Master Geng Yun
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Master Geng Yun |
|
A
PATH TO BLISS [I.
The
original purpose of Buddha’s birth
to the world is for helping sentient beings be blissful
] [II.
Genuine bliss lies in the combination of peace,
harmony, blessing, status and longevity
][III.
A path to bliss is the way of the mean
][IV. The Conditions of Bliss ][V.
The Price of Bliss -
To do an act of kindness per day &To eliminate an error per week
]
[VI.
The source
of bVIliss - love and mercy ] [VII.
Items
of introspection – To remove the thieves of bliss
] [VIII.
The
Sublimation of Bliss – To
Attain Buddhahood ]
I.
The original purpose of Buddha’s birth to the world is for
helping sentient beings be blissful
However, some people are not satisfied with
these; therefore, festivity is added.
Besides having blessing, status and
longevity, they also need frequent festive events.
As a result, the combination of blessing,
status, longevity and festivity is formed. Furthermore, some other people
want to become richer to achieve the state of “five blessings arriving at
one’s door.”
Therefore, the combination of blessing,
status, longevity, festivity and wealth is formed.
In fact, all these are illusions, because
you are not qualified to possess them.
All
the existence in the grand universe results from the combination of
various conditions. Without having relevant conditions available, nothing
can exist.
For example, the smallest unit of a
matter is an atom.
When electrons, protons and neutrons are
split, nothing exists.
The water we drink is H2O.
If we separate H2O into two units of
hydrogen and one unit of oxygen, there would be no water.
If you want to possess blessing, status,
longevity, festivity and wealth, but fail to possess the conditions of
bliss, how can you attain them?
Therefore, we name it fake bliss.
What
we want is genuine bliss, which is well-founded with the concrete basis;
namely, peace, harmony, blessing, status and longevity.
Peace refers to having a clear conscience
without any guilt, which can be further sublimated to become An-Hsiang.
What is An-Hsiang?
It is exactly the present state of your
mind, which is fully aware, clear, and free from any illusions.
Besides
An-Hsiang, you also need “harmony”.
Even though you are rich, your husband is
a high-ranking official and you are a successful career woman, there are
endless quarrels between you couple and among siblings. Under these
circumstances, is there any bliss to attain?
That is why I say that An-Hsiang is
needed, and so is harmony.
I believe you all ever had the
experience. When your mind was in the state of An-Hsiang, your
interpersonal relationship was in its best situation.
Otherwise, your social relationship
turned deteriorating and worries also came one after another.
Where
are worries from?
They are simply from people.
As the Sixth Patriarch stated, “One
should always see one’s own faults, but not those of others.”
Indeed, one should constantly find one’s
own faults, but not find faults with others, thus can avoid being
disturbed by worries to maintain one’s harmonious mind.
Consequently, genuine bliss is well-founded with
the firm basis, namely the combination of peace, harmony, blessing, status
and longevity.
It is because blessing, status, and
longevity have already included festivity and fortune.
How could a blessed person be unhappy and
a man of status be short of wealth?
An emperor in Han Dynasty gave a man, named
Teng-Tung, a mountain of copper for him to make his own money, but
eventually the man was starved to death.
Obviously, money is not everything; it is
necessary but not sufficient.
If you pursue wealth by kidnapping or
blackmailing, you are pursuing death not wealth.
It is because no one can override the law
of causality of the grand universe.
In conclusion, genuine bliss must be
built upon An-Hsiang and harmony, and then one is likely to possess
blessing, status, and longevity.
1.
The principle of dealing with
people is to constantly mind mutual benefits
When dealing with people or making a business
deal, do not just seek your own benefits, you should consider others’
benefits before yours.
Otherwise you will create many enemies
and obstacles, and end up with having worries rather than benefits.
Meanwhile, you also have to be aware
whether your mutual benefits will cause any harm to a third party.
Only
when all these conditions meet, can you claim that you act in accordance
with the true mean and benefit everyone involved.
If you only care about your own interest,
you cannot survive long.
It
is because the earth does not exist simply for you alone.
Even Emperor Chin-Shih-Huang and Adolf
Hitler could not achieve their goals, how could you?
