About This Teaching
Ajahn Dtun reminds his listeners that beings have wandered through countless births, and that being born human and meeting the Buddha's teaching is rare. Some are born where there is no teaching, and when suffering arises they do not know the way out. So we should not damage our minds with wrong deeds, which lead to bad destinations when the body breaks up.
People seek happiness in sights and objects, gain, status and praise, yet this happiness is impermanent. Real happiness comes from developing the mind: becoming a good person by keeping the five precepts as normal and making merit, which brings human and heavenly fortune; meditation may lead to a Brahma world; and for Nibbāna one develops sīla, samādhi and paññā to know the Four Noble Truths. The Buddha said that any teaching without the Noble Eightfold Path has no path, fruit or Nibbāna.
Listening many times is not enough without practice. He urges right view: confidence that the Buddha awakened by himself, that his teaching leads to the end of suffering, and that good and bad deeds bear different results. Beyond sense pleasure is the happiness of a peaceful mind, and beyond that the peace from defilements, the ending of greed, anger and delusion. We must train ourselves, for one is one's own refuge.