พระอาจารย์อธิบายว่าความไม่รู้ทำให้อกุศลใช้ข้ออ้างต่างๆ ชักจูงให้คนทำบาปอย่างชอบธรรม แต่ในทุกวิกฤต ไม่มีใครสามารถคิดหาทางออกได้ด้วยตนเองล้วนๆ วิกฤตจะกลายเป็นโอกาสได้ก็ต่อเมื่อเราดำรงอยู่กับระบบกุศลธรรมและปล่อยให้พระรัตนตรัยเป็นเจ้าเรือนของใจอย่างแท้จริง ดังเรื่องราวพระบรมโพธิสัตว์ที่ตั้งความปรารถนาเป็นพระพุทธเจ้าท่ามกลางวิกฤตThe teacher explains that ignorance lets the unwholesome side use excuses to justify wrongdoing as if it were righteous. In every crisis, no one can find a way out through their own thinking alone — a crisis becomes an opportunity only when we truly abide within the wholesome system and let the Triple Gem genuinely take charge of our heart, as illustrated by the Bodhisattva's vow to become a Buddha amid his own life-threatening crisis.
A student asked about news of the government campaign to catch and electrocute invasive blackchin tilapia to protect the ecosystem, resulting in mass fish deaths, and whether this would bring great unwholesome karma upon the country.
Ignorance Lets the Unwholesome Side Justify Wrongdoing as Righteous
The teacher explained that when people live in , side uses all manner of excuses to make wrongful acts of body, speech, and mind appear legitimate. Those who don't understand happily go along, dominated and wrongly guided by ignorance — for instance, someone who sells fish must kill fish, and the killer must then cycle through rebirth as a fish to be killed in turn, until the mountain of accumulated unwholesome karma grows as high as a mountain range. We are responsible for every thought and feeling we choose to accept or reject. The world follows the law of karma; all we can do is extend boundless goodwill to all people and beings, regardless of their religion, and act with fairness, understanding that ignorance is what traps people within societies that behave this way. We must therefore study , concentration, and wisdom — the 84,000 tools used to combat unwholesome forces, which likewise field 84,000 tools of their own, but in the opposite direction. Great unwholesome karma drains and can cut short one's life, causing premature death, while doing good draws in pure energy that can extend life beyond its allotted span.
A Crisis Becomes an Opportunity Only When the Wholesome System Steps In to Guide Us
The teacher recounted the story of the future Buddha, still an ordinary being, sailing with his elderly mother when a storm sank their ship, leaving him to carry her on his back while adrift at sea for seven days and nights amid hunger, exhaustion, cold, and heat. Others adrift alongside him grew hopeless and let themselves sink, wrongly guided by the unwholesome voice telling them that enduring further was pointless. But the great being refused to give up; voice guided him to see the suffering that all beings endure throughout saṃsāra, and that no one could truly be a refuge for the world. In that very crisis, he made the vow: in every life to come, may I become a refuge for the world and all beings.
A crisis grows worse when a person is dominated by the unwholesome nature. It transforms into an opportunity only when the wholesome system enters and guides us — we cannot think our way out purely on our own. We must rely on the one of boundless and power, who can connect with us only when we truly abide within the wholesome system. There is no other way.
Let the Triple Gem Truly Take Charge of Your Heart
The teacher explained that what we can do is set our intention to abide within the wholesome system. Normally, the wholesome system programs us toward doing good — but we must also set our own heart to invite that system to take root. When we do this, we abide at the center of the Triple Gem and Nirvana, who watch over us and resolve obstacles in advance, and our life unfolds with ease, free of hardship and struggle.
The Triple Gem can help us only when they truly take charge of our heart as its master — not merely when we make wishes and requests while still letting the unwholesome or neutral side run our heart the rest of the time. Some people complain, "I've made so much merit, why hasn't it helped?" — this is because they connect with the wholesome system for only a brief moment, while other systems guide them the rest of the time. We must therefore train ourselves to abide within the wholesome system from the moment we wake, through every activity of daily life — and we will come to witness the astonishing results this brings.