พระอาจารย์อธิบายว่าผลลัพธ์ที่ต่างกันมาจากการประกอบเหตุในอดีตที่ต่างกัน ไม่ควรเปรียบเทียบ ส่วนการสนับสนุนให้ลูกทำธุรกิจ ควรเริ่มจากทุนน้อย ๆ พิสูจน์ตัวเองก่อนแล้วค่อยขยายThe teacher explains that different outcomes come from different causes people created in the past — comparison isn't warranted. On supporting a young person's business venture, he advises starting small to prove capability before scaling up.
Someone shared a case study: a person felt distressed comparing themselves to a friend they studied with. Though they had done far better academically, the friend went on to hold a significant position in a highly successful family business, while their own family enterprise wasn't succeeding. They felt like a failure in life, and the questioner asked how best to counsel someone feeling this way.
Why Different People Get Different Results
The teacher explained that this comes down to different causes created in the past. When each person creates different causes, the results naturally differ. The one who excelled academically had, in the past, generously shared and understanding that helped others learn easily — so in this life they reap wisdom as the result. But they gave less material support to others, so they reaped less in terms of wealth. The other person had given generously of material wealth in the past but not knowledge, so they didn't do as well in school — yet when it came time to manage assets, they arrived at a position suited to the causes they had built. He compared it to planting: whoever plants beans gets a bean plant, whoever plants sesame gets a sesame plant. Each person reaps according to what they once sowed, so there is no basis for comparison.
If Parents Want to Support Their Child's Business
The questioner went on to describe well-off parents who felt for their child and wanted to hand over a large sum to start a business, but worried the money might simply be lost. The teacher advised letting the child start small, with modest capital, to prove they can succeed before gradually increasing the investment. He compared it to someone who wants to play music beautifully but has no foundation, and instead of starting with a modest instrument, buys an expensive guitar right away — when the playing doesn't sound good, because there was no prior practice, they lose heart and give up. Investing a large sum from the very start, without experience, works the same way: failure at that scale crushes motivation, because there was no gradual struggle through small beginnings to build resilience.
He added that even people who have already built successful businesses still find the climb difficult, since it typically takes ten or twenty years to build something substantial. Starting with modest capital means that when problems arise, there is still a reserve to draw on and fix things bit by bit — unlike pouring a large sum in from the beginning, which leaves nothing in reserve if trouble comes.