Light Your Way

As the Buddha said, there are four kinds of people in the world:

those who come in darkness and go in darkness; those who come in darkness and go in light; those who come in light and go in darkness; and those who come in light and go in light.

Coming in darkness means that you come in a poor family, you don’t have much opportunity for education, you may not be all that smart. In other words, some of your past bad karma is showing its results.

Coming in light means that you’re born in a family that has some wealth, you have opportunities for education, you’re good looking. Your past good karma is showing its results.

Going in darkness means that you don’t observe the precepts; you don’t meditate. In other words, you don’t create good new karma. There will be a tendency to go down next lifetime.

Going in light means that you do observe the precepts, you meditate, and you create good karma in general. There’s a tendency to go up.

As the Buddha said, what’s really important is not how you come, it’s how you go. After all, how you come doesn’t mean that all your past karma is of that sort. In other words, if you come in darkness, it doesn’t mean that all your past karma is bad. If you come in light, it doesn’t mean all your past karma is good. It’s just that that’s what happens to be maturing at that time.

As Ajaan Lee puts it, sometimes your past bad karma splashes you ashore in strange places. Think of the ajaans in the Northeast of Thailand. Many of them were born into poor families, didn’t have much of a chance for education. But they had something good inside them, so when they encountered the true Dharma, they recognized it as good. They wanted to practice and were willing to make whatever sacrifices were necessary.

Like Ajaan Fuang: He was orphaned when he was small, and he raised as a temple kid, which is a rough way to be raised. We might think of temple kids as being good little boys, but they tend to be some of the hardest criminals in the village. He even engaged in some smuggling when he was a young teen. But as he got old enough, he began to listen to the Dhamma that was being taught there at the temple. He realized that he must have had some past bad karma because he wasn’t good at school, he wasn’t talented in other ways. So he decided he really did want to practice the Dhamma to provide himself with some good karma. When he found a good teacher, he decided to sacrifice everything to follow that teacher. He ended up becoming an ajaan that we all bow down to, because of his goodness.

That’s a case of coming in dark and going in light.

In the same way, when people come in light, it doesn’t mean that all their past karma is good. They may have some past bad karma, but it’s just not showing yet. The problem is that the world tends to measure people by how they come—in terms of their status, their looks, their power, their wealth. This often goes to people’s heads, which is why coming in light is not always a good thing. People get proud, look down on other people who don’t have that light behind them. That’s a cause for their downfall.

We see this throughout samsara. You work hard to be generous, you work hard to be virtuous, and you get reborn in the higher levels. But then you get lazy and complacent, because everything on the higher levels is pretty easy.

Can you imagine what it’s like being a deva? You want something and there it appears. You want something else, there it appears. This is not good for your character. It’s pleasant, but it’s not good for your character. As a result, people get lazy, they get complacent, and all kinds of other unskillful attitudes develop.

There’s a story in the Canon of a leper. One day he sees a crowd of people gathering. He thinks, “Maybe there’s food being handed out,” so he goes to see if he can get some food. He gets there and discovers it’s the Buddha teaching a crowd of people. He says, “Well, no food, but I’ll get to hear the Dhamma.” So, he sits down and listens to the Dhamma.

The Buddha sees that this leper, even though he’s a leper and very, very poor, having to live on handouts, still has some potential. So he teaches the Dhamma specifically for him. The leper follows the Dhamma in his mind as he’s listening, and he becomes a stream-enter. But soon after that, he dies. He gets reborn in one of the heavens. There, the story tells us, he outshines all the other devas. That’s the end of the story in that particular sutta.

There’s another sutta, though, that talks about a leper who gets reborn after becoming a stream-enter, probably the same case. In this case, we get to hear the rest of the story. He goes up and gets reborn in heaven, and the devas who are there are upset, “How can this leper get reborn here? How can it be that he’s going to outshine all the rest of us? Isn’t it amazing? Isn’t it astounding?” they say sarcastically.

So, just because devas have the good karma to be born in a high place doesn’t mean they have the right attitudes and that they’re thoroughly skillful in all ways. All too often, when you’re enjoying the results of good past karma, you do tend to get lazy. You tend to abuse your power. You tend to abuse your beauty. People who are good-looking tend to use their good looks to get away with all kinds of things. People with power and money use their power and money to get away with all kinds of things. In that case, it actually works against them.

It’s almost as if saṁsāra were a sick joke. You work really hard to be good and then, when you get rewarded for being good, if you let yourself get complacent, those rewards are going to pull you down.

So it’s important that you maintain the intention that wherever you get reborn, under whatever conditions, you’re going to try to go in light.

You realize that the precepts really are worth holding on to, in spite of the difficulties they may entail sometimes. And you really need to train your mind, so that it doesn’t get complacent, it doesn’t get proud. You realize that people’s worth is not in how they come, but in how they go. And when they arrive in the other place, they should want to keep on going in the good direction.

As Ajaan Suwat said one time, “You don’t want to come back to the human realm, because the human realm is going to become a more and more difficult place to practice the Dhamma. You want to go to a deva realm, if you can.” That means you have to develop the qualities of deva. You have to have conviction in the Buddha’s awakening. You have to be virtuous, generous, develop your discernment, so that you can understand how the mind is creating suffering for itself. And then when you get there, you have to be extra specially careful, not to get complacent.

If you have this right attitude, it’s like driving in a car. You’re driving at night, but you’ve got headlights. As long as you have bright headlights, it doesn’t matter whether the car is old and ugly, or the car is the latest model of something really expensive. If you’ve got good headlights, you know where to go. They point the way. If you don’t have headlights, then no matter how fancy the car is, it’s going to be really difficult to get anywhere safely.

So make up your mind that wherever you’re born—in darkness or in light—you want to go in light. You provide your own headlights, your determination to do good.

I’ve seen cases in Thailand of people who are born in families that aren’t particularly interested in making merit, yet they really do want to make merit. That’s the case of being born in darkness but having a bright light in the heart. They find their way.

Again, think of the ajaans. In many cases, their families tried to argue against their ordaining. It’s okay to ordain for a little while, but not for a lifetime, and especially not as a forest monk. At that point in time, forest monks weren’t widely respected. But the light in their own hearts is what showed the right way.

So, as we meditate, we’re developing a light in the heart, able to watch our actions and see what’s skillful, what’s not skillful. We don’t just have conviction of what the Buddha had to say, but we begin to see it in ourselves. This is how you overcome doubt. The Buddha said, by looking into your mind and seeing for yourself that what kind of thoughts, when you follow them, lead to happiness in the long term; what thoughts lead to happiness only in the short term, but pain in the long term. At the same time, you’re able to talk yourself into doing what’s going to be good in the long term, whether it’s easy or not.

That’s a good habit to have.

And it’s our habits that we take with us. We don’t take our wealth or our poverty with us. We don’t take our good looks or bad looks with us. We take the habits we’ve developed inside. That’s our genuine treasure—that’s our luggage. So, pack your luggage well, make sure the lights are in good working order, and you’re bound to go to a good destination, no matter how dark it is outside.

You’ve got light coming from within. That’s what will point the way.