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SÁCH AMAZON


Mua bản sách in

Spring comes, flowers bloom, colors and fragrances are brilliant. Spring is also the season of festivals with traditional cultural characteristics of all regions. Spring comes, the sky and earth are beautiful, people's hearts are happy and open to receive good and new things and temporarily put aside the unsatisfactory things of the old year.

For thousands of years, the national spring has been associated with festivals, visiting pagodas, offering incense to Buddha and almost everyone whispers prayers, regardless of religion, even non-religious people pray. The prayers are nothing more than praying for peace, blessings, health, protection...

Since the ancient times, people have been afraid of natural phenomena and because of ignorance, they believe and imagine that there is some supernatural power that can bring blessings and bring misfortunes, so they pray and ask for help. Then when religion appeared, prayer became more systematic, with language, scriptures, texts, rituals... With religions that advocate the existence of God, of a creator, prayer is extremely important. Believers must believe absolutely, must pray to be blessed, saved, to avoid punishment, to be forgiven all sins, to be absolved... If they pray and ask, after death they will go to heaven and not be sent to hell. With folk beliefs, people pray and ask for protection, blessings, and to ward off disasters... There is a folk proverb: "If you worship, you will be blessed, if you abstain, you will be safe" which is similar to praying.

With Buddhism, it is different. In Buddhism, there are also prayers and petitions, but they are not at all for blessings, salvation, or abstinence... Buddhism is a religion of science and wisdom. Buddhism teaches the principles, talks about cause and effect, presents the truth, there is absolutely no praying to receive blessings or reduce sins. Sins and blessings are created by oneself and also received by oneself, no one has the right to bless or absolve oneself. Blessings and wealth must be created by oneself, one cannot ask for or pray for. Whatever cause one creates, one will reap the same result, however, in between those two stages there is also the word fate, fate can increase one's blessings or sins. For example, if one does good deeds and meets the support of good teachers and good friends, one will be more active, more effective and longer lasting. But if one does evil deeds and is encouraged by evil people and supported by bad people, then that evil deed will be more famous and of course the consequences will be more severe. Praying can also be seen as a way to help oneself and everyone else.

In Buddhism, one's destiny is the karma one has created. No one can decide or change their own fate. The Buddha is an enlightened being, a teacher of gods and humans, a righteous and enlightened being, but he cannot change anyone's fate. The Buddha can only preach the doctrine, teach the method of practice, and show the way. Everyone must go and practice by themselves to gradually increase their good karma and reduce their bad karma. If you want to have blessings, you must do good deeds. If you want to reduce bad karma, you must give up evil deeds. You must improve your own fate. If you want to be full, you must eat. If you want to be cured, you must take medicine. It's that simple!

In reality, there is a very unfortunate truth. Many of us, novice Buddhists, lack understanding of the teachings, do not have right views, are vague about Buddhism, and are heavily influenced by folk beliefs... so in the spring (as well as on other holidays), people worship Buddha and pray for luck, wealth, blessings, peace, and a peaceful family... Every spring, we offer prayers to the stars to ward off bad luck, go to the temple to pray for all kinds of things, and also believe in the nonsense of exorcism, casting spells, exorcism, fortune telling, asking for lots, feng shui... In the first days of the year, many people go to the temple to pick lucky branches, they pluck and break all the flowers and leaves in the temple garden, incense smoke billows, prayer papers are posted everywhere, statues are scrubbed smooth and coins are stuffed into every nook and cranny... Many people confuse Buddhism with folk beliefs, bringing roasted pigs and offerings of blood and flesh to the temple. What is even more regrettable is that some evil monks, because of their lack of right views and greed for fame and profit, deliberately promote superstitious prayers or supplications. These evil masters encourage and practice star offerings to ward off bad luck, exorcise ghosts, read faces, pray for peace... to collect money (even pay in installments, transfer money with clearly listed prices). These are evil practices, evil methods that do not exist in Buddhism!

Praying and asking for protection are seriously distorted, being driven in a superstitious direction for profit.

Praying or praying is to purify one's mind and turn it toward the Triple Gem, increase faith in the Triple Gem, strengthen the Bodhi mind on the path of studying and practicing Buddhism, to reduce obstacles and increase favorable conditions in practicing the teachings, to meet good teachers and good friends, to meet the true Dharma forever... The Buddha is the one who is fully enlightened and omnipotent, the one who has right views, great compassion and mercy, but the Buddha cannot change anyone's karma, cannot save those without affinity, and cannot save all sentient beings. The original teacher Shakyamuni was like that, so are the other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. When the Buddha was still alive, a Brahmin came to ask him about the effectiveness of prayer. The Buddha used an example to enlighten him: "You smash a jar of oil in water and pray, but you cannot make the oil sink, and no matter how much you curse, you cannot make the pieces of pottery float." This shows that when karma has ripened and the result is ripe, no amount of prayer can change it!

Also during the time of the Buddha, there was a mother who was so heartbroken because her child died. She cried and begged the Buddha to pray for the child to live again. The Buddha told her to go into the city and ask for a handful of mustard seeds from a house where no one had ever died. She went around the city to ask, but there was no house where no one had ever died. Thanks to that, the woman woke up and accepted this painful truth. The story shows that when karma has ripened and the result is ripe, there is no way to pray, and the Buddha cannot change or correct anyone's karma. The karma we create is ours to bear, only by learning and following what Buddha taught can we gradually reduce bad karma and increase good karma!

Praying and praying is a very common spiritual matter for followers of all religions and not only in spring, but praying happens at all times, especially during religious events, festivals or important milestones in religion. Most especially, every spring, when heaven and earth enter a new season, almost everyone goes to the temple, worships Buddha, offers incense and prays. This has become a custom, a long-standing traditional cultural lifestyle of the nation. It is not only the Vietnamese who go to the temple to pray in the spring. The Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Thais, Laotians, Cambodians... also go to the temple to worship Buddha and pray in the spring of the new year, however, each nation has different ritual traditions but the praying is almost similar. When it comes to big things, we pray for national peace and prosperity, good weather, world peace, and happiness for all living beings. When it comes to smaller things, we pray for Buddha to bless our grandparents and parents with good health and longevity, family peace, prosperity, and wealth... Only by praying or making supplications in accordance with the true Dharma and the Buddha's original intention is we pray for Buddha to bless our body and mind with constant happiness, increase compassion, strengthen our Bodhi mind, diligently practice and study the Buddha's teachings, meet good teachers and good friends, and meet the true Dharma for life after life.

Little Six Divine Wind
(At Lang Thanh, 0123)

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