
After having considerably observed your inner self, you will find
how you have confined yourself. How your natural inner feeling is limited.
On this occasion you will give energy and let those feelings flow. This
energy will be spent most usefully, most economically. When you become
calm and accept yourself, your confidence will arise. You could learn new
ways and beautiful guideline for knowing yourself and that which arises from
the knowledge of self. Your means of self recognition will be clear and clean
and have continuous movement. That is clean mind without any make up.
It is not wrong if other people will call it concentration. Anybody can call it
anything. To me it is what defines force, which I could use as I like. To
concentrate is not to train strictly for discipline, but it means relaxation, so
that one becomes naturally calm.
Remember also that concentration is not the training of fixed discipline.
It means relaxation and make your mind naturally calm. The concentration
that you need should be able to bind body and mind together with ease
and relaxation. This is a gentle quality, not strict. You can concentrate when
you work by doing one thing at a time with all your heart and soul. Give all
your attention to the work, be careful, pay continuous attention until that piece
of work is finished.
Do not worry about your work. Do not work with tension. When the
work is finished, do not put your heart in it. If you keep thinking of the work
when it brings good result, you will be negligent. But if the work fails, you
will be sorry. You should put all your heart and interest only while you are
doing the work. You will have clarity and deep understanding. This is working
naturally with clear mind, fresh and calm. You will then know yourself and
be delicate enough to know when ideas occur. You will catch that feeling.
This is because you are aware of yourself, the force and energy thus unite.
In your consciousness you will see clarity and cleanliness which are touchable,
even the smallest experience and all the thinking. Without consciousness,
though you give attention and perseverance in all your work, you will be like
small children who build a castle of sand on the beach without considering
that it will tumble down in a short time.
I would like to tell you once again. If you are without consciousness,
in spite of the attention and perseverance in your work with clarity and
freshness, you will be like small children who build sand castle on the beach,
without considering that it will tear down shortly. Consciousness makes you
confident in your work. You will put all your energy and ability in the work.
Thus you can develop your consciousness with clear thinking in the work you
are doing. Observe the way you work, how you begin and proceed in the
work. Are you clear in what you want ? Before you start to work, have you
analyzed and calculated the result of the work ? Are you sure that you have
done that with fine and broad attitude and that you have paid clear attention
to the steps of work.
I ask you numerous questions but they are not for you to answer for
rewards. But I ask you so that you keep the questions and find answers for
yourself. Find an answer for a question. Whoever can answer is knowledgeable.
While you are searching for the answer in order to develop consciousness, you
will see how the lack of attention greatly affect your work and the way you live.
If you work and live with conscious attention, the way you work and the
movement in your thinking will be smooth and beautiful. Your thoughts will be
clear and systematic. Thus life and work will be added with efficiency, due to
the fact that the steps of work harmonize with one another.
When you can do this you will realize the result the instant you work.
It will motivate new ideas in you so that you have new ideas, new methods
for the work. Besides, you can avoid forgetfulness and mistakes that may
happen. Besides, freshness and consciousness will make you understand all
the details in your thoughts and deeds. Clear calm and clean conscience are
what you cannot learn from classrooms, or from books. These are the core
of real nature in human beings. You can only learn from yourself. The
confidence in learning to know yourself will enable you to control the directions
and the goals of your life. After fixing the directions and goals confidently, you
will be delighted, happy and free. Your life and work will give you light
heartedness which will help you to be careful in everything you are doing. Thus
your life will become a work of art, showing relationships between body and
mind, while you are learning and gaining experiences in each moment of life.
You will be reliable and independent. You will become clear, light, clean and
very distinct. These are the factors which help you to think wisely and clearly.
When you have these feelings, you will have more self-confidence.
Dear Son,
Light heartedness, happiness and calmness and consciousness
exist in all human beings. It depends on whoever could develop to acquire
them and make use of them more or less. Whoever can bring them out
\to use they will make the person see everything as it is. He understands,
is calm and peaceful, besides bringing out growth of the body and the
mind, life, work and family. The relationships between oneself with all
things will increase value and be more meaningful. There will be the
feeling of freedom in life. Such real life will be deeply delightful for a
long time, in birth and life.
The Value of Learning
Dear Son,
Do you know that in every second, every instant of your life,
there are opportunities for learning and gaining experiences that you
find and come across. It will bring you delight and the zest of life.
You can define everything in your life whether it be past, present and
future. Only make best attempt to learn the present of your life. It
will enable you to perform any present deed clearly. When this second
has passed by, it can be said that you have defined a beautiful past by
yourself. As for the coming future, it is certain that there will be only
growth, prosperity and freshness. It again depends on you, whether
you are aware that every moment of your life creative quality and pure
inspiration are expressed in your daily routine. It is an opportunity for
you to develop yourself to the utmost.
Dear Son,
If you give all the energy you have with all your heart and
strength to your work, the work will be a stable foundation on which
you could build up a meaningful and abundant life. This is an outlet
for your ideas which you could use in performances. Work always
requires that we do something. Therefore it makes you like to succeed
in your work, which cannot be found elsewhere. When you work
carefully and attentively, your life will be meaningful and happy. If you
choose difficult work and do your best with perseverance, it does not
matter whether you succeed or not. At least it will enrich your
experiences and pride. If the work does not give you any delight, it
may be because you did not give your heart and soul to it. To give
value to work means giving full energy and all the heart and soul to the
work. By doing this you will be able to change irritation, boredom, which
usually occur during the work. Besides, it will be a great incentive for
you to face heavy and complicated work with a wide open and clear
mind. You will be willing to do all kinds of work.
Dear Son,
To value work, like or love work will be useless if your attitudes
towards work is that it is a mean to earn a living. It will make you bored,
because of endless repetitions of work. But if you think that work is a
mean to learning; it is a delightful experience of which you will be proud,
you will love it and never feel bored to do it. You will be able to work at
any time where there is work to do. You will see the value of work. It
will increase strength in you and you will be a beautiful sample, which
make others do likewise. You will discover success by yourself, given to
you by working. You don"t have to beg for success. Before you start
working in a bright morning, spend a little time to examine the causes
and results, so that you may find new ways to work effectively. It will
help you to know sure direction to use your strength to work towards the
goal, and do not have to go winding around to waste your time, besides,
being able to save energy. When you know the direction towards the goal,
you will start working with attention and force along with delight and
happiness. While you are fixing the direction of your work, don"t forget to
think of what you want. If your thought is widening to the wrong objective
and wrong need, you must be able to control it and bring out all the ideas
to you.
Dear Son,
If you ask me "What connection has work with moving all the
ideas into me ?" I would answer hurriedly "To give importance to self-
interest is necessary work. Every time you work outside yourself, you
should first finish the work inside you; it is the source of strength and
concentration, which you have to use in your work. The energy gained
from attention will gather all the thoughts and keep them in yourself. It
will encourage you to do different kinds of work effectively and to succeed
in one job before you turn to another job.
Dear Son,
When you work the way described above, it will get rid of the
thought that you have too much work or you don"t have time to do it
at all. By laying down means and goals appropriately and set your
heart on the work, you will succeed more than what you anticipated.
