Craving

1. DEFINITION

Craving (tham ái) is the affection between a man and a woman that often leads people towards marriage and sexual intimacy. It is the second strongest instinct in human beings, after the instinct for survival.

Living in this world, we are driven by past karma as well as by instinct within ourselves to seek romantic love with someone of the opposite sex, and from that love we proceed to marriage and sexual relations. Nature has arranged this so that human beings can continue their species. It is not only human beings; other animals are the same. However, a practitioner is not permitted to be tainted by craving, because this is a matter of the prohibitive precepts. Because it belongs to the precepts, and because of other delicate aspects, craving is also rarely spoken about.

Love between man and woman, or craving (to use the Buddhist term), is a concept belonging to feeling. We already know that feeling cannot be defined. In the lesson on compassion we also affirmed that loving-kindness is affection, something that cannot be defined. Feeling lies deeper than consciousness. In consciousness we have language to name things, reasoning and expression. The states of feeling lie at a deeper level, so the language of consciousness cannot define them. People can only perceive its manifestations and, by them, know that they have fallen in love. For the layers of feeling that lie still deep in the unconscious, we can even less express them with the mind.

For example, in Zen we often hear of states such as meditative concentration, samadhi and great concentration…, but such states cannot be thought about and language does not reach them. The deeper we go, the further we sink into the layers of consciousness below, the less language can reach. Compared with these states, feeling is still shallower, but it is deeper than consciousness. So language cannot define it either. That is why, when love is mentioned, people have lamented:

How can love be defined?

What does one afternoon mean?

It captures our soul with pale sunlight,

With soft clouds and a gentle, sighing breeze.

(Xuân Diệu)

Love through all ages remains something deeply mysterious that people cannot explain or fully understand. Tagore, the prince of the world's love poetry, also spoke of the boundlessness and endlessness of love:

But, my love, my life is a heart

Whose depth and shore no one can know.

You are the queen of that kingdom,

Yet you understand nothing of its borders.

Like many others, Xuân Quỳnh, the woman poet who wrote the best poems about love in Vietnamese literature, also searched for the source of love, but in the end was helpless and confessed:

Waves begin from the wind,

Where does the wind begin?

I do not know either

When we began to love.

Such is feeling, complex and mysterious. Yet, strangely, although it cannot be defined and can only be sensed, it is stronger than consciousness. Perhaps whatever lies towards the depths has more power than what appears on the surface? Consciousness is what appears on the surface, so its reasoning (what we call the intellect) usually cannot defeat feeling.

In reality there are mismatched, even senseless love affairs that people still throw themselves into, regardless of honour, career, future, even death. For example, a beautiful girl from a wealthy family falls for a "layabout" with no morals and no trade, who knows only idle pleasure. Although her family forbids it, their love burns ever more fiercely. When her father asks, "What good qualities do you see in him?", she cannot answer. It is not that she does not see her lover's faults, but by now reason is doing what the heart tells it. If asked why she loves that person, she cannot explain either. Or there is the case of a woman in her fifties who still loves a twenty-year-old man as passionately as in her golden youth. It is a very strange love, normally unacceptable, yet they still love, and no reasoning can explain it.

Why is this? Because love is always stronger than reason. People often say: "The heart has its reasons which reason cannot understand." That is so. The power of love rises above ordinary reasoning. Precisely because feeling has such a frightening power, we practitioners must know to guard against it. Now, living in a community, within the precepts, protected by our senior Masters and brothers, we feel at peace. But this is only a temporary peace. One day, when we go out to carry out Buddhist work, we will face quite a few trials, sometimes including the trial of craving. If we do not guard against it and are not careful, it is ready to push us beyond the rules. So we must understand love, understand its power as well as its causes, in order to have a way of dissolving it and getting through.

The reason feeling has such tremendous power is that it belongs to human instinct. As said above, it is the second strongest instinct, after the instinct for survival. The survival instinct is a latent, deep-seated power in human beings that compels them to sustain life. The second strongest is the instinct for enjoyment, the tendency that urges human beings to seek happiness. And among the things people call happiness is love. Love is also a kind of happiness, since in life people always long to love and to be loved. Living in this world, if one loves no one and is loved by no one, one will suffer immensely. Those who fall into such a situation are truly pitiable. Some people, unable to bear such loneliness and suffering, even want to seek death.

