Namo tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammâ Sambuddhassa!

Make Haste
 

By Rasika Wijayaratne 

This natural law that is the Dhamma exists in the universe at all times but it is the Lord Buddhas who discover it and reveal it to us (much like Sir Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravity and made people realise of its existence). After the some time this Teaching becomes lost to us through the lack of practice, through alteration into other religious forms etc. This is why there was such a strong emphasis by all Lord Buddhas to diligently and quickly tread the Noble Eightfold Path and realise Nibbâna. When the path becomes lost again we would have to risk countless lives of suffering in hells, in the human world etc waiting for the path to be re-discovered by the next Lord Buddha who would arise again many eons to come from now. The Lord Buddha describe an eon (kalpa) as a time span greater than that time it would take for a solid piece of rock 16x16x16 miles in dimension to wear out if a person came to it every hundred years and brushed it once with a soft piece of cloth. 

However there is no guarantee that when the next Lord Buddha does arise we would be in a favourable position to hear and make use of the Dhamma (Teaching). We may be born in a place which makes it impossible to hear the Dhamma, in a hellish realm or if we are fortunate enough to be born human, in a country in which gaining access to the or being exposed to the Dhamma is extremely difficult (can you think of countries like that in the present day?). Even if we were born in the right place and time when the next Lord Buddha arises in the world, there is no guarantee that we would be able to listen to or put the Dhamma into practice as we maybe deaf, blind, severely ill, or in another way incapacitated.

The Lord Buddha has shown how difficult it is to obtain a human birth by using the simile of a blind tortoise who comes to the surface of the sea every hundred years. He said that the chance of gaining a human birth is similar to the chance of that turtle putting his neck through a yoke that had been tossed into the sea by a person (Chiggala Sutta). It maybe hard to understand why gaining a human birth is so difficult because we see human birth all the time and we take it for granted. But who knows how long those being born have wondered in other realms before gaining their present birth? It maybe eons in some cases. The Lord Buddha has said, "Bhikkhus, it is through not realizing, through not penetrating the Four Noble Truths that this long course of birth and death has been passed through and undergone by me as well as by you…" (Maha-Parinibbana Sutta).

If we for a moment imagine what would happen to us if we were to be born into the animal realm (one of the four hells) for example the opportunities for performing merit (kusal) is very limited. Animals are constantly assailed by thoughts of desire (râga), anger (dôsa) and delusion (môha) and are most of the time acting with these as the basis. When we see how people are so much driven by these three roots, it is not hard to imagine how much more animals would be too. An animal does not have enough understanding to rise above its current station, nor any understanding of good and bad, so it cannot aim to be born in a higher plane as we can. Once descending into the animal realm it would in almost all cases take a very very long time to rise above and escape that plane.

The Gotama Lord Buddha revealed the Noble Eightfold Path to us again 2500 years ago and it is fortunately still available to us right here and right now. We are not disabled or incapacitated in anyway and are more than capable of treading it. If we miss this chance again as we already have many times in the past (otherwise we wouldn't still be here), can we really bear another near-eternity for the next Lord Buddha to arise and reveal the Dhamma again, hoping that we would be in a position to hear it and put it into practice? It is up to us to realise how lucky we are and take this once in a countless lifetime opportunity to tread the Noble Eightfold Path out of the endless round of births (samsâra) before it becomes lost again to the world.

Related Youth Articles

1. Four Noble Truths by Rasika Wijayaratne (a summary of)  [ http://vihara.org.au/go?to=fourtruths ]

2. Noble Eightfold Path by Rasika Wijayaratne (on ending suffering)  [ http://vihara.org.au/go?to=noblepath ]

3. Mental Purity by Rasika Wijayaratne (on subduing anger, etc) [ http://vihara.org.au/go?to=vitakkasantana ]

4. Delusion by Rasika Wijayaratne [ http://vihara.org.au/go?to=moha ]

Related Suttas

1. DN 16, Maha-parinibbana Sutta, Last Days of the Buddha, Translated from the Pali by Sister Vajira & Francis Story

                                                                                                [ http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.16.1-6.vaji.html ]

2. SN 56.48, Chiggala Sutta, The Hole, Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[ http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.048.than.html ]

Other Resources

1. The Four Noble Truths - A Study Guide by Thanissaro Bhikkhu  [ http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/truths.html ]

2. The Noble Eightfold Path - The Way to the End of Suffering by Bhikkhu Bodhi

[ http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/waytoend.html ]

3. Nibbana by Thanissaro Bhikkhu  [ http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/nibbana.html ]

4. The Thirty-one Planes of Existence [ http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sagga/loka.html ]