All unreasonable pursuits will result
in destruction; therefore, we should follow the mean.
2.
The requirement of handling things
is to achieve perfection and properness
What does “right and proper” mean?
Let’s take “archery” as an example, one
has to hit the bull’s eye, as “the Doctrine of the Mean” states, “No
deviation equates to hitting the target.”
Only by hitting the bull’s eye, can one
claim it as the best performance and unreplaceable.
Either deviating to the right or the
left, or aiming too high or too low, is not right, nor proper.
To apply this to handle things, one aims
to achieve perfection and properness.
No
matter what we engage ourselves in, we have to consider our own capacity
and how we can benefit our society and people.
After
having thought deliberately, one can start to make a realistic plan or
project, and can even abandon one’s own prejudices and biases to humbly
seek for others’ advices and support.
After
having run though all the brilliant ideas, people normally can come up
with an outcome which is much better than the previous one.
Although
human intelligence and capacity are the sources of the progress and
prosperity of a society, they may also lead to countless disasters because
of improper management.
For example,
the over development of transportation brings in air pollution; the
prosperity of the motor industry results in over-production of cars and
causes traffic congestion.
Excessive logging and arbitrary damage to
water reservoirs will also deter our future generations from enjoying
fresh air and clean water.
Such
an inhumane management should not be encouraged, even though these
professional managers are super capable and intelligent.
The development of human intelligence and
competence certainly can improve our livelihood in food, clothes, housing
and transportation, to accelerate the prosperity of our society.
However, if the development does not aim
to attain the permanent welfare and true happiness for human beings, this
kind of arbitrary management seems like killing a chicken simply for its
eggs. Therefore,
when one is handling things like these, one must thoroughly deliberate
them and try to make them right and proper.
3.
The concept of living is to
maintain its balance
Some people are obsessed with the pursuit of
nutrition, and are always choosing the most nutritious food to eat.
As
a result, they gain nothing but high blood pressure, and even contract
heart diseases and arterial sclerosis.
It is all because they deviate from the
mean, and thus lose the balance.
Moreover, an old comrade of mine stayed single
throughout his life.
He worked hard to save money and did not
care about his own health.
He died of malnutrition in his early 40s.
In our life, besides keeping balanced diets, we
also need to maintain a balance in many other aspects, such as to prevent
our mind from being overly spiritualistic or materialistic,
externally-oriented or internally-oriented, and not too dependent nor too
reliant.
Some people say they never ask for help,
and are fully independent.
Well, without running a textile factory,
they have clothes to wear; without farming, they have food to eat.
Therefore, everyone has to give his share
of contribution, and also gets his needs from others.
Truly, besides giving what we can, we
also need to get supports, which we fail to produce, from others.
That is the way of balance, namely, the
mean of the concept of living.
Some people only care about their internal
cultivation, and neglect the triviality of their realistic life.
For
example, Hippies of thirty years ago are no longer around nowadays,
because they did not follow the mean, and ended up with being abandoned by
the community at large.
The
reason of being eliminated was that they overly emphasized on their
internal cultivation and became anti-value and anti-tradition, and thus
interfered in other members of the society.
Once they checked into a hotel, none of
the other guests would check in because of their pungent smell, and
eventually no hotel would take them. As time went by, the community
gradually abandoned them, and they finally disappeared. There was also this kind of hippy Ch’an seen in China. It is truly sinful to say that Chi-Kung, the living Buddha (濟公活佛), acted slightly like a hippie. He did not care to fix his ripped pants. Upon hearing that Chi-Kung was a living Buddha, Empress Dowager Tzu-Hsi went to ask him what she would be in her next life, a male or female. He did not say anything but started to turn a somersault in front of her. Being enormously shocked, her guards wanted to behead him in public. Empress Dowager Tzu-Hsi stopped her guards and ordered to offer him gold instead, and said he already gave her a clear answer that she would be a male in her next life. In fact, Chi-Kung was a saint. Though he violated the common social practices at that time, he should not take the blame. The reason is that during his time, the practice of Shih-Shuang Ch’an was very popular, and it only advocated sitting meditation. It was needless to lecture the Dharma, to recite sutras, or to practice Ch’an. Therefore, people teased the methodology as a dry tree stem, which was too plain and dull. Consequently, Chi-Kung tried to act lively to show people that his conduct also counted as Ch’an practice. He intended to rectify the rigid Ch’an practice of that time. Han-Shan (寒山)
and Shih-Te (拾得)
were two Ch’an masters.