Because it is the second strongest human instinct, feeling, if not satisfied, can also bring frightening consequences. Normally, people must give priority to the survival instinct (sustaining life) first and only then seek love and happiness. But at times love overwhelms the first instinct and contends with it. That is, sometimes people take their own lives, destroy their own existence, for love. Reality shows this. Not a few young men and women, disappointed in love, have taken poison or jumped into rivers to end their lives. The history of world literature still tells and praises the immortal love of Romeo and Juliet. Despite the conflict and hostility between their two families, the talented, beautiful pair loved each other passionately. When the elders discovered it and tried to separate them, they sought death in order to be together forever. Their deaths erased the boundary of hatred between the two families. The story of Romeo and Juliet's pure, faithful and fierce love became a masterpiece of world literature.

Love has a truly terrifying power. Love is stronger than death. For quite a few people, love is life itself. So when they fail in love, they suffer immensely, and life no longer has meaning for them. We say this so that we see the terrifying power of love and always keep guard over ourselves. Because it belongs to instinct, craving is always latent in every person. Among its causes is also a physiological one: the sex hormones. In males the sex hormone is testosterone; in females it is oestrogen. When people reach adulthood, the endocrine glands of men and women secrete these two hormones, creating a special psychological state in which the man goes looking for the woman and the woman waits for the man. This is why, when we grow up, people must love one another. According to medical sources, it is testosterone that drives a man to be attracted to a woman who has developed sexually. So, in front of a child of the opposite sex, a man feels ordinary. But when that girl reaches puberty, feelings will naturally arise in the man when he looks at her. This happens quite naturally. For men there is no point at which love and stirring end, because the hormone is still active, so they are always driven and still feel affection when standing before a woman.

In the film The Thorn Birds there is a female character who loves a priest very much, though she is old and the priest is very young. Of course, the priest rejects her love. He says: "You are old." She answers: "Though I am old, my heart is not old." That is a very serious, very honest remark. It is also something we should all be wary of. One day we too will be old, but our hearts will never grow old with our years. Sex hormones never cease to flow in the blood of every person, women and men alike. And so we can never put an end to love.

So how do people know whether they are in love or are stirred by love?

Love is a special kind of feeling that we can only name but not define. But from four manifestations of feeling, people can tell that they have fallen in love or are in love.

First, when we meet that person, our heart is delighted.

Second, when we are apart from that person, we feel sad and longing, and always think of them.

Third, we always want to help that person (since love comes from a debt of the past, our wish to help is to repay the debt).

Fourth, because of our selfish tendency, we want that person to belong only to us.

If we see these four phenomena appear in our heart, we know we have fallen in love and should try our best to find a way through.

In love, besides the physiological cause there is also the karmic connection from the past. Because of past ties of debt and gratitude, craving leads people to live as a couple in married life. When we love someone, we must understand that between ourselves and that person there was already a relationship from the distant past. If it is strong, that bond will drive us to seek out "that person" to become wife and husband. Only in married life do people worry about, care for and help one another year after year, in order to repay each other. If past debts are not many and past favours not many but there is an affinity, people can still have affection for a short time. In love, if we pay attention, we will see that whoever owes more loves the other more.

2. LOVE BETWEEN MAN AND WOMAN GIVES PEOPLE A FEELING OF HAPPINESS

For human beings, loving and being loved is a happiness. Of course, the happiness comes only at the beginning; in the long run love makes people suffer. But why does love between man and woman give people such a feeling of happiness? This cannot be explained clearly. Often we have the feeling that this is a trap nature has set for human beings to fall into, and once caught, people find it hard to find a way out. In the song "I Loved You by Mistake", a poet and musician exclaimed:

Oh, thorns fill every path,

Where am I to step?

Such is the nature of love. Because of past cause and effect we are driven, turned towards, and have our minds concentrated on a particular object, and love is formed. The exception is people with the disease of being "over-amorous", or whose character has collapsed: they can turn their minds towards many people, not following past karmic affinity but following the drive of hormones. Meeting any girl, such a man flirts, seduces and wants to possess. They tease and flirt and speak words of love to others, but this is not serious love. They merely follow the instinct of hormones to look for their own pleasure, to satisfy the desire to win and the urge to possess of a man. These are people without morality.

It is hormones that create two different tendencies in men and women. The man likes to conquer or to approach, while the woman waits to be conquered and is very easily swayed. In developed countries, as society becomes more civilised, people have begun to demand equal rights for women. Women do not merely wait but can also conquer men.