When all the work moves along in the best way, your mind will be
fresh and happy. Your body will be active. Though you would not be
able to reach all the goals you have set, it will give you more experiences
and strength. It will enable you to do more in the future. That good
work will be good exercises for your body and mind. Gentle recollection
of the work will enable you to set the direction and energy. Thus, your
daily life will move happily. In spite of being tensed and tired you will be
fresh to work.
Real growth will be brought about from the mixture of skill in using
energy and light heartedness. Use them in your work. If you are always
aware that to work is to learn and practice. This must be continuous in
order to reduce unhappiness and confusion. It makes you know yourself
more. You will be able to change bad situation into something useful and
clear. You will be able to build a bright new world for yourself. Though
there will be problems, you will look at the problems as means to enlarge
your experiences, which are avenues to marvelous force.
You will quite often face most difficult and heavy work. Your mind
will build up a wall by refusing to work. Thus, worry, fear, discourage will
arise. These are barriers to the work. Not only that, but it will turn your
interest to easy kind of work. In the eyes of others, you are weak, taking
advantage, selfish and nobody wants to be your friend. You will always be
a victim of blame. If you want to change or to correct that picture of yourself,
it is not difficult. Only give importance and attention to all types of work,
easy or difficult. You must consider that work given to you is trust which the
world and society have given you opportunity to learn.
Work is a measuring machine for measuring your inner strength,
sacrifice, endurance and tolerance. Work is the most excellent magic glass
which gives you many things. When you understand work, both difficult
and easy, you will seriously an honestly work. Other people then will not
look at you negatively.
Giving importance to work as mentioned above, you will be able to
do both difficult and easy work with light heartedness and without any barrier.
How exhausted you are, you will discover the source of energy in your work.
The sources of energy are concentration and seriousness in collecting all the
thoughts and ideas for your, because thoughts and ideas are energy. You
have to put them together to prevent them from scattering. After having done
that, you will use your energy continuously and consistently. We all have plenty
of energy. You only have to know how to use it appropriately.
When your work becomes successful, you will feel that you have plenty
of time left, because working attentively, seriously and continuously will bring
you quick success in the work. It will help you to control economical use of
time which is useful. Thus work will be more valuable and bring you delight
and force. You will begin to feel the increasing value and more meanings of
work without taking trouble to train for further meaning. This is self-rewarding
and rewarding for you. Giving value to work is a secret source of growth and
delight in the work you are doing.
Dear Son,
Remember, when you give value to whatever it is, the fine and
awakened feeling will promote you. The work you are doing will become
resources of deep knowledge. You will have deep feeling to thank the
person who give you the work. I dare say that work is the delight of life.
It is the source of energy. Its value is beyond any description. You will
take good care of it and cannot lose it even for one second. You ought
to preserve this property of delight until the last day of your life.
The Loss That Should Never Happen
The energy which comes from gathered ideas, consolidated with
body and mind is the most valuable resource of life. It is the only thing
in life, attached to us since we were born until we pass away. It is an
indicator of usefulness which you could bring to create life and activities,
duty and all things to be complete and to add quality and work to life,
society, the world and the universe. You have to accept that body, mind,
feeling and thoughts are the outcomes of this valuable energy. When you
are open-minded to learning, outlooks and receive the causes and results
of all things, thoughts, mind, body and energy will mix together, in
accordance with touches and combine to carry-out activities and duty to the
full of your ability. What you will get from the success of duty and work
will add to valuable experience, soaked in the core of life to the full.
When you were young, your energy was really concentrated. This
may be because your mind is still pure and bright. It is easy for you to
finish any task. Since you get it easily and may be because you have plenty
of energy, you spend it without any purpose, spend, thrift, as if it is of no
value. You use it for your own purpose, for what you are satisfied with,
which is not at all smart; instead of using it in your daily activities. Perhaps
you think that by refusing or avoiding heavy work, you will be happier. Such
is because you want to keep your time and energy for what you want to do.
You may not know that real success comes from diligence, tolerance,
seriousness, and attention. To refuse or avoid all work shows that you don"t
know how to use your energy. You probably don"t know that the more you
use your energy for different kinds of work, the more experiences and knowledge
you will gain. That is the way to increase your energy. If you refuse small
and big work, easy or difficult, the energy in your body will be neglected and
wasted. Nothing useful can be obtained. This happens because you do not
know how to use your energy wisely. Thus, you lose it. It decreases
opportunity for your own growth. Life is sleeping, going astray and will never
wake up.
Dear Son,
If you only know that energy and time wasted by time cannot be
got back. I believe you let it lose, may be because you believe that all the
time in the world belongs to you. Thus you go about doing things slowly
and lousily. You always postpone your work and don"t try to work. If you
let it go this way, I would like to warn you that life that has passed, is going
to pass by is not different from a sleeping person, talking in his sleep,
making no sense, is not different from your breath. When you let your
energy and time go by without doing anything, the feeling of emptiness is
missing. It will make you look at what you have to do that it is of little
importance. The lost energy and time may come from the lack of attention
in all the angles of the work and let those things pass by without trying to
learn or train or take action in the work. Or you may do this listlessly without
giving importance and attention to the work. This certainly is not of any use;
if you let this continue indefinitely, when you become old you will be sorry for
having lost your time and energy for nothing.
You will feel discouraged. When somebody kindly asks you to
make use of your time, you will tell him it is too late to do anything. I
would shout "What a pity it is to waste the air, resources and opportunities
that you have used".
Dear Son,
I would like to warn you that time is the carrier and destroyer of
life and all things. Then, will you let it pass by without doing anything ?
If you do not want to lose the usefulness of life, you must take action in
every activity with close attention seriously and attentively, with observation
and examination, in order to learn good points and bad points, the gain
and the loss of the work. You will learn the result of work, life and methods
of work and lay out appropriate goals continuously. It will be a tool for you
to prevent the loss and reach the success of work and life. If you work
without observation and analysis, you will use your time and energy
inconsiderably which does not fit for the world.
For example in minor work, you use plenty of time and energy. But
to delicate work, you do not pay much attention. To tell the truth, the lack
of observation and consideration will not help you to know which piece of
work is small, which is fine and delicate. This makes you miss the
usefulness and result of work. Now, what will happen ? Disappointment,
worry and tension will come around. You must accept the result of your
being good for nothing. When discomfort arises, what follow are :
negligence, failure and stop doing things. In spite of turning to observation,
consideration and finding means to solve the problem, you pay attention
to other things and leave the work to other people to solve.
Now, you become unreliable in the eyes of others. The conflict
between you and other people arise. Your happiness, friends and your
society will slowly reduce, withdraw and finally disappear. I think your
life is sad.
Dear Son,
Let me tell you something, if you wish to have a better life,
begin to train yourself by beginning to do everything with good attention
and seriousness. You may begin with easy work. Pay attention to it
and see how you use your energy. Have you touched the smell, steps
and problems of the work clearly and how clear ? You may use your
energy to work fully or not. Have the feelings of attachment, concern
and seriousness arisen stably ? Were you pulled or induced to forget
and drift along in pleasure, laziness and others besides that work ? If
so, you must stop them by building up inspiration, paying attention to
your deep worry until it becomes consciousness. When you are
conscious of yourself, you will know by yourself what you want and
should do. You will accept the work which has to be done though it is
repetitive, regular, you will do it happily. Your conscience also helps you
to discover arising differences in the work because you give importance
to your work.