Though they also did not care about the
social rules, they did their practice in the deep mountains without
interfering with others.
They
stood for another type.
Now, living in the present society, we have to
attend to both aspects: one is our own practice, and the other is to
naturally blend in with the realistic life.
Only by doing so can we claim that our
concept of living meets the mean.
4.
The guideline of Ch’an practice is
to cut off both ends
Illusions are the worst enemy for Ch’an
practitioners.
They not only interfere with our
practice, but also shorten our life span.
According to the Old Testament, David,
one of the ancestors of Jesus Christ, lived for more than three hundred
years.
Being recorded in the Chinese history,
Peng-Tsu lived for more than eight hundred years. King Wen also lived for
more than one hundred years.
Why are modern people’s lives shortened?
It is because we always have too many
illusions, and thus deviate from the mean.
Ancient people "started working at sunrise,
rested at sunset, drank the water taken from the well they dug, and ate
the food grown on their own farm.
How
could they be conscious of the imperial power?"
In
those days, people's minds were very simple, and they did not have too
many illusions to disturb them.
Nowadays,
people are physiologically weaker, mainly because of being affected and
interfered by their own illusions.
For example, upon talking about Tainan’s
Tsung-Tsu (sticky rice stuffed with meat and mushrooms wrapped with lotus
leaves), and Kuan-tsai-ban (thick fried toast with stuffing and a lid like
a coffin) with friends, our mouths began watering.
Even though we did not eat them, we were
physiologically preparing for digesting them.
In addition, when you watch a movie that
you are not supposed to watch, you will naturally secret a large amount of
sex hormones.
All these will physically do you some
harm.
Why do newlyweds tend to catch colds?
According to the Chinese medical theory,
it is due to the shortage of the renal water.
In
other words, over consumption of one’s sex hormone causes the overall
imbalance of the hormone for other organs.
Hormone is secreting by infiltration to
supply the needs of various organs, not like tears or nasal mucus running
through glands.
In
fact, the basic essence of hormones is identical, but it supplies to
various needs.
As a result, if you consume too much of
your sex hormone, the hormone for your lungs may become insufficient, and
other organs will also be affected.
Therefore, the reason why newlyweds tend
to catch colds is because of their behaviour and thoughts.
If we cannot maintain a balance between
these two aspects, our Ch’an practice can never succeed.
In Buddha’s time, most practitioners had only
one meal a day to maintain their bodies in a half starving state, and so
did Buddha himself.
As they were ordained practitioners, they
could do so. Nevertheless,
we are practicing at home and should have reasonable nutrition.
We
just have to avoid spicy food; otherwise, we will violate the mean.
In fact, only when one’s mental and
physical conditions simultaneously stay smooth, can genuine practice be
undergone.
It is like when you feel headache or have
an ulcer on your leg, can you sit quietly to meditate?
No, you can’t.
You
must be physically and mentally sound to be able to meditate.
Moreover, to meditate does not mean to
just sit unconsciously, that is “mental dullness” and equates to
meditating as dry wood or dead ashes.
Mental dullness is a serious obstacle to
one’s meditation practice.
Upon meditating, you must be fully
conscious, aware, and thoughtless.
Do not think it is unlikely to achieve;
actually, it can be done easily, and now you have achieved it.
The key point is to cut off both ends.
Where do our illusions come from?
The senior always think about the past,
whereas young people tend to dream of a fascinating future.
As we all know, it also consumes energy
to think illusively.
Labour workers only need the supply of
carbohydrate food; however, brain workers need much more refined nutrients
like high protein to provide them with necessary needs.
If you constantly fantasise through day
and night, you are consuming your energy and wasting your vitality.
That is not right.
Being Ch’an practitioners, we should eliminate
our illusions.
According to Pure Land School, the
purpose of chanting “Amitabha” is to rid one’s illusions, which is an
expedient method.
