Dhamma tid-bits from the newspaper

This post presents a translation of a short piece of dhamma advice taken from the March 8, 2012 issue of 7 Day News, p. 11.

Vocabulary:

သောက ။ grief, anxiety
ရပ်တည် ။ to exist, abide by
ထိန်းသိမ်း ။ to observe (precepts)
သူတော် ။ white-robed acolyte
မေ့လျော့ ။ forgetful
စိတ်ထား ။ attitude; temperament; nature
မှန်ကန် ။ correct, right, true
အကြင် ။ that
သိမ်မွေ့ ။ delicate, subtle, gentle, refined
နက်နဲ ။ profound
ဉာဏ် ။ intellect, wisdom
နှိမ့်ချ ။ be humble, belittle
ခက်ထန် ။ harsh, stern
အင်္ဂါ ။ feature, characteristic
ကျော်စော ။ become famous, well-known or prominent; be notorious
ထကြွ ။ be active
လုံ့လ ။ diligence
ပျင်းရိ ။ lazy
ဘေးရန် ။ danger
အားထုတ် ။ to strike
အားလျော်စွာ ။ postpositional marker following a noun to indicate concurrence with some condition (equivalent in usage to prepositions 'by', 'through'); conj because, as, since
ချီးမြှောက် ။ honour, exalt
အဆွေခင်ပွန်း ။ a close friend
ဝန်တို ။ be jealous
အကျိုးဆောင် ။ to do service to others
စည်းစိမ် ။ riches,wealth,luxury
တပ်မက် ။ be infatuated with; desire inordinately
တောင့်တ ။ to wish for, long for
ဆုတ်ယုတ် ။ degenerate, decrease

Translation:

Dhamma
One bit of knowledge is the most noble
One bit of knowledge has benefit

Wake up and start a new day with loving kindness

The time of dawn is the start of a day. At that time a Buddhist should wake up and start the day with loving kindness.  Sending out loving kindness with the words "May all creatures be at peace" is a good deed. This is to look at grief with loving kindness, to start waking up with a good perspective. [A person who does this] will continue abiding each day, observing [the precepts of] religion and [living] the good life of a white-robed acolyte. This is in accordance with auspiciousness, such as by not forgetting to do meritorious deeds.

Only a pure and upright attitude in the human realm will bring about strong faith. It is proper to pay respects to such a person. [And to practice this way] is complete in virtue. It is refined and profound wisdom. It is humbling. There is no harshness. A person who has those proud characteristics in full gets notoriety. Such a person is active and diligent and is not lazy. If there is danger, [such a person] does not shake. [Such a person] has a livelihood for which they do not need to strive; [and] has wisdom that is able to know with အရာ [?] . Such a person gets notoriety; is able to confer honours; is capable to making close friends; is able to know gratitude; does not have jealousy, is able to provide service to others; and is able to lead. A person with such an attitude gets notoriety.

A person who loses their possessions and becomes strongly infatuated with luxurious possessions, [that person] is like a king. That person longs to be a king. The nobel Buddha preached that the condition of that person heads towards death and decomposition.

Reference: "A good Buddhist", Department for the Promotion and Propagation of Sasana, [of the Myanmar Ministry of Religious Affairs].