Awakening Person

Have you ever wondered on the day of the Lord Buddha’s enlightenment as the Buddha 2564 years ago, who were you at that time?

You might be a caveman, a firewood man, a merchant, a wealthy man, a hated beast being hunted as food, a cow or a buffalo being used for hard work, a soul paying his karma in hell or a warrior with a bloodstained sword, killing others for fortune and praise.

Whoever you had been in the past countless lives, it’s a great fortune that you become a human in this mid Buddhist era, being able to overcome mental obstacles and invisible resistance so you can lead a life wandering in the ocean of suffering until you stand near the Nirvana gate. You are prepared physically and mentally to have a free mind; you don’t have to come back to be anyone else, ending the cycle of samsara.

Today, is that great fortune increased or reduced to a negative level?

In the long past, if the hermit Sumedha did not set a strong desire to succeed as a Buddha in the future, we probably won’t be able to see even with the little lamp of life. The hermit Sumedha had to go through countless rebirth to cultivate perfections as a Bodhisattva for incalculable period of time. Some of his lives ended in painful death in order to lead teachable humans to find the way out of suffering, out of the dark cycle filled with delusion and determined by karma.

We are very fortunate to be in the circle of Buddhism while many people in other parts of the world have died in the fire of war, some become immigrants. We are the ones who have the opportunity to walk along the path to survival. How do we sustain ourselves and shape our life map to match with our lives at this point?

We should take a moment to pause and reflect on our lives. How far do we walk away from the Buddha? Where is our life headed? And what is being done gives anything to us. We should become a knowing person, awakening person, who awakens to his deeds and returns to the right direction as quickly as possible.

– Master Acharavadee Wongsakon