The intense feeling of happiness in love has created the inspiration, the overflowing source of emotion in the artworks of the world and of humankind. From ancient times to the present we have countless poems and songs about love. Art is creation on the basis of emotion. Love has given artists emotion and driven their creativity. However, many artists have not risen beyond ordinary human feeling to seek out and feel strongly for nobler sentiments. This is regrettable. Occasionally, when we come across a few musicians or poets praising feelings other than love, we treasure and value them immensely. These may be poems in praise of the homeland:

The homeland is a bunch of sweet starfruit,

For me to climb and pick every day…

The homeland is a little ferry boat,

Gently stirring the water along the river…

(Đỗ Trung Quân)

Or pride in the country: "I have loved the sound of my country's language since the day I was born…" Then there are the songs of the resistance era brimming with emotion, such as "Nương chiều" (Evening on the Upland Field):

Oh evening!

When evening comes, flooded with the fading moonlight.

Or:

Oh evening!

Who knows how many evenings I shall still stand on the upland field,

The towns and streets have many evenings without the homeland.

These lines praise the beauty of evening, of nature, of the fields in the countryside, and are wonderful. Before such beauty, one suddenly fears that one day, when towns and streets have sprung up everywhere, people will no longer see the homeland in the image of mulberry fields and sugar-cane plots… Hearing such poems and songs, our souls seem to relax, and we feel lighter and more at peace.

After a period when the State forbade the singing of sentimental love songs, in the period of renewal people began to compose love songs again. In recent years some songs written about love have also been popular with the young.

The tendency to love between man and woman is always latent in people, as a natural thing, and people regard it as beautiful. So, often, even when they have no lover, people can put flowery words meant only for love into their poems. Here is the "confession" of a Master about his youth. At seventeen or eighteen, at Tết, living alone on a upland field with only a clear winding stream around him, birds singing and dew falling on the leaves, he was moved and wrote a poem about Tết. In that spring poem there is this passage:

Little girl, if you love me you will know

How happy it is in my heart.

When I see your cheeks flushed deep red

With the years, the love of spring bursts forth, warm and light.

In fact, at that time he had not yet loved anyone. This shows that love between man and woman is always latent, always waiting somewhere in each person. But the happiness and the suffering of love have tormented humanity through many ages. Enjoying happiness always makes the selfish tendency grow. This is an absolutely correct formula. In the lesson on the meaning of happiness we spoke of this. Here we do not discuss it in detail, but in general, a selfish mind makes people's morality collapse and makes them create karma. Once we have created karma, we will suffer much. And the cause that forms selfishness is the enjoyment of happiness. Of course, happiness itself is not at fault, but when the mind to enjoy it arises, the selfish mind begins to grow in us.

In fact, when we know the path, we will live well, love people and do much meritorious work to help everyone. According to the law of cause and effect, these things will bring us a happy life tomorrow. But when happiness comes, if we enjoy it to the full, we gradually become selfish. Conversely, if we do not enjoy it, we do not fall into selfishness. But to have happiness come and not enjoy it is very hard. It demands a great deal of our strength in practice.

For example, a lay follower, because of generous giving in a previous life, is wealthy in this one. Being wealthy, they have tens of thousands in their hands, a tall, spacious house and splendid vehicles. If they enjoy that wealth to the full, they feel pleased that they are better than others and become arrogant. Then they will become selfish. This is why some rich people are very selfish. Meanwhile, Buddhist followers with deeper and thicker good roots, who made merit in previous lives and are wealthy in this one, still know how to practise and keep their minds in check. When money comes, they do not regard it as glory, do not enjoy it to the full, and still use that money to go on giving. Such people, though wealthy, are still not selfish.

Or, because in a previous life we planted many good roots and did many meritorious deeds, we are now successful and praised and extolled by many, and we feel delighted and happy. That is the karmic result of a previous life. But if we enjoy it to the full, if a delight in enjoying it arises, selfishness will gradually appear. If, before others' praise, our heart stays calm, selfishness will not appear. However, only with inner strength can we do this.

In the same way, the happiness of love at the beginning always increases the selfish tendency in people, because love brings a very strong feeling of happiness. The greater the happiness, the fiercer the selfishness. So in reality we have seen many cases where people grab at one another and are jealous of one another bitterly and cruelly.

Thus love between man and woman (craving) always produces selfishness. According to the Four Noble Truths, selfishness is the cause of suffering. Selfishness gradually breaks down morality and leads people to greed, rivalry, anger and hatred… and unwholesome karma also forms from that selfishness. So, according to the precepts, a monastic is not permitted to have private love or attachment. And not only love: everything that leads to the pleasure of happiness is also forbidden to a practitioner. If a practitioner becomes entangled in love or the pleasures of happiness, they will fall into selfishness, create karma and then suffer. This runs against the goal of Liberation in Buddhism.

