Why Are We Here?¹

In the past, as a young novice, I gave a Dhamma discourse. I talked about the happiness of wealth and possessions, having servants and so on... A hundred male servants, a hundred female servants, a hundred elephants, a hundred cows, a hundred buffaloes... a hundred of everything! The lay people really lapped it up. But can you imagine looking after a hundred buffaloes? Or a hundred cows, a hundred male and female servants... can you imagine having to look after all of that? Would that be fun? People don't consider this side of things. They have the desire to possess... to have the cows, the buffaloes, the servants... hundreds of them. But I say fifty buffaloes would be too much. Just twining the rope for all those brutes would be too much already! But people don't consider this, they only think of the pleasure of acquiring. They don't consider the trouble involved.

If we don't have wisdom everything round us will be a source of suffering. If we are wise these things will lead us out of suffering. Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind... Eyes aren't necessarily good things, you know. If you are in a bad mood just seeing other people can make you angry and make you lose sleep. Or you can fall in love with others. Love is suffering, too, if you don't get what you want. Love and hate are both suffering, because of desire. Wanting is suffering, wanting not to have is suffering. Wanting to acquire things... even if you get them it's still suffering because you're afraid you'll lose them. There's only suffering. How are you going to live with that? You may have a large, luxurious house, but if your heart isn't good it never really works out as you expected.

Therefore, you should all take a look at yourselves. Why were we born? Do we ever really attain anything in this life? In the countryside here people start planting rice right from childhood. When they reach seventeen or eighteen they rush off and get married, afraid they won't have enough time to make their fortunes. They start working from an early age thinking they'll get rich that way. They plant rice until they're seventy or eighty or even ninety years old. I ask them, ''From the day you were born you've been working. Now it's almost time to go, what are you going to take with you?'' They don't know what to say. All they can say is, ''Beats me!'' We have a saying in these parts, ''Don't tarry picking berries along the way... before you know it, night falls.'' Just because of this ''Beats me!'' They're neither here nor there, content with just a ''beats me''... sitting among the branches of the berry tree, gorging themselves with berries... ''Beats me, beats me...''

Footnotes

...¹

Given at Wat Tham Saeng Phet (The Monastery of the Diamond Light Cave) to a group of visiting lay people, during the rains retreat of 1981, shortly before Ajahn Chah's health broke down.

...''household²

There is a play on words in the Thai language here based on the word for family - krorp krua - which literally means ''kitchen-frame'' or ''roasting circle.'' In the English translation we have opted for a corresponding English word rather than attempt a literal translation of the Thai.