As the saying goes, “To abandon an expedient
method, one can never find the ultimate goal.”
In
other words, besides methods, there is nothing we can claim as truth.
All the speeches about truth are nothing
but expedient methods, not truth itself.
In this bright and vast universe, though
we can see all sorts of magnificent phenomena, we simply cannot find any
truth.
Therefore, we should not pursue truth.
If we cannot help thinking there is
truth, then truth is life. Life is existence, and you are the existence.
There are many forms of life; some are moving,
some are about to move, and some others do not move.
In fact, we should not be deceived by our
own five senses to say that this microphone is lifeless, and the ash tray
is dead. They
are actually composed of atoms, which contain electrons, and electrons are
always active.
Realistically, how could we find
something motionless?
Therefore, the guideline of Ch’an
practice is very simple, and that is to cut off both ends: not to think of
the past, nor the future, and stay free at the present.
However,
you must be able to overcome loneliness.
During
your free time, if you try to keep yourself busy by writing a letter,
calling or chatting with someone, how could you do your practice?
Even Buddha came back, he could not save
you.
It is all because that you fail to
overcome loneliness, which is also a major weakness for a Ch’an
practitioner. In
fact, that “being sound and safe is a blessing,” should be the true motto
of Ch’an practice.
The legitimate way to deal with loneliness is to
live with responsibilities and duties; that is to do what you should do.
Especially
for a housewife, there are endless household chores to do; how could she
possibly be lonely?
As long as one can hold the guideline of
the practice to cut off both ends, one is practicing the mean.
We would like to talk about facts rather
than theories.
Once we cut off both ends, we become
An-Hsiang, realistic, and delightful, and naturally our mind and body can
go smooth, then our wisdom can also be naturally developed.
Ancient sages said, "What coming in through the
door cannot be counted as a family treasure".
Indeed, heirloom must be originated from
one’s family, not from any outside sources.
Here
is another ancient sages’ saying, "All the Dharma is originated from one's
mind; to seek it outwardly is likened to abandoning one's father to run
away.”
Do not go out to find any truth!
Only by cutting off both ends to maintain
the mean, can you instantly attain the grand liberation.
Try to see what you are having now?
There is nothing but emptiness.
The
"emptiness" is the space for creation, the body of truth, the reality of
the universe and the full development of life.
If you can always maintain this
mentality, it not only will not affect your working, but also can boost
the potential of your life.
With this focused mentality, no matter
what you are doing you can always concentrate your mind to spark your
wisdom.
On the contrary, if you indulge yourself
in making illusions, you will lose yourself in dreaming throughout day and
night.
To sum up, the way of the mean leads one to the
path of bliss.
When dealing with people, one constantly
tends to mutual benefits; when handling things, one aims to make it right
and proper; in one’s living, one maintains its balance; and on Ch’an
practice, one cuts off both ends.
By
passing through this route, you can attain bliss.
Otherwise, if you only care about
yourself, your interpersonal relations will become inharmonious, and
thinking too much will make you anxious and headachy.
Nothing in the world can exist solely by itself;
being sole equates to being non-existent.
The very basic unit of matter is an atom,
and even an atom is not sole.
When you remove all the conditions,
nothing is left.
Therefore, while pursuing bliss, you need
to be equipped with the necessary conditions.
Besides, you need to pay upfront, because
harvest comes after cultivation, and cultivation is the prerequisite for
harvest.
If you only expect to gain but not pay,
you can never gain anything in this world.
To take those robbers or kidnappers as an
example, they intend to take something from nothing, and end up with
paying off their lives.
The more resistant they are to make
efforts, the more miserable they will become.
Therefore, no matter what task or project
we are engaged in, we have to contribute either our time, strength, money,
or labour to complete it.
Nothing is free to get.
That no pain no gain is always the rule. Then, what are
the conditions required for our pursuit of bliss?
1. Faithfulness & Sincerity
Sincerity means to be sincere.
Many people are very honest, but their
arbitrary attitudes make their interpersonal relationship inharmonious.
To live blissfully, one must possess a
good interpersonal relationship.
If you are very hard to approach and can
not get along with others, you will get upset in every day.
