Required reading for the sons and daughters of Cambodia's "Nouveaux Riches"?

King Bhumibol and HRH princess Sirindhorn as a young teenager

A letter from HM the King to HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn

Monday , January 4 , 2010

By krajog The Nation

The [above] text in Thai is a letter HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn received from His Majesty the King dated Oct. 6, 2004. HRH Princess Sirindhorn has granted her permission for the public viewing.

As the content of the letter reflects His Majesty the King’s thought on doing good deeds and the sense of kindness and compassion for other people, I think this essence of the letter is worth a reading to my blog readers. I have translated it for those who are not familiar with the Thai writing as follows.

The following is my translation.

My dear daughter,

In this world, everything has at least two sides. There are darkness and brightness, goodness and evilness. If we can choose what we like, we all would want to have brightness and goodness. But what we want would become real only when we have a method to get it, the brightness or goodness.

The path towards goodness is the love for other people. This is because love for other people can solve every problem. If we want the world to be a place of happiness and peacefulness, the love for other people must be real.

I would like to tell you as follows.

1. Seeing other people as friends in terms of birth, getting old, falling into illness and death, without any exception, no matter who they were in the past, at present or in the future.

2. Seeing the world in an optimistic way but it would be better if you see the world in a realistic perspective, which is the right and appropriate way to solve any problem.

3. Have a sense of Santosa-

…This means having contentment as a basic principle in your mind. Always satisfied with what have come to you without clinging to anything. And always think that having something is good enough while having nothing is not a problem at all. It also means being content with our personal power or ability. Be happy with what we got no matter how small it is.

…Not become the same as an overblown toad, it will bring to us nothing but troubles afterwards.

…Be relatively satisfied with the job you are doing.

…Make a living that suits your status.

4. Having mental stability. This means seeing the negative effects of laziness while realizing the benefits of being persistent. If an undesirable thing happens, pray this mantra:

“Having good fortune and status, happiness and sadness might follow.

It’s the same with praises and criticism. Losing a fortune or status is so natural.

Don’t stay being sad but keep saying “let it be, let it be.”

Your Dad 6/10/2547 (6/Oct/2004)

HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn has made her comment for readers of this HM the King’s letter as follows:

”I hope this teaching of my Dad I have collected would be useful to everyone as well as sons and daughters who are the loved ones of their fathers who have the chance to read this letter.”

I LOVE MY DAD SO VERY MUCH.

0 comments:

Post a Comment