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Dhamma is for all

My dear Dhamma sons and Dhamma daughters:

Once again we have gathered together for our annual meeting. Now that the Dhamma work is spreading around the world and more servers, teachers and centres are arising, it is natural that the gathering is bound to become bigger. It is a good sign. But when those who serve Dhamma increase in number, we have to be very careful to maintain the purity of Dhamma service. If people just come to serve and they don’t know why or what they are serving, they may start harming Dhamma and harming themselves.

"Why am I serving? Why am I giving so much time to all this?" One has to examine oneself. "I am serving to get fame and a good position. Today, I am just an ordinary Dhamma server, but it is possible that after my teacher sees my service he may make me a trustee. And later on I may become a junior assistant teacher, and then an assistant teacher, and then a teacher. Ah, this is my goal, to become a full-fledged teacher! And then I will have power, prestige and authority. I will be the ruler of one zone!"

Mad fellow! You have not understood Dhamma at all! You had better meditate and wait for some time, don’t start serving. So long as this "I" is there you are not working for others, you are working for yourself—there is no anattā, it is all attā. You have not helped yourself in Dhamma, how can you help others in Dhamma? Keep on examining yourself.

Service is for bahujana-hitāya, bahujana-sukhāya, for the welfare and good of many people. Your benefit automatically comes because of the law of nature. When you are serving in Dhamma then your pāramīs are developing and you will reach the final goal easily.

The Enlightened One said that there are two types of people who are very rare in the world. What two types? One type is pubbakāri. That means one who takes the initiative to serve others, who takes the first step. Now if the first step is your thought, "What will I gain?" and then your service follows—this is not pubbakāri. Think of service first and forget what you will get. Do not expect anything in return. "As I have started coming out of misery little by little, let more and more people come out of it. I have been given this wonderful technique, let more and more get benefit from it." Pubbakāri is a very important quality of a Dhamma person.

And then there is the person who feels kataññū—gratitude. If you think, "I have this technique now. What have I to do with Gotama the Buddha?"—then you have not understood Dhamma. Where did you get the Dhamma from? As a bodhisatva for countless lives he kept on developing his pāramīs. In every life he served people in this or that way, for millions of lives.

Understand that when he came in contact with Dīpankara Buddha if he had taken Vipassana, he had the pāramīs to make himself an arahant immediately. But he thought, "No, I do not want only my own liberation. Let me become a sammāsambuddha and serve countless people. While developing my pāramīs I will also serve others." And with that determination he kept on developing his pāramīs. He took such pains for so many lives. For whom? For us. If he had just used this technique to liberate himself and not distributed it, then how would we have got it? Out of infinite compassion he started distributing the Dhamma.

And then from teacher to pupil the technique was maintained, especially in our neighbouring country, Burma. India was very unfortunate and within five hundred years lost it. But the neighbouring country has maintained it for the last 2,500 years—although among very few people. So a feeling of gratitude should arise.

Sometimes somebody will question me, "Why is this pagoda here? Why not a temple, a mosque or a church?" The pagoda is a symbol of gratitude. When Dhamma went from this country to Burma, then the Burmese people were grateful and remembering where it came from they chose a symbol of this country—the architecture of the Sāñci stūpa was taken there. In Burma stūpas were made resembling the Sāñci stūpa so that the locals would keep on remembering India. Of course other ornaments, like Christmas cake ornaments, all came later on. Still, in Sagaing, [near Mandalay in Burma] they have a stūpa in the same Sāñci style.

Now that Dhamma has come here from that country, we use the Burmese-style pagoda as a symbol of gratitude, to remind us that Vipassana has returned from Burma. For centuries let people remember that we lost this wonderful gem and our neighbouring country maintained it in its pristine purity. We generate a feeling of gratitude towards that country, and a feeling of gratitude towards all the teachers who maintained this in its pristine purity.

The Buddha said, "Those who have a strong feeling of gratitude and a wish to serve others without expecting anything are very rare people." So these two qualities are very important to those who want to work in the field of Dhamma.

Another very important thing is that you maintain the technique in its pristine purity. Why was it lost in this country? Our research organization will explore all the different fields of this subject. Many reasons will crop up, but one reason that I see is that when various sects found this to be a very impressive, result-oriented technique, they thought, "If somehow we can get this technique for our sect, it will be wonderful. Otherwise our people will run to it and our sect will become weak." Once they took the technique into their sect and added their own sectarian aspects to it, the technique became ineffective and it withered away.

