Introduction:
The World Health Organization (WHO) established the World No-Tobacco Day in
1987. Since 1989, the World No-Tobacco Day has been observed annually on May
31, with the intention to encourage a 24-hour period of abstinence from all
forms of tobacco consumption around the globe.
Each year, a theme is chosen reflecting a highly discussed topic of the current
year on tobacco abstinence. Countries around the world hold events on May 31 to
advocate for a world without tobacco use.
根據法王開示內容整理：
The following
is a summary of His Holiness’s
teaching:
May 31 is the World No-Tobacco Day, which has been
established and promoted by the WHO since 1988. From a scientific perspective,
tobacco use brings a lot of harm to our body. In fact, about 5 million people
are killed each year as a result of smoking. According to a report written by
WHO, even just smoking a single cigarette, a
person’s life will be 11 minutes shorter. How so? Because toxic ingredients contained in tobacco, such
as nicotine and many others, jeopardize our physical health. Cancer, pulmonary
diseases, stroke, high blood pressure, neurologic
conditions, and arteriosclerosis can result through the use of tobacco. In
particular, lung disease, gout accounted for 10.8% of all. In summary, tobacco
use has a detrimental impact on our health.
We have to take care of our own health, isn’t it? But
this is not enough. Taking care of others’
health is equally important. This is why we should not smoke in public. For
example, when you smoke next to a pregnant woman, she inhales the smoke and her
baby will be negatively impacted. We should not narrow-mindedly focus on our
own health. Instead, we need to include others’ health into our
consideration.
This
is especially true for a Dharma practitioner. According to the Dharma, we need
to cultivate compassion and refrain from killing. To some extend, smoking is an
action of killing. Therefore, we must not smoke in public. Doing so
protects your own health. From a Buddhist perspective, a scripture documenting Buddha Shakyamuni’s
teaching on ethical conduct also addresses this issue. It says
that smoking brings numerous obstacles to one’s life. For example, smoking is a
cause for poverty for both this and the next lifetimes. In
addition, smoking not only jeopardizes human beings’ health, it
also kills other animals. Many aspects are impacted by smoking.
Padmasambava also taught
about negative impacts of tobacco use. He said that once you inhale this
poisonous smoke, you can no longer chant his mantra Benza
Guru Pema Siddhi Hung. He emphasized that one cannot chant his mantra
anymore after smoking. Not only him, Lord Atisha also
bestowed a similar teaching. He said that even chanting Om Mani Padme Hung 100 million times cannot purify the negative
obstacles caused by smoking. Therefore, smoking results in tremendous negative
consequences. It hurts our body, health, and environment. Its negative impact
goes beyond human beings and affects other gods. Your smoking actually impacts
the well-being of many gods, such as local gods and
Nagas. Your Dharma protector will distance from your too. The smoke
produced by tobacco travels. For all of the above reasons, we need to be very
cautious.
So,
we have to quit smoking. How can we advance our Dharma practice while smoking?
Right? In order to reach enlightenment, we need to stop mentally clinging to
anything. But if you cannot even quit smoking, how can you reach enlightenment? You can’t. Quitting smoking is the first step.
Then you can make other changes and eventually reach Buddhahood. Otherwise
reaching enlightenment will no longer be an option for you.
