|
|
Leak-proof Practice II. The prerequisites for practice (1) The sole aim is to
attain a guiltless mind (2) Be consistent with
your practice ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is very rare and precious for
all of you to sacrifice your holidays to attend this gathering. I think you all expect to recognize
yourself, purify yourself, and lead a free and an easy life with An-Hsiang. I.
What is practice? [back to the top] Speaking of practice, most think
it must be mysterious, extraordinary, and particular, that one needs to live
differently from one’s everyday lifestyle.
In fact, practice is very common and ordinary. What is practice? It is nothing but rectifying your
thoughts and behaviors. It is
because wrong thoughts will bring us worries, and misbehaviors will make us
commit crimes. When a person is living
with worries and sins, his life seems like punishment and torture. To live in this way, he is definitely
suffering, isn’t he? Therefore, man
needs to rectify his thoughts and behaviors to eliminate worries and pains. Through practice, we basically aim
to live freely, comfortably, and without guilt. We simply expect to get rid of
unnecessary regrets and “to live a guiltless life after understanding reason”. It is that simple! Nevertheless, many people have been
practicing for one, two, three, five years or till they are old or even die,
they still fail in their practice.
Why? Some said it was
because of their heavy karma, others said it was because of their inferior
roots….. In fact, those were not
the main reasons. The major reason
is that they used the wrong methods. When our Ch’an
Research Association was established in Tainan, I defined Buddha Dharma as
follows, “What is Dharma? It is the
method for becoming a Buddha.” There is no truth or mystery
hidden in the core of the Buddha Dharma, which is simply the method for people to
practice to become a Buddha. As long
as the method is right, you can achieve your Buddhahood. What is Buddha? Buddha is awareness. When your life has been fully awoken,
you become a Buddha. Awareness is
the true and eternal content of life.
If you depart from the awareness of life and think there is a counterpart
truth, you are leaving your awareness to blend in with dust. That is not the awakening of life but
the identification with forms, and it makes you lost. Consequently, we realize that
becoming a Buddha simply means the awakening of one’s life, and Buddha Dharma
is a method that arouses people to awaken their life. If the method is not right, you will be
like cooking rice by steaming sand so that you can never succeed. With regard to the method of becoming a Buddha,
I had lectured so much about it in the past. To sum up, here are two major
prerequisites that you should keep in mind: II.
Prerequisites for Practice [back to the top] (1)
The sole aim is to attain a
guiltless mind In everyday life, a Ch’an practitioner must always be able to feel guiltless no
matter what he acts, does, or thinks.
If he does something and feels guilty, he should not do it and even not
to think about it. If you
misbehave, you are departing from the Buddha Dharma. Though no one will pass judgement on you
because of your departure from the Dharma, your mind has been polluted which
will make you feel restless.
Consequently, your life will weaken and it will become a huge obstacle
to the journey of your practice. If
you can lead a guiltless life, every day will be blissful, and you can live
with An-Hsiang and joy. Surely,
your Dharma life will grow well, and you will look bright, free, and
comfortable. Obviously, if you do
not aim to attain a guiltless mind, your Dharma practice will be in vain and doomed
to fail. (2)
Be consistent with your practice We saw people sitting by the river
bank, trying to pan gold from sand and gravel. They panned hard for a whole day. However, when they got home and opened
the bag, they found all the gold nuggets were gone. Why? It was because the bag had a hole where all
the gold nuggets leaked out. The reason
why practitioners fail to succeed is that there were faults in their practice
and they failed to identify them.
Moreover, even if they found them, they could not fix them, ultimately
failing. Buddha-Dharma has described the
concept of “non-leaking”. Arhat has reached the fruitful state of “non-leaking” which
means he no longer makes any more leaks; whereas, Buddha has reached the state
of “zero-leak” which means Buddha has fixed all his leaks and becomes free of
any leaks. Generally, ghosts only
have five super powers, but not the power of “zero-leak”. What is “the power of zero-leak”? It means all your leaks have been completely
amended; namely, your life has reached the state of perfection and
completeness. The basic essence of the song you
just sang, “Eliminating leaks”, means to eliminate your faults. In other words, it requires you to
practice consistently without any leaks.
The reason why I wrote the lyrics for the song was that I saw some
practicing truly hard, but others were on and off and failed to achieve
much. Those who did not practice
hard wrote to me: “Master, you must push me!” If you do not practice seriously, will
my push help? There are many things
in the world that no one can help you but yourself. For example, when you are hungry, you
must eat to ease your hunger. Is
there anyone who can eat for you?
It is the same with practice.
You must practice diligently to implement it, and you can never find
anyone to do it for you. Authentic
Dharma is so effective that you can easily verify and realize it provided you
are persistent with your practice.
From the perspective of the authentic Dharma, there is nothing called “truth”,
or “Dharma”, in this world. If there
is, it is nothing but the mind of ours.
