What is liberation for?

1. LIBERATION IS THE GOAL OF BUDDHISM

When we come to Buddhism, we all set ourselves the goal of seeking awakening and liberation. That is the right way to describe the path of Buddhism. But in Buddhism, the idea of bringing benefit to sentient beings is a goal that matters just as much.

So seeking liberation while also bringing benefit to people's lives are always the two wings of a bird, and those who practise the Buddha's way must recognise this firmly and without confusion. It is also eloquent proof that Buddhism is by no means a negative or pessimistic path.

But to seek liberation earnestly, we must first understand deeply that this world is bondage and suffering. Only when we understand this do we see the meaning of liberation. If we are not aware that our present life is suffering, the ideal of liberation becomes meaningless.

It is always the case that when we fall into pressing, desperate circumstances, the ideal of seeking liberation grows stronger. In comfortable, abundant circumstances, people are easily satisfied and have no urgent desire to seek anything that transcends them. Buddhism is called the path of wisdom precisely because, in any circumstance, whether suffering or happy, people are shown a higher and more complete horizon. They are always warned that the happiness they are enjoying is in truth shallow, ordinary, fragile and dangerous. This is the key wisdom of a student of Buddhism.

If we do not deeply understand the suffering of life, we will have no longing to head towards liberation. Someday a person who does not believe in religion may ask why the Buddha said life is suffering, when everyone has moments of suffering and moments of happiness, and we will be at a loss for an answer. To ask this means that the person feels the Buddha's assertion is extreme and that Buddhism's way of looking at the world is too pessimistic.

On suffering, we have already studied part of it in a sutra, the Eight Realisations of the Great Beings. In the Four Noble Truths, suffering is divided into eight kinds: birth, old age, sickness, death, not getting what one seeks, meeting what one hates, parting from what one loves, and the flourishing of the five aggregates. We will not discuss birth, old age, sickness and death here, because those are large subjects. Not getting what one seeks means seeking and not obtaining. Parting from what one loves is having to be separated from those we love. Meeting what one hates is meeting again and again those we cannot stand. The flourishing of the five aggregates means that body and mind together are one mass of suffering.

If we examine each case, we find that some people obtain whatever they wish for. Such a person has nothing to suffer over. So how can we claim that this life is entirely suffering? Or take parting from what one loves as suffering. But if the people we love are always at our side and never separated from us, where is the suffering? So is it not untrue to claim that this life is entirely suffering? Or take meeting what one hates as suffering. But there are people we dislike whom we do not live with, so there is nothing to call suffering, and so on. Many people argue this way, and if we do not clearly understand the suffering of life, we will not be able to answer. So whether or not we are lecturers, we must prepare for ourselves the basic arguments so that we can explain the matter reasonably. First of all, we must understand the suffering of life clearly in order to practise earnestly. But how do we recognise that the life we are living is suffering and bondage?

To answer that, we have to compare. For instance, if we look at a stray dog covered in mange, its fur all fallen out, living in the cold of winter, driven away by people and wandering the streets, we will see how wretched its lot is. Comparing it with the human condition, we will think that if it could escape its dog's body and become a human, it would surely be much happier. Or when we see tiny ants labouring to drag food back to their burrow and nest, we pity their lot immensely, because they toil so hard. The ant's body is already so small, and yet it has to work diligently and painfully to carry a piece of food several times larger than itself. For us humans, what is that morsel worth? It may be only a crumb that fell from the cake we just ate. But for the ant family that morsel is infinitely precious. So if we compare the ant's lot with the human's, we see that the ant suffers greatly while we are happy and comfortable. After all, we have food to eat and food in reserve, and we can go here and there, further and more freely. The ant, meanwhile, is bound within a small, narrow range.

It is always like this: looking downwards, we always find ourselves better off than many others, but if we compare ourselves with the devas, we suddenly see that our lives are full of suffering. The devas live leisurely, peaceful, happy, free and unhindered lives, and get whatever they want. If they want to go somewhere, they only need to form the thought here, and the deva vanishes and appears at once over there. Or if they want to communicate with someone, by their thought alone the deva makes the other person receive the idea immediately. They live in a world where everything is good. Clearly, by this comparison, we see that humans live in far greater suffering than the devas.

In life there are also times when we feel joyful and happy, but the joy of this world, compared with the Buddha's absolute Nirvana, has no significance at all. So the reason the Buddha declared this life to be suffering is that he relied on the absolute Nirvana he had realised. Having realised absolute Nirvana, he understood that everything called joy or happiness in this world is in truth suffering, because it is so trivial. We have not realised that, and have only heard the Buddha say it, so we usually do not understand it deeply.