Nevertheless, if you are always sincere,
even though sometimes you make mistakes, people can easily forgive you.
2. Humility & Tolerance
Tolerance means to be tolerant of the
imperfections of other people.
No one is perfect in this world.
The
sun has black spots on its surface, and a white jade also has little
cracks.
Obviously, there is nothing perfect in
the world; therefore, we have to be tolerant.
If you believe in causality, you would
even be more tolerant.
It is because mistakes equate to worries.
Whenever you make a wrong speech, you
immediately get yourself a trouble, and so will a misunderstanding of
someone’s speech.
Originally, someone was not talking about
you, but you were suspicious about his talking behind you.
You found yourself worries, didn’t you?
Even if it was true, why to be bothered?
A person may die by being killed, but
definitely will not die because of someone’s speech.
Just let it go!
Therefore, we must be tolerant.
As you can see, tolerant people mostly
are living blissfully; whereas, intolerant people are not.
To constantly be at cold war with others,
one eventually defeats no one but oneself.
3. Harmony
If you are not good at dealing with harmony, you
may just be too dynamic, and fail to be calm; eventually you will turn
yourself into an animal because of being overly dynamic.
In short, one should know how to balance
one’s calmness and dynamics, and keep the harmony between one’s mind and
body, which is very important.
4.
Diligence & Frugality
5. Self-discipline
In Buddhism, “karma” refers to the overall
combination of one’s thoughts and behaviours.
If you misbehave to create evil karma,
you are doomed to gain the evil effects.
Therefore, Bodhisattvas fear to make any
evil causes; whereas, ordinary people fear to face evil effects.
Bodhisattvas realize that evil brings
evil, thus are very cautious about initiating any causes.
Conversely, ordinary people enjoy doing
whatever they like, so that it is always too late for them to avoid the
fear of facing evil effects.
Therefore, one must be self-disciplined
to avoid from getting trouble.
In fact, self-discipline equates to
tolerance. In
most cases, things are not satisfactory as expected.
If you cannot be tolerant, you are very
likely to make quarrels with others.
Before you lose your temper, I suggest
you excuse yourself to a restroom to have a break.
I believe your anger will probably vanish
when you come back.
I used to be very intolerant in my youth,
and this was the method a senior friend of mine taught me. It worked truly
well!
6. Respect In the time of
Tsu-Dao-Sheng (竺道生),
when only half of Nirvana Sutras had been translated, he claimed that not
only sentient beings, but also everything in the objective world
(including plants and minerals), had Buddha nature.
His thoughts were transcendent, and he
advocated monism by claiming that Buddha nature equated to everything and
vice versa.
He was regarded as a heretic because his
statements were different from Buddha’s teaching.
Indeed, they concluded that all the
statements different from Buddha’s teaching were heretical.
This
exactly interprets the statement that “To literally interpret the sutras
will upset all the Buddhas of the three generations for being
misunderstood.”
In other words, the Buddhas of the past
and the present will get truly upset, if you literally explain Buddha’s
intentions.
Why is it so?
It is because He does not mean that!
Besides, another saying goes, “Even just
making one different interpretation, one preaches as a devil.”
Yes, it is because your interpretation
differs from what sutras state, and that makes you a devil. Being unable
to relieve himself from the upset, Tsu-Dao-Sheng went to Hu-Chiu Hill (虎坵山)
in Suchow to make a speech to a stone, and after his speech, he asked the
stone whether he was right. The stone nodded.
This is the origin of the legendary
Nodding Stone.
If you can go on a tour to Suchow, you
may have a look at the stone.
This story explains to us that
everything, including the moving and the non-moving, deserves our respect.
It is true that we should even have our
respect for a tiny teacup, and appreciate it for the service it provides.
When your mentality is in its best state,
you will discover that everything has its own life.
Some of you must have had this
experience.
When your mentality is at its best
condition, you can see all your household goods, such as thermo flasks,
television, and all the other objects, beaming a pale yellow light from
their own backs.
Namely, their inner light particles have
been revealed, but why doesn’t it happen to other’s household goods?
As the saying goes, “Birds of a feather
flock together.”
