Receiving Guests with Compassion and Dhamma : หน้า 43/135

40. RECEIVING GUESTS Receiving guests who inquire for your help is not easy. We must learn the proper way to do it. Although we must cater to them, we must also maintain our moral nature, especially our Dhamma. Some guests visit us to recount their tales of woe or their family troubles, but these stories only distract our own minds from Dhamma, or from the center of our bodies. As practitioners of Dhamma, we should try to guide our guests to the wisdom of Dhamma as well. Like a tug of war, we may allow ourselves to be drawn into our guests' misery and away from Dhamma, or we can draw them to Dhamma and away from their problems. It takes skills in good speech and great awareness to move a person towards Dhamma. There are many types of guests. Before we can host any of them properly, we must first understand ourselves thoroughly. Understanding ourselves first will help us understand others, and this in turn will help us understand their problems. The most essential thing, however, is to maintain our minds in Dhamma and to be filled with compassion. Look inside ourselves. Look back to our past lives (through meditation) and recall all the merit we have made; recall how we have pursued Perfections. Then look at ourselves in the present life to see how much purity we have cultivated inside ourselves. Realize whether we are in the position to save this person. If not, we must let go. Don’t let yourself become a casualty while trying to help others. Look to the future, and think where you want to be. What is your goal? When hosting guests who ask for help, we should look back into the past, look inwardly at the present, and look forward into the future. Most importantly, we must meditate constantly, to strengthen our minds and resist distractions. There is an old saying, “Chanting is a balm; meditation is a pill.” Suffering is like a disease; if we use both kinds of cures, the disease will heal faster. If we can convince the person with serious problems to begin chanting and meditating, then he can acquire merit to help himself. December 10, 1980