In truth, what we call happiness (a tall, spacious house, plenty of property and money, and so on) is, compared with the absolute state of Nirvana of the Buddhas, trivial and negligible. Just as, comparing ourselves with the ant, we see it as so wretched and so bound while we are so free, the Buddha views our lives in the same way. He sees himself as free and unhindered, while sentient beings must flounder about looking for tiny scraps of food, no different from ants.

Let us imagine watching two ants fighting over a piece of cake that a person has dropped. What would we think? Perhaps we would find it funny, this petty scramble, this tearing at one another over something of no value. That is no different from how the devas or the Buddhas see and think about us. To Bodhisattvas and Arhats, position and fame and profit are ordinary things, no different from a crumb that has fallen from a cake. And yet we keep fighting and tearing at one another, regarding them as the most precious and most important things. When we understand this, we will see that this life is truly a sea of suffering. The moments when we feel happy come only because we compare ourselves in circles within the range of human life. Compared with the happiness of the devas, or with the peace of a Bodhisattva, an Arhat or a Buddha, what is called happiness in this life is far too fleeting, too small and ordinary. Only when we deeply understand the meaning of life's suffering, and understand our own ordinary and tiny lot, will we understand Buddhism deeply and earnestly seek liberation.

So what is the cause of suffering?

It is the tendency towards selfishness. We know that selfishness produces many consequences, and an important one is suffering. In other words, all human suffering has its roots in selfishness. To say that selfishness produces suffering is usually based on two meanings. One is the consequence in our present psychology, and the other is the consequence of the law of cause and effect that leads into the future.

For example, when someone brings us a precious object, we are afraid of having to share it with others, so we hurry to hide it away and enjoy it alone. That is a selfish state of mind. So the first suffering is that we fall into a state of anxiety. The consequence of anxiety is a psychological one. It is also suffering in the present. As for the future, in some later life, according to the law of cause and effect, we will not be fortunate in life. Whatever we want to do, we will be bound, hindered and obstructed, and in the end we will be unable to accomplish anything meaningful. What could be more painful than living with nothing but failure and inferiority! So selfishness is the cause of suffering.

Conversely, those who live for others, who live altruistically, gain much merit, and so gradually become free and can do whatever they wish. This is a very correct formula, absolutely correct. If we look at reality, we will see this clearly. For example, a person lacking merit finds it difficult to go anywhere or do anything because the conditions are not enough. Meanwhile, a person with merit is materially wealthy, and whatever they want they can carry out at once, without anyone stopping them. So a person who is not free to act as they wish is a person lacking merit. In other words, the more merit we have, the freer we are. This premise is very important. Freedom also means liberation. In English, liberation and freedom are both expressed by a single word, freedom, or liberty.

To say that the more merit we have, the freer we are, means the more liberated we are. So we must live altruistically in order to create more merit. If we live very altruistically, our merit will grow greater and we will be freer.

A person who practises to the point of complete, absolute altruism is one who lives their whole life for everyone, who seeks nothing for themselves, not even in thought. Such people will have boundless Merit and unlimited Freedom. They are truly the liberated. So there are two paths by which we can reach liberation. One is to cultivate the wisdom of meditative concentration in order to break attachment to self, break ignorance and attain liberation. The other is to live an altruistic life and create merit until it is boundless and immeasurable, in order to attain absolute Freedom.

In fact, these two paths share a single way. The path of cultivating meditative concentration and wisdom to break attachment to self and ignorance is called the path of cultivating Wisdom. The second path is called cultivating Merit. Cultivating Merit and Wisdom together is what the Buddha taught from ancient times. In seeking liberation we must walk both these paths, cultivating Merit and Wisdom together. Although we speak of cultivating Merit and cultivating Wisdom, in truth there is only one way to reach liberation.

Someone once asked Như Sanh that Buddhism is the path of seeking a liberation that goes beyond even good and evil. So when we practise for liberation in Buddhism, do we neither commit wrongdoing nor create merit, and is that correct? Như Sanh answered that it is not correct. He explained that the more wrongdoing a person has, the more bound they are, and the more merit they make, the freer they become. People are free only in merit and bound in wrongdoing. That answer makes Buddhism complete. For when we seek liberation, we will live a life of great altruism, benefiting everyone. This is entirely contrary to the notion that to seek liberation one must let go of everything, forget everyone, and simply shut the door and practise, concerned only for oneself. That notion is a serious mistake.

Considering the story of the Venerable Losaka Tissa, who was hungry all his life, and who at the very last moment, thanks to the spiritual power and virtue of the Venerable Sariputta, ate one full meal before entering nirvana, and afterwards attained Arhatship, we have the right to doubt. For how could a person lacking merit like the Venerable Losaka Tissa attain such liberation? We must always remember one thing: Freedom and Liberation must always come from Merit. Throughout the story of the Venerable Losaka Tissa, we see only that, because of the karma of jealousy, he suffered extremely heavy karmic results. Meanwhile, there is no detail that tells of his creating greater merit to overcome those results. And yet, in the end, he still attained Arhatship.

