Question: Dear Sayadaw! My mom has a big problem and lost a big amount of money. For everyone in my family, it is not a big deal. We just want her to be happy. But she keeps suffering and always blames herself for making that problem to us. How can I help her to feel better? Thank you.

If you are convenient in your job, in your life; you should understand that it is because you are in good fortune and your merits are stronger than demerits. That’s why you are OK in your life and in your job. If something bad happens; it is because you are unfortunate. You need to change and do good deeds more and more. If not it can be more and more inconvenient problems in your life. You will make mistakes more and more. Our experiences in life are showing our power of good deeds or bad deeds. You need to develop the power of good deeds by doing what is good more and more. If not, you can get worse and worse. This is a warning that you need merits; your power of merits or good deeds is not strong enough. You need to do more at present. Even if we are doing good deeds as a monk or meditator continuously, we have to pay back for the mistakes which we have done before. For the mistakes we made for the religious person in the past, we have to pay back when we are doing good deeds concerned with religion. Even if you can accept it, your mother cannot accept it, so you need to solve your mother’s problem also. Now you are dealing with Buddha – Dhamma – Sangha in this meditation retreat, so you have a chance to do good deeds like us as you can.

In our main center in Thanlyin, there are over 3000 people, the monks, the nuns, the old and the sick, the international volunteers; all are doing good deeds together in the center. We are helping each other and people in the society are also supporting us, so we can do good deeds all the time continuously for over 12 years. Now we’ve already opened a center in HCM city, district 10; also a nursing home in Tien Giang. This is the way I guide people to do good deeds. If most people are not doing like this, it is difficult to do. So I emphasize solving problems of people in society by doing good deeds together in the meditation center. So you cannot solve your problem concerned with your mother by yourself, but there are many problems which you can solve in our center. Now you are here to do good deeds together with us. This is also helping us. If no one is doing like this, we cannot make meditation retreat and we cannot continue. Most of the people are not doing like this but some of the people doing like this together with us whenever I come and teach in Vietnam. In this way, we both have a chance to do good deeds what we can; to solve the problems and what we can. There are problems in one family and there are many problems in an organization, but one person cannot solve all but we are together. Therefore, we have to do what we can do; we have to solve the problems that we can.

We have to explain what we can; I cannot explain what we cannot. But other monks or meditation centers will solve. This is teamwork. Because of doing like this, we are always busy in our meditation center. Because of doing good deeds together, we can do many things. Therefore, many people like you come, do good deeds and try to solve the problems. We can solve many problems day by day, but there are also many problems which we cannot solve now. But we don’t need to give up, just need to do like this every time, day by day. In this way, the people who are concerned with us and with our center can get benefits. We both can develop materials and mind. So you just need to do like this, no need to solve the problems that you cannot, just need to solve the problems that you can together with us. In this way, because of the power of doing good deeds in you will develop. Your life and your mind will be changed for sure. In this way, you can also help and guide your mother to be like us. Lossing what we have is nature, not the problem. We are sure to lose everything and everyone. No one is sure and nothing is sure. To lose, to die, to depart… all these are sure for everyone, everything. We can accept like this, that’s why we can endure and continue doing good deeds all the time. Therefore, we are also receiving all kinds of donations continuously. We also lost many things in the center, but we also received many things much more than what we lost. Yesterday, six people died in our center, just in one day, but more and more people were coming to stay in the center. We are losing our belongings, our life but we are also getting more and more. This is the power of doing good deeds. We cannot solve the problems for sure, but Dhamma or doing good deeds can solve your mother’s problems. So you just need to do good deeds more and more not only for yourself but also for your mother. In fact, this kind of knowledge or wisdom is priceless. The belongings or money which we have has price and limit. That why we should emphasize accepting to do like this. It will solve all the problems not only the problems concerned with your mother.

Sayalay Pañca Khandha transcribes