Two weeks ago, before the start of the Dhamma school Ven. Somananda gave a mini talk on what Dhamma meant. It was such a brief but a meaningful talk that resonated with me very deeply. It was about the meaning of Dhamma. Dhamma means protection, to up hold. The Buddha said that whoever upholds the Dhamma is protected by the Dhamma itself. Over the last 4-5 years of my life I have begun to understand the true meaning and the depth of what the Buddha said. There is a profundity that I didn't realise for many years but only started to understand along with serious practice and dedication to the five precepts, meditation and striving for a life that falls in life with that of what the Buddha preached.
Dhamma truly is a protector. But it does not protect just by the fact that you are a Buddhist. It does not protect you just because you are well-versed in the suttas, the pali canon, and all the teachings of the Buddha. The Dhamma protects one only when one becomes the Dhamma itself. One must put aside all notions, beliefs, knowledge, views and a sense of self and truly give oneself to the practice of Dhamma and then the wheel begins to turn. It was fascinating to observe and see the process unfolding within oneself. It's like the blossoming of a flower. One cannot make it open its petals, but one can only make the sun shine upon the flower bud and wait for the petals to open up. So too does Dhamma. As it grows in you, Dhamma opens around you like a protective sheath, surrounding you in its cover. It's not a cover that's visible. It's an invisible sheath of protection that you carry with you as long as you maintain the practice.
It's so very powerful but unlike many things in the world that can be seen, heard, touched, smelled Dhamma cannot be felt by the senses. This is what makes things hard for us all, including myself. Because it's all within oneself away from the normal sense contacts and the sense world, it's easy to stray away from that and swept by the currents of what is immediately in front of you. So, we depend on the protections provided by the sense contacts and the sense world. For example, we depend and we put so much effort and importance to material things like houses, money, cars, and more houses and all kinds of other things but none of these things give us protection. Perhaps in the short-term from the sun, rain, snow, winds etc but all these things are subject to change and decay. Also as we change the allure and the fascination these things hold for us wither away. Both are temporary.
So, we seek protection in what is temporary and flimsy. But yet find great solace in them. However, just because we cannot see, hear and touch we don't make the effort to seek what can provide us eternal protection: the Dhamma. It's hard and requires much work and effort. I find it so very ironic that people are willing to work their butts off in going to work for more than 8 hours a day for 5 days a week and sometimes even more, raise a family and feed them and look after them and work like dogs to continue feeding them and up keeping them, cook, clean, shovel snow and do numerous tedious work day in day out and yet not allocate a single hour or a day or a few days a year to their spiritual development. None of the day to day things they do, have much benefit to each one of us other than ensure our survival for the length of period we live...then we are gone. But we work and fret over things like we would live a life time.
But no one thinks of the eternal life that each one of MUST ride on our own even after death. That life has to be walked whether we like it or not. But none of the activities that we do for our survival in this life, would help us in that journey. But no one thinks of this. I don't understand why? Is it because the question is not pressed hard enough? Perhaps that's why old people start visiting the temples and start observing sil, or giving more danas? Because with old age comes the pressing issue of death. But when we are young, no such pressing issue?! How ignorant are we?
Anyway, Dhamma will only protect those who live according to Dhamma. We have to shape our lives according to Dhamma whether we like it or not. It helps to realise the deeper truth presented by the Buddha rather than read them and understand them as just another intellectual jargon. That way shaping our life becomes that much easier. When one shapes life according to the Dhamma, one becomes something larger than oneself. Dhamma is the truth of everything. As we shape our lives according to the Dhamma we align ourselves to the greater truth of things. By doing so, we becomes one with things as they should be rather than fighting against it. That's why great arahants could live life in total harmony, because they were in sync with everything.
In the world, we ask for what cannot be, we crave for what is not real and is in constant friction with life and everything and truth. Basically we are living against the Dhamma. That's why there is so much misery, heartache, disappointments, anger, rejection, disapproval. When one starts to align oneself with the Dhamma all these above things fall by the way side because ones perspective change and along with that one beings to see the truth and way things are rather than things ought to be according to ones egotistical wishes and whims. When that happens life starts to synchronize.
It's the most beautiful thing in the world. But it takes time and work. Not outside work but much introspection and contemplation. It takes self-discipline and single-minded dedication. But when your life starts taking shape you can see for yourself the beauty of the Dhamma. The great benefits borne in the heart. They are the miracles of life.
May you too find the miracles that lie deep in your heart!
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