It is because of such absurdities that some Western scholars often show scepticism towards the ancient scriptures. In this story they argue that later people may have added to it in order to give it such an ending. For a person in a state of extreme lack of merit cannot attain liberation. When we discuss this matter, we too have the right to reconsider the story of the Venerable Losaka Tissa. Perhaps he still had some other, very special wholesome cause to support his realisation, which the scriptures do not record in full.

2. SEEKING LIBERATION FOR ONESELF IS ONLY SELFISHNESS IN DISGUISE

When we know for certain that this life is full of suffering, we resolve that we must reach liberation. But if we seek liberation only for ourselves, we fall back into a selfish mind. And selfishness is precisely the cause of all suffering in the world. That is why quite a few people who want to escape suffering unwittingly sow the causes of suffering. This is a vicious circle that not everyone can easily escape. We must be careful about this. If we resolve to practise diligently but practise only for ourselves, we will never attain liberation. Reality has proved it.

We must understand that the substance of seeking liberation and awakening lies right in our own lives. Separated from life, those words become meaningless. To be liberated, each of us must examine whether we love everyone and whether we can keep a humble mind. If we talk of liberation and awakening as something far away, while in our daily lives we have no love, and remain overbearing and arrogant, jealous and envious of everyone, then liberation and awakening are meaningless.

The Buddha left home with a clear purpose: to seek the way to liberation for sentient beings. Although he lived a happy, princely life, because of the love of a Bodhisattva he saw the human condition as meaningless. At that time, in India, people believed in the cycle of rebirth, and the Buddha followed the belief of his day. Because he believed in the cycle of rebirth, he saw human suffering. People are born, grow up, grow old and die, and then are reborn. Living in such a vicious circle, who knows when people will ever escape it? Within that circle, people sometimes feel happy, but it is not true happiness. Everything passes; people become entangled in rivalry, struggle, hatred, greed and selfishness, and in the end accept death. Perhaps hearing this story now we feel it is ordinary, but by comparison with others, we will see the greatness of the Buddha's vision.

Today in the world there are also many philanthropists who see some of the sufferings of human life. They also strive to do something to ease people's pain. For example, a group of people saw that the use of landmines in war is very inhumane. Countless innocent people have been maimed or lost their lives by stepping on such mines. Seeing this as a great suffering of humanity, they united and called on the countries of the world to stop producing landmines and stop using them in war to kill people. They campaigned so fiercely that some major countries had to sit down at a conference table to discuss and agree to end the production of mines permanently. What they did is truly great. Those people also saw the suffering of human life and worked hard to do something beneficial for people. Or take those who saw the suffering of people with leprosy, whose hands and feet wasted away and whose bodies were covered in sores, so that others were frightened and kept away, and who were moved by it. They looked for ways to help these unfortunate people. Scientists worked tirelessly in laboratories to find a cure for leprosy. Others did not hesitate to enter leprosaria to care for and comfort patients with leprosy. They are truly great people.

In life there are countless more examples of such altruism. They are all people who know how to love others, who see human suffering and try to do something beneficial for sentient beings. They are all great people. But all that they see is only a small corner of the suffering of human life. The great suffering that covers human life perpetually, the cycle of rebirth, they cannot see. This is the difference between them and the Buddha. When he saw some poor people on the other side of the village, toiling with nothing to eat, he felt that this was truly suffering, but not yet the final suffering. Or when he saw sick people rolling in pain with no medicine and no one to care for them, he knew it was truly suffering, but still not the final suffering. The final and greatest suffering, in his view, was the cycle of rebirth.

We know that in this human life, whether rich or poor, sick or healthy, fortunate or unfortunate, everyone must fall sick, grow old, die and be reborn. People go round and round wearily like this. If we understand that this is not the only time we have entered and left this world, that we have done so for millions of lifetimes already and will have to keep wandering in and out like this for many more, we will feel weary and disheartened.

In the Vow we recite every night, there is a passage that reads:

Bowing to the Buddhas of the ten directions,

Suffering has been great enough,

Through countless lifetimes of rebirth,

Bitter and weary.

So when we understand that we have wandered for countless lifetimes and must still wander on, we will feel bitterness and weariness. The Buddha saw this at once and saw the endless suffering of sentient beings, so he resolved to find the way to liberation in order to save them. The Buddha's motive for leaving home was entirely altruistic. And afterwards, the years he spent labouring and suffering in the forest to practise were also for the sake of sentient beings.