Once your mind has been purified to attain An-Hsiang, the “Dharma” will
be sublimed to appear in your life to help develop the potential of your life
so that you can prevent your original true life from being buried by the six
Dusts. III.
Leaks and eliminating leaks [back to the top] What leaks will constantly appear
during the process of our practice?
Now, I would like to apply the lyrics of the song, “Eliminating leaks”,
to explain in detail: The merit of the Dharma Body results from “zero-leak”. What is the “Dharma Body”? It is as eternal and immortal as the
universe. If you intend to complete
the immortal life of “the universe equates to me”, it is crucial that you must
amend all the leaks to recover the original shine and perfection of the mind. The Dharma Body will be formed when all the leaks are amended. When all leaks are amended, the Dharma
Body will be instantaneously formed.
It is totally unnecessary to even mention the concept of “practice”. What are these leaks? I would classify them as follows, Evil thoughts and delusions make one sink into the state of gloom Generally, people are used to
constantly thinking with their brains throughout both day and night. They keep thinking about all sorts of
things, and do not care if what they think about is useful or relevant. They are thinking not for getting any result
or conclusion, but just for the sake of thinking. Some people enjoy “thinking”, and
are unconsciously falling into “gloomy thinking”. Thinking too much will destroy the
unification of your mind. Thinking too much will make you
look pale and become neurasthenic. Thinking too much will make you
fall into thoughts of gloom and degrade the brightness of your mind; Thinking too much will affect your
physiological endocrine to lose your balance. Thinking too much will result in
getting all sorts of sickness so as to become sinful. Master Bodhidharma
said, “A sin occurs when your mind acts.”
Therefore, thinking delusively is the worst matter. Thinking too much makes us depart from
the truth, and has our original mentality covered by a layer of dust. Heart Sutra states “five aggregations”,
form, sensation, thought, action, and consciousness, which are all with the
Ying attribute of gloom. A person,
who is open-minded, honest, and guiltless, must look bright and vibrant. To stay healthy, you should not think
delusively, because delusions will bring in all sorts of sickness. When delusions go wild, people will
become psychopathic because of their split consciousness and weakening
mentality. Delusive people not only
destroy their own lives, but also become a burden to their family and society. By in saying so, does it mean that
we do not have to think? No, we can
think. “Thinking” is a necessary
tool for our everyday lives. In the
“Noble Eightfold Path”, Buddha listed right mindfulness and right intention in
it. Right mindfulness minds of
Bodhi; right intention has a theme, goal, and conclusion. Therefore, both are thoughts of justice,
but not delusions. No matter what
we are engaged with, our career, job, or practice, we always have to pull the
full strength of our life to project both our sensation and reason onto a
focus. Eventually, the focus will
ignite the spark of wisdom. On the
contrary, if we think selfishly, unreasonably, lustfully, and naively, we will
end up trapping our mind in darkness so as to live in misery and with
regrets. To one’s practice, it will
become a huge leak. You will lose your true origin when attaching to or identifying with
forms When you are attaching to or
identifying with the outside world, you are attached with forms and living with
roots corresponding to dusts. You
become so attached that you see everything as true. When seeing a tree, you will speculate
about the age of the tree; seeing a pretty lady, you will also assess her
beauty and give a rating. Living in
this way, you will gradually lose your original true intelligence to the
fantastic, colorful, and untrue delusions; and eventually losing your true self. To care too much about the outside world
is to be attached and identify with forms.
Then your An-Hsiang will be deterred; therefore, we state, “You will
lose your true origin when attaching to or identifying with forms.” Your mind will become muddled when you talk too much Some people are too enthusiastic
so that they start preaching Dharma and giving lectures whenever they meet
others. They cannot differentiate
individual talents, nor can they assess their own capability. Therefore, after having given a long
talk, they failed to truly convey the merits of the Dharma to others. In fact, if you stop to reflect on your
own mind, you will find that your perception of An-Hsiang has been degraded to a
very low or even zero state.
Consequently, to enjoy talking nonsense is one of the leaks in practice. Speech is a tool for us to express
our ideas and to interpret our emotion.
We cannot stop speaking.
However, talking nonsense not only does no good to others, but also does
yourself harm. It also affects our
practice and becomes a kind of pathogen to our body. Physiologically, many of our illnesses
result from our biased and twisted minds, so that our health is also jeopardized. Those who have read “The Beauty of
An-Hsiang” can realize this, though there are only a few examples. In fact, everyone’s health is closely
connected to his mind. Therefore, in
Huang Emperor’s “Internal Scripture”, its initial statement of “Hundreds of
illnesses are originated from one’s mind” is clearly stated. To a practitioner, keeping silent is the
golden rule; speaking only when necessary and make sure to be brief and
precise; do not talk nonsense.
Above all, do not let An-Hsiang leak unconsciously and completely while
talking nonsense continually. A statement from a Sutra goes: “Before
enlightening sentient beings, you get drowned first.” It means that if you are not a life
guard, nor a good swimmer, you should not jump into a river in a hurry
intending to rescue the drowning person.