3. CRAVING IS UNSTABLE

One thing we often see is that love is usually not lasting and changes easily, even though when in love people always swear by mountains and seas and vow to love each other for life. The reason is that the nature of love is to repay past debts and to seek happiness for oneself.

Viewed through cause and effect, whomever we love, we have an affinity with that person from the past. It is the past ties of debt and affinity that drive us to love. Viewed from the psychological side, we love others because we think that by attaching ourselves to them we will be happy. Each person evaluates and chooses a life partner by their own standards. Usually, men like to choose a beautiful woman. At first, beauty may be the first criterion, but after living together for a long time, people come to prefer someone with a good character. This is the common experience of quite a few men. Women, meanwhile, like capable people and admire those with talent. A woman's psychology is to love only when there is admiration. So, in the end, the nature of love is still selfishness. On the basis of these two factors, we can conclude that love is not lasting.

Since the nature of love is to repay old debts, people love each other while there is still debt, and when the debt is repaid, the love is gone too. There are married couples who love each other passionately, but after four or five years together their feelings turn icy cold, inexplicably. This can only be explained by their having repaid their past debts. For example, of the two, the wife is the debtor, so she naturally loves the man passionately and works herself to the bone to feed him. The husband, having someone to feed him, depends on her, lives idly and thinks all day only of eating and drinking. The wife, because she still owes, tries to work hard to support her husband. But four or five years later, once the debt is cleared, she naturally turns ice cold. The love of four years earlier has disappeared, not a trace left. What follows may be a separation. So love is unstable because it depends on how large or small the past debt is.

In addition, selfishness is also a cause of love's instability. For example, in the past, when they were in love, the man felt his partner could bring him happiness because she was both beautiful and capable. But after living together for a while, he discovers that his wife has bad habits: she is lazy, selfish, nags, does not care for her husband's family, and so on… The husband feels discouraged because his wife does not bring him happiness. The love in his heart disappears too.

Love is by nature unstable, and nothing can guarantee that love will be long-lasting and firm, not even marriage and the wedding certificate. Once people no longer love each other, the marriage certificate that was regarded as a bond has no meaning. People can tear it up or go to court to ask for a divorce. That too is why we see that life is often impermanent and changing.

Another factor that makes love unstable is the different inclinations of men and women. Men like to conquer and think that the more they conquer, the more it proves they are talented and attractive to women. Some even hold the view: "Love twenty, choose ten, marry one." Or a group of friends play together, each vying to have as many lovers as the others so as to have equal achievements. That is only instinct, a man's desire to win, not love. The woman's inclination, meanwhile, is to be easily swayed. People often say: "Men love with their eyes, women love with their ears." That is, men are usually conquered by beauty, while women are easily swayed by honeyed words. Many men, finding themselves fairly handsome and smooth talkers, flirt with whoever they meet and speak words of love. Those words are not sincere, but women are inclined to be swayed and accept the love. In the end, such love affairs quickly vanish like smoke.

On the other hand, the psychology of delighting in what is new also affects love and marriage, making love and marriage unstable. Human psychology is like this: we like a good song but get bored if we hear it again and again; we like a delicious dish but feel put off if we eat it repeatedly. In love too, people often like what is new. This is more common in men than in women. Women are usually more faithful than men. A man, even with a wife and children and a settled household, notices any beautiful girl he meets in the street and makes her acquaintance. Many women think that men are by nature like butterflies, swooping on any beautiful, fragrant flower. This is also a delicate matter, but in truth people increasingly do not trust men. It is this unfaithfulness, this fondness for what is new and strange, that has broken up quite a few marriages. This psychology is also governed by hormones.

So when we step onto the path of love, we must understand that we are stepping onto a thorny road, into the stormy sea of life. We should not think simplistically that once we are grown up and married we are safe and have a stable life. However, in life there are also people who love truly and give their love lasting strength. They are people who have morality and are very intelligent.

Since love belongs to instinct, with intense emotion and strong selfishness, for love to be genuine and lasting the lovers must meet certain standards. Schopenhauer said: "Only philosophers can live happily in married love, but unfortunately philosophers do not found families and do not love anyone." According to him, a philosopher means someone with morality and great intelligence. Only those of high morality and great intelligence love in the true sense.

In life, to have a happy family, when entering married and family life people must be tactful, must indulge one another, must know how to sacrifice themselves, know how to live for others, care about others, perceive what is deep and hidden and not yet shown outwardly, and know how to endure hardship… The standards required of people in family life are that hard and tiring. So, for those who have not yet entered married life, it is best to use their intelligence and morality to love everyone.