We too must resolve that, whether we practise or study, it is for the benefit of sentient beings, and never think of our own benefit. In every moment of practice, we must look carefully to see what is wrong and what is right, and watch over our minds in order to draw out precious experience. Once we have experience, if conditions allow we will stand on the Dharma platform to proclaim and spread Buddhism, bringing the true Dharma to everyone in place of the Buddha and the Patriarchs. If conditions do not allow, we can still offer words of advice and comfort to those who suffer when they come to us. To do this is to have benefited sentient beings. If we remain selfish, studying and practising in order to obtain degrees and fame for ourselves, what awaits us later will surely be piled-up suffering, because by then we will be bound in every way.

To do these things, we must look closely at our own minds to see whether we still have jealousy and envy towards others. If jealousy still exists, we must repent of it thoroughly. That is what it means to purify our minds. We must live with great altruism and overcome all afflictions. Often we also make mistakes. What matters is that each of us sincerely admits it as a fault, in order to correct it and find a way to overcome it. Thanks to our mistakes and our sincere admission of them, we gain more experience in practice. Those are the experiences we gain through practice in order to teach others. A person who is at fault but does not regard it as a fault will never progress.

So through the Buddha's teachings and the teachings of our teachers and Patriarchs, combined with sincerely looking at our own faults, we draw out much experience and many principles to pass on to those who come after. After all, when we make a mistake and learn from it, we are already thinking of others. If we have made a mistake, we must make sure that others do not fall into the same mistake as we did. That is altruism.

Conversely, whenever we gain something good, we want sentient beings to gain it too. For example, when we are taught to settle the body in meditation, come to know the whole body and recognise that this is an important foundation of meditation, we must remember other people. We hope that everyone, before sitting in meditation, will know how to settle the body, because this is very beneficial to their practice. So whenever we gain something right, we always wish that everyone may gain it too. And when we stumble over something bad, we want others not to stumble as we did. That is altruism.

For example, when a craving arises in our mind, we know at once that it is bad. From that recognition, we must find a way to overcome it. When we have overcome it, we will think of how many others are still caught in it, and hope to help them overcome it too. Take the matter of sexual desire: if there were a correct path, a correct method for overcoming sexual desire, how beneficial it would be for those who practise! From there, each person contributes their own ideas to find that path, helping the monks and nuns to live a purer and cleaner life of practice.

In short, we should not set liberation for ourselves as our aim. Because that is selfishness. As practitioners, we must always seek the aim of liberation for sentient beings.

3. THE EXPRESSION OF LIBERATION IS MORALITY

Morality is the original foundation. When we practise, we begin with morality and must train through morality. Thanks to morality, we are able to create merit. Thanks to merit, we are able to keep the precepts. A person without merit cannot keep the precepts. So we must create merit, prostrate to the Buddha, live an altruistic life and be humble, so as to have the strength to keep the precepts pure. Once we can keep the precepts, we can enter meditative concentration. When concentration is accomplished, we will attain the wisdom of liberation. And the expression of liberation is again morality.

For when the wisdom of liberation has been attained, morality shines more brightly than ever. We begin with morality and also end with morality. A person regarded as advancing in the Buddha's teaching also shows it through morality, not through something remote or hard to understand. We should never think that a liberated person is one who speaks in strange, cryptic words, behaves incomprehensibly, and leads an easy, leisurely life, fond only of roaming among mountains and rivers:

A bowl of rice from a thousand homes,

The body roams ten thousand miles.

With clear eyes watching the worldly,

Asking the white clouds the way.

It is not like that at all. A liberated person is one with morality, who lives an altruistic life and cares for others. People who live comfortably and idly, wandering from place to place, whom we may meet are not necessarily liberated. So what is the expression of morality?

First of all, it is a compassionate mind, a very strong compassion. Before liberation, we must cultivate compassion. After liberation, compassion will be extremely strong. Some people are good from childhood and ready to help others. When they grow up and know the Path, they become even better, full of the spirit of sacrifice. Above all, when they understand the Path deeply and see that compassion is an important attribute that a practitioner cannot do without, they practise compassion very diligently. When such a true practitioner becomes a lecturer and goes everywhere teaching, he or she also keeps calling on everyone to cultivate compassion and to live with one another in loving-kindness. And yet there comes a time when this person suddenly realises that they have not yet learned to love anyone. This is very strange. Even though they have lived very well, sacrificed everything for others, kept nothing for themselves, and not shrunk from hardship and difficulty, there are still times when they find that they do not have enough love for others.