Such differences and consideration will enable you to use the
force of time wisely and continuously. Tolerance and perseverance
will naturally come. You will feel firm towards your own will. This
does not happen because of compulsion. It is voluntary, willingness
to work joyfully. Experiences of life occur as every moment passes
by; there will be only complete learning. Attention and carefulness,
clarity will be enlarged and you will enter the society of the world
and the universe.
These reasons will make your inner self strong. You will be
able to do things you used to think that you could not do. But you
have done it easily. Work and life will become a stage, on which you
could show the art of using force. When life is an art, you will only
be fresh, excited and clear. Work will inspire you to search for new
experiences of life continuously. You will discover the way to natural
creativity. Your deep and continuing consciousness gained from your
learning will help you to discover the light of force and wisdom.
Through work you could express your thinking. It strengthens you
and makes you brave and energetic, besides helping you to be interested
in the work. Your life will proceed in the right direction and bring you
the zest of life wherever you are. When you are able to give importance
and meaning to work, you will be overwhelmed with delight, in stead of
feeling afraid and sad.
When you understand and give value to life and work and are
brave enough to face work, easy or difficult, you go one step at a time.
I guarantee that your work and time will not be wasted. Therefore you
should look and think carefully and analyze problems. What you have
already done and what you are going to do in the future, is there anything
to be remedied ? Knowing oneself, learning and looking at oneself are
the top of knowledge. There is no school in the world which teaches you
to know yourself as much as knowledge of the Dhamma. There is no
school and no teacher who is capable of advising us to do our daily
activities correctly and without any fault in duty like the school of nature
and the school of the Dhamma and the school of Kai Nakon that you
have.
Therefore I would like to warn you with my kind heart that you
should pay more attention to learning about your life and your soul,
including actions. Then, I think happiness, excellence, success or
whatever you wish, you will certainly get some day, if you try to do it.
A Calm Person Will Discover Relaxation
Flowing water and still water which one do you think looks firm
and is ever ready for any situation ? Which one aborbs and receives
more touches ? As for me, I would choose calm water. If you don"t
believe me, throw a stone into the flowing water and observe the response.
You will see that it makes a circle in one minute, then the scattering
water will be swallowed and disappear with the flow of water. But, if
you throw a stone into still water, you will see a delicate response, clear-
cut and distinct. The heaviness and the lightness depends on the attacking
object, be it big or small, heavy or light, long or short. Finally, the
scattering waves will gently subdue and become still.
To compare these two kinds of water with human beings, what
category of people will you choose ? For me, I would compare a
confused and excited people with flowing water, a calm person with
calm and smooth water.
Now, can you see how water is connected with a person ? If
you still cannot see it, I will tell you. Confusion and excitement arise
out of pressure, tension, worries, fear, uncalmness and ignorance.
Whoever possesses these characteristics will be like flowing water,
being unable to be still, which shuts off acceptance that comes to life.
Though the touch is recognized, it will be haphazard. It does not bring
any clear benefits and sometimes it may be unbearable.
The still water can be compared with a person whose inner
self is calm and this leads to smoothness of the body and words,
similar to a person whose eyes are wide open. He can look and
respond to near and far incidents, inside and outside clearly, besides
being able to absorb deeply the taste of thing which comes to life.
His mind is distinct and open clearly. You will respond and know
yourself straight forward. Such characteristics will help you to touch
it and the environment around openly like water which is still and calm,
ready to receive the touch and absorb the taste, the odor, the shakiness
and ends-up gently.
Dear Son,
I will tell you the usefulness of calmness. It enables you to
prevent the energy from scattering and combine it. In your mind, you
will be able to put your thoughts in order effectively. You would realize
what you need and you will be able to manage the obstacles with
confidence, clarity and cheerfulness and move forward smoothly, in
harmony and in accordance with the touch to work and life. Work
and life will harmonize with the force from knowing yourself. If barriers
come to the work, instead of refusing you will be willing to do what you
ought to do. The touch and honest admission will be a strong foundation
of work, strong and capable. When the result of work comes out, it will
reflect the quality of cool calmness which you use for a foundation of your
work. You will be able to touch its taste and will be soaked with joy from
the work.
Nevertheless, I must warn you that you will become clear water but
flow knowingly. This may arise from pressures and tension in daily life,
which makes it difficult in taking care of the calmness and smoothness of
the mind. This is because the pressure of the world is changes. The
pressure on emotion and the environment often causes worry, fear, tension
and heavy-heartedness in you. All touches will be dismal. You will not
know what you want, and what you must do. Your thoughts will be scattered.
The energy will be confused or over what it should be. Disturbances and
the lack of efficiency will make you more tired, more bored, more tensed
and worry more.
These things will replace clear knowledge, calmness and coolness
and the ideas set in levels. These are the obstacles, the problems which
make you spend your time uselessly. The result is sorrow and worry which
slow you down in your work. Worry and tension will burn down your energy
and time tremendously without any usefulness, so that you don’t have time
and energy to carry out and complete the work. Your mind will disturb the
organs in your body and make them tensed. This makes it difficult to work
fully and happily.
Dear Son,
I must tell you that if each day you let your suffering, worry and
tension burn your time and energy, you will have little time and energy
left. They will not be sufficient for containing freedom, freshness, light-
heartedness, calmness and peace and to be useful for others and oneself.
However, I have a measure to ease heavy tension of your body and mind.
Now, how would you know that you and others are under heavy
tension ? You will know by observing your body as a priority, which is
not the same for every body. But the majority of people will have such
symptoms, i.e. your blood will be abnormal. The muscles of the face will
be tensed. Headache comes often. You get fatigue easily without any
reason, the heat within the body increases as well as body odor.
Digestion and excretion are not normal. Face and eyes are not bright.
The hair will fall out and change colors quickly. You are inert, cannot
make sharp decision, worry and become moody easily. Besides, there
are many more symptoms. Most of the symptoms are the results of
tension. This is not all the abnormalities of the body.
It will affect environment work and society; all affects are bad.
The metabolism of anybody with tension will be quicker than those
without tension, which causes abnormal heat in the body. The organs,
glands and kidneys will work more heavily. There will be more excretion.
The person sweats more and has more body odor. The heat in the
body increases. Now imagine such a person in society or will be in a
society. What will affect society ?
Over and above, if society has more than one person of this kind,
what would happen ? What follow is the excretion, emotion and the
expression of emotion, which, if unacceptable, there will surely be a
problem. The problem will be a barrier in joining society. These will
affect the work both directly and indirectly. Those who are involved in
problems will suffer and have no energy to finish the work. This is a
direct problem. If he could finish his work, the work will not be complete.
If the acceptance of society is needed, it will not be just enough. This is
indirect effects. Now you see when you are wrapped up in worry and
tension, it will not be good for anybody.
Therefore you should not let them happen to you. If they should
happen unknowingly, you have to get rid of them. Do you know how to
get rid of them ? If not, I will tell you. There are two methods to get rid
of them: the absolute truth and the conventional truth methods.
Today we don’t have enough time. I could not explain both within
little time. I would conclude and cut it short by explaining how to get rid
of tension, let it out with the method of conventional truth.