4. MONASTICS MUST GO BEYOND CRAVING

Because craving binds people in selfishness and the creation of karma, a practitioner has a duty to go beyond it. In principle, a monastic must keep the mind from being ruled by craving so that the selfish tendency does not grow, and devote the whole heart to loving all beings and the whole life to caring for the Dharma. Without even mentioning that the ideal of liberation requires absolute purity, if we must be preoccupied with loving one person, we cannot open our hearts to love all beings. But in reality the karma of craving governs everyone, because it is an inner instinct and karma from the past. Perhaps in countless previous lives we lived as husband and wife with one person or another, and now we do not know who that person is. That cause and effect of attachment still binds us, stretching into this life.

For example, if in a previous life, as husband and wife, we treated each other well, when we meet again now the two of us will feel as if struck by lightning, intoxicated: "At the first moment I met you the stars whirled, and a heart that was ice suddenly stirred with a thousand rays of sun." But if in a previous life we did not treat each other well, and in married life were often annoyed, weary, quarrelling, always wanting to leave each other, then in the next life when we meet again the two may have a little connection but will then become weary and part. Because the karma of craving runs across many lives, we do not know who has been our wife or husband in former lives. Sometimes that person is somewhere very near us, and one day suddenly appears and turns us upside down. This is very dangerous, and we as practitioners must be careful.

Besides karma from the past, people are also governed by hormones, so it is hard to break free of craving. Never think that we are old and no longer have craving. It is said that there was a case of a seventy-year-old elder who, near death, was suddenly overcome by intense sensual craving before breathing their last. These are karmas lying deep in a person, waiting for a convenient opportunity to arise, while we are always passive before karma we ourselves created. Once some past karma has arisen, we cannot avoid becoming entangled in craving. Perhaps now we create no more karma, but in fact we have been made passive by past karma. So although today we are very pure before the community, we cannot yet feel secure that we will be pure for the rest of our life if we do not know the method. Clearly, in principle we must not have craving, but in reality the karma of craving is always governing us.

In life, only two kinds of people are not governed by craving: those whose karma has not yet arisen, and those who have attained the fruit of a saint. In those who have attained the fruit of a saint, hormones are still active but no longer produce the psychology of delight in and love for the opposite sex, because their power of concentration is very steady. Those who have not attained the fruit of a saint, even if they have gained a part of concentration, still have hormones that produce the psychology of love.

For us, as monastics, if the karma has not yet arisen, do not let it arise. We must never be complacent, because craving is very strong. Each of us must know the method, know its ways and moves, to block it and not let it arise. Once it has arisen, we must know the method to get past it. Here, because we are studying the psychology of morality, we do not condemn those who have committed craving as the precepts do. We love them and always hope that people overcome faults.

What can help us go beyond craving? It is not talent but merit that is the important factor helping people go beyond craving. The three basic merits we have studied are: diligent bowing to the Buddha (or reciting the Buddha's name) with absolute reverence; compassion, spreading loving-kindness to beings; and humility, always seeing ourselves as lacking. These are the three basic practices and also three important standards.

According to cause and effect, by revering saints, the qualities of those saints will gradually appear in us. The Buddha is an absolute saint. If we revere him, his purity, his freedom from defilement and his nobility will gradually appear and settle in our hearts. Whatever karma we have from the past, in the present, if we regularly bow to the Buddha and recite his name with reverence, the worldly defiled karma in us will gradually be erased.

The second practice, compassion, also helps us go beyond craving. Compassionate love for beings can dissolve love that is given to only one person. This is very good. A Master confessed that once, when he was shaken before a woman, he at once began contemplating compassion and was able to wipe out that shaking.

The third practice, humility, can help people rise above craving, because conceit makes craving arise very quickly. If we can keep a humble mind, conceit does not arise and there are no conditions for craving to arise.

These are the three important practices that we must accumulate throughout life to keep craving from arising. If one day craving arises in our heart, we must understand that we have been lacking in these three important practices.

To avoid craving, we must understand which factors can make it arise. First of all, conceit and the desire to win make craving arise fastest. We do not know whether a person is accomplished, but if they still have conceit and always see themselves as better than others, there will certainly come a time when they fall into craving. In reality this happens very often. For example, someone who first lived as a lay person and then went forth has very good practice. Everyone has to acknowledge that this person has attained a very high level of insight in Zen and deeply understands Zen sayings. However, they have a bit of the desire to win when exchanging Zen sayings. They always want to be better than others. Many seeing this became worried, hoping that thanks to his spiritual attainment he could keep his mind at peace and practise rightly for a lifetime. But after more than ten years of practice, he stumbled. Although his practice was firm, according to the psychological system of hormones his power of concentration had not yet cut the governance of hormones, so he fell into the karma of craving.