The reason they realise this is that the true practitioner has just attained genuine compassion. They suddenly understand that their earlier concern for others and sacrifice for others was not compassion. It was the goodness of reason. That is, it was because they understood the principles of the Path, understood that the Path teaches us to live well, to sacrifice, and not to be selfish, that they treated everyone well. That goodness did not come from real love in the heart. Only when a practitioner feels that their heart truly has love for people can they be said to have compassion. And at that very moment, we realise that before, we had not truly loved anyone. This is very difficult. Once we have a little compassion, we can feel love when we see anyone. Even towards people who live on the fringes, who make trouble and speak without refinement, we can feel love without any dislike or rejection. We studied this in the lesson on the mind of loving-kindness. However, our love for people in this way is still not enough, and its intensity is still weak. We cannot yet have a love that pervades the Dharma realm as strongly as the Buddhas or Bodhisattvas. That is why it is said that a liberated person has very strong compassion.

If we do not strive to practise, compassion will grow callous, we will be unable to love sentient beings, and we will easily fall back into the selfish mind. Then suffering will flood in. So we must cultivate compassion to support the morality of liberation. Every time we pay homage to the Buddha or sit in meditation, we must deliberately contemplate compassion and love for sentient beings. Continuing like this, at some point we will find our hearts overflowing with love for sentient beings. That is when we begin to have compassion. And that only we ourselves can know.

Another expression of the morality of liberation is humility, a very deep humility because of the wisdom of non-self. Humility is modesty: not boasting, not competing with anyone. To those who understand, we explain and teach. To those who do not understand, we do not present, do not show off, do not speak. If they look down on us, so be it; we do not mind.

Before we have attained non-self, we maintain humility through the principles of the Path. Day and night, we always see ourselves as grass and rubbish, sand and dust, and all praise and blame as mere shadows of clouds. We tell ourselves this constantly, remind ourselves constantly, but until the day we close our eyes and let go of our hands, we may still not have attained true humility. Only when we are completely liberated can we hope to attain it. Until we are truly liberated, attachment to self always remains. And attachment to self always creates a tendency towards conceit. Such conceited thoughts arise very easily in each person's mind, making us see ourselves as better than others. This can always happen if we do not watch our minds closely.

Arising from attachment to self, conceited states of mind can appear hour by hour and minute by minute if we do not know how to stay alert and constantly watch our minds. If we are not diligent in prostrating to the Buddha and diligent in making vows, those conceited thoughts will ravage our whole spirit.

In the Vow, we earnestly recite every day:

Let me know humility,

Know how to respect everyone,

See myself as small,

My practice still poor.

These are words to hold in the mind in order to keep our spirits in check. If we cannot keep them, conceit will appear. A liberated person, having attained the wisdom of non-self, has a mind that not a single speck of dust can cloud. In other words, not even an afflicted or conceited state of mind as small as a speck of dust reigns in their minds. They always watch their minds very closely, so conceit cannot arise. Such people are very humble, very discreet and gentle.

There are also people described as advancing in practice, as spiritual, as having attainments, yet in their words there is still arrogance. Such people clearly have not truly been liberated and still have very heavy attachment to self. This is where we can assess the level of other people's practice and draw experience for ourselves. Never think that spiritual progress means the end of conceit. Some people who enter meditative concentration become more conceited than before. This too is something we must be careful about.

In a liberated person, morality is also shown in rejoicing in the good qualities and successes of others. That is, when we hear that someone else has virtue, many good qualities and compassion, we must be genuinely glad. For example, when we meet a teacher who practises diligently, with a kindly face, radiating the beauty of a genuine, serious spirit, we must rejoice because we know this is one of the pillars of the Buddha's Dharma. He or she may have no reputation now, but later will surely benefit many people. That is, when sentient beings come to such a person later, they will find peace and joy. We must be truly glad to see such people in the Path. Before the good qualities and success of others, a liberated person finds the heart naturally warm and joyful. This is called rejoicing in others' merit. The practice of rejoicing is the opposite of jealousy.

Another important point is that a liberated person never looks down on those who are lesser than themselves, never looks down on those who make mistakes. They always wish that everyone may become good, though they know very well that everyone has faults. This is very important. A person who has been liberated, even without wishing it or thinking about it, has a character and a mind that is always tolerant like a father, a teacher, a good friend to sentient beings. Before liberation, we all have faults, but once liberated the faults are gone. Then, when we see others who have faults, we still do not despise them, and only hope that they become better. That is tolerance, that is noble compassion.

A truly liberated person can be regarded as a cool shade tree, a place of shelter and a refuge for sentient beings. For example, knowing that a tolerant heart is an expression of morality, and that a liberated person has a tolerant heart like a father or a teacher, we can feel at ease laying our faults before them. Those faults we keep secretly hidden in our hearts and let no one know, but when we come to a liberated person we do not hesitate to say them all. That is, we trust their love and tolerance. We know that when they hear of our faults, they will not show contempt but will remain tolerant, will still admonish us, and will still advise us wisely so that we can overcome our mistakes. That is the heart and character of a liberated person. Conversely, when we are at fault, we usually hide it from others because we know they do not love us and do not have enough capacity to understand us.

