Human Beings

We haven’t died yet, so now is the time to talk about the Dhamma. If you don’t hear the Dhamma when you are a human being, there won’t be any other chance. Do you think animals can be taught the Dhamma? Animal life is a lot harder than our life. Being born as a toad or a frog, a pig or a dog, a cobra or a viper, a squirrel or a rabbit. When people see them, they only think about killing or beating them, catching them or raising them for food.

We have this opportunity as humans. It’s much better! We’re still alive, so now is the time to look into this and mend our ways. If things are difficult, try to bear with the difficulty for the time being and live in the right way until one day you can do it. Practicing the Dhamma is like that.

I’d like to remind you all of the need for having a good mind and living your lives in an ethical way. However you may have been doing things up to now, you should take a close look and see whether that is good or not. If you’ve been following wrong ways, give them up. Give up wrong livelihood. Earn your living in a good and decent way that doesn’t harm others and doesn’t harm yourself or society. When you practice right livelihood, then you can live with a comfortable mind.

We monks and nuns rely on the laypeople for all our material needs. And we rely on contemplation so that we are able to explain the Dhamma to the laypeople for their own understanding and benefit, enabling them to improve their lives. You can learn to recognize and remove whatever causes misery

and conflict. Make efforts to get along with each other, to have harmony in your relations rather than exploiting or harming each other.

These days things are pretty bad. It’s hard for folks to get along. Even when a few people get together for a little meeting, it doesn’t work out. They just look at each other’s faces three times and they’re ready to start killing each other. Why is it like this? It’s only because people have no sīla or Dhamma in their lives.

(The Teachings of Ajahn Chah)