The Equation of Life

On the altar, the incense smoke still lingered gently, curling into soft, hazy ribbons beneath the warm glow of yellow light. As the chanting of the Buddha's name faded, the whole assembly sank into a productive silence. The teacher looked out at hundreds of faces turned toward him, their eyes both reverent and expectant. It was summer, the season when monastics observe the rains retreat, yet at this temple there was far too much Buddhist work to be done. Even one hundred and thirty monastics sharing the load was not enough: summer classes on ethics, retreat centers, facilities scattered everywhere. The teacher felt like a machine whose battery had run out, yet whose feet still had to keep walking on a road with no destination.

He drew a long breath, the scent of agarwood drifting past his nostrils. "The longer I live, the more I practice, the more deeply I realize one thing," he said, his voice lowering, slow and deliberate, as if speaking to himself before sharing with all sentient beings. "Our appearance in this life means we are solving a difficult problem. A very difficult problem."

The hall fell completely still; only the steady hum of electric fans remained. The teacher continued, his eyes gazing into the distance, as if seeing an invisible map of human existence. "A difficult equation between two things: wrongdoing and blessings from merit. We always stand on that dividing line as we live. The very same act can become wrongdoing or become merit, depending on how we do it."

He paused, letting each word sink into the minds of those seated below. He thought of a small story, a familiar example he had witnessed himself. "Suppose someone treats us well. How do we respond? If we respond with loyalty and integrity, feeling happy because someone has been good to us, that is merit. But if in that very moment we give rise to the intention to take advantage, turning their kindness into a tool for ourselves, that is wrongdoing."

Then he thought of another situation, an even clearer contrast. "Or suppose someone treats us badly. If we feel resentment and anger and seek revenge, that is wrongdoing. But if someone treats us badly and we practice patience, skillfully finding our way through, avoiding harm without harming them in return, and if the opportunity arises, transforming their hearts, that is merit."

The teacher shook his head, a smile both bitter and full of compassion crossing his lips. "Countless things in this life test us with this equation of wrongdoing and merit. But is it easy to avoid wrongdoing in every small matter of daily life, to do only what creates merit? It is very difficult. Only those who go to the temple, who practice and cultivate hope, know how to solve it this way."

The teacher knew this was only the first equation. There was another, greater and more haunting, that he wished to speak about today. He looked down at the rows of seats, at the young faces and the silver-haired heads, all of them living within this same problem. The equation between contribution and enjoyment.

"We are always placed in situations where we must enjoy," the teacher said, his voice carrying a slight emphasis. "From the moment we appear in this world, we are bound to enter a life of enjoyment, whether little or much." He listed them one by one, as if counting the pieces of life's puzzle. "The first step is nursing at our mother's breast, the first enjoyment. As we grow, there are countless things to enjoy: the car we drive, the clothes we wear, whether our hair is straightened or curled, entertainment, social life, love and affection, sexuality, medical care, education, social security, protection. All of it is enjoyment."

The teacher fell silent for a moment, letting everyone reflect. Then he asked, as if posing the question to all: "Where does all this enjoyment come from?"

He thought of a very practical example. Someone working an ordinary job suddenly receives a vacation trip out of nowhere. That is natural enjoyment, un sought. But someone sees others traveling and chases after the same experience; that is seeking. Some people seek and never obtain it, because they lack the conditions. Where does the enjoyment we have in this life come from? From past blessings from merit.

"When our past blessings from merit are great, we enjoy much. When they are small, we enjoy little," the teacher explained, his voice gentle but firm. "For example, others wear beautiful clothes while we cannot. Others eat well, and though we wish to eat well, we never have the chance. Others receive more education while we go untaught. Others are loved by many while we are loved by few, or perhaps no one cares to love our face at all. All of it comes from past blessings from merit."