A liberated person is able to be tolerant of the various methods of practice in Buddhism. Buddhism has many methods, and a liberated person may attain the Path through one particular method while still being tolerant of the others. They never claim that only the method they practise is right and the others are wrong. This is a point by which we can tell a truly liberated person from one who is not truly liberated, and also a point by which to check whether we ourselves have come close to liberation. For example, a person who has had results from reciting the Buddha's name and therefore criticises other methods is not a liberated person. Or a person who practises contemplating the breath and has gathered the mind into concentration, but criticises every method they meet: their concentration is not liberation. So a tolerant mind is an attribute of a Sage. One who is called a Sage, who is liberated, must have a tolerant mind, first within Buddhism and then towards other religions.

At present in our country there are six religions recognised by the State: Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Caodaism, Hoa Hao and Islam. There are many differences among religions. Followers of each religion regard their own as the most correct. We are the same. Because we firmly believe that Buddhism is the most correct truth, we practise Buddhism. But remember that this belief is no reason for us to belittle or slander other religions. One of the expressions of the morality of a liberated person is always seeking the points that religions have in common.

For example, between Catholicism and Buddhism there are many very different points. We do not believe in a God and do not believe that God created all beings. Catholics, meanwhile, believe it firmly. This is a very basic difference between the two religions. But without paying attention to that difference, we should look for similarities such as love, charity, fairness, and God's strict reward and punishment. These things we can still explain in a way that shows their similarity to Buddhism in compassion, in the law of cause and effect, and so on. From there, when we meet Catholics, we still have grounds to respect them. We believe that by putting those teachings into practice they also become good people. We should not think that only Buddhism is right and other religions are wrong.

Or take Islam, a religion that is terrible and brutal, speaking only in bombs and bullets; even so, we try to find its good points. For example, in daily life they are very strict with women. Women going out on the street must cover themselves from head to toe, showing only their eyes. This is because they hold that a woman's body will stir men's desire, and covering up like this keeps men from being aroused. This is truly very unfair to women!

Instead of ruling that women should not dress too revealingly when they go out, when they should rather require men to take care to guard their own minds and not be easily stirred, they place all the responsibility on women, forcing them to live a cramped and wretched life like that throughout their lives. That is precisely the injustice of Islam. However, we must see that their strict laws have contributed to keeping society stable. We will address this in another lesson.

Another expression of the morality of a liberated person is to live according to conditions and benefit everyone, whether in large or small ways. That is, whether we do something very large, such as mounting the Dharma seat to preach and spread Buddhism to many people, or give only a few words of advice to help someone who is suffering, we do not refuse. We do the large tasks and do not overlook the small ones, so long as they bring benefit to everyone.

4. THE MORAL CRISIS OF THE WORLD AND THE RESPONSIBILITY OF BUDDHISM

Today, living in a world where material civilisation and modern technology are developing at a dizzying pace, people are gradually losing the moral values and spiritual values that have reigned in their lives for generations. As a result, crime spreads in every field, everywhere, in every class and every age group. Every profession has people who commit crimes, and it is hard to control.

Our ancestors often said: "Desperation makes people reckless" and "Hungry, you become a ghost; full, you become a Buddha." That is, when circumstances are too hard, or when people are driven to the end of the road, they often act recklessly and become criminals. Today, those who commit crimes are not entirely the poor and struggling or the foolish who do not know the law. They are also intellectuals who understand the law very well, wealthy people, and those with positions and power in society. Once such people deliberately commit a crime, it is very hard to detect, because their methods are so sophisticated, and the consequences they leave behind are unfathomable. For example, a doctor, honoured as a healer as kind as a mother, was the trump card in an illegal lottery ring. That person dared to spend a hundred and fifty taels of gold so that the lottery company would produce exactly the number he needed. Of course, he covered that number in every province and won a very large prize while countless people shed tears. When arrested, he earnestly protested his innocence, saying he had been framed by others and had not committed a crime. There was a talented journalist who blackmailed others by approaching companies and enterprises that had committed business violations and threatening them. If the director did not want the company to go bankrupt and did not want to be investigated by the law, then at any price he had to buy that article. Like this, the journalist was free to buy cars and houses. There was a senior official in the fight against smuggling who in fact assisted the smugglers. Thanks to that, countless transnational smuggling operations went through without a hitch, causing the State to lose hundreds of billions of đồng.