To get rid of tension with the method of conventional truth is to
softly relax like an old saying “Fish can live in hot water, but cold water
kills the fish”. Therefore, if you want tension to die out from you, you
should slowly adjust the emotional tension with calmness. Stop doing
things, give ten or fifteen minutes to yourself. Do not let any thing disturb
your body and mind, breathe in clean pure air. Be conscious of the slow
and gentle inhalation and exhalation. Let out the confused and hot
exhalation. Then be conscious of every moment you inhale and exhale.
Do this for 5 to 10 minutes or more. Then you would know what happen
to you. For sure you get your real feeling back and finally calm down.
Give all attention to the feeling inside the body. Absolutely, do not let your
work, things or all creatures appear in your mind at this moment. Be calm,
relaxing and know what goes on. If you find any part of your body tensed,
may be your forehead, neck, arms, legs or shoulders, use all your feeling
to inhale to the tensed point and let it out with your exhalation. This can
be compared with a pipe of water, stuck with something. The owner can
open the pipe by putting in water to wash out that piece of remnant.
Breathing out tension has to be done gently, slowly, clearly and at
ease. Be with yourself all the time. These actions will create fine concentration.
The concentration will enable you to unite all the thoughts into one. Your
body and mind harmonize in the work. It enriches and builds up efficiency
for the work. When you want to talk, talk with a feeling that it is important.
Get the meanings of the words gently and politely. Your daily life, the
inhalation and the exhalation have meanings and importance for you. Besides
giving you life and energy, it also gives you lessons, firmness, success, peace
and happiness. It is a proof of values and living. You will be happier. It
enlightens the work you are doing. It will not be as heavy as you used to
think. You will have a friendly feeling towards your work, in spite of thinking
that it causes problems. Work and life are not heavy and tensed as you
thought before.
When you feel calm and awakening, you will be free to use your
energy continuously. You will discover excellent means in your work,
whatever you have to do or even in your rest, you will have quality and
gentle rest and relax happily. You will be able to touch fully the core of
life.
Dear Son,
To know yourself clearly make you calm. A peaceful person
discovers relaxation. He feels light. Besides, calmness can initiate
wisdom and energy for your body. You will know and receive the touch
clearly and can discuss with other people quickly with sagacity. Your wits
are quick and harmonize you with nature, environment and society. These
reasons make your thoughts harmonize with nature. Thus you will become
an inspiration for other people, for them to search for peace and relaxing
tension, as you have made yourself a sample. You and your society will
perceive that life has more usefulness. Work and life will have great value
and make you proud of your work.
The life and work of an ordinary man are destroyed by tension,
unacceptability, forgetfulness, commotions, dim knowledge and barriers,
which arise from problems and time and cause mistakes. The causes
of these mistakes come unaware. These make me worry a great deal
about you. I am afraid that in your life and work you will face endless
mistakes. If you want to prevent mistakes from occurring or occur at
least ,you must understand that work is the road to deep happiness of
life. Work gives people opportunities to best develop the potentials of
their bodies and mind. Work increases opportunities to learn more about
one"s life and soul. Besides, work is a process to enrich strength, bravery
and tolerance. If you work sincerely, work will give you love, kindness
and generosity for your companions in birth, sickness and death, as well
as cooperation for living together. Work will enable you to see correctly
the stark truth of religion, because you have touched it by yourself. The
teaching that we should know suffering, means to get rid of suffering,
practices which lead to the extinction of suffering. If you understand these
meanings of work, you will know that life is work. Life and work are
unanimous.
Dear son,
I understand that the demonstration of natural strength closest to us is
"the strength to work". Work helps you to make full use of your strength. It
is work that opens your body, your brain and your heart, so that you gain wide
experiences, hidden in small and most delicate work. Work will enable you to
learn to use your natural inner force with skill, bravery and wisdom. Almost all
happiness of life comes from your successful work. You will be overwhelmed
with happiness which will smooth and brighten your life. At the same time,
work is capable of building up harmony and balance between you and nature.
To work is to make use of what you have in yourself, i.e. strength, thoughts
and actions arising from your body. Your work leads you to create your full
life. Besides, it is a sample to inspire others to share that with you. Therefore,
you should be aware of the importance of work to your life, and you should also
know that work enables you to bring out all your potentials to make full use of
them.
Dear Son,
I would like to tell you about my past life. Whenever I was able to work,
I felt and touched deep happiness, arising from clear cut work with my heart
and soul. On the contrary, if you do not pay attention to your work, do not
give all the heart and thoughts to it, but work lousily, without attention and love
for the work, you will aim at its result more than its process. For example, you
may work for rank, power and fame, without considering how much attention
you give to make the work excellent. To me, this condition of work makes you
narrow-minded, coarse, selfish and greedy.
I say narrow because you merely think of your own benefits. You are
not considering the success of the work. When the doer does not gain any
benefit, he may not do it at all. When the outcome of work is incomplete, he
will be desperate, feel hopeless and does not have any inner strength to go on
with the work. Do you know or not when the common good is refused, your
association will be limited and thus become narrow ? Society is limited by you
yourself, or by the association which refuses you. I hold that your knowledge,
ability and experience will bog down and be made narrow commotions. When
your association is limited by you yourself or by the association which refuses
you, I believe your knowledge, ability and experience will be enclosed. Your
common sense, sense of responsibility, your soul, in accepting and refusing will
become coarse, because of your selfishness and lust for minor things. Actually,
in doing each kind of work, the results are not only for rank, honour or an increase
of salary or praise. There are many results for each kind of work, as I said before.
If you only work for such goals, you will become coarse, selfish and greedy.
What I have just said may confuse you. I will cite some samples to make your
clear.
A person attentively grows a mango tree with its seed in order to get the
fruits. When that mango tree becomes a big tree with many branches and leaves
and gives shade, the person watches the mango tree with discontent and outs off
the branches and leaves of the tree. He will explain that he grows the mango tree
for fruits, not for branches and leaves and shade, when he is asked. The air and
organic substance come from the roots and the leaves of the mango tree. If you
do not say that this person is coarse, selfish, greedy and stupid, what else can you
say about him ?
Son, as for me, to live without working is to take us away from the core of
life, and refuse to use the inner force to do the work. This decreases the values
of your life. You will live with fear and unsteadiness, when life is of no value.
When you don"t see the usefulness of work, you will not find any means to
usefulness and deep values.
Dear Son,
Only work and knowledge of life help you to see human values clearly.
It will lead to acceptance, respect and relationship which harmonize with all
things and all creatures. Different skills which you have learned while you
are working will motivate growth and arouse satisfaction and all the meaning
of life every instant of your life and other lives. Your heart will be filled with
joy, fresh and free like nature.
Work for Freshness and Happiness
I should warn you formally to make you understand development
and self improvement. After having told you how I spent my life, I shall
talk about principles to which you should pay attention.
Dear Son,
When your mind has turned to fresh nature, you will find happiness,
freshness and plenty of sources of wealth in yourself; that is love, warmth,
happiness and calmness; you will touch a deep beauty of life. You will
recognize and get in touch with all experiences that come in your life.
