A King’s Dhamma

Close your eyes. Take a couple of good, long, deep, in-and-out breaths. Notice where you feel the breathing in the body. Focus your attention there. Then stay with the breath all the way in, all the way out. Think of the whole body breathing in, the whole body breathing out, and that you’re bathed by the breath, all around you.

Today we commemorate the eighth anniversary of the passing of the past king, Rama IX. He was one of those rare kings who actually did have the welfare of his subjects in mind, in his heart and devoted his life to helping the country as much as he could. He helped not only Thailand but also the rest of the world, in the sense that protecting Thailand allowed Buddhism to flourish at a time when it was disappearing in countries all around it. People from abroad could come and study the Buddha’s teachings, study the Dhamma, and then bring it back to their home countries.

The fact that we have a place like Wat Metta, right here, right now, owes a lot to him. So it’s good to reflect on what we owe to him. And just in the same way as the Buddha said the best way to pay homage to the Buddha would be to practice the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma, it’s good to think about the Dhamma that Rama IX taught to his people. Because he borrowed the Dhamma from the Buddha as well.

There was one event in 1983, when they were celebrating the 200^th anniversary of Bangkok, when he gave, essentially, what was a Dhamma talk to the Thai nation. He based it on a list of four qualities that the Buddha said are ideal for lay people to develop in their hearts if they want to develop, if they want to progress in happiness, progress in the Dhamma.

The list starts with truth—that when you make up your mind you’re going to do something good, you stick with it. You stay true to your original intentions. You don’t let yourself get deflected by other things. That means when you see that something you like to do will give long-term harm, you tell yourself not to do it. If it’s something you don’t like to do, but would give long-term benefit, you talk yourself into wanting to do it. That way, you stay true to your original intention that you want long-term welfare and happiness.

The second quality is self-control. As you practice, greed, aversion, and delusion are going to come up. Even though you can’t get rid of them, you can keep them inside the house. In other words, don’t let them go out wandering around the neighborhood, harassing other people. When greed comes up, you don’t have to act on the greed. When anger comes up, you don’t have to act on the anger. This is one of the reasons why we practice breath meditation. A lot of tension comes up when anger arises in the heart, and oftentimes we feel we’ve got to get it out of our system, but all we have to get out of our system is bad energy. So breathe in a way that dissolves the bad energy. That way, it makes it a lot easier to control your actions and your words. Even though defilements are in your heart, you don’t have to act on them.

The third quality is endurance. The path to true happiness is going to take a long time. It’s going to take a lot of effort. So you put your heart into doing it and learn how not to weigh yourself down unnecessarily. This is one of the ways of helping you endure difficult things. You look around and see: What are you doing that’s adding to the difficulty? Well you can stop that. That makes it a lot easier to put up with difficulties and to endure them. And enduring them doesn’t mean just sitting there patiently waiting for things to go away. Sometimes it means there’s a task you have to do, and it’s going to take time. You learn how to keep your mind happy as you keep doing the task.

They tell the story of an Englishman in the 1820s who gave himself over to a group of Diné up in the Canadian wilderness. He wanted to go across the frozen wilderness there, and he had no other guides but them. It was an unusual move at the time—he trusted his life to them. He noticed that on the days when the hunting was bad, those were the days when they were most light-hearted. They would joke with one another as a way of making the difficulties easier. They knew the trick to endurance is learning how to make the difficulties easy for yourself. Don’t add on any unnecessary burdens.

The final quality is generosity. All too many people think that whoever dies with the most toys wins. Well, whoever dies with the most toys still dies and can’t take the toys with him. However, what you give away becomes part of your inner perfection of generosity. The Buddha gave the example—he said when the house is on fire, the things that are taken out of the house are the things that will survive. Well, your body is on fire. The gifts that you give—not only material gifts but the gifts you give of your time, your effort, your energy, your knowledge—those are the things that will be yours. Those survive the fire.

So think of these four qualities: truth, self-control, endurance, and generosity. And think of the good people in the past who’ve practiced them and have encouraged us to practice them as well. This way, goodness lives on in the world. We see people dying all the time. Good people die; bad people die. When good people die, it’s possible that goodness could die with them unless other people see their goodness and appreciate it and put it into our own actions. That’s how goodness survives in this world.