Why do people have to suffer?
Thay is breathing in and out deeply to allow the question to go deep in him
before he offers some answer.
Why do people have to suffer?
Because suffering and happiness are parts of life.
Suffering and happiness have to be together.
This is a very deep teaching of the Buddha,
like the left and the right, you see?
If the left is there and the right must be there, right?
If the left says:
"Right, you have to go away. I don't want you."
It's nonsense because if there is no left there's no right either.
It's difficult but you can understand, like
in order to grow lotus flowers, you need the mud.
The mud does not smell good.
But the lotus flower smells very good.
But without a mud, you cannot grow lotus flower.
So there is a connection between suffering and happiness.
Suffering is the mud and Lotus is happiness.
And if you know how to make good use of the mud,
you can grow beautiful Lotus.
If you know how to make good use of suffering,
you can create happiness.
That is why we need suffering.
We need some suffering in order to create happiness.
And we have learned that we have enough suffering already,
you don't have to create more suffering.
What we want to do is
to learn how to make good use of suffering
in order to make happiness.
And in this retreat, we have learned this very important.
If we know how to suffer, we suffer much, much less.
We suffer only a little.
And that allowed us to have more
understanding and compassion that make us happy.
That is using mud in order to grow lotus flower.
It's very important practice.
I hope later in schools, they will teach us,
that kind of art, that kind of practice:
How to make good use of suffering
in order to create happiness.
So, later on you will learn about the goodness of suffering.
Because suffering is helpful, is useful sometimes.
Because when you look at suffering, you understand
and suddenly compassion and love are born in you, you see.
suffering is not entirely negative.
It's something helpful like the mud.
When you grow vegetables organically,
you know how to preserve the garbage,
and make into compost
and nourish flowers and vegetables.
You don't throw the rubbish away
because the garbage can be useful.
So that is the same with suffering.
You don't have to throw suffering away.
You can make suffering into a kind of compost
in order to make the flower of happiness.
Thank you.
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