Buddha Dharma – The Most Precious Thing in Life

One day you will understand that the Buddha Dharma is the most important thing in life; the rest pale in comparison. You probably would have obtained the things you want, things that you like or someone whom you love dearly but you will need to bid farewell to all of them when your time is up. Even if you possess the whole world, 100 years on earth is just a blink of eye which passes even sooner than a snap of fingers! Within a very short span of time, you must let go of all your worldly possessions. So, what is the true value of such possession? When your time in this life is over, all your possessions in this life will become completely meaningless to you. So, the most important thing in life is to attain the ultimate freedom breaking fee from the endless cycle of birth and death (samsara), and then returning to this world (when you are ready) to lead the rest of the sentient beings onto the path of enlightenment, returning to our place of origin - this is a more meaningful pursuit of life.    

The Buddha Dharma is indeed inconceivable. Recently I delivered the soul of a Dharma Sister who passed away, who hardly did any practice in the past. It was much easier to help someone like her who had a very strong faith in me far surpassing others. When you have a strong faith in your Root Guru, you will automatically go to him when you pass away from this life. If you do not have any faith at all and your life is totally disconnected from spiritual cultivation, you will not know about the Buddha Dharma, and that you will spend your entire life pursuing just worldly goals. When your time is up, your spiritual body will not know where to go because you do not have the faintest idea of death. Inevitably, you will end up running around aimlessly in frenzy, and continue to be reborn within the Samsara.   

There are things that appear at different phases of our life which we deem valuable and want to chase after. When you look back at these things after awhile, you will realize that all things that you managed to take possession of have a time limit. I still remember that I used to have a treasure box during my childhood, in which I kept my favorite toys including marbles, paper etc. I loved it so much and I decided that I must bring it along wherever I go. Looking back - “Where is my box now? I don’t know!” So, as you grow up, you will tend to forget about the things that you once said you wanted for your entire life. As you grow up, you will fall in love with something else, and then something else…… You will continue to chase after things, one after another…… One day when you look back, you will realize that none of them is worth remembering and none of them is meaningful! Finally, there is only one thing that you can bring along with you – your “karma”. Your karma will follow you like a shadow. How does karma come about? It is created through all your actions since birth till you draw your last breath probably at the age of 100, 50, 35, or even 5! We have seen so many youngsters passing away at a tender age. 

Recently there was a 17 year-old teenager who collapsed and died while working as a volunteer in East Malaysia, as reported in the news. He was the adopted son of a wealthy family and his dad was a high performing remissier. This teenager lived in a rich man’s house and studied in one of the most prestigious schools in Singapore. But he died at the tender age of 17. Of course, there were those who died at the age of 20, 30…… I just delivered the soul of a young photographer who passed away recently. He was 30-something and his wife told me that her husband never expected himself to die so soon.  

If you have never prepared yourself for death, you will feel completely lost when the time comes, and you will end up running wild in frenzy - you will simply run into any place you saw and “boom!”, you will again fall back into Samsara. I told you before that in the current society, most of the people are self-centred and tend to do more evils than good, who will only fall into the Three Lower Realms (animal, hell and hungry ghost) in their next life; it is extremely difficult to be reborn as a human again. As long as you do not do spiritual cultivation or do it wrongly, you will easily fall into the Three Lower Realms. You would probably obtain another human birth only after millions of years. Since we have already obtained this precious human body, we should learn to let go of all worldly concerns dearest to our heart and not let them control our mind easily. You should maintain your mind in a state of calmness, immersing in the joy of Dharma instead. We ought to feel happy about being able to accept the Buddha Dharma and should not be easily perturbed by the worldly concerns.

Human life is short. You will lose your worldly possessions in no time and they will become meaningless to you. What you have obtained today may end up causing you a greater pain tomorrow, by then you would say, “I would rather not have it in the first place!” You would probably end up getting a greater pain than joy. A person may appear to be wonderful when you see him from afar. However, when you get too close to him, you may realize that he is actually very ordinary. And when you finally get hold of him, you might say, “Oh! This is what it is!” When you see things in a greater detail, you will realize that they are indeed no big deal! So, the most precious thing in life is still the Buddha Dharma.