So we must try to guard ourselves. Later, however accomplished we are and however successful, we must always find some line of reasoning to keep ourselves humble. We may contemplate ourselves as straw and dust so as not to give rise to conceit. Not a few people in this life are not conceited and yet collapse because of conceit they let arise in a previous life. In a previous life they may not have been deliberately conceited and practised very well, but some teaching made them conceited. Such is cause and effect. Cause and effect makes a person who was conceited in a previous life stumble even in this one.

Another factor that makes craving erupt is, when we practise meditation and attain concentration, thinking that the level of concentration we have reached is high. Many people have fallen into this. We should remember that when we practise meditation and the mind begins to enter concentration, countless subtle things appear that words cannot describe. Then we feel great delight because what we have is so new. After so many years of living as an ordinary person, today we have gathered the mind into concentration, a new horizon opens, a new life opens, immensely subtle, free, wise, peaceful and happy…, and we feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by this new result, we imagine that what we have reached is very high, and are proud of being free and having attained sainthood. If we only say it to ourselves, craving will later arise in us. If we tell this to others, our practice will collapse completely. This is something that those who practise meditation diligently must be on guard against.

Living without an ideal is also a factor that makes craving erupt. We already know that the great aim of an ideal is to live for others, for the benefit of society, the country, the homeland and humanity. If a person lives without an ideal, thinking only of themselves, the selfish mind will grow, and craving will grow with it. It is the same for a practitioner. Because of causes and conditions from a previous life, someone is able to enter a temple, go forth and practise, but lives at leisure, with no thought for the Dharma or for beings, no thought of the great ideal of the Dharma, which is boundless, immeasurable enlightenment and liberation... then the selfish mind will gradually grow and craving will come, unavoidably. This is real. If we pay attention and meet a practitioner without an ideal, with no great aim for the Dharma, not earnest in practice and merely doing their daily duties in an ordinary way, we will witness the scene where one day a "muse" appears and "gently hands him a wound" (poem by TTKH).

Ideals and ambitions are both great aims in human life. But the great aim of ambition is for oneself, for personal glory. Ambition and selfishness also make craving grow. The ambition of worldly people is to hope for high office and to be richer than others. The ambition of those in the path is to become the provincial Representative, the head of the provincial Executive Board, or a Principal or famous Dharma preacher… These are personal ambitions. Whether lay or monastic, if one lives for ambition, craving will erupt before long. In reality, political leaders who truly serve the people and the country, who live with an ideal and no ambition, do not become entangled in craving in their lives, and are very light and at ease. Conversely, leaders with many "scandals", embroiled in promiscuous love affairs, are often people with ambition and goals they strive for in order to seize power. Thanks to merit, they reach their great goals and enjoy glory themselves, but when glory arrives, craving appears as well. It conquers and takes over their whole mind and they collapse.

So, living in the world, we must have a great aim, but that great aim must be for beings and for the Dharma, not for ourselves. We must never allow ourselves to dream that one day we will attain the path so that everyone must bow in admiration, or that one day we will be abbot of the biggest temple in the world so that many people know us, because ambition will bring craving, which destroys our practising life.

Some people, having escaped temptation just a few times, hurriedly think themselves steady. This too makes craving appear. For example, at first some beautiful, wealthy person comes and invites them earnestly, and they refuse, thinking the work of the path is more important. Some time later another person comes, just as earnest, and again they decline. After two or three such times they feel proud that their aspiration for the path is steady and will never regress. But when a fourth person happens to appear, they cannot get past it. This is something we must be careful about. If one fine day, when golden sunlight is lightly strewn over the thousand wild flowers, white clouds gently drift, and birds on the branches twitter…, we discover that our heart has become someone else's, we should understand that the cause is the complacency of thinking ourselves firm. Clearly, that surprise appears not because the girl washed her hair with Pantene or bathed with the purple Lux of the stars, but because we were ambitious, conceited and complacent, thinking ourselves firm before every temptation. We should not blame circumstances, but question ourselves to see our own moral faults. For these are the real cause of craving arising.