On our part we give the technique freely, and if somebody pollutes it, adding something else, that is his or her responsibility, we don’t worry. On our part we will maintain it in its pristine purity. Those who are working in the field of serving others with this pure technique should not add anything. No addition is required— paripunna, it is complete. Parisuddha—it is pure, totally pure, nothing needs to be taken out of it.

One may feel, out of misguided compassion, "Well, if I add a little bit of this, people from that community will come, otherwise they won’t. Just to help them I will add

this, I will add that, I will add the other." And slowly these additions will make the whole technique impure and its effectiveness will be lost. So there is no compromise so far as technique is concerned.

Understand what the technique is. We are here to observe the truth that we experience within ourselves pertaining to the interaction of mind and matter. How they keep on influencing each other and how because of this contact of mind and matter a sensation arises, pleasant or unpleasant, and how out of ignorance we start reacting to it. If we observe it objectively, our habit pattern of reaction goes away. It is so simple. What is the necessity of adding anything else to this?

You have to become established in Dhamma and see that you help others to get established in Dhamma. And this is possible when you keep the whole technique pure and universal. The moment you start adding something, it will take a sectarian turn. And once it takes a sectarian turn, the essence of Dhamma will be lost and then the technique will get lost. Work very cautiously and wisely.

Buddha never established a sect. He established pure Dhamma. Throughout about 15,000 pages of his words, the word Buddhist or Bauddh(a) is never found. Five hundred years after Buddha this word was used for the first time. For five hundred years nobody called oneself a Bauddh(a), or called the teaching of Buddha as Bauddh(a).

Some question arose in the neighbouring countries when in an interview I was asked, "Are you teaching Buddhism?" I said, "No, I am not teaching Buddhism." "Hey, you are not teaching Buddhism? Then you are not converting people to Buddhism?" "No, I am not converting people to that." "Then you are not Buddhist?" "No, I am not Buddhist." "You are not Buddhist. You are not teaching Buddhism. You are not converting people to Buddhism!"

And this started spreading in the neighbouring countries, "This is a very ungrateful fellow. He took Dhamma from our country and now he is using it for his own purpose. He is not converting people to our religion." Oh, such a big confusion started!

Fortunately I was invited there and then I explained, "Now tell me, did Buddha convert anybody to Buddhism? How many Buddhists did he make? Among his own students Moggallāyan was of a brāhman clan, a gotra. He didn’t say, ‘Now you become Bauddhāyan instead of Moggallāyan.’ Kātyāyan is a brāhman clan. He never said, ‘From today onwards you will be called a Bauddhāyan.’ He never converted people to any sect, so who am I to convert anyone? Am I far superior? Am I far more enlightened than Buddha? Go through the Buddha’s words: Do you find this word Buddhist anywhere?" And then they realized, "Yes, you are correct."

If it is Buddhism, it will remain limited to certain people who call themselves Buddhists. Buddhism is for Buddhists, Hinduism for Hindus, but Dhamma is for all, Vipassana is for all. Dhamma is infinite—appamāno dhammo. These are the words of Buddha; you must not make this appamāno dhammo, infinite Dhamma, finite. So you must understand from the very beginning that you are not here to convert people and make them Buddhist. No, make them Dhammist.

We have found only five words or six words in the Tipitaka that the Buddha used for those who were following him, developing on the path of Dhamma: dhammiko, dhammannho, dhammī, dhammacārī, dhammavihārī. They are becoming Dhammist, not Buddhist.

So we must be very careful. We must work understanding fully well that on the one hand we have a feeling of great gratitude towards Gotama the Buddha. But at the same time we have nothing to do with any sect, we are not here to convert people to this or that religion.

We have to give importance to the Dhamma taught by Buddha so that we get established in Dhamma and help others to do so. Let them call themselves by any name, what difference does it make? People should become dhammiko, Dhammic. They should get established in Dhamma, lead a Dhamma life, so that they are happier and more peaceful. Once one really becomes a Dhammic person, naturally one will be far away from sectarian things. This is the yardstick to measure whether or not one is really established in Dhamma. If one becomes more and more sectarian, understand that this person is far away from Dhamma.

Keep all that in mind. Keep on growing in Dhamma for your good and for the good of all others. May Dhamma grow so that more and more people come out of their miseries, without getting entangled in this or that sect. Let them grow in Dhamma. May Dhamma spread for the good of the people, for the benefit of the people.

Bhavatu sabba mangalam

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