The teacher looked up at the ceiling, the lights casting long streaks of brightness. He spoke of the differences between the realms. "When blessings from merit are too great for the human realm to sustain, one must die and ascend to the heavenly realms. In the heavens, enjoyment is a hundred thousand, a million times greater than in the human realm. The celestial beings can transform their forms at will; their garments change instantly, requiring nothing but imagination and creativity. Here, if we want to look beautiful, we need makeup, we need cosmetic surgery. There, whatever we wish to wear appears at once."

Conversely, "The hell realm is for sentient beings who, while alive, caused far too much suffering for others. Through hatred, vengeance, greed, and cruelty, they brought pain to one person after another. The punishments of this earth are not enough to punish such people." The teacher thought of two children he had met at the airport, sullen-eyed, disobedient to their parents, who had come along to the summer course but flatly refused to study. He had thought to himself: "If this stubbornness becomes habitual, they will be able to live with no one when they grow up. They will be fired from jobs soon after being hired, divorced soon after marrying, and in the end there will be only one place left to live: jumping from a bridge to end their lives."

The teacher sighed, recalling what he had said a million times: "Expressed love is a dose of poison." It sounds paradoxical, but it is true. When love is spoken too freely, constantly expressed, people begin to depend on it and go astray. An ordinary girl, gentle and well-behaved, has one fine day when a young man kneels and says, "I love you," and from then on she goes bad. Because she knows someone loves her, she becomes dependent, haughty, and demanding.

"Therefore, parents who love their children should focus on teaching them, not on constantly expressing that love," the teacher said, his voice grave. "The hell realm is for the defiant and stubborn who make others suffer. The heavenly realm is for enjoying happiness. The hell realm is for punishment. And the realm in between, suspended between punishment and enjoyment, is the human realm."

The teacher paused, his gaze growing deep, as if looking into an invisible space that everyone will one day reach. "But there is another very strange realm. There is nothing at all to enjoy. That is the realm of the hungry ghosts."

He described it, detail by detail, as though he had seen it with his own eyes: "That realm has not a trace of blessings from merit. Their wrongdoing does not merit hell, yet their merit is exhausted, so they arrive in a realm with nothing to enjoy. Not a grain of rice to eat. Nothing at all."

A lay Buddhist in the audience asked, "Venerable teacher, is such emptiness not peaceful?"

The teacher shook his head at once: "It is not peaceful. Because the beings there crave enjoyment with nothing to enjoy. They hunger for food day after day with nothing to eat. They see others loving one another while no one loves them. They see others dressed beautifully while they themselves are in tatters. It is utterly restless, utterly full of suffering."

The teacher stressed, his voice dropping, each word like a pin driven into the heart: "More than ninety percent of sentient beings, when they die, go to that realm to rest for a while."

A shiver ran through the assembly. The teacher explained: "Because I observe this life, and I see that most sentient beings, during their time as humans, consumed all the blessings from merit they had created. So when they die, they arrive in a realm where not a trace of merit remains."

He thought of retirees, of the elderly. "Once you have gone home, once you have retired, do not assume your pension will carry you. Try to find work to do. No work available? Keep trying, and there will be. For example, go out and collect litter from the streets." He remembered an elderly man he had read about in the newspaper, carrying a bag through the city streets picking up trash. Then he thought of a grander idea, a form of contribution that could help save the entire earth.

"The earth is growing hotter and hotter, for many reasons, including the loss of green canopy through deforestation. If now we create more green canopy, we help absorb more sunlight, lowering indoor temperatures and cooling the atmosphere. Where? On rooftops, on walls, wherever light can reach." His voice grew animated, as if presenting a project. "If someone would cooperate to produce pre-planted trays of vegetables or grass, people could take them home and place them on their roofs, hang them on their walls. Or hanging planters of green vegetables. This would be a work of great merit, saving this earth. Otherwise, temperatures will keep rising, and in ten years we will all be gone. It will not take a hundred years or a thousand."

He thought of India, where this year nearly three thousand people died from the heat. Next year it could be several hundred million. Then several billion. It is extremely dangerous.

