Understanding Boon and Generosity in Buddhism : หน้า 16/164

be a sleeper!” He looks at me and almost winks. “We need to make boon continuously because, although we are born with boon, we don’t know how much we have when we are born. So we must continually make boon. Some people practice baap, or badness, because, for example, they drink and destroy their liver, thereby destroying themselves. For those people, when they practice goodness, it is like a throwaway. We must practice boon intentionally, and continuously. Then we will be on the right path. “Now, there are two types of giving: one is necessity/urgency and the other is urgency/necessity. Let’s look at some examples. “Here is the first action: You give food to the monks (even one spoonful) and the monk studies because he has been fed. In this way, we give Buddhism life. Because the monk lives and teaches Dhamma … Buddhism is still alive. This is necessity/urgency. But here is the second type of action: There are people in the world who are starving. If they need help and you can help them, then help them! This is urgency/necessity. If you have a budget, however, with which to choose your donation, then you need to think about the differences in the actions. Many factors are involved in deciding who to donate to … and you need to think about what your giving will bring to society.” “Well,” said Jon, “what about all of those statues of the Buddha that are so expensive to build. Why do you spend so much money building them when so many people are so poor in Thailand?” Luang Por lowers his head slightly and looks up at Jon, as though looking out over reading glasses, except he is not wearing reading glasses. “There are two things that you need to remember. The first is that this is Thailand, and the Thai culture dictates that we have Buddha images around because we are a Buddhist culture. The second thing to remember is that these statues are built to remind people of the possibilities. What the statues really represent to Buddhists is that one man in this historical age became enlightened. If we, each of us individually, are reminded by a statue that one man became enlightened, then the possibility exists for other people to do it as well. But you will have to meditate in order to discover this for yourself.” He smiles. And then, after a pause, quietly, he says, “There are many statues of the Christ to remind Christians of his journey, are there not? And statues of other saints and holy men? This simply serves as a reminder for us to live better lives. Christ says, for example, in order to live a better life we should always remember the goodness within us. He said, ‘The Kingdom of God is within you.’ The Buddha, five hundred years before Christ, said that the Dhamma is