Blessing Four:
Living in an Amenable Location
Living in an Amenable Location
C. PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS
C.1 Choosing the location of a new home
Having studied the four main principles of a location which is amenable to the spreading of the Dhamma, we have at the same time discovered a recipe for success in choosing the location of a new house. In the olden days, no-one would dare to build a new house without first seeking the advice of a teaching monk or at the very least of a fortune teller. They would always advise the oracle in question to look at the lie of the land. In fact, the most successful oracles were not interested in the lie of the land at all, but were interested in how many of the four principles of amenable location were present at the proposed site of the new house. If you want to tell as much about the potential site of a new house as the oracles of old did, start by drawing up a grid with five rows as follows:
C.1 Choosing the location of a new home
Having studied the four main principles of a location which is amenable to the spreading of the Dhamma, we have at the same time discovered a recipe for success in choosing the location of a new house. In the olden days, no-one would dare to build a new house without first seeking the advice of a teaching monk or at the very least of a fortune teller. They would always advise the oracle in question to look at the lie of the land. In fact, the most successful oracles were not interested in the lie of the land at all, but were interested in how many of the four principles of amenable location were present at the proposed site of the new house. If you want to tell as much about the potential site of a new house as the oracles of old did, start by drawing up a grid with five rows as follows:
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1. Location |
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2. Food |
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3. Neighbours |
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4. Dhamma |
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Once you have drawn up the grid, supposing you wanted to build a house and you have a choice of four or five locations, but cannot decide which to choose, then award points to each of the different locations according to the four principles of an amenable location: location, food, neighbours and Dhamma. Give each principle points out of twenty five. When we add up the total points for each different location, we will be able to choose the most amenable location by choosing the site with the highest point rating. Use the following guidelines for giving points:
1. Amenable location: We should look at the neighbourhood and give points if the place has good facilities including access, running water, electricity and a telephone line. If there is already a house on the site, the more spacious the better. The quality of the construction work will also guide you as to your awarding of points. Look at the subdivision of rooms to see whether it is habitable or not. Give the location points accordingly.
2. Amenable food supply: Consider that if you should choose a particular site for your home, you will be living there for a long time and therefore should give adequate thought to the availability of food. Make sure that the location isn’t too far from the market or from a shop selling food and various other ‘perishables’. If any of these sources of food are close at hand, you can award that site plenty of points for the food supply.
3. Amenable neighbours: Inspect the location to see whether it is near to or part of a slum. Do people gamble there or nearby? Is it close to a liquor factory? Is it a den of thieves? If it is any of these things, then keep your distance. Choose somewhere else. If on the contrary, all the neighbours are respectable, socially distinguished and of Right View (such as doctors or teachers) of good social standing and of good conduct, then this should attract us to live nearby. At the very least, those good neighbours will give us peaceful surroundings and in times of need they will be able to help us. Give the neighbours the appropriate point rating.
4. Amenable Dhamma: In order to give points for this particular factor, it is necessary to divide the factor into two contributing parts: Dhamma for the children and Dhamma for the adults.
When you add up the total points for each site, you should choose the location with the maximum points as the site for your new house. Next time you move house there is no need to call in the fortune teller — or a monk either, because armed with an understanding of the factors that make a site amenable for habitation, you can choose the site for new house without anyone else’s help. This is certainly a good example of Dhamma that is immediately applicable to everyday life.
C.2 Making your present home amenable
For those who do not ordain and leave the home life, usually, the home and family form the hub of life. In this connection, what should be done to the home to make it amenable to the prospering of the Dhamma? According to Thai tradition, even though we might have three meals a day, there should be at least one of those meals when the whole of the family is together (See Blessing 12, @B.3.1 heading 3.2).
Some people claim that they are overburdened with work. However if you consider that the only reason that you spend so much time at work is to be a breadwinner for your family to send your child to a private school — then think again. If you are left with no time to bring up your children properly and your child gets addicted to heroin because of your negligence, a million dollars would be insufficient to rectify the problem. If on the contrary, you can get by while still finding sufficient time to give full attention to your child’s upbringing, then you will be rewarded when your child grows up into a virtuous example of a human being.
