A Single Excellent Night

While reading one of my most favourite books - Majjhima Nikaya (The Middle Length Discourses of The Buddha), I came across one of my all times favourites verses which I would like to share today:
Let not a person revive the past
Or on the future build his hopes
For the past has been left behind
And the future has not been reached.
Instead with insight let him see
Each presently arisen state.
Let him know that and be sure of it,
Invincibly, unshakeably,
Today the effort must be made
Tomorrow Death may come, who knows?
No bargain with Mortality
Can keep him and his hordes away,
But one who dwells thus ardently
Relentlessly, by day, by night
It is he, the Peaceful Sage has said
Who has had a single excellent night.
(Bhaddekaratta Sutta -MN131)

I believe this verse requires no further explanation to my Buddhist friends. However, let me share what I think it meant to my non Buddhist friends.

One of the most important teaching of the Buddha is to live in the present moment, in other word not live in the past or live in the future. Although this sounds very simple, but in reality it is very deep and I have seen many people (including myself) that tends to live in the past or live in the future.

People who live in the past are normally people who have Regret and people who lament things that they possessed in the past which have somehow disappeared in the present. One of the most memorable story that I heard with regards to regret was from A Dhamma Talk that I heard in the past from Ajahn Brahm.
According to him, a victim of violence would normally never be happy, no matter how many years have passed, unless he/she is able to forgive the person that committed violence to him (in this case, I would like to emphasize that it's important to forgive the person that committed the wrong, but it's also important not to forgive/ tolerates the act). Why? This is because as long as he/she didn't forgive the person, he will always be victim; he/she always lived in the past. Although the violence has passed many years back, he/she is not able to forget and continue to hold on to it as if it's still there all the time. The day that the person started to forgive and let go of the past, then that's the time that he would able to find release and happiness back.
I believe that it's very important for human beings to remember that past is past, and a person who didn't want to let go of the past is like someone who was struck by arrow once, keep taking the arrow and injured himself again and again using his own hand. If someone scold us and cause us to be unhappy, that person only committed that act once, but if we keep remembering it again and again, we are the one that letting ourselves being scolded again and again.
In the similar way, another type of people who tend to live in the past is the people who tend to think of their possession in the past that somehow has disappeared. Two main things here are probably "Money" and "Loved one". In fact, I believe until today, most of suicide cases that happen in the modern world are mainly caused either of these two.
A person who lost money, or being betrayed by the person that he/she loved... If he didn't able to accept this fact, he will be very unhappy and in the worst case even loss the will to live.

On the extreme, is the type of people who live for future. In this case, I refer to the type of people who are not never able to be happy with whatever things that he has or doesn't have currently. For example, the type of people who think that in order to be happy he must possess one million (but then the irony is that once he possessed one million, he probably start to raise his bar to ten million or something). Or the type of people who like to say... "I will only be happy if only I have this... " " I will only be happy if I didn't have this, etc".
If one thinks carefully, it's quite foolish to always live for the future. Why? because if that's the case, then he will never be happy, never feel contented, to enjoy the things that he possesses currently.

Now, having said this, what is the ideal that most Buddhists try to realize then? It's realization that people who are truly happy are people who live in the present moment, free from the baggage of the past and future; people who recognize that happiness is a state of mind, and not necessarily depend on possession (whether material or immaterial); people who recognize that suffering (or non happiness if I may rephrase it) is due to once's own craving (of either craving to have something/ someone, or craving to not have something/someone).
Anyone, who are able to practice and realize this simple but deep teachings, regardless of whatever religion that they belong, I believe are the person who are worthy of respect, as he/she is able to truly happy and content.

PS: I do recognize that most people are the "in between" people. What I mean here is that most of us will enjoy the present occasionally, dwell in the past occasionally and live in the future occasionally. My point here is that it's probably foolish or impossible to throw away the luggage of past and future straight away. However, I have a strong believe that if we make small effort everyday to reduce the luggage of both the past and the future, then we will be surprised to learn that we are getting happier and happier, day by day. =)