If your mental light is not sufficient
enough, you cannot make it happen.
When your mentality is sublimating, you
can activate objects to correspond to you.
Why can a Ch’an master transmit his mentality to
others?
It is the same reason, “Birds of a
feather flock together.”
As his original mind has emerged, so that
he can awaken yours.
If his original mind is asleep, he will
not have the power to awaken your sleeping mind.
Therefore, we must give our respect for
everyone, and learn to behave like Bodhisattva Sadaparibhuta, which is
also one of the conditions of bliss.
7.
Awe
I have a friend, if he is praised by his boss at
work, he would go easy with everything, and when he gets home, he will
hold his son up over his head, and even allows him to ride on his
shoulders.
However, if he gets upset at work and
feels stressed, he would slap in his son’s face when arriving at home.
This is a true fact.
Sometimes
I act like that, but not to that extent.
Everyone somehow has this kind of
weakness; nevertheless, some people expose it, but some do not.
Consequently, we must always be
respectful and sincere, and do not arbitrarily transfer our anger onto
others.
8. Caution
9. Introspection
10. Gratitude
If not because of the affiliation with our
parents, we will not be born to this world.
During the process of growth, we totally
rely on others’ supply of food, clothes, housing, and transportation, to
survive.
Besides, we take the unpayable love from
sunshine, air and water, the genuine love from our parents, the
cultivation and education from our nation, and the interactive assistance
and friendship from our community, which all deserve our acknowledgement,
gratitude, and reward, in the journey of our life.
According to the Buddhism, there are four
favours to return upwardly; namely, to appreciate the favours rendered by
the heaven and earth, our parents, our nation and all beings.
Why do we have to appreciate all beings?
It is because we cannot survive without
them.
Can you live like Robinson Crusoe?
That is why we need to be grateful to all
beings. By
being grateful, we will become kind and can keep bliss.
If you are unkind, mean, and ungrateful,
you will not be able to keep blessing, and will totally ruin it.
Why is law-abidingness relevant to the lecture
of bliss?
There are many people who violate law.
When one commits a crime and gets summons
from a court, one’s whole family will turn chaotic.
Citizens of an advanced country and
society always behave decently, and value law-abidingness.
Though
Taiwan is a small country with limited population, Singapore is even
smaller with only one tenth of our population.
However, it is one of the four dragons in
Asia, being small but strong, and its tourism industry is more prosperous
than ours.
Why is it so?
It is simply because everyone in
Singapore abides by law.
When the government announced, "Eating
chewing gum should be prohibited", everyone immediately followed it.
However, if our government makes the same
announcement, people may immediately walk on the streets to protest and
claim that eating chewing gum is the very basic freedom and accuse the
government of being anti-democratic.
Overflowing democracy equates to a catastrophe,
which is not good.
Law-abidingness
is more important.
The fairest is the justice of law, not
democracy.
What is the justice of law?
It means that everyone is equal in front
of it, and free within it.
Besides, beyond law, there is no
democracy, and above law, there is no authority.
Truly, no authority should go beyond law.
Who is the authority?
Law is, but not a president.
Democracy should not be addressed beyond
law; otherwise, it will become a catastrophe.Even those Western liberals
admit that a nation is a necessary evil.
Though it is disgusted, it is needed.
As the saying goes, "Without skin, where
is hair attached to?”
It is true that no individual can survive
without a nation.
In short, law-abidingness is the
prerequisite for being blissful.
If you violate law, you not only ruin
your own bliss, but also ruin that of others’.
When talking about the Dharma, we would like to
emphasize on planting causes, which exactly means to spread the Dharma.
The
true value of spreading the Dharma lies in offering sentient beings with
the Dharma, which is named the Giving of the Dharma (法布施).
Among all the offerings, the Giving of the
Dharma is most superb, because it can save one’s mind.
If you are writing for an Essay Bee, and stay
awake for a whole night, I believe you will be worn out next day.
However, if you write for Ch’an magazine;
though you do not sleep at all through a night, I assure that you still
can see a vibrant you in the mirror next day.
It is exactly as the statement Lao-Tzu
made, "The more one does for others, the more one possesses; the more one
offers to others, the more one gets in return."