You will open your mind to happiness in living. These qualities in you
must arise from fresh and clear mind. However, there are questions:
"How much can you touch the beautiful nature of life and how can you
be related to it; how delicate can you be in your thinking ?" Though you
often touch inner happiness, arising from peace which is light and fresh,
you are likely to hide yourself from it and turn to do things in confusion,
commotions, heaviness and darkness, which causes unhappiness. Many
times you do not allow yourself to touch real happiness. The reason is
because you go astray and have wrong ideas. Therefore, you make
mistakes and try to be happy in the wrong ways. Thus, you are fully
unable to be happy with your success. This may be because you still
doubt and worry about your negative feeling. This takes you away from
the reality of life and makes you go astray and try to find happiness from
outside. It will make you confused and interested in the events around
you dotedly by not believing or believing that those things make you happy.
Unknowingly you spend your energy on finding outside things. It makes
you miss the stream of fine, deep and clear feeling in your mind. If you
are not clear in the stream of thoughts, you will not be able to meet real
knowledge inside you. You will acknowledge these experiences dimly and
crudely. At last what you get is an experience of the lowest quality.
Though you have success in many deeds you have performed,
the fact that you segregate yourself from clear nature of the mind, you
will lose the foundation of your life. Thus, you will feel disturbed, unstable;
you begin to feel that your life is empty and has no value. When you are
not overwhelmed with the knowledge of self, you will often seek other
people or other things to make yourself happy. The reason is that you
don"t know what is lacking in you. Thus, you are not clear in mind what
you really want and therefore you are always disappointed and painful.
The more you are unhappy, the more gloomy you are and you will fall in
the pit of unhappiness. You don"t have any reason for being unhappy and
dismay. Thus, you feel unhappy and dissatisfied and more shaky. The
relationship and different touches by sight, hearing, smell, touches of the
body and recognized emotion will become tasteless. It causes you to want
more and more without any ending. You will perform your deeds unhappily
with a dull mind. You will be confined in anger and doubt. You will lack
delicate common sense and will be attracted and fall in the circle of worry
and wrapped up with unhappiness. But I am sure that you will never find it.
Such search will happen repeatedly until it becomes a habit, which you believe
to be a guideline for living your life.
Dear Son,
I would like to tell you that living in this quickly changing world,
you will be compelled to follow it up. I think everybody, including you,
does not desire to have such changes. Changes naturally occur in all
things, all creatures and all elements. Nobody can escape from them.
What can we do about them ? Society and environment thus mold you
and press you to act out, so that it looks as if you have adjusted yourself
to the changes. But who will confess that you have adjusted your heart
along with the adjustment of your body. When it is like this, people in
society often give the importance to outside appearance, so that he looks
good in the eyes of other people, who think that he is quite free, but inside
your feeling will be destroyed by tension, worries and fear arising from
quick changes. Everybody will so hurry that he has no chance to recognize
thoroughly the emotion which arises and passes by. This is because you
don"t know your feeling. It makes you unable to reach the clear nature of
your heart. You and everybody seem to be at a distant from your beauty
of life. Great energy that you should get from yourself will be confused and
disappear.
While we were young children, we knew how we felt towards other
things. Due to the pressure from our family and friends, we were compelled
to accept narrow attitudes, ideas and expectations of others. When our
thoughts and feelings are stopped, we grow outside the realm of our
happy feeling. Then, the relationships between our mind and body are so
hindered and destroyed that we become unaware of our real feeling.
When this confinement becomes strong and stable, the chances to show
our feelings will decrease and disappear from us. We will be contented with
agreeing with others. Finally, we will become strangers to ourselves. How
could you come back and touch yourself ? What can you do to make yourself
really feel free ? Have you made questions to ask yourselves ? If you ask
yourself these questions, I could be certain that you have begun to look for
beautiful nature in your heart. You will see light or be enlightened which
gives you a well-balanced guideline that will bring you growth in the future.
A clear vision of yourself is the beginning of self-realization, which
will easily happen by observing the work of the mind and the body
consistently. Your are capable to observe your inner self at any time,
wherever you are , regardless of what you are doing. Observe attentively
what is going to happen to the changes of work and thoughts which have
occurred.
You will see that the environment, the changes of emotion have
influences on your body and mind, which is difficult for you to go against.
If you persevere a little more in examining your inner self till it becomes
clear, you will have new force and new concept, which will link your body
to your mind. Mix them and make them harmonize with living a natural
life. The work will flow. Nothing will be in its way. You will have plenty
of force to look clearly, which will lead to the use of your energy with quality.
You will enter the stream of life and perceive means to learn about yourself
with quality. It is an important factor that will push and promote your actions
to become fresh in every movement.
After having considerably observed your inner self, you will find
how you have confined yourself. How your natural inner feeling is limited.
On this occasion you will give energy and let those feelings flow. This
energy will be spent most usefully, most economically. When you become
calm and accept yourself, your confidence will arise. You could learn new
ways and beautiful guideline for knowing yourself and that which arises from
the knowledge of self. Your means of self recognition will be clear and clean
and have continuous movement. That is clean mind without any make up.
It is not wrong if other people will call it concentration. Anybody can call it
anything. To me it is what defines force, which I could use as I like. To
concentrate is not to train strictly for discipline, but it means relaxation, so
that one becomes naturally calm.
Remember also that concentration is not the training of fixed discipline.
It means relaxation and make your mind naturally calm. The concentration
that you need should be able to bind body and mind together with ease
and relaxation. This is a gentle quality, not strict. You can concentrate when
you work by doing one thing at a time with all your heart and soul. Give all
your attention to the work, be careful, pay continuous attention until that piece
of work is finished.
Do not worry about your work. Do not work with tension. When the
work is finished, do not put your heart in it. If you keep thinking of the work
when it brings good result, you will be negligent. But if the work fails, you
will be sorry. You should put all your heart and interest only while you are
doing the work. You will have clarity and deep understanding. This is working
naturally with clear mind, fresh and calm. You will then know yourself and
be delicate enough to know when ideas occur. You will catch that feeling.
This is because you are aware of yourself, the force and energy thus unite.
In your consciousness you will see clarity and cleanliness which are touchable,
even the smallest experience and all the thinking. Without consciousness,
though you give attention and perseverance in all your work, you will be like
small children who build a castle of sand on the beach without considering
that it will tumble down in a short time.
I would like to tell you once again. If you are without consciousness,
in spite of the attention and perseverance in your work with clarity and
freshness, you will be like small children who build sand castle on the beach,
without considering that it will tear down shortly. Consciousness makes you
confident in your work. You will put all your energy and ability in the work.
Thus you can develop your consciousness with clear thinking in the work you
are doing. Observe the way you work, how you begin and proceed in the
work. Are you clear in what you want ? Before you start to work, have you
analyzed and calculated the result of the work ? Are you sure that you have
done that with fine and broad attitude and that you have paid clear attention
to the steps of work.
I ask you numerous questions but they are not for you to answer for
rewards. But I ask you so that you keep the questions and find answers for
yourself. Find an answer for a question. Whoever can answer is knowledgeable.
While you are searching for the answer in order to develop consciousness, you
will see how the lack of attention greatly affect your work and the way you live.