It is because the drowning person and you both may possibly get
killed. By doing this, you do not
earn any merits; on the contrary, you harm yourself and the other person. Why? If you did not try to save him, someone
else might have a chance to save him successfully. To our new Ch’an
members: when you first become conscious of the sensation of An-Hsiang, you
should try your best to keep it. Do
not delusively intend to save others.
Because when you talk too much, not only does your mind become muddled
but you also start speaking nonsense.
It cannot help people alleviate their worries so it equates to
nonsense. Nonsense can jeopardize
the harmony of your spirit as well as harm the An-Hsiang of your mind. Harming An-Hsiang equates to harming the
merits of the Dharma Body. Truly,
talking too much can bring such a serious impact; can we not be cautious about
it? The fire of anger can burn down the forest of merits. Anger, losing one’s temper, fury……are
all the revelation of ignorance.
Ignorance relates to ignorance of causality, or the disbelief of causality. You must know that “There must be a
cause for all effects and vice versa.”
Whatever happens in front of you, you should just take it because it
certainly comes for a reason. You
do not resist it, and just work on it; you can have it done smoothly. Otherwise, if you get angry and furious
about it, aren’t you planting a new miserable cause? Furthermore, even when you have done so
well with your practice, but just once you lose your temper because of a
certain incident, the merits accumulated throughout all your previous practice
will be totally damaged and burned.
Consequently, if practitioners cannot resist ordeals, till when can they
become successful? Delusive thoughts that arise for one’s body nourish the growth of the three
toxins. None of our thoughts can be
separated from our body, and we are so firmly attached to the thought that our
flesh is the true self. I have to
eat delicious food because I have guts; I need a good bed to sleep on because I
have a body; I need a good house to live, a luxurious car to drive …. From day to night, we have been thinking
for this body; therefore, desires keep increasing and reason sinks and weakens. If man lives with desires, he will be
enslaved by desires. If a person
always behaves selfishly and only thinks for his own benefits and does harm to
others, how can he practice under this scenario? It is such a huge leak! To practice, you must defeat your
mechanism to surpass false and the limited self; otherwise, your affirmed attachment
will become an obstacle to your practice.
To extend your attachment or to attach to your self will attach you to
reason and matters. Attaching to
reason will hinder your Bodhi (wisdom), and attaching to matters will help your
ignorance grow. If you think there
is a truth that can prevail in the whole world, and will never be doubted by
any saints even after hundreds of generations, which will extinguish the fire
of your life. Moreover, it will
prevent you from attaining enlightenment.
As the saying goes, “Though gold sand is valuable, it still can hurt you
when it gets into your eyes.”
Truly, gold sand is very valuable, but it can blind you if you put it
into your eyes. Our original mind
is the purest and freest; nothing can be added on or moved away. Because it is the truest, most complete,
self-sufficient, non-remnant; therefore, it has everything and nothing is inadequate. What does “attaching to matters” refer
to? For example, you get up in the
early morning and strictly stick to certain forms of practice. In fact, it is nothing but a
self-restraint and self-limitation that ends up making you even less at ease. Dull mechanical life can mechanize a
person, and this robotic way of life is truly against one’s spirit. If man does not get rid of these
mechanical shackles, how can he be liberated or surpass it? Consequently, all the attachments arising
from serving the needs of your body can only accelerate the growth of the three
toxins, which are desire, aversion, and delusion, and increase the leaks of
your practice. How can you practice
with a restless mind? The reason why we start practicing
is because our mind is too messy, worried, painful and regretful. The initial point for our practice is to
seek a guiltless mind. As a result,
we need to find out all those leaks that jeopardize the An-Hsiang of our minds. It is not until all those leaks have
been completely fixed that the Dharma Body cannot be successfully formed. Otherwise, “A fake cause is doomed to
result in a destructive effect.”
The pursuit of fantasy eventually will bring in destruction. This is my motive for writing the
lyrics for the song of “Eliminating Leaks”. I hope that everyone can sing the song
for a few times once he gets up in the morning. By doing so, on one hand, you can watch
yourself to prevent from making any more leaks; on the other hand, you can fix
the leaks made in the past. When
all the leaks have been fixed, you can simultaneously succeed in one’s
practice. In fact, does the Dharma
Body need any practice? Let’s sing
together and practice together…. {“Zero-leak” develops the merit of
the Dharma Body. The Dharma Body is formed when all
leaks have been fixed. Evil and delusive thoughts drag
you to the state of gloom. Attaching to or identifying with
forms make you lose your original truth. Being talkative makes your mind
muddled. The fire of anger can burn down
the forest of merits. Delusive thoughts that arise for your
body nourish the growth of the three toxins (desire, aversion, and delusion). How can you practice with a
restless mind? “Zero-leak” develops the merit of the
Dharma Body.
|