February 6, 2015

Have you ever complain about how other people do this, how other people do that?
Have you ever thought that It's so difficult to stay with people who don't have the same way of thinking as you have. Then you start to ask, why they do this, why they do that?
But, have we ever thought that the other person may think that way as well? My mom ever told me about this. We think it's difficult to be around with people whom we don't like, but, do we think that we are so good that everybody may like us to be around them? It could be the same way as well. They may think that it's so difficult to be around us.

We always want others to change like what we want them to be, but is it possible? No!
Even to change our own behavior, personality is difficult. It's hard! Believe me. A person comes to this world by bringing his own personality that he had in his past lives. Such personality may have been with him for few lives. A person then grows in a family with a personality that he learns from his parents. He will learn things from his parents for 20 over years. Such personality will then also blend with him. I have ever heard a story from my mom, about one family who likes to say "bad" words in the family, even though when their kids are around. When the kids were still little, they heard the bad words, and they thought it's ok to say that. As their children grow older, saying bad words has become a personality to them. Can they change it? Yes, they could, but again it's difficult.

Realizing such bad personality is already hard. But if one can realize that, there is chance for him to change that eventually. From the story, we know it's not easy to change our own personality, then, why we always think to change others? That's almost impossible!

Then, I remember about this teaching. What others do, is their problem, we can't do anything about that. But, what we do is important to know. Taking care of our own thought, our own speech, and our own action is our job. This remind me about a talk that I heard from Bhante Pannavaro, regarding how one should carry a light on his hand while walking in the dark road, to be safe.
As he walks with the light, car will know that someone is walking, and therefore, it won't bang on him; as he walk with the light, he knows where to go so that he won't bang into any livings and hurt them; as he walks with the light, he will be able to avoid holes on the road; as he walks with the light, he may save others who are also walking in the same road but without any light on his hand. Just by holding a light on his hand, he could save himself from danger at the same time also saving others from danger.

From this story, the message is to ask us to take care of our own self. Because by taking care of our own self, we are not only saving ourselves, but at the same time saving others.