If you work and live with conscious attention, the way you work and the
movement in your thinking will be smooth and beautiful. Your thoughts will be
clear and systematic. Thus life and work will be added with efficiency, due to
the fact that the steps of work harmonize with one another.
When you can do this you will realize the result the instant you work.
It will motivate new ideas in you so that you have new ideas, new methods
for the work. Besides, you can avoid forgetfulness and mistakes that may
happen. Besides, freshness and consciousness will make you understand all
the details in your thoughts and deeds. Clear calm and clean conscience are
what you cannot learn from classrooms, or from books. These are the core
of real nature in human beings. You can only learn from yourself. The
confidence in learning to know yourself will enable you to control the directions
and the goals of your life. After fixing the directions and goals confidently, you
will be delighted, happy and free. Your life and work will give you light
heartedness which will help you to be careful in everything you are doing. Thus
your life will become a work of art, showing relationships between body and
mind, while you are learning and gaining experiences in each moment of life.
You will be reliable and independent. You will become clear, light, clean and
very distinct. These are the factors which help you to think wisely and clearly.
When you have these feelings, you will have more self-confidence.
Dear Son,
Light heartedness, happiness and calmness and consciousness
exist in all human beings. It depends on whoever could develop to acquire
them and make use of them more or less. Whoever can bring them out
\to use they will make the person see everything as it is. He understands,
is calm and peaceful, besides bringing out growth of the body and the
mind, life, work and family. The relationships between oneself with all
things will increase value and be more meaningful. There will be the
feeling of freedom in life. Such real life will be deeply delightful for a
long time, in birth and life.
The Value of Learning
Dear Son,
Do you know that in every second, every instant of your life,
there are opportunities for learning and gaining experiences that you
find and come across. It will bring you delight and the zest of life.
You can define everything in your life whether it be past, present and
future. Only make best attempt to learn the present of your life. It
will enable you to perform any present deed clearly. When this second
has passed by, it can be said that you have defined a beautiful past by
yourself. As for the coming future, it is certain that there will be only
growth, prosperity and freshness. It again depends on you, whether
you are aware that every moment of your life creative quality and pure
inspiration are expressed in your daily routine. It is an opportunity for
you to develop yourself to the utmost.
Dear Son,
If you give all the energy you have with all your heart and
strength to your work, the work will be a stable foundation on which
you could build up a meaningful and abundant life. This is an outlet
for your ideas which you could use in performances. Work always
requires that we do something. Therefore it makes you like to succeed
in your work, which cannot be found elsewhere. When you work
carefully and attentively, your life will be meaningful and happy. If you
choose difficult work and do your best with perseverance, it does not
matter whether you succeed or not. At least it will enrich your
experiences and pride. If the work does not give you any delight, it
may be because you did not give your heart and soul to it. To give
value to work means giving full energy and all the heart and soul to the
work. By doing this you will be able to change irritation, boredom, which
usually occur during the work. Besides, it will be a great incentive for
you to face heavy and complicated work with a wide open and clear
mind. You will be willing to do all kinds of work.
Dear Son,
To value work, like or love work will be useless if your attitudes
towards work is that it is a mean to earn a living. It will make you bored,
because of endless repetitions of work. But if you think that work is a
mean to learning; it is a delightful experience of which you will be proud,
you will love it and never feel bored to do it. You will be able to work at
any time where there is work to do. You will see the value of work. It
will increase strength in you and you will be a beautiful sample, which
make others do likewise. You will discover success by yourself, given to
you by working. You don"t have to beg for success. Before you start
working in a bright morning, spend a little time to examine the causes
and results, so that you may find new ways to work effectively. It will
help you to know sure direction to use your strength to work towards the
goal, and do not have to go winding around to waste your time, besides,
being able to save energy. When you know the direction towards the goal,
you will start working with attention and force along with delight and
happiness. While you are fixing the direction of your work, don"t forget to
think of what you want. If your thought is widening to the wrong objective
and wrong need, you must be able to control it and bring out all the ideas
to you.
Dear Son,
If you ask me "What connection has work with moving all the
ideas into me ?" I would answer hurriedly "To give importance to self-
interest is necessary work. Every time you work outside yourself, you
should first finish the work inside you; it is the source of strength and
concentration, which you have to use in your work. The energy gained
from attention will gather all the thoughts and keep them in yourself. It
will encourage you to do different kinds of work effectively and to succeed
in one job before you turn to another job.
Dear Son,
When you work the way described above, it will get rid of the
thought that you have too much work or you don"t have time to do it
at all. By laying down means and goals appropriately and set your
heart on the work, you will succeed more than what you anticipated.
When all the work moves along in the best way, your mind will be
fresh and happy. Your body will be active. Though you would not be
able to reach all the goals you have set, it will give you more experiences
and strength. It will enable you to do more in the future. That good
work will be good exercises for your body and mind. Gentle recollection
of the work will enable you to set the direction and energy. Thus, your
daily life will move happily. In spite of being tensed and tired you will be
fresh to work.
Real growth will be brought about from the mixture of skill in using
energy and light heartedness. Use them in your work. If you are always
aware that to work is to learn and practice. This must be continuous in
order to reduce unhappiness and confusion. It makes you know yourself
more. You will be able to change bad situation into something useful and
clear. You will be able to build a bright new world for yourself. Though
there will be problems, you will look at the problems as means to enlarge
your experiences, which are avenues to marvelous force.
You will quite often face most difficult and heavy work. Your mind
will build up a wall by refusing to work. Thus, worry, fear, discourage will
arise. These are barriers to the work. Not only that, but it will turn your
interest to easy kind of work. In the eyes of others, you are weak, taking
advantage, selfish and nobody wants to be your friend. You will always be
a victim of blame. If you want to change or to correct that picture of yourself,
it is not difficult. Only give importance and attention to all types of work,
easy or difficult. You must consider that work given to you is trust which the
world and society have given you opportunity to learn.
Work is a measuring machine for measuring your inner strength,
sacrifice, endurance and tolerance. Work is the most excellent magic glass
which gives you many things. When you understand work, both difficult
and easy, you will seriously an honestly work. Other people then will not
look at you negatively.
Giving importance to work as mentioned above, you will be able to
do both difficult and easy work with light heartedness and without any barrier.
How exhausted you are, you will discover the source of energy in your work.
The sources of energy are concentration and seriousness in collecting all the
thoughts and ideas for your, because thoughts and ideas are energy. You
have to put them together to prevent them from scattering. After having done
that, you will use your energy continuously and consistently. We all have plenty
of energy. You only have to know how to use it appropriately.
When your work becomes successful, you will feel that you have plenty
of time left, because working attentively, seriously and continuously will bring
you quick success in the work. It will help you to control economical use of
time which is useful. Thus work will be more valuable and bring you delight
and force. You will begin to feel the increasing value and more meanings of
work without taking trouble to train for further meaning. This is self-rewarding
and rewarding for you. Giving value to work is a secret source of growth and
delight in the work you are doing.
Dear Son,
Remember, when you give value to whatever it is, the fine and
awakened feeling will promote you. The work you are doing will become
resources of deep knowledge. You will have deep feeling to thank the
person who give you the work. I dare say that work is the delight of life.
It is the source of energy. Its value is beyond any description. You will
take good care of it and cannot lose it even for one second. You ought
to preserve this property of delight until the last day of your life.
