09. Examine Ourselves

By Luang Pu Thate Desaraṅsī

October 6, 1983

Now, the end of the Rains Retreat is approaching. There's nothing much else to say. I wish to remind you all, with goodwill and sincere intentions towards every fellow member, to please examine yourselves from the time you entered the monastery, or from the beginning of the Rains Retreat. Examine from the very start: our body, speech, and mind. Whatever we are lacking in, what we have been able to correct, and what we are still unable to correct – let us know about it, let us know about ourselves. Others don't know; only we ourselves know ourselves. Buddhism teaches us to know ourselves and to correct ourselves. This is the most important thing.

Knowing oneself and seeing oneself does not involve affecting others. If we focus outwardly, it becomes a matter of focusing on other people. Usually, this leads to blaming others. However, focusing outwardly can also be useful as a basis for discernment when seeing things. When we see someone else's faults, we can reflect and turn it inward towards ourselves. How do we measure up? Are we like that person? We can compare and see. If we are not, then we are free of it. If we are like that, then we should correct it. This is how to view the faults of others. When we see others doing good, we can look and examine ourselves. Is it good within us? Are we like them? If we are like them, then we are good. If we are not like them, we can correct ourselves. Focusing outwardly in this way has its benefits.

If we look inwardly, focusing solely on ourselves – on body, speech, and mind in every aspect – then whatever should be corrected, we correct. What we cannot yet correct, we should remember. We have ordained in Buddhism for one purpose only: to correct ourselves. There is nothing else. Since we came to stay, since we began this Rains Retreat, three months have passed. If we have been able to correct ourselves, then that is considered our gain in that regard. If we haven't been able to correct it, that is also a gain – it is a gain in that we have come to know, over this period of three months, by focusing and examining, to understand our own faults and virtues. We must not let the benefit of having come to stay here be wasted. Because these three months of our lives were not easy; they were quite difficult. These three months – how much expense has been incurred? Three months have passed. The food, the consumables, everything we have used for our benefit: water costs, electricity costs, food costs, betel nut, tobacco, all kinds of things; the seats, the beds, the dwellings. We have used them all for our comfort, so that we may examine ourselves – the three aspects mentioned.

If we do not examine ourselves, we lose all benefit. Three months pass by, wasted – and not just wasted; we also cause our lives to decline and be lost in vain, without gaining any benefit whatsoever. This is called being in debt to others. By staying here with them, we incur a debt. A monk continues to be in debt to them, never gaining any profit. If we do not practice good and do not take care of ourselves, the food is considered their debt, the robes are considered their debt, the lodging is considered their debt, the medicines and remedies – all of these are their debt. Therefore, by constantly examining ourselves like this, seeing where our body, speech, and mind are lacking, and correcting those points, that is called repaying that debt to them. It is not merely repaying a debt; it also benefits the laypeople, the community, and benefits those who make merit and give donations. When they raise their hands in respect (wai), they receive great merit. This is truly something worth paying attention to. We gain benefit for ourselves, and others benefit as well.

Human life is subject to decline and loss; it ends. We are born, in each life, to perform kamma and to experience the results of kamma. Everyone born must have kamma. There is good kamma and bad kamma. We do everything; we do both good and bad kamma. If we constantly examine and consider ourselves – discerning what is wrong and what is right, what is good and what is bad – and abstain from evil, we become good people. This is called abandoning bad kamma, a way to mitigate kamma. If we are not mindful at all, it means we are lying dormant in the world, performing bad kamma. The evil we have done will become a condition for further evil. The good kamma we perform serves to rectify and eliminate bad kamma within us. In this life, it ends only to this extent. We see that it ends only to this extent in ourselves. In the next life, it will gradually diminish. If we do not abandon bad kamma but instead accumulate more, like being born and creating evil, thus being in debt to the world as mentioned, then in the next life, we will be born again – who knows why? Who knows what we will be born as? Lower, more wretched than this, or what? Who knows? Because those with kamma must go according to their kamma. We cannot choose it.

Bad kamma will sweep one towards a bad destination, into states of deprivation and misery, with no way to escape the consequences; it only becomes increasingly heavier. This is why it is called accumulating kamma. We humans are born across many, many planes and lifetimes – not just twenty, thirty, or a hundred, or a thousand lifetimes. It is immeasurable, countless, beyond description. Therefore, we should accumulate goodness, to gradually escape from these consequences. This is called repaying the karmic debt of the world. Living in this world means we are in debt to the world. Our body, composed of earth, water, fire, and wind – we take these elements from the world and mold them into our form. They belong to the world. Earth, water, fire, and wind all belong entirely to the world. When we die, we relinquish them, returning what was borrowed. Others then take these elements and mold them into new forms again, taking earth, water, wind, and fire. When they die, they also relinquish what was borrowed. Those who are born are essentially taking these worldly elements as their self, as their being. If we do not repay the debt as explained, we will continue to be burdened in this world, life after life.

Therefore, those who contemplate as explained here – having ordained in the religion and being within the religion, having stayed in the monastery or practiced throughout the three-month Rains Retreat – should be proud of having done good. If we have done evil, we will experience defilement within ourselves. No one else will know; we know ourselves.

In Buddhism, it is taught to know oneself, to correct oneself. This is the most important thing.