|
|
|
The Purification of Self I.
The Genuine Dharma is the Original Truth. II.
The Fundamental Mission of Ch’an is to Purify
Souls and Develop Potential. III.
The Practice of Ch’an is to Discard
Impurities and Purify Selves. IV.
Remove the Confusion Caused by Common Sense and Live in
a Unified and Pure State of Mind. V.
The Process of Practice Requires Full Dedication
and Equal Development of Affection and Reason. VI.
What the Most Advanced People (with Great
Endowments) Pursue is to Know the Truth. VII. Self
Purification and Elevation of the Mind are Essential to be Free from Worry. We have just celebrated
the Moon Festival. I wish every one of you has a mind as round and fulfilling
as the moon. I.
The Genuine Dharma is the
Original Truth. [back to
the top] Ch’an is not a discipline.
Strictly speaking, Ch’an is not the Dharma either, because the genuine Dharma
is the original Truth. Anything more or less than the Truth is imperfect. II.
The Fundamental Mission of Ch’an is to Purify Souls and
Develop Potential.
[back to the top] The reason we established the
Foundation of Ch’an is that many friends have a common goal of purifying
their minds and share the same feeling of helplessness in their daily lives.
Under the current legal system, well-attended gatherings require formal
registration to the government. Therefore, it is very much appreciated for
Chairman Chen to dedicate great efforts into organizing the Foundation. Anything in the
universe that has no meaning, function or value does not need to exist.
Without any reason to exist, there is no possibility of existence. The
Foundation of Ch’an has therefore been established for a fundamental mission-
to purify souls and develop potential. III.
The Practice of Ch’an is to Discard Impurities and Purify Selves.
[back
to the top]
Why do I say so?
Many people are really well-educated but they ignore the fact that worry and
mistakes go hand in hand. One can never remove worry when mistakes are made.
In addition, our guilt marches in lockstep with our ultimate destruction.
When you walk down the path of guilt, destruction follows. It is a matter of
mind as well as quality.
Everything in the
universe values “purity”. Purity refers to clarification. Rails on railroads
cannot be used to manufacture firearms because it is made of high carbon
steel. Its low density and molecular asymmetry make it explode unpredictably
if used in weaponry. Although metals cannot be compared to human beings, the
values of people are also manifested in malleability and compressive
strength. In addition, the value of jewels is its hardness. Daughters born in
humble families can only wear nephrite with its shine fading away shortly.
Comparatively, anti-oxidant and heat-resistant metals are good conductors and
thus more valuable.
Consequently, we
do not practice Ch’an to fulfill something we lack, but to discard the many
impurities we possess. If we refuse to do so, the structure of our entire
lives is fragile and easily-shattered. Our lives would be helpless and full
of worry. The main effort of practicing Ch’an is therefore devoted to mind purification.
Only when we clarify our minds can we develop the potential of our lives. A
large amount of people bury themselves throughout their lives, unable to
realize their full potential. Why? It is because they have too many
impurities. IV.
