COMMON PROBLEMS ================= Ref : Book “HUMAN LIFE & PROBLEMS”, P-181, Penned by K. Sri Dhammananda ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Human problems are complicated and entangled in various ways. From our birth up to our last breath, numerous problems confront us. It is impossible for any human being to exist without facing same sort of problems. The Buddha has advised us to understand the nature of our problems. If we want to live peacefully. He has also advised us to ponder on the purpose of our existence and try to find out why we are not satisfied with our lives and the world. If we can understand this situation, there will be no reason for us to suffer from undue fear, disappointments and frustrations. The Buddha’s approach to the problems of human suffering is essentially empirical and experimental and not speculative and metaphysical. There is no short cut for us to get rid of our problems. We must cultivate our way of life to discover the cause of the problems that we are facing . We must understand that there is no existence without any friction. If we want to be really free, we must examine our problems by reducing our egoism through understanding why these problems make life miserable. We all like to lead very happy, contented and peaceful lives but how many of us can really experience such happiness? We are willing to do anything in everyway possible to gain satisfaction but it is very difficult to experience true satisfaction. Superstitious Beliefs Whenever we have problems, we approach others, and seek their advice .They may advise us to go and pray to certain gods in a temple or other places of worship or to recite certain mantras and to perform some rites and rituals. But the Buddha’s advice is entirely different. He never advises anyone to do anything without investigating the problems and analyzing them to discover where the main cause of the problem is. The trouble with us is, whenever we face any problem, we suffer from fear due to ignorance and we create for ourselves unfounded fear, imagination and others on order to get rid of them. For example, when people face failure in their business they try to use magical power to gain good luck and success in their business. But they do not try to find out where the mistake or the weak point is and do not realize that many such practices are also based on superstitious beliefs. Some of these so-called ‘seers’ or astrologers exploit the ignorance of innocent people and make them believe that ‘evil forces’ are behind their bad luck. The Buddha advised us to develop patience and understanding, without depending on superstitious beliefs, and to develop the rational way of life without wasting time and money on meaningless practices and also to use our own effort to overcome them in a reasonable way. Usually we cannot understand the cause of many of our problems because our way of thinking is clouded by suspicion illusion. It is due to a lack of proper understanding that we give the wrong reasons for our problems and seek the wrong means to overcome them. We pray, we make offerings and vows by thinking out misery is due to the working of an external worries are created by ourselves. We do not strive to develop a correct way of life through moral and spiritual development. We think that religion is only for us to pray or perform certain rituals to get rid of our problems. If we maintain such beliefs how can we concentrate on enriching our knowledge and understand things in their perspective? The tree of civilization has its roots immoral values which most of us do not realize. Without these roots and leaves would have fallen and leave the tree a lifeless stump. Today, we have developed our worldly life in such a way that we have no time to devote for self-discipline or to cultivate inner peace. Although we may have more than enough to satisfy our material needs like food, shelter and clothing, all the while we go on thing of how to make more money and how to enjoy life in a worldly way even at the cost of others’ rights. When we come across certain problems, we start to grumble, show our temper and create more disturbances not knowing that it is impossible to overcome our problems by adopting such an attitude. Worries People concentrate more on pleasure rather than on their peace and health. Some people worry by considering their future although they have more than enough at the moment. They worry about their sicknesses, old-age, death, funerals and also about heaven and hell or the next birth. Everyday they experience certainty in their lives. They run around searching for a remedy to end their problems. They worry when they are getting old. They worry when they cannot gain what they want. They worry when they lose their belongings or persons they love. After that, they create frustration, anguish, mental agony and suffer from mental disturbance and later these turn into physical ailments. Throughout and happiness until they die without finding the real solution. Not knowing the real nature of life, we try to maintain it without experiencing any disappointments and changes. But life is changeable. It is a bundle of element and energies which are always changing and the situation is always not to our satisfaction. Sometimes we feel life is not in our imbalanced, we experience uneasiness, sickness, pain and many other problems. When mental energy is disturbed, we experience