Most recently, the case of Trương Văn Cam and his gang being brought before the law delighted people all over the country. But once brought to light, that case also left much heartache in people's hearts. For people know that for so many years of running wild and causing so much suffering to honest people, they were never caught in the net of the law thanks to the "protection" of State officials with prestige. Those people, for their own benefit, betrayed the trust and love of millions upon millions of citizens.

The exploitation of workers by employers, now widespread in our country, is also a form of crime, a violation of the Labour Code of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. We know that from the 18th and 19th centuries, out of discontent with owners who had money, opened factories, hired workers and exploited them cruelly, Karl Marx found a path of social development in the direction of Communism and Socialism. At first, because of the victory of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the Western capitalist countries revised their labour laws, obliging employers to pay attention to workers' rights. Yet today, when our country has opened its doors to foreign capitalists to invest, exploitation has appeared again. Those companies and enterprises force workers to work overtime, pay low wages, and even withhold workers' wages...

That is not all: the press from time to time reports other crimes that heaven would not tolerate and earth would not forgive, such as the rape of children, children killing their parents over property, a wife killing her husband and chopping him into pieces, and so on. So many heartbreaking scenes like these have occurred in society today. The cause of such crimes is the serious decline of people's morality. Once there is no morality and no conscience, people will stop at nothing. As a result, they go on causing one another endless suffering.

To fight against these things, what must the State do?

The State has drafted many codes of law, such as the Law on Marriage and Family, the Labour Law, the Criminal Procedure Code, the Civil Code, and so on. The law seems concrete, but it always comes after the crime, and in the end still depends on the morality of those who carry it out. That is, the police, the officials of the Procuracy, the judges...

For example, the law is very strict, very specific and transparent. What crime a person commits, and how many years' sentence they must serve, is clearly set out. But when someone commits a crime and is brought to the police to be dealt with, their family bribes the police officer, and so the offender is dealt with lightly or simply let go as time passes. Or the police work conscientiously, process the investigation and pass it to the Procuracy, but people grease the palm of the head of the Procuracy and the case sinks without trace. If the police and the Procuracy enforce the law correctly and bring the case to court for trial, and the judges are bribed, they will declare the defendant not guilty, or pass a very light sentence compared with the offence... So if those who enforce the law have no morality, the law will not be effective.

Returning to the question of morality: when speaking of corrupt officials, we often meet in the newspapers, especially the Ho Chi Minh City Police newspaper, the phrase "the clear conscience of an official is needed." To speak of the clear conscience of an official is to speak of their morality. But we see that so-called moral education in our country, as in the world, is not yet in good order and has no clear, decisive direction. When they set foot in school, students study many subjects, some of them far too heavy for their age, but morality is studied very little and is regarded as an unimportant subject. Compared with other subjects such as Mathematics, Literature and Foreign Languages, the morality subject has a coefficient of only 1. That is why students do not concentrate on studying and training in morality. So in many countries of the world, including ours, countless generations have grown up without being thoroughly educated in morality. A society that keeps producing and raising people who have not been carefully taught morality will become chaotic, its morality will decline further and crime will spread.

If everyone were taught morality from childhood, how good and healthy society would be! Faced with the present decline in morality, we always wish that every disciple of the Buddha would become a fighter on the front line of morality. That is, to live very morally themselves and to spread morality to everyone.

Meanwhile, we still hold that the teaching of Buddhism is the most correct, the richest and the earliest to appear. The Buddhist canon is vast and immense. Compared with other religions, we see that only Buddhism has such a large body of scriptures that even now still wins over the intellectual classes. Many scholars who read the teachings of Buddhism accept and praise them. But according to rough statistics, we see a very large disparity between Buddhism and other religions in the number of followers. For example, Islam appeared a thousand years after Buddhism. Today it has about one billion two hundred and fifty million followers worldwide. Christianity came about six hundred years after Buddhism. Today it has about one billion one hundred and ten million followers worldwide. Buddhism, meanwhile, appeared earlier than both these religions but today has only about three hundred and fifty million followers worldwide.

What is the main reason? It is because practitioners like us do not fulfil our responsibility and duty. Not a few people who come to Buddhism are concerned only with practising for themselves, indifferent to others and not earnest about the work of spreading the true Dharma. So, faced with this situation, we must no longer practise passively as before; we must be stronger. Each of us must live altruistically and teach and spread diligently so that the light of the Buddha's Dharma may spread everywhere.

Those who do not yet understand Buddhism and follow other religions do not all find their own truth. If they come back to Buddhism, they will be clearer and more at peace. So if we let one more person step onto another path, it is our own fault, especially when they are led along the path of violence, of superstition and blindness.

