About This Teaching
Speaking to listeners of many nationalities and cultures, Ajahn Dtun says that past merit in the Buddha's teaching has brought them together. We are fortunate to be born human and to meet the Buddha's teaching. The Buddha's body was made of earth, water, fire and air like ours; the difference is that he purified his mind over immeasurable ages.
This is called a fortunate aeon because five Buddhas arise in it: Kakusandha, Koṇāgamana, Kassapa, Gotama, whose teaching we live in now, and Metteyya, still to come after the five-thousand-year dispensation has passed. So we should not let our days and years slip by without practice.
For lay people, practice begins with doing one's duties well: to be a good father, mother, husband or wife, and for children to be good to their parents, whose kindness is beyond measure. Alongside worldly life one can make merit as opportunity allows, keep sīla and meditate every day. Sīla calms body and speech, samādhi calms the mind, and then sati and paññā arise. Wisdom sees that the mind is one thing and moods another, and gradually lets go of greed and anger; as they lessen, true happiness appears.
The mind suffers through sickness, ageing, death and separation because it takes the body to be self. Seeing the body as elements that arise, change and break up, the mind lets go, knowing the body is not the mind. With firm faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Saṅgha, trust in kamma, and patient effort, we follow the path the Buddha and his disciples walked to Nibbāna.