Since there are a lot of collisions that break our society. What can we do to give unity back to our nation?

Answer
by Venerable Dhattajeevo Bhikku

The brief reasons are...

1. The gain people get. Since most people in the world think only about taking not giving and that is not really different than birds. In each morning after waking up, the birds will make loud noise to ask each other to leave their dwelling place for food which means they ask each other for taking not giving. Same to humans, if they are careless, they will have the same behavior as animals.

2. Most people are not disciplined; namely, they are self-centered and don’t care about discipline; and this habit causes collisions to societies.

3. The big thing that breaks the relation of people is they are lacking of respect to each other and like to see only the mistakes others make. After waking up in the mornings, we only hear and see that people find the faults of others. When we turn a radio on no matter what time it is, criticism is heard which is the sound of inauspiciousness because the sound we hear and the picture we see do not support us to see the good things of others since they show only the faults of others; that causes the lack of respect and consideration to people and then they will not care about others. By this reason, collisions will occur.

Actually, this problem and its solution were in our ancestor’s teachings, but we usually think that their teachings are out of date. Let’s bring these teachings back and follow them.

First, the first thing people usually think about right after they wake up is their gains just like what birds think. To avoid it, our ancestors gave us a teaching to give before the thought of taking will come to us. How? This is what they teach…

We must have breakfast only after performing donation. Before having breakfast, we must perform alms offering to monks.

Also, we have to think about our parents, grandparents and senior members of our family. At our childhood, they let us eat before them, now they are old and it’s our turn to let them eat before us. This is how to follow their teaching to have breakfast only after performing donation. Without performing donation to monks or senior members of the family, don’t eat. Following this teaching will keep us away from being selfish. This is the first step of giving unity to our nation.

Second, seriously observe our precepts purely the whole day. After precepts serious observance, we will later figure out that the most difficult precept is the 4^th one since this one is to give only right and precise speech. Therefore, whoever who is willing to keep his precepts pure and can really make it will automatically be serious in other discipline. It’s amazing but it’s true.

That’s why our ancestors teach us not to leave our houses without intention to observe precepts. Before leaving our houses, we need to promise the Buddha images and the monk images in our houses that we will today seriously keep our precepts purely. This will automatically give discipline to us and it will slightly take our self-center habit away. This is the second step of giving unity to our nation.

Third, because people like to find others’ fault since waking up till falling asleep, our ancestors teach us to chant and meditate before going to bed. This will neutralize our minds and we will not desire to find others’ fault. Instead, we will look for their good things. We will think about the favor of our parents, our teachers, monks and Buddhism. Before going to bed, we need to think about the good things of people from the whole world or the people related to us in every relation. Thinking about their good things, we will be encouraged to perform good deeds and improve ourselves.

Therefore, the conclusion is no breakfast before giving donation, no leaving the house before intending to observe precepts, no going to bed before chanting and thinking about the good things of others. If we can follow these 3 steps, the unity will come to Thailand.