mental problems. After that our organs and glands also change their normal functions and affect the blood circulation, hormones, heart and brain cells. We can avoid many of these problems if we can understand this conflict in our body and lead a natural life in harmony with natural forces which make up our physical existence. Facing Realities Today many people lead an artificial life not knowing its danger. Many of our problems are created by us due to our crazy attitude caused by temptation. Simplicity makes life run smoothly. Many of us realize and experience them only when we grow old. For example, let us assume there is a pit about 100 feet deep and we put burning charcoal at the bottom. We then lower a ladder into it and ask people to go down one by one. Those who start to go down do not complain about the heat until they go further down to a depth of 30 to 40 fee. After 40 to 50 feet, they feel a certain amount of heat. When they go still further down to 70 to 80 fee and reach nearer to the burning charcoal, they will experience the sensation of burning. In the same manner, young people do not experience suffering although th Buddha says life is one of suffering. But it is a good analogy to explain that as we gain more experience we see the truth about suffering more clearly. The real meaning of suffering is experiencing un-satisfactoriness in everything. Naighbourliness Let us consider our families. How many families are there who live with mutual understanding and love? Here we think not only of our immediate families but also those who live around us. We can invite the whole world into our rum through our T.V. but we are not willing to invite our next door neighbours into our houses to talk to them in a friendly manner. We have no time to look at the faces of our own family members but we spend many hours to see the faces of unknown people on the television screen. Even within one family we have no time to look at each other with smiling faces although we live in the same house. How can there be unity and happiness in such families? The sad fact is this strange behaviour is very common in modern society. Some people completely ignore their family members after their marriage. That is not the real way of life. We should maintain a community that lives by assisting each other and by giving moral support to those in nee. Although they do not assist each other very often to the extent that human beings do, animals live together, sometimes protecting their group or their young from their enemies and their young always follow the elders. It seems that today we are not living as real human beings. We have deviated very far from our natural ways of life. That is why we have to face so many problems and hence we fee lonely. We must understand that there are some natural problems and there is no way to escape from them. There are also many other problems which are man-made, some are mind-make, resulting from illusion and ignorance or selfishness. We are Responsible Even educated people do not use their knowledge wisely when they come to superstitious practices that are performed in the name of religion. Try to get rid of this poor mentality by strengthening the mind and developing self-confidence. Then we can overcome many of our problems and in most cases, our imaginary problems will simply disappear. According to some religious beliefs there is a god who is responsible for all the good things that happen to us and if anything goes wrong, then the devil is to be blamed for it. To us it is not a very convincing belief. Most of us simply do not try to understand why we are not happy and why we are not satisfied with our lives, and who is responsible for this situation. The Buddha teaches that we are ultimately responsible for every action of our which leads to contentment or unsatisfactoriness. Besides all major problems for which we are responsible and which affect us directly we also create some others which divide mankind and create problems such as racial arrogance, religious fanaticism, cultural and traditional discrimination, language problems, colour bar and superiority and inferiority complex by thinking the followers of other religions are their enemies and it is a sin to support the activities of another religion. They never think that the followers of every religion are trying to do some service to humanity and not do harm to others. Problems such as these indirectly contribute to our sense of discontentment. Purpose of Religion The purpose of religion is to guide mankind, to develop unity and harmonious life and to cultivate humane qualities and mental purity. However, religion is being used to discriminate against other religions and to develop jealousy or hostility. Actually people are not using religion to maintain peace but to disturb and hate others. This unhealthy religious violence and blood-shed in many parts of the world. At the same time, while cherishing their own imagination or concepts as real beliefs as part of their valuable culture or traditions, some religionists ridicule the culture and traditions of others. In their beliefs and practices which they introduce as the only true religion, they promote selfish ideas for material gain, political power and self-glorification. Compiled by Chakradhar Hadke.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 16:31:05 +0000
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