What are we living for?

 

 

 There are many religious leaders, scholars and wise people around the world defined life and the purpose of living from their own different perspectives. If someone asked me what Buddha taught about the purpose of living and how to live a life as a Buddhist, I will answer him as follow.

According to the Buddha's teachings, we should practice three things throughout the life. They are 

(1) we will have to serve for the welfare of all beings, 

(2) we will have to serve for the welfare of relatives, friends and surroundings, and 

(3) we will have to salve ourselves to liberate from this vicious world. 

These will be the three vision statements of all Buddhists to follow from the very first day of our life until the last breath.

Buddha also reminded us that we should always check ourselves whether we can accumulate three things everyday in our life, namely; Merits, Wisdom and Wealth. And we will have to choose a suitable place to live in order to collect these three things properly. These three things (or) objectives may be the mission statements for all Buddhists to practice in their whole life.

Besides, all Buddhas told us to practice the following three main discourses, also.

(1) we should avoid all evil things,

(2) we should practice all wholesome activities and

(3) we should maintain our mind as clear and pure as possible.

In order to avoid evil things, firstly, we should know exactly what are evil activities. In brief, they can be summarized as

(1) Hurting or killing other living beings, 

(2) Improper using or stealing others' wealths and properties, 

(3) Misconducting upon sexual pleasures, 

(4) Telling lies, harsh words, slandering and vain talks,

(5) Drinking alcohol and taking intoxicating drugs,

(6) Living on extreme greed,

(7) Dwelling with hatred, resentment and anger, 

(8) Trading weapons, poisons, intoxicating drinks and narcotics, slavery and handling meats as a butcher and

(9) Living with false concepts.

If we can avoid these above things, we can be said that we are preserving the first main discourse what all Buddhas wanted to be.

For the second main discourse to be followed, it is simple to reverse the above all evil things and practice those reversed things accordingly. But, before we practice them, please don't forget that we are sure to bear empathy in our mind. Otherwise, it will be like that we follow the commends that we cannot denied or we avoid these things because we fear from bad reactions in return which we will have to suffer later in this life or in our future lives. 

Moreover, it is better if we add these four things in our daily life as bonuses.

(1) Acting generosity to all beings around us

(2) Giving Loving-kindness and taking care to everyone

(3) Being sympathetic joy to others' wealth and prosperities 

(4) Balancing the mind not to be wavered a lot whenever good or bad things strike upon us.

Finally, for the third main discourse, we are going to prepare our mind to be calm and peaceful at any circumstances. At first, we have to practice our wandering mind to be still at the present moment. According to Buddha's teachings, there are forty ways to control the mind not for wandering. So, we can choose any one among out of forty which is suitable for our own traits and personalities. After that, we will have to practice it again and again repeatedly until we can maintain the mind at the present moment continuously (or) to some extent of time. Actually, wandering mind is making up unrealistic problems and the person to be wear out. If we can maintain the mind not to wander and stand still at the present moment, most of our problems will become fading away and at the same time, we can start to enjoy peace and calmness simultaneously.

Stepping on the strength of mindfulness and concentration we got by controlling the mind, we can continue forward to watch the natural phenomena that is occurring in our body and mind to get the insight wisdom. Buddha taught four foundations to practice to get the insight wisdom. They are

(1) Mindfulness of the body,

(2) Mindfulness of the feelings (sensations),

(3) Mindfulness of the mind, and

(4) Mindfulness of the phenomena (or) mental objects.

If we follow those four foundations accordingly, we will realize the true nature of mental and physical phenomena that all of us could not see and recognize them before. We will clearly comprehend the continuous process of cause and effect that dominates upon all beings. Later, we will gradually feel bored with the vicious cycle of that continuous life process and want to escape from it. So, with great effort, if we continue to practice enthusiastically and industriously, at last, at a time, we can get to the final exit or destination and totally escape from that cycle. At that time, we will become the Enlightened One.

In other words, all these above processes that I have mentioned can be called as Three Essences Of Sasana (Buddha's Teachings); Sila (Moral Precepts) , Samadhi (Mental Discipline) and Panna(Wisdom). 

By practicing these three essences, one can accumulate merits, wisdom and wealth everyday. 

A person who is practicing these three essences will surely serve for the welfare of all beings and also serve for the welfare of relatives, friends and his surroundings. His mind, which is calm and peaceful, and his knowledge, which is based on insight wisdom, lead his life. He will try to communicate people and all beings around him with loving-kindness and great care. His mindful activities will support his life as a quality one. He will be sure to get prosperities and material wealth according to his efforts and qualification. So, it will be sure that people who depend on him and relate to him will get satisfaction from him.

At the same time, since he is practicing mindfulness meditation, he can be said that he is trying to help himself for the liberation of this vicious world too.

From the Buddhism point of view, what Buddha wanted to be for the purpose of living is to get the liberation from this very life. So whatever we try to get for the material wealth or fame or success in this life, we should not never forget about the real purpose of living as a human being. In our life, sometimes we can fulfill our desires and sometimes we can be knocked down with different kinds of failures. In fact, those are the ups and downs that everyone will have to face in their life. No one escape from them. So, we will try to maintain curves of our state of mind not to become big slopes in every situation we faced and we should remind ourselves what the real purpose of living is.

So, to be a good Buddhist and to honor the Buddha with our deepest gratitude, we, all of us should follow the mission and vision statements what Buddha prescribed to us by practicing Three Essences Of Sasana.

With Boundless Metta,

Vimuttisukha

03.05.2013 (Friday)


N.B: I deeply apologize all Venerable Monks and Scholars that I didn't take some facts and figures exactly according to the contexts of Tipitaka. I just only wrote down as I understood upon Buddha's teachings in my own way.

 

From-http://www.vimuttisukha.com/2013/05/what-are-we-living-for.html