Bringing the whole family to Buddhism is a very important matter in spreading the Buddha's Dharma. Once one person knows Buddhism, that person must bring the whole family to Buddhism. We must teach this to lay Buddhists, and absolutely not allow a situation where we know Buddhism but the others in our family go wherever they like. Letting them fall into wrong views, fall into wrongdoing, disbelieve in cause and effect and not respect the Buddha's Dharma is not only a loss for them but also our fault. So when one person in the household knows the Path, they must make everyone know the Path. Especially children: if from a young age they know how to pay homage to the Buddha and have taken refuge in the Triple Jewel, they will surely have a good life when they grow up and at the same time be good people for society. We must understand that if we leave our children a huge inheritance but leave them neither wisdom nor morality, that inheritance will also be squandered and destroyed. But if we leave merit and morality to our children, then from this life through later lives they will be happy and at peace.

So what strength makes lay Buddhists bold enough to bring their whole families into Buddhism? Of course, that strength does not come from nowhere. It is we practitioners who transmit that strength to them. When we have an earnest ideal of practice and work actively to teach and guide, we will transmit to lay Buddhists the strength and faith that help them influence everyone in their families. So the fact that the Buddha's Dharma is not being revived and is not developing is first of all the fault of those who have left home. This is something we must see and must take note of.

When we see criminals, thieves, robbers, murderers and so on, we must think of some way to reform their minds and make them honest. Absolutely we must not hate anyone. For example, when we hear that a notorious robber who killed and robbed without scruple has been brought out for execution, we do not feel gratified but feel pain in our hearts. Because they are people like so many others, and only because the seeds of wrongdoing were in their minds did they become robbers and murderers. If that same person, with the same wavy hair, the same strong eyes and hands, had a mind replaced with moral thoughts, they would surely become a good person for society.

So the fault lies not in the whole of that person but in their Mind, and the Mind is something that can be changed. So we must never hate or reject anyone, even a person who has committed many wrongs. We must think and worry about how to make them better. This is precisely the responsibility of a practitioner.

In India there are cases where people are allowed to enter prisons to teach meditation. In the past, many teachers went into prisons to teach the Path to prisoners. In our country this has not yet been done, but we must think of it, think of reforming the morality of offenders. We should not think that punishing their bodies, imprisoning and tormenting their bodies, will make them change. As long as the mind has not changed, those measures only grasp the branch tips.

As practitioners of Buddhism, we must always dream that everyone will understand the law of cause and effect. To do so, we must lobby the State and schools to bring Morality and Cause and Effect into the classroom and teach it to students, so that children are imbued with morality from an early age. If they are taught cause and effect and karmic results from childhood, those children will grow up to be good people who know how to weigh good and evil, wrongdoing and merit. For the reason people live in wrongdoing is that they do not believe in cause and effect, wrongdoing and merit.

In fact, many people today, including officials and police officers, believe that cause and effect exists. Many teachers who follow Buddhism also believe that cause and effect is real. But no one dares to say it officially and openly in school for fear of violating the rules. We see that cause and effect is real and is the fairness of life. The important thing is how to bring this subject into school and teach it to students from grade 1 to grade 12. If that happened, society would change and many good people would appear in this life. This is the dream of all of us. We hope that this dream will soon become reality.

At present, the morality of monks and nuns shows signs of decline. That is why the subject of Moral Psychology is taught: to restore morality among monks and nuns. We hope that, after graduating, many will go on to teach Moral Psychology to other generations of monks and nuns, so that the tree of morality may bloom for ever in Buddhism and in people's hearts.

5. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ALTRUISTIC LIFE OF THOSE ORIENTED TOWARDS LIBERATION AND THE GREAT CHARITABLE WORKERS OF OTHER RELIGIONS

Between the altruistic life of those who are oriented towards Liberation in Buddhism and the great charitable workers of other religions, there is a common point: a good heart and love for people (hopefully). But there are also differences between the two. First, Buddhism is oriented towards the goal of absolute Non-self, whereas other charitable workers have no such goal.

Second, they differ in viewpoint, in the way of seeing the world (worldview). Buddhism sees this world as temporary. Those other charitable workers, meanwhile, see this world as real. Because they see it as real, they build this world to be better. We, although we see this world as false and temporary, still love people and still build this world to be better.

Another difference lies in the practice of meditative concentration. We practise meditative concentration and watch over our hidden thoughts in order to be free of every desire for fame and every dream of karmic reward.

6. WHAT DO WE DO TO BE LIBERATED, AND WHAT IS LIBERATION FOR?

This is the last question we must ask when speaking about Liberation. We live altruistically in order to be Liberated, and we are Liberated in order to live altruistically. But if we are oriented only towards Liberation for ourselves, that is selfishness. Without morality, our practice is only the work of outsiders to the Path. So we must remember that morality is a very important matter.

And the last important thing we must always keep in mind is that our whole life, whether Liberated or not yet Liberated, must benefit sentient beings.