TRUSTING TO LUCK

It is a very wrong idea to believe in good or bad "luck." If we have such ideas in our minds, we should get rid of them while we are still children, and never again allow such wrong thinking to influence us. If we believe in "luck", then we cannot believe in the Dharma.

Lord Buddha taught us that good effects, that is to say, good results, come from good causes, and that only bad results can come from bad causes. A person who does not do clear thinking and whose actions are not good, cannot reasonably say that the bad effects that come into his life are just "bad luck." Bad thinking and bad living produce bad conditions of life, just as surely as two plus two add up to four. On the other hand, good thinking and good acting produce good conditions of life, just as surely as two plus two add up to four. It is superstitious to believe in "luck", and anyone who has such a belief shows thereby that he does not have any deep understanding of the Buddha's teaching.

Our lives are happy and peaceful or else unhappy and unpeaceful, depending on our own individual way of living. We make our own happiness or unhappiness and there is no such thing as luck. When a person says he has "bad luck", he really means he has bad karma. Anyone who understands the teaching about karma, will not make the mistake of believing in luck, because he will know that everything that happens in our lives happens as a result of a cause we ourselves have created.

We all know that if we plant roses we shall soon have a beautiful bush of roses. The rose bush will never blossom with Angsana flowers. That would be against nature's laws. Likewise, if we plant an Angsana tree, we can be certain it will bear Angsana blossoms and never roses. This same law governs our own lives. We get out of life what we put into life. We harvest what we have planted. Every Buddhist child must learn as early as possible in life that whatever happens to us is the result of our own personal karma and that believing in luck shows only ignorance and superstition.

SENTENCES FROM THE DHARMAPADA

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts."

So many symbols have been used by Buddhists to represent our religion that, finally, a sort of general agreement was reached that Buddhists of all the world would unite to accept the Dharmacakra as being the main sign or symbol of the Buddhist religion. The reason for choosing the wheel is that when Lord Buddha preached His first sermon in the Deer Park at Benares He is said to have "set the wheel of the law in motion." We all know that a wheel is not of much use unless it is in motion. In fact when we think of a wheel we naturally think of motion. It is the sams with our lives. We can go forward, make progress, or else we go backward. All life is motion, and there is no such thing as just standing still or marking time. If we follow the Wheel of Lord Buddha's Law, then we are in motion towards happiness. The wheel is usually shown with eight spokes.

The Buddha described the wheel in this way: "The spokes of the wheel are the rules of pure conduct (the Eightfold Path), the equal length of all the spokes represent justice; wisdom is the tyre, the hub is thought-fulness and the axle is the immovable truth." Just as the cross is the generally accepted sign of Christians, the crescent of Muslims and the Star of David of the Jewish religion, even so, the Wheel of The Law is the one sign of our religion that is recognized all over the world, and we ought to use it more and more, until everyone knows the meaning of this holy symbol. If anyone wishes to wear a badge of the Buddhist religion in the form of a ring or pin or necklace, then the proper symbol to use is the Wheel of The Law. Anyone who wears such a symbol will be constantly reminded that the only true happiness comes from following the Law taught us by Lord Buddha.

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Category: Bậc Trung Thiện , Phật Pháp Ngành Thiếu

Posted: 21 Feb 2025 by MINH HẠNH - Lưu Đức Hồng Phúc