The whole sky is covered with dark and weighty clouds making the town below darker in daytime. A cold wind flowing now and then tries to pull away those clouds as if it does not like those. Even though the Sun tries to pock its light through the clouds when it gets a chance, the darkness seems to wining the ground. A flock of birds are flying in this cold winter hoping to reach their warm shelters far away. A thin layer of snow starts to fall from the sky making that gloomy day colder. As the day passes by, town’s lights started to turn on automatically trying to lessen the darkness of another unkind night. Frequent ambulance sounds indicate a nearby hospital. In the hospital, there was another unfortunate family whose dearest mother is dying. This old mother’s children are gathered around her hospital bed. Everyone seems to be silent but sad in their hearts. As the door in that hospital room opened suddenly, the startled children’s eyes directed towards the door. A doctor came through that opened door. He looked at all these sad children who were around their dearest mother lying sick in the bed. The doctor started to talk destroying the silent in the room.

“Well, it’s being two years now, and your mother seems to not getting any better. Our understanding is that it is her time. I know this is hard for you, but you got to decide what you are going to do next. You got to let her go. That’s the only suggestion we have for you at this time.”

The doctor’s words were like a sharp knife piercing in to their hearts. Now that the doctor has reached their minds, they also thought that the best thing we can do to their loving mother was to pull the plug and let her die in peace. After the doctor left the room, they started to discuss about letting go of her mother. After few minutes, their final decision was to permit the doctors to let their mother go. One of them went out to let their decision know to the doctor. Everyone started to cry in the room. After few minumtes, the doctor and a nurse came in to the room. The old mother was let go. They thought they were doing the best for their mother, but what they actually did was killing her. This is how unfortunate the life around us today, mostly because of our ignorance about the teachings of the Supreme Buddha (Dhamma). In the teachings of the Buddha, there are five evil deeds (Pancha Anantareeya Karma) that result in getting someone be born in great hell (Niraya). Killing your mother and father is among those evil deeds. Unfortunately, most people in this world are not aware about it because this truth is only known through the Dhamma. In the above mentioned story, the children wanted to give their mother some peace. But their intention was also to kill her. Once the mother was killed, that thought was fulfilled involving them in Anantareeya Karma. They will only get to know their ignorant action when they suffer in the great hell.

All of us know about their unfortunate action and the result because of our great teacher the Gautama Buddha. The Buddha taught us the only way to protect ourselves from doing such reckless actions or bad Karma is to be a disciple of “Samma Ditthi”. Becoming a faithful disciple of the Buddha by believing his Enlightenment is the first step towards it. Once that is achieved, he will start to search and learn what the Buddha taught. As he listens to the Dhamma, he will see the Buddha’s disciple monks (Sangha) as the oasis to cultivate merits. By giving up his life to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha his faith will evolve to an unshaken state. With such a faith, one’s first priority will become improving of the Samma Ditthi and attain the fruits of the pathway that the Most Compassionate One showed us.

As shown by great Arahanth Thero’s in their marvelous discussions (Choola Vedalla and Maha Vedalla…), Samma Ditthi has to be supported by five things in order for it to improve; ‘Virtue, ‘Listening to the Dhamma’, ‘Dhamma discussions’, ‘Samatha’, and ‘Vidharshana’. For a layperson, the five precepts are his virtue-seela. The Buddha’s teaching was to ‘observe and protect seela until he dies.’ Listening to the Dhamma is important for all of us since that is how we learn what the Buddha taught. In order to resolve some of the unclear parts in the Dhamma for us, the Dhamma discussions are crucial. Once the disciple is inspired by the Dhamma knowledge, he will start to practice Satipatthana, which is the contemplation according to the Buddha’s guidance. Practicing Satipatthana will help him to improve the ‘Samatha’ and ‘Vidharshana’ as expected. Thus, all these five supportive items will direct the disciple to the ultimate state of Samma Ditthi protecting him from been born in evil worlds.

Chinthaka Mahesh – USA