Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org

when you ordain you get to live in the perfect hut on the
perfect mountain with a perfect sunset and a perfect forest;
when we actually go to live in a monastery and see that the
food is no good, the water is no good, the kutis have leaks,
the forest has leeches, snakes, scorpions, even mosquitoes,
etc. – nothing is you would like it to be. Instead, you have to
live off cold food and contaminated water; you have to put
up with mosquitoes, snakes, scorpions, leeches, termites,
leaking roofs and so on. Some people might very well
wonder why we’re here – there doesn’t seem to be much to
celebrate. Of course we don’t think this, we are very happy
here. We should be very happy here anyway – if you are not,
listen up, because there are many things for us to be happy
about. We can use tonight as an example.
Here we are, sitting in meditation under the full moon. All
that is between us and the full moon is the majestic Bodhi
tree. This Bodhi tree is a descendant of the tree under which
the Buddha himself sat. In ancient time they brought a
branch of the great Bodhi tree from Bodh Gaya to Sri Lanka,
and planted it in Anuradhapura. That tree in Anuradhapura
has since been cultivated and brought to many places
around the world. One branch came here. So this tree is a
descendent from the original tree. Here we are in a Buddhist
monastery in a Buddhist country, listening to a talk on
Buddhism about the practice of Buddhist meditation, living
the life of a Buddhist meditator, striving to find the truth of
life and freedom from suffering; striving to make ourselves
better people, to purify our minds, to cleanse our minds of all
defilements. This in itself is something very rare in the
world, something very much worth rejoicing over. Maybe
sometimes we don’t realize how lucky we are. We should
rejoice in how lucky we are.
What is it that makes us lucky? First, we were born in a time
when the Buddha’s teachings are to be found. Buddhas
don’t come into the world every day. The Buddha didn’t
work for just a week or so to become a Buddha. You can
look in the world and see whether there has been any one
who could compare with the Buddha over the last 2500
years; if we are honest, we will have to say that there has
not. Yet, 2500 years is nothing compared to the time it takes
to become a Buddha; it took our teacher four uncountable
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