Many parents have been reduced to tears by disappointment. They’re upset that their child cannot go to university because of becoming a junkie. They cry about their awful child — but it would be more fitting to cry about having been such an awful parent who didn’t take the trouble to bring up their own child properly!
Therefore, remember that bringing up a child means more than just seeing that there is food on their plate. You need to instil your child with virtue and to this end, both children and parents should see each others’ faces across the dining table at least once a day, and discuss Dhamma, instruct one another and comment on the habits which each should be improving upon. If you can’t manage to meet at mealtimes, you should make sure that the family come together before bedtime, perhaps for Evening Chanting — but even bedtime cannot beat mealtimes. A child will never miss a meal, and a good telling off before dinner will stay in his mind for a long time.
Thus if you are to give a good example of Dhamma which is amenable to the household, then a family being together at mealtimes will certainly fit the bill.
C.3 Relative importance of the Four Amenable Location Factors
In conclusion, an amenable location has four characteristics: an amenable location, amenable food supply, amenable personnel and amenable Dhamma. If you put these four characteristics in order of importance, you will find the following: Amenable Dhamma is the most important, followed by amenable personnel, followed by amenable food supply and an amenable location is the least important of the four.
Even though the location may not be ideal, but the food is plentiful or neither the location nor the food supply is ideal, but the inhabitants are amenable, they can soon improve the quality of the location and the food. However, the thing that makes the inhabitants amenable is having Amenable Dhamma it that location. This is the reason why Amenable Dhamma is the most important attribute of the four.
C.4 Amenable Location outside, Amenable Location inside
There are two different types of amenable location:
1. Amenable Surroundings: the quality of location which is determined by the four factors already discussed.
2. Amenable Location within: This is the most important influence on the quality of our well being — i.e. a healthy body and mind — a body and mind that are in no way disabled or infected by disease.
Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. They are brought up properly by their parents, but when they grow up, instead of feeling grateful for all the efforts made by their parents, they inflict illness upon themselves by turning alcoholic. There are myriad diseases that come as a result of drinking alcohol. Even lying can be the source of disease (see Blessing Nine, @C.1.4) causing your memory to become blurred and eventually leading to senile dementure as the result of the bad karma you have accumulated throughout the course of your life.
Thus as we have seen from the examples of breaking the Precepts of lying or drinking alcohol, all of the Precepts, if broken, will be the source of illness. Thus you need to protect your internal environment. If you pollute the quality of your internal environment, success will elude you for the rest of your life and your future lifetimes will be even worse. Take care of your Precepts and they will take care of you.
Now that you know the four factors of an amenable location if you are still a child you should look for a location that is going to be amenable to your own education. If you are an adult then you should try to make your location into an amenable location, wherever you go. As an adult, it isn’t good enough simply to go looking for amenable locations, you should be working actively to improve the quality of the environment.
1. Amenable location: We should look at the neighbourhood and give points if the place has good facilities including access, running water, electricity and a telephone line. If there is already a house on the site, the more spacious the better. The quality of the construction work will also guide you as to your awarding of points. Look at the subdivision of rooms to see whether it is habitable or not. Give the location points accordingly.
2. Amenable food supply: Consider that if you should choose a particular site for your home, you will be living there for a long time and therefore should give adequate thought to the availability of food. Make sure that the location isn’t too far from the market or from a shop selling food and various other ‘perishables’. If any of these sources of food are close at hand, you can award that site plenty of points for the food supply.
3. Amenable neighbours: Inspect the location to see whether it is near to or part of a slum. Do people gamble there or nearby? Is it close to a liquor factory? Is it a den of thieves? If it is any of these things, then keep your distance. Choose somewhere else. If on the contrary, all the neighbours are respectable, socially distinguished and of Right View (such as doctors or teachers) of good social standing and of good conduct, then this should attract us to live nearby. At the very least, those good neighbours will give us peaceful surroundings and in times of need they will be able to help us. Give the neighbours the appropriate point rating.