"So if now we can plant greenery, covering rooftops and walls, even just the rooftops, that alone is a contribution. The elderly who have retired could produce these things together, selling them without seeking profit, seeking only to contribute. Encourage everyone to take them home and place them on their roofs, hang them on their walls. That is the contribution of old age, so that we do not sit idle waiting for death. Do not enter the realm of the hungry ghosts."

The teacher returned to the original equation, his voice gentle yet profound: "Our human realm today, we are speaking of the difficult equation between contribution and enjoyment. When we appear in this world, we are bound to enjoy. To live is to consume. But where does that enjoyment come from? From past blessings from merit."

He offered an analogy, as if holding an invisible credit card: "We are like someone holding a credit card with a balance on it. Each time we make a purchase, we swipe the card and take the goods home. We cannot see the balance slowly draining away. In the same way, each of us carries a store of merit accumulated from past lives. Every day, with each bowl of rice we eat, each glass of water we drink, we swipe from it, bit by bit."

His voice grew sharper, as if cutting through humanity's innate carelessness: "If we do not replenish that store of merit, if we do not contribute to refill it, then let me tell you plainly: the realm of the hungry ghosts is waiting for us. The merit will be exhausted."

He thought of the daily meal, something so ordinary we hardly notice it. "What we are most thoughtless about, what humans are most thoughtless about, is eating. We only wish to eat well, to eat deliciously. We never stop to ask what we have done that day to deserve the bowl of rice we eat."

He recalled a Sanskrit phrase he had learned when he first entered monastic life, when his head was newly shaved: "Kế công đa thiểu, lượng bỉ lai xứ." It means: Consider how much work you have done in this life, and ask whether this bowl of rice is deserved. "When I first entered the monastic life, this was taught right away. The moment you raise your bowl of rice, you must count. But people forget. No one remembers."

He spoke of himself, his voice growing very soft, almost like a confession: "When I first began practicing, I counted every box of rice. As practice deepens and wisdom matures, that wisdom illuminates every trace of wrongdoing and merit in one's life. The moment I lift the rice spoon, I see the debt lying there. But one must eat. One eats in order to practice, to carry out the Buddha's work, to teach and transform, to contribute to the world. If a day passes without contributing to the world, that day is counted as a debt."

He thought of the nights when he was so exhausted he only wanted to lie down on his hammock and fall asleep to recover his strength. But he remembered: "Today I have not yet done anything at all." So he would sit up, take out a pen, turn on the computer, prepare the dharma talk for the days ahead, continue writing the book left unfinished, or go down to look after his disciples, offering a few words of guidance. Labor must be given to be worthy of the one or two bowls of rice eaten that day.

He would turn on a film to see what young people were thinking. He saw generations of the young who, after finishing a meal, went off to partying and dancing, to drugs, to robbery and theft, nothing but ugly things. "This world has never understood the weight of each grain of rice, each spoonful they swallow. They assume rice is simply theirs by nature, and that they may live however they please. It is truly frightening."

That is why ninety percent of those who die fall into the realm of the hungry ghosts. "Only when someone clearly sees that they stand within this equation between contribution and enjoyment as a human being, becomes mindful of it in every little thing, and strives to serve, strives to contribute to the world, only then is that person freed."

The teacher returned to the benefits of enjoyment, listing them: food and drink, comfort, convenient homes, bathing. He remembered a time in Cam Ranh when a senior monk there invited him to bathe in hot springs. The hot spring water flowed endlessly, and the government had developed it for bathing. The teacher and a few of his disciples went in and found many rooms, each with a tub of naturally hot pumped water. Only when lying in the bath did he understand how blissful it was. Gravity seemed neutralized, the body light and floating.

"No wonder someone once emailed me claiming to have invented a new method of meditation: bath meditation, simply sinking into a tub of water and drifting off. I did not understand it at the time. Only when that senior monk invited me to bathe in the hot springs did I understand that feeling of bliss. No wonder people enjoy it so much. Here, where the hot spring flows out, people build a business on it. But in the cities water is very scarce, where even a single glass of water is precious, and in the desert a single glass of water can save a life."