BF Sunday Service Talk - Will You Cry When I Die?

I attended the Sunday service talk by Dr Wong, for it was on death, a follow-up of the Saturday Youth Service talk on life. The talk was centred on giving appropriate attention to the things that are really important, Dhamma and time (especially with family members). People will cry when we die if we have truly lived well and touched lives.

-          What is important is what we do with our life, not the length of our life or achievements e.g. educational qualifications

-          Therefore we must apply the Dhamma in our life. Discussion and debate is just talk and leads us nowhere if we do not practise

-          E.g. unconditional love, as seen in this really touching ad

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-          A lot of Buddha’s teachings are centred around lay life but are not put into practice e.g. how to manage wealth, earning righteous wealth rather than not earning at all, parents’ duties to children and vice versa

-          The Chinese character for “teach” joins the characters of “old” and “young”, as well as holds a rod (discipline) – true meaning of teaching is respecting and learning from elders who enforce discipline

-          If we knew when exactly we will die, we will live our lives entirely differently and prioritise what is truly important

-          We cannot change many things in life; learning things like forgiveness helps us

-          Today, people have replaced the divine with money and material goods

-          Many words are left unsaid until it is too late e.g. loved one suddenly got into an accident when conflicts were unresolved

-          The time spent with loved ones is precious e.g. elders ask children if they want more rice so that the children spend more time with them at the table

-          We should practise the middle path, working hard but not sacrificing family time

-          Marriages are actually contractual, based on how long we think we will live

-          We need to continually renew our vows, our partners and ourselves are constantly changing i.e. we are different from yesterday today, and 10 years later we are completely different

-          Dhamma has to be applied in life; if we live well, people only need to look our lives to see Dhamma