After successes, being admired by others, a proud mind appearing also makes craving arise. When we go out to do work for the Dharma and reap many successes, many people will admire us. This too can easily affect our course of practice, and we must be careful. For then a proud mind easily appears, and craving comes to us with it. That is why we often see many people collapse when they succeed and reach the peak of glory. Looking at those who reach success and yet keep it for long, we know at once that they have deep, thick morality and a lasting humble mind. Such people usually have gentle, calm faces. They will go on to succeed even more in life. Of course, keeping a proud mind from appearing when admired by others is extremely hard. It requires our strength in practice over many years before we reach success. So from now on we must cultivate morality and be diligent in meditative concentration.

Another factor that makes craving arise is criticising those who have stumbled. When we see others stumble, we must understand that the cause is much earlier karma governing them, until they cannot resist because craving has very intense power. Once craving has arisen, it drives a person to where they cannot escape. It can even overcome the survival instinct (as said in the earlier section). So, when we see someone in whom the karma of craving has arisen and who has lost self-control, we must find a way to help them get past it. We should not blame them, because: "wish, wish a thousand words, blame for a lifetime, and it is already too late" (song by Ngô Thụy Miên). That is, when we see people stumble, we must understand that it is cause and effect, feel only sorrow and find ways to help them. If we criticise them, we too will stumble. In the lesson on prayer we earnestly said:

Let me know silence,

Not speaking of others' faults,

Only quietly using words

To pray that others be free of faults.

In life we sometimes meet people who seem hard and strong outside but are weak inside. That too is a cause for people stumbling. Outwardly we must be gentle and mild, inwardly resolute, in order to be steady. This fits very well with the nature of Buddhism. Usually women are soft and gentle, men are hard. But if we practise rightly, these two qualities will be reconciled. Gradually the woman, from gentle, becomes resolute, and the man, from outwardly hard, becomes gentler. Then both men and women have something in common: an outward manner that is mild, light and gentle, but inside hard as iron and stone. Someone who is soft outside and also weak inside has not practised to the standard of Buddhism. Such people stumble very easily. We also meet quite a few people who put on a hard front, speak boldly, and turn away on seeing a woman as if indifferent, but are in reality very soft inside. They only need to be "attacked" by the object of attraction and they collapse at once.

So outward hardness or outward display of will is truly dangerous. A person who truly has will is hard within, in secret, while remaining soft outside. This applies not only to men but to women too. Sometimes we meet a girl with a very gentle face and a soft way of speaking, who seems very good at enduring. But if we pay attention, we will see that before a certain task she shows great resolve. If it will make the work effective and avoid waste, she is ready to accept hardship and do it her own way, not easily going along with others' wishes.

One more point to note: when we owe much gratitude to someone and cannot repay it with the Dharma, we are also bound by craving. For example, a female donor regularly comes to make offerings to a certain Master. One day she says: "I have bought a very large piece of land. I will build a temple and invite you to come. You can practise with peace of mind, and I will take care of everything else." But in truth the Master can never practise with peace of mind, because he is indebted to her too much. If he cannot repay that favour with a suitable measure of the Dharma, the one who owes must repay with craving. This has happened in reality. Someone told of a Master who was serving very well as an abbot and suddenly returned to lay life to be with a laywoman. Asked why, he answered that he owed that person too much. After long contact, craving arose too strongly together with too much indebtedness, and the Master could not resist. This is something we should be careful about. Later, in our practising life, let us not owe anyone too much gratitude. That is, we must always try to study and practise diligently so that whoever we meet, we have the Dharma to repay them. If we cannot say it ourselves, we can look for recordings or books to help them. Never receive a favour without repaying it, and never owe too much to one person.

Being kept in close proximity for a long time is also a cause of craving erupting. We often hear a very good saying: "Seaweed at the end of the bridge (the toilet bridge), look at it long enough and it looks beautiful." So people who often meet and see each other's faces gradually develop feelings. Perhaps before, on meeting that person, we felt nothing special. But after a time of closeness, we begin to notice that their smile has charm, their speech is soft and polite, and our heart is stirred. So, in dealings with others, we should avoid contacts that are too long or too frequent.

If we observe, we will see that among the causes that make craving arise there is also a cause belonging to merit. A person with severely depleted merit, when the karma of craving arises, no longer thinks of getting out but heads straight towards it. Such people will fall for a very long time, with no knowing when they will escape. A person with mildly depleted merit, when the karma of craving arises, is usually tormented and uneasy and wants to find a way out. At this point they are torn between the ideal of practice on one side and love on the other. If they know the method, such people can still escape the circle of craving.