4. Amenable Dhamma: In order to give points for this particular factor, it is necessary to divide the factor into two contributing parts: Dhamma for the children and Dhamma for the adults.
When you add up the total points for each site, you should choose the location with the maximum points as the site for your new house. Next time you move house there is no need to call in the fortune teller — or a monk either, because armed with an understanding of the factors that make a site amenable for habitation, you can choose the site for new house without anyone else’s help. This is certainly a good example of Dhamma that is immediately applicable to everyday life.
C.2 Making your present home amenable
For those who do not ordain and leave the home life, usually, the home and family form the hub of life. In this connection, what should be done to the home to make it amenable to the prospering of the Dhamma? According to Thai tradition, even though we might have three meals a day, there should be at least one of those meals when the whole of the family is together (See Blessing 12, @B.3.1 heading 3.2).
Some people claim that they are overburdened with work. However if you consider that the only reason that you spend so much time at work is to be a breadwinner for your family to send your child to a private school — then think again. If you are left with no time to bring up your children properly and your child gets addicted to heroin because of your negligence, a million dollars would be insufficient to rectify the problem. If on the contrary, you can get by while still finding sufficient time to give full attention to your child’s upbringing, then you will be rewarded when your child grows up into a virtuous example of a human being.
Many parents have been reduced to tears by disappointment. They’re upset that their child cannot go to university because of becoming a junkie. They cry about their awful child — but it would be more fitting to cry about having been such an awful parent who didn’t take the trouble to bring up their own child properly!
Therefore, remember that bringing up a child means more than just seeing that there is food on their plate. You need to instil your child with virtue and to this end, both children and parents should see each others’ faces across the dining table at least once a day, and discuss Dhamma, instruct one another and comment on the habits which each should be improving upon. If you can’t manage to meet at mealtimes, you should make sure that the family come together before bedtime, perhaps for Evening Chanting — but even bedtime cannot beat mealtimes. A child will never miss a meal, and a good telling off before dinner will stay in his mind for a long time.
Thus if you are to give a good example of Dhamma which is amenable to the household, then a family being together at mealtimes will certainly fit the bill.
C.3 Relative importance of the Four Amenable Location Factors
In conclusion, an amenable location has four characteristics: an amenable location, amenable food supply, amenable personnel and amenable Dhamma. If you put these four characteristics in order of importance, you will find the following: Amenable Dhamma is the most important, followed by amenable personnel, followed by amenable food supply and an amenable location is the least important of the four.
Even though the location may not be ideal, but the food is plentiful or neither the location nor the food supply is ideal, but the inhabitants are amenable, they can soon improve the quality of the location and the food. However, the thing that makes the inhabitants amenable is having Amenable Dhamma it that location. This is the reason why Amenable Dhamma is the most important attribute of the four.
C.4 Amenable Location outside, Amenable Location inside
There are two different types of amenable location:
1. Amenable Surroundings: the quality of location which is determined by the four factors already discussed.
2. Amenable Location within: This is the most important influence on the quality of our well being — i.e. a healthy body and mind — a body and mind that are in no way disabled or infected by disease.
Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. They are brought up properly by their parents, but when they grow up, instead of feeling grateful for all the efforts made by their parents, they inflict illness upon themselves by turning alcoholic. There are myriad diseases that come as a result of drinking alcohol. Even lying can be the source of disease (see Blessing Nine, @C.1.4) causing your memory to become blurred and eventually leading to senile dementure as the result of the bad karma you have accumulated throughout the course of your life.
Thus as we have seen from the examples of breaking the Precepts of lying or drinking alcohol, all of the Precepts, if broken, will be the source of illness. Thus you need to protect your internal environment. If you pollute the quality of your internal environment, success will elude you for the rest of your life and your future lifetimes will be even worse. Take care of your Precepts and they will take care of you.
Now that you know the four factors of an amenable location if you are still a child you should look for a location that is going to be amenable to your own education. If you are an adult then you should try to make your location into an amenable location, wherever you go. As an adult, it isn’t good enough simply to go looking for amenable locations, you should be working actively to improve the quality of the environment.
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