Remove the Confusion Caused by
Common Sense and Live in a Unified and Pure State of Mind. [back
to the top] We have to admit
primarily that the human body is like a chemical factory functioning by sixty
trillion cells’ endless biochemical effects. The effects are versatile
because we have too many impurities. The human body is also like a machine
composed of ears as recorders, eyes as video recorders and so on. We record
forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touches and consciousness (the six senses) as
software and as the basis of personality formation. The self we attach to is
merely superficial consciousness, not our original mind. The original mind is
buried by superficial consciousness and covered by the six senses. If we
cannot break through these, the true self cannot show up. Being unable to
recover the true self makes us lead helpless lives
limited by common sense. If we cannot remove the confusion caused by common
sense and cannot break away from accumulated concepts infected by the six
senses, we cannot bring our potential into full effect. To this point, we
understand that Ch’an means to live in a unified and pure state of mind. Once we become
complicated, we lose potential. Philosophers, scientists, inventors all have
minds as simple as thinking of big holes for big cats and small holes for
small cats. If they didn’t have minds simple to that degree, they couldn’t
get rid of common sense. Minds that are constantly intervened and held up by
common sense cannot make inventions and have new discoveries. This is how we
bury ourselves and become dependent and contradictory individuals. Today we
overrule what we decided yesterday; we want to do this in the morning but
change our minds in the evening. We know it would disappoint us if things
didn’t work out, but we often quit in the face of adversity. Ordinary people
have no confidence, but instead have common sense. Common sense is actually
composed of delusions. None of the things you see are real. We assume a glass
container is dead and static. However, all atoms have electrons. Without
electrons, protons disappear. If all electrons are rotating, how could a
glass container be still? Nonetheless, our eyes and common sense tell us that
it is not moving. We live like this so our differentiating minds are
restless. We neither have determination nor perseverance; we don’t dare to
face the reality; we hope to reap without sowing, to succeed without
endeavor, to gain without giving. This is why lotteries, Mark Six, and the
stock market have soared. It is a last-era mentality, which is to leave
tomorrow behind and live only for today. Since you don’t value tomorrow,
there will be no tomorrow. We see news of kidnapping, jewellery shop
robberies and gambling fraud every day. People don’t know that our guilt
marches in lockstep with our ultimate destruction. People ignore that worry
and mistakes go hand in hand. People loathe having worries but don’t correct
their mistakes. Therefore, we invite friends who share the same values to
purify ourselves together, to learn from and encourage each other and to
develop our vitality. This is the fundamental intention of establishing the
Foundation of Ch’an. V.
The Process of Practice Requires Full Dedication and Equal Development
of Affection and Reason.
[back
to the top]
Humans are
different from animals because our bodies are difficult to earn but animal
bodies are easy to get. What are the differences? In this phenomenal world,
humans and animals are unequal. (It is merciful for Master Nan-Chuan to kill
a cat and Master Kuei-Tsung to kill a snake. Why
are they merciful? Some words don’t require explanations.) The prominent
ability animals have is their instincts. Their motor senses can be trained to
do circus performances; but except motor senses, what animals have left is
their instincts of foraging and courtship, also a little bit of
affection. Casting aside affection to
practice Ch’an is a huge mistake. In the practice process, we should evenly
develop our affection and reason so to sublimate reason into Mahaprajna and
affection into grand benevolence and compassion. Grand benevolence refers to
unconditional sympathy while grand compassion indicates to feel others’
affection as one’s own. These are beyond animals’ abilities. In addition to
instincts and motor senses that animals have, humans have thinking, affection
and reason, which make human bodies really precious. Humans can use the
superficial consciousness accumulated by the six senses to pursue the Truth.
We can exercise reason to discriminate right from wrong, righteous from
wicked, real from fake, good from evil, then to understand that we have
choices. Animals, on the contrary, don’t have the privilege. VI.
What the Most Advanced
People (with Great Endowments) Pursue is to Know the Truth.
[back
to the top]
Human bodies are
precious for only humans have abilities of thinking and reason. Apart from
low-grade instinct of self-preservation (I cannot be harmed; I need to be
safe) and possessive instinct (this thing has to be mine; it’s already mine
and no one can take it away), humans also have desire for knowledge. To
high-level and high-quality people, desire for knowledge goes beyond
everything. Their life focus is neither whether there is food to eat, nor how
other people treat them, but that they have not figured out many things- what
is life? What is the Truth in the universe? What is the most genuine thing in
the universe? What is the only and eternally unchangeable existence? What is
the genuine Dharma? They would feel extremely worried and perplexed while
pursuing the answers. When answers are revealed, they know what the Truth is.
An ancient sage said, “Only strongly determined people can know the Truth.
Once having known the Truth, they can tell everything at a single glance.” In
other words, there are no more doubts, perplexity and unknowns of anything.
This is what the most advanced people, also referring to those with the
greatest endowments of the Dharma, pursue. VII.
Self Purification and
Elevation of the Mind are Essential to be Free from Worry.
[back
to the top] As for what I
said at the beginning, it is ordinary people’s mindset to get rid of worry.
Saints have their helplessness; for example, Sakyamuni
Buddha couldn’t change Devadatta and Jesus couldn’t
ask Judah not to betray Him. All human beings have many problems to solve. If
we want to improve lives and elevate minds, we need to change the status quo.
The initiation of change is not from the surrounding but from within- to
change mind and purify self. |