Do This in New Year 2025... ¦ Buddhism In English

Namo Buddhaya. Another year is coming to an end and another new year is going to start. Now you may be thinking about, oh this monk is going to talk about new year resolutions, or how to start the new year in a more positive and more correctly, right? None of them. I'm not going to talk about all those things. In fact, you all know all of your resolutions, what you're going to do in this new year. But today I'm here to share with you a wonderful spiritual practice that you need to start doing in this new year. And also, not only during the new year, not only on January 1st, but also this should be made a practice that you should do every single day. This should be made a daily practice. So what is this spiritual practice that I'm going to share with you today? It is called, I call it, the silent help. What is it? The silent help. Now what is the silent help? Silent help is a help that you give to a person without them asking you to do a help, right? So the reason why I'm going to share this, about this spiritual practice is because the other day I was reading about, I was reading the biography of the chief disciple of the Supreme Buddha. The chief disciple of the Supreme Buddha's name was Arahant Sariputra. Arahant Sariputra's character was so much inspirational and so much wonderful that Buddha himself told the monks, advised the monks, that you should live like Sariputra. You should make your role model in your life the Sariputra. So his character is so much inspirational and so much wonderful. And there is this one story that I, I was so much, it felt into my heart, I felt that into my heart that it says that one morning that Arahant Sariputra came out of the room getting ready to go to the alms round, go on the alms round. And then he saw the junior monks, they are cleaning the monastery, they are cleaning the compounds, they are cleaning the halls and they are cleaning the rooms. What Arahant Sariputra did was, he kept his alms bowl aside and grabbed a broom and started cleaning with them, joined them and started cleaning with them. And then after that, after a little while, he kept his broom aside and took his alms bowl again and went on alms round. Now I was wondering that none of the junior monks, none of those monks asked to do that help for them, right? None of them. In fact, no one will ask from a person, a great person like Arahant Sariputra to do such an help, right? Such a help. But Arahant Sariputra understood that what these junior monks are doing. So he thought to offer a little help for them. And that little help meant so much. Maybe it has meant, been meant so much for those junior monks because he is the greatest role model for all of the monks community. But he joined with these junior monks to clean. In the same way, that was, that was a silent help, right? That was a silent help. That meant so much for the person who is receiving that help. So this is the silent help that we all need to practice, right? We need to help someone during the day without waiting them to ask that, to do the help for us, for them, right? For an example, let's say you are, you're at home and you are coming out from out of your room and you see one member of your family is cleaning the house. What you can do? Maybe you can grab a glass of water and give it to that person. Maybe you can clean some, clean some places. Maybe you can help them with cleaning some mats and rugs on the floor, right? That is a little help that you give to that person but they didn't ask you to do that. Now the reason why we should practice this, this silent help is because a help that was given without the person asking to do that help is so much powerful than a help that was asked to do, right? Because behind that help, behind that action, there are a lot of wonderful qualities like understanding, there is a quality of the love, compassion, right? Generosity, right? Kindness. These qualities are behind that action, right? When you do such things, it will be a great help to build up great qualities like kindness and compassion within you, right? So in this new year, I need all of you to have a resolution into your mind that also while pursuing this material happiness in this world, we also need to have some resolutions and some goals to pursue our spiritual goals as well. So I invite all of you to do a silent help to a person every single day, right? Whenever possible, find a way to do a help to a person without them asking you to do that. And also after doing this help, I need you to do one thing, to be, to deliberately be happy of the thing, of the help that you did, of the action that you did, right? This is something that we oftenly don't do. What is it? Deliberately being happy of what we do, right? Because happiness is not something that comes automatically out of nowhere. It doesn't appear. We have to make it happen. You have to think it in that way. So in the same way, we have to help someone without them. We have to give a silent help and also we have to deliberately be happy of what we did. This is one spiritual practice. This is a simple spiritual practice that you can add to your life in this new year, okay? So you may be thinking, ah, that is a little thing. No, it is not, right? And also we've been thinking, does that, does that include into spirituality? Well, some people say, okay, spirituality is all about meditating. Now, spirituality is not only about meditating. Spirituality is also about giving. Spirituality is also about dedicating your life, your time, your energy towards the benefit of other people. So in this new year, let's start practicing this wonderful yet simple spiritual practice and make this year a happier and a more peaceful one. So I wish you, by the blessings of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, may all of you be healthy, may all of you be happy, may all of your dreams come true, and may all of you be able to realize the Four Noble Truths in this Gautam Buddha's dispensation. Namo Buddhaya.