The Loss That Should Never Happen
The energy which comes from gathered ideas, consolidated with
body and mind is the most valuable resource of life. It is the only thing
in life, attached to us since we were born until we pass away. It is an
indicator of usefulness which you could bring to create life and activities,
duty and all things to be complete and to add quality and work to life,
society, the world and the universe. You have to accept that body, mind,
feeling and thoughts are the outcomes of this valuable energy. When you
are open-minded to learning, outlooks and receive the causes and results
of all things, thoughts, mind, body and energy will mix together, in
accordance with touches and combine to carry-out activities and duty to the
full of your ability. What you will get from the success of duty and work
will add to valuable experience, soaked in the core of life to the full.
When you were young, your energy was really concentrated. This
may be because your mind is still pure and bright. It is easy for you to
finish any task. Since you get it easily and may be because you have plenty
of energy, you spend it without any purpose, spend, thrift, as if it is of no
value. You use it for your own purpose, for what you are satisfied with,
which is not at all smart; instead of using it in your daily activities. Perhaps
you think that by refusing or avoiding heavy work, you will be happier. Such
is because you want to keep your time and energy for what you want to do.
You may not know that real success comes from diligence, tolerance,
seriousness, and attention. To refuse or avoid all work shows that you don"t
know how to use your energy. You probably don"t know that the more you
use your energy for different kinds of work, the more experiences and knowledge
you will gain. That is the way to increase your energy. If you refuse small
and big work, easy or difficult, the energy in your body will be neglected and
wasted. Nothing useful can be obtained. This happens because you do not
know how to use your energy wisely. Thus, you lose it. It decreases
opportunity for your own growth. Life is sleeping, going astray and will never
wake up.
Dear Son,
If you only know that energy and time wasted by time cannot be
got back. I believe you let it lose, may be because you believe that all the
time in the world belongs to you. Thus you go about doing things slowly
and lousily. You always postpone your work and don"t try to work. If you
let it go this way, I would like to warn you that life that has passed, is going
to pass by is not different from a sleeping person, talking in his sleep,
making no sense, is not different from your breath. When you let your
energy and time go by without doing anything, the feeling of emptiness is
missing. It will make you look at what you have to do that it is of little
importance. The lost energy and time may come from the lack of attention
in all the angles of the work and let those things pass by without trying to
learn or train or take action in the work. Or you may do this listlessly without
giving importance and attention to the work. This certainly is not of any use;
if you let this continue indefinitely, when you become old you will be sorry for
having lost your time and energy for nothing.
You will feel discouraged. When somebody kindly asks you to
make use of your time, you will tell him it is too late to do anything. I
would shout "What a pity it is to waste the air, resources and opportunities
that you have used".
Dear Son,
I would like to warn you that time is the carrier and destroyer of
life and all things. Then, will you let it pass by without doing anything ?
If you do not want to lose the usefulness of life, you must take action in
every activity with close attention seriously and attentively, with observation
and examination, in order to learn good points and bad points, the gain
and the loss of the work. You will learn the result of work, life and methods
of work and lay out appropriate goals continuously. It will be a tool for you
to prevent the loss and reach the success of work and life. If you work
without observation and analysis, you will use your time and energy
inconsiderably which does not fit for the world.
For example in minor work, you use plenty of time and energy. But
to delicate work, you do not pay much attention. To tell the truth, the lack
of observation and consideration will not help you to know which piece of
work is small, which is fine and delicate. This makes you miss the
usefulness and result of work. Now, what will happen ? Disappointment,
worry and tension will come around. You must accept the result of your
being good for nothing. When discomfort arises, what follow are :
negligence, failure and stop doing things. In spite of turning to observation,
consideration and finding means to solve the problem, you pay attention
to other things and leave the work to other people to solve.
Now, you become unreliable in the eyes of others. The conflict
between you and other people arise. Your happiness, friends and your
society will slowly reduce, withdraw and finally disappear. I think your
life is sad.
Dear Son,
Let me tell you something, if you wish to have a better life,
begin to train yourself by beginning to do everything with good attention
and seriousness. You may begin with easy work. Pay attention to it
and see how you use your energy. Have you touched the smell, steps
and problems of the work clearly and how clear ? You may use your
energy to work fully or not. Have the feelings of attachment, concern
and seriousness arisen stably ? Were you pulled or induced to forget
and drift along in pleasure, laziness and others besides that work ? If
so, you must stop them by building up inspiration, paying attention to
your deep worry until it becomes consciousness. When you are
conscious of yourself, you will know by yourself what you want and
should do. You will accept the work which has to be done though it is
repetitive, regular, you will do it happily. Your conscience also helps you
to discover arising differences in the work because you give importance
to your work.
Such differences and consideration will enable you to use the
force of time wisely and continuously. Tolerance and perseverance
will naturally come. You will feel firm towards your own will. This
does not happen because of compulsion. It is voluntary, willingness
to work joyfully. Experiences of life occur as every moment passes
by; there will be only complete learning. Attention and carefulness,
clarity will be enlarged and you will enter the society of the world
and the universe.
These reasons will make your inner self strong. You will be
able to do things you used to think that you could not do. But you
have done it easily. Work and life will become a stage, on which you
could show the art of using force. When life is an art, you will only
be fresh, excited and clear. Work will inspire you to search for new
experiences of life continuously. You will discover the way to natural
creativity. Your deep and continuing consciousness gained from your
learning will help you to discover the light of force and wisdom.
Through work you could express your thinking. It strengthens you
and makes you brave and energetic, besides helping you to be interested
in the work. Your life will proceed in the right direction and bring you
the zest of life wherever you are. When you are able to give importance
and meaning to work, you will be overwhelmed with delight, in stead of
feeling afraid and sad.
When you understand and give value to life and work and are
brave enough to face work, easy or difficult, you go one step at a time.
I guarantee that your work and time will not be wasted. Therefore you
should look and think carefully and analyze problems. What you have
already done and what you are going to do in the future, is there anything
to be remedied ? Knowing oneself, learning and looking at oneself are
the top of knowledge. There is no school in the world which teaches you
to know yourself as much as knowledge of the Dhamma. There is no
school and no teacher who is capable of advising us to do our daily
activities correctly and without any fault in duty like the school of nature
and the school of the Dhamma and the school of Kai Nakon that you
have.
Therefore I would like to warn you with my kind heart that you
should pay more attention to learning about your life and your soul,
including actions. Then, I think happiness, excellence, success or
whatever you wish, you will certainly get some day, if you try to do it.
A Calm Person Will Discover Relaxation
Flowing water and still water which one do you think looks firm
and is ever ready for any situation ? Which one aborbs and receives
more touches ? As for me, I would choose calm water. If you don"t
believe me, throw a stone into the flowing water and observe the response.
You will see that it makes a circle in one minute, then the scattering
water will be swallowed and disappear with the flow of water. But, if
you throw a stone into still water, you will see a delicate response, clear-
cut and distinct. The heaviness and the lightness depends on the attacking
object, be it big or small, heavy or light, long or short. Finally, the
scattering waves will gently subdue and become still.
To compare these two kinds of water with human beings, what
category of people will you choose ? For me, I would compare a
confused and excited people with flowing water, a calm person with
calm and smooth water.
