Even One Word Is Enough¹

Things happen due to causes. They cease due to causes ceasing. We don't need to be worrying about astrological predictions. We can just know what is occurring now. Everyone likes to ask these questions, though. In Thailand, the officials come to me and say, ''The whole country will be communist! What will we do if that happens?''

''We were born - what do we do about that? I haven't thought much about this problem. I've always thought, since the day I was born the ''communists'' have been after me.'' After I reply like this, they don't have anything to say. It stops them.

People may talk about the dangers of communists taking over in a few years, but the Buddha taught us to prepare ourselves right now, to be aware and contemplate the dangers we face that are inherent in this life. This is the big issue. Don't be heedless! Relying on astrology to tell you what will happen a couple of years from now doesn't get to the point. Relying on ''Buddhology,'' you don't have to chew over the past, you don't worry about the future, but you look at the present. Causes are arising in the present, so observe them in the present.

People who say those things are only teaching others to suffer. But if someone talks the way I do, people will say they are crazy.

In the past, there was always movement, but it was only a little bit at a time, so it wasn't noticeable. For example, Sumedho, when you were first born, were you this size? This is the result of movement and change. Is change good? Of course it is; if there were no movement or change, you never would have grown up. We don't need to fear natural transformation.

If you contemplate Dhamma, I don't know what else you would need to think about. If someone predicts what will happen in a few years, we can't just wait to see what happens before we do anything. We can't live like that. Whatever we need to do, we have to do it now, without waiting for anything in particular to happen.

These days the populace is in constant motion. The four elements are in motion. Earth, water, fire, and air are moving. But people don't recognize that the earth is moving. They only look at the external earth and don't see any movement.

In the future, in this world, if people are married and stay together more than a year or two, others will think there's something wrong with them. A few months will be the standard. Things are in constant motion like this; it's the minds of people that are moving. You don't need to look to astrology. Look to Buddhology and you can understand this.

''Luang Por, if the communists come, where will you go?'' Where is there to go? We have been born and we face aging, sickness, and death; where can we go? We have to stay right here and deal with these things. If the communists take over, we will stay in Thailand and deal with that. Won't they have to eat rice, too?⁴ So why are you so fearful?

If you keep worrying about what might happen in the future, there's no end to it. There is only constant confusion and speculation. Sumedho, do you know what will happen in two or three years? Will there be a big earthquake? When people come to ask you about these things, you can tell them they don't need to look so far ahead to things they can't really know for certain; tell them about the moving and quaking that is always going on, about the transformation that allowed you to grow to be as you are now.

Footnotes

...¹

To the Western Sangha newly arrived in England, 1979

...''salty²

Not the same connotation as in English. Here it means 'hard' or 'direct'.

... Buddhas³

The ''solitary enlightened ones''

...⁴

Or: the communists will still let us eat rice, won't they?