Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org

So here we have accumulated quite a number of blessings in
our lives, just by being at this spot at this time. We have the
blessings of the Buddha and his teachings. We understand
the teaching of the Buddha; we understand the four
satipaṭṭhāna and vipassanā, we know the four noble truths
and the eightfold noble path -these aren’t elementary school
subjects. These teachings aren’t things that anyone else can
teach you. We take them for granted sometimes, but even
just the four foundations of mindfulness are enough to take
you to nibbāna; enough to free you from the entire cycle of
saṃsara – just the four foundations of mindfulness. As the
Buddha said in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (MN 10), “ekayano
ayaṃ bhikkhave maggo – this path is the straight path, the
one way – just the four foundations of mindfulness”.
Being humans, we are able to understand this teaching. We
are able to put the teaching into practice – we can walk, we
can sit, and we can think. Our mind works, our body works,
and we have given rise to the wholesome intention to
practice meditation. We have confidence and knowledge
that the Buddha’s teaching is a good thing. There are many
people who don’t have as much; either they repudiate the
Buddha’s teaching or they doubt it to the extent that they
can’t practice it wholeheartedly. Even if they think it might
be good, their doubt stops them from practising.
Here we don’t have any of that. We have enough confidence
to allow us to practice, to ordain, to fly around the world just
to stay in a hut in the forest. How rare is that? We must
have done something right to get here.
The fact is we have actually done it and succeeded. We
made it. Of course, we are not fully liberated yet, but
physically we have achieved our goal. We are here. We are
where we should be. We are where we want to be. We are
in a place where so many people will never have the chance
to be. I consider this to be very lucky; I think we all should
consider ourselves quite lucky. This is an auspicious
occasion – and an auspicious moment in time. Here we are
developing wholesome qualities of body, speech, and mind –
this is what makes this moment auspicious.
It’s quite fitting that we are meditating on the holy day. I
used to joke to my students at Wat Doi Sutep in Chiang Mai,
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