What can help people escape craving? As said above, will alone is not enough to help us escape it. We must have a great deal of merit from bowing to the Buddha, repenting and doing voluntary service quietly, and then we will gradually escape, from the inner mind through to our circumstances. Speaking of craving, in the world many heartbreaking things happen. For example, a lay follower had for many years kept a vegetarian diet and been very enthusiastic in the work of the Dharma. All the property and money he made he gave to the Dharma. He already had a wife and two children but still had the intention to go forth. Unexpectedly, in the very year he planned to be ordained, disaster struck. Someone "handed him a wound of the heart". With no other recourse, he went home and confessed to his wife and children that for all those years he had not known how to love. It was the first time in his life he knew what love was, what happiness was and its intoxication. He asked permission to divorce his wife and divide the property fairly. Afterwards he lived with that girl, twenty-five years younger than himself. Although the Masters advised him a great deal (because he had an affinity with the temples and had done much Dharma work), he turned a deaf ear to all such advice. He believed that for all those years he had not found a meaning to life and happiness, and this was the meaning of his life. So he disregarded everything to follow the call of love and the meaning of his life, leaving behind the joyful and sad memories of a period of his life.

Craving has such terrible power! A man who for many years was vegetarian, disciplined himself, accumulated merit, had a very firm grasp of the teaching, and could lecture on the Prajna endlessly, was in the end brought down by craving. Perhaps he had created some very heavy karma. But we hope that the meritorious work he did for the Dharma will one day help him wake up and return to his family. So, to escape craving, we must accumulate a great deal of merit. Many people only care about studying and do not accumulate merit, and are easily governed by craving, and once it has arisen they cannot escape.

Alongside these merits, we must sit in meditation regularly to find a concentration deep enough to break the craving lying deep in the aggregate of mental formations. Only when we reach a concentration that can cut the link between hormones and the mind can we feel secure that we are steady and can truly escape craving. If we do not yet have such concentration, we must understand that conceit and craving in our mind are not yet exhausted, and we must always be careful.

Finally, we must control our hidden selfish mind and never let it deceive us subtly. To do this we must devote our whole life to the Dharma and try to live entirely for others. For if we live for ourselves, craving will arise accordingly.

5. ABNORMAL CASES

Homosexuality is an abnormal phenomenon. It is the case where people of the same sex love each other. Today this occurs very frequently in Vietnamese society as in Western countries. In some countries people condemn it, thinking it is not in accord with morality and has no ethics. But those involved feel it is quite normal. They still love each other passionately, are still jealous and resentful, and feel no sense of guilt. Recently, science has found that it is a kind of defect located in the brain. Because it is a defect located in the brain, loving someone of the same sex still feels normal to them.

In Buddhism, we call such people people with very heavy karma, because craving has gone beyond normal bounds. People with the condition of homosexuality are not permitted to go forth, except those who have practised for a very long time and have overcome it. In fact, in the communities of monastics, female as well as male, this phenomenon has appeared in secret but is rarely discovered. However, those with this condition must understand that it is very heavy karma, must not maintain it, and must repent a great deal to get past it.

Today there are sects that allow monastics to have families. They think that having a family does not affect practice, and even helps monastics practise with peace of mind. In truth it is not that simple. If merit is severely depleted, the karma of craving will still make people exceed the permitted limits. Sometimes they do not accept a life with one wife but marry two or three more. Looking at the life of ordinary people we also see this clearly. The State permits one wife and one husband, but once merit is depleted and the karma of craving arises, people still go beyond the rules and look for others. Some old men of seventy even insist on marrying a third time. This is karma from doing something that depleted merit; it is also a punishment and not the happiness many people think it to be.

In life, factors such as sentimental and depraved cultural products are also a frightening agent. Today many "sex" films are still passed around secretly for people to watch, which excites people, collapses morality and makes sexual greed rise. That is a cause of sexual crimes such as rape, prostitution and child sexual abuse… According to the law of feeling, craving appears first and sexual desire comes later, that is, loving affection leads to sexual relations. But with some people sexual desire is so heavy that they need no feeling and no love, and use violent force to satisfy it. Such people have severely depleted merit.

If these phenomena spread, it means that social morality is declining seriously. As practitioners, we must see our responsibility. That is, we must try to practise and not let craving govern us. On the other hand, we must try to build up the morality of society. The reason people keep drifting, drifting in the circle of craving and sexual desire, disturbing society, is that they do not know how to cultivate morality and do not know how to raise their own merit. We must help them to know how to bow to the Buddha, love everyone, live humbly and unselfishly… Only then can social morality be raised and heartbreaking events avoided.