Now, can you see how water is connected with a person ? If
you still cannot see it, I will tell you. Confusion and excitement arise
out of pressure, tension, worries, fear, uncalmness and ignorance.
Whoever possesses these characteristics will be like flowing water,
being unable to be still, which shuts off acceptance that comes to life.
Though the touch is recognized, it will be haphazard. It does not bring
any clear benefits and sometimes it may be unbearable.
The still water can be compared with a person whose inner
self is calm and this leads to smoothness of the body and words,
similar to a person whose eyes are wide open. He can look and
respond to near and far incidents, inside and outside clearly, besides
being able to absorb deeply the taste of thing which comes to life.
His mind is distinct and open clearly. You will respond and know
yourself straight forward. Such characteristics will help you to touch
it and the environment around openly like water which is still and calm,
ready to receive the touch and absorb the taste, the odor, the shakiness
and ends-up gently.
Dear Son,
I will tell you the usefulness of calmness. It enables you to
prevent the energy from scattering and combine it. In your mind, you
will be able to put your thoughts in order effectively. You would realize
what you need and you will be able to manage the obstacles with
confidence, clarity and cheerfulness and move forward smoothly, in
harmony and in accordance with the touch to work and life. Work
and life will harmonize with the force from knowing yourself. If barriers
come to the work, instead of refusing you will be willing to do what you
ought to do. The touch and honest admission will be a strong foundation
of work, strong and capable. When the result of work comes out, it will
reflect the quality of cool calmness which you use for a foundation of your
work. You will be able to touch its taste and will be soaked with joy from
the work.
Nevertheless, I must warn you that you will become clear water but
flow knowingly. This may arise from pressures and tension in daily life,
which makes it difficult in taking care of the calmness and smoothness of
the mind. This is because the pressure of the world is changes. The
pressure on emotion and the environment often causes worry, fear, tension
and heavy-heartedness in you. All touches will be dismal. You will not
know what you want, and what you must do. Your thoughts will be scattered.
The energy will be confused or over what it should be. Disturbances and
the lack of efficiency will make you more tired, more bored, more tensed
and worry more.
These things will replace clear knowledge, calmness and coolness
and the ideas set in levels. These are the obstacles, the problems which
make you spend your time uselessly. The result is sorrow and worry which
slow you down in your work. Worry and tension will burn down your energy
and time tremendously without any usefulness, so that you don’t have time
and energy to carry out and complete the work. Your mind will disturb the
organs in your body and make them tensed. This makes it difficult to work
fully and happily.
Dear Son,
I must tell you that if each day you let your suffering, worry and
tension burn your time and energy, you will have little time and energy
left. They will not be sufficient for containing freedom, freshness, light-
heartedness, calmness and peace and to be useful for others and oneself.
However, I have a measure to ease heavy tension of your body and mind.
Now, how would you know that you and others are under heavy
tension ? You will know by observing your body as a priority, which is
not the same for every body. But the majority of people will have such
symptoms, i.e. your blood will be abnormal. The muscles of the face will
be tensed. Headache comes often. You get fatigue easily without any
reason, the heat within the body increases as well as body odor.
Digestion and excretion are not normal. Face and eyes are not bright.
The hair will fall out and change colors quickly. You are inert, cannot
make sharp decision, worry and become moody easily. Besides, there
are many more symptoms. Most of the symptoms are the results of
tension. This is not all the abnormalities of the body.
It will affect environment work and society; all affects are bad.
The metabolism of anybody with tension will be quicker than those
without tension, which causes abnormal heat in the body. The organs,
glands and kidneys will work more heavily. There will be more excretion.
The person sweats more and has more body odor. The heat in the
body increases. Now imagine such a person in society or will be in a
society. What will affect society ?
Over and above, if society has more than one person of this kind,
what would happen ? What follow is the excretion, emotion and the
expression of emotion, which, if unacceptable, there will surely be a
problem. The problem will be a barrier in joining society. These will
affect the work both directly and indirectly. Those who are involved in
problems will suffer and have no energy to finish the work. This is a
direct problem. If he could finish his work, the work will not be complete.
If the acceptance of society is needed, it will not be just enough. This is
indirect effects. Now you see when you are wrapped up in worry and
tension, it will not be good for anybody.
Therefore you should not let them happen to you. If they should
happen unknowingly, you have to get rid of them. Do you know how to
get rid of them ? If not, I will tell you. There are two methods to get rid
of them: the absolute truth and the conventional truth methods.
Today we don’t have enough time. I could not explain both within
little time. I would conclude and cut it short by explaining how to get rid
of tension, let it out with the method of conventional truth.
To get rid of tension with the method of conventional truth is to
softly relax like an old saying “Fish can live in hot water, but cold water
kills the fish”. Therefore, if you want tension to die out from you, you
should slowly adjust the emotional tension with calmness. Stop doing
things, give ten or fifteen minutes to yourself. Do not let any thing disturb
your body and mind, breathe in clean pure air. Be conscious of the slow
and gentle inhalation and exhalation. Let out the confused and hot
exhalation. Then be conscious of every moment you inhale and exhale.
Do this for 5 to 10 minutes or more. Then you would know what happen
to you. For sure you get your real feeling back and finally calm down.
Give all attention to the feeling inside the body. Absolutely, do not let your
work, things or all creatures appear in your mind at this moment. Be calm,
relaxing and know what goes on. If you find any part of your body tensed,
may be your forehead, neck, arms, legs or shoulders, use all your feeling
to inhale to the tensed point and let it out with your exhalation. This can
be compared with a pipe of water, stuck with something. The owner can
open the pipe by putting in water to wash out that piece of remnant.
Breathing out tension has to be done gently, slowly, clearly and at
ease. Be with yourself all the time. These actions will create fine concentration.
The concentration will enable you to unite all the thoughts into one. Your
body and mind harmonize in the work. It enriches and builds up efficiency
for the work. When you want to talk, talk with a feeling that it is important.
Get the meanings of the words gently and politely. Your daily life, the
inhalation and the exhalation have meanings and importance for you. Besides
giving you life and energy, it also gives you lessons, firmness, success, peace
and happiness. It is a proof of values and living. You will be happier. It
enlightens the work you are doing. It will not be as heavy as you used to
think. You will have a friendly feeling towards your work, in spite of thinking
that it causes problems. Work and life are not heavy and tensed as you
thought before.
When you feel calm and awakening, you will be free to use your
energy continuously. You will discover excellent means in your work,
whatever you have to do or even in your rest, you will have quality and
gentle rest and relax happily. You will be able to touch fully the core of
life.
Dear Son,
To know yourself clearly make you calm. A peaceful person
discovers relaxation. He feels light. Besides, calmness can initiate
wisdom and energy for your body. You will know and receive the touch
clearly and can discuss with other people quickly with sagacity. Your wits
are quick and harmonize you with nature, environment and society. These
reasons make your thoughts harmonize with nature. Thus you will become
an inspiration for other people, for them to search for peace and relaxing
tension, as you have made yourself a sample. You and your society will
perceive that life has more usefulness. Work and life will have great value
and make you proud of your work.
(Translated by Daviras Dhanagom, Ph.D.)