To offer people with the Dharma, you can
attain the vitality of life.
Every Scout knows the practice of doing an act
of kindness per day; therefore, we should feel ashamed if we cannot do it.
Some people say it is very hard for them
to practice it.
Why?
It is because their income is limited,
and they do not have spare money to do good deeds.
However, according to the Sixth Patriarch
Platform Sutra, ethical merits do not result from donating money.
Though being rich is favourable, one
still can create ethical merits by not spending any money.
How to do an act of kindness every day?
We have many female audiences here, if
you can take a basket with you to go to market like what women did 30
years ago to avoid using any plastic bags, you are doing an act of
kindness per day.
Ladies and Gentlemen, you know we owe a
great apology to Heaven and earth!
The earth has been more polluted in the
past five years than in the past 5000 years.
If the pollution keeps going, we will be
losing space for our survival.
In other words, we are digging our own
graves. Maybe
you would think that using plastic bags is no big deal.
However, the fact is when they are buried
underground; they will not be decomposed in many years, so that plants
cannot grow deep and soil turns infertile.
Besides, if they are heated by hot
weather, they will release toxins.
Consequently, it is absolutely doable for
everyone to do an act of kindness every day.
In fact, we can do kind acts at any time.
For example, when you are taking a bus,
you can always give your seat to a senior, and I think people of my age
are qualified for that.
I do not mean to ask you for a seat, just
try to tell you that everyone can easily do an act of kindness in a day.
I have recently seen two reports on television.
One is that there was an old man who had
been very sick.
His children all had successful careers,
so he actually did not have to work for a living.
He felt so bored that he decided to fix
and repair the damaged tracks in the mountain every day.
After one year, he became much fitter and
all his chronic diseases were completely gone.
Moreover, he and the other seniors
together built a shelter at the hilltop, and took the mountain spring to
make “the senior’s tea” to drink in their leisure time, which was healthy
and joyful. He
did the repair every day, and turned to be healthier and healthier.
If he changed his life style, and did
nothing but sleeping, he might have already died.
If
one is always inactive, sooner or later he may get sick.
To
witness the senior, we could see him make efforts and attain his health,
joy, and friendship.
What a fruitful harvest!
We must do a kind act every day, and it is very
important for us to practice it in the field of environmental protection.
Ladies and gentlemen, let’s look at our
current environment!
There is trash everywhere, and our
country has almost become the kingdom of rubbish.
The other report was about an old man going to
mountains every day to collect all the rubbish, empty cans, containers,
etc., left behind by people who had barbecue there.
The whole area had been seriously
jeopardized, so that the old man brought a bag to collect the rubbish.
He did not mean to show off his kind act,
just thought that everyone should contribute something beneficial to the
society and the public.
Such kind of act does not cost anything;
therefore, everyone surely can do an act of kindness every day.
Then, let’s move on to the elimination of one’s
error per week; indeed, we should get rid of a minor error every week.
Maybe you will say that you do not have
any error.
Well, then, you are a saint, and stop
calling me “teacher”; instead, you are my teacher. (Loud laughter)
If people are free of any errors, they
are virtually Buddha.
If we can do kind acts at least one per
day, it would be good.
But two will be better, and three will be
marvellous. Yes,
the more is the better.
Furthermore,
if we can do them with the same attitude addressed in the saying of "Doing
kind acts is not for earning personal credits, nor for gaining personal
merits;" then, the ethical merits generated will become even more
overwhelming and countless.
Nevertheless,
it is truly hard to get rid of one’s errors!
One of my kids always picked his nose when he
had nothing to do.
I told him not to do it by explaining
that picking noses with one’s finger could scratch the skin to allow
bacteria coming through capillaries to easily cause sinusitis.
Instead, I suggested that he could wipe
his nose with cotton bud dipped with a little bit of hydrogen peroxide.
Then, I asked him whether he could stop
doing it, and he said yes.
After more than a month later, I asked
him the same question.
Though he answered yes, he was
unconsciously picking his nose again.
Apparently,
it is truly difficult for people to get rid of their errors.
Before starting to rectify ourselves, we should
make a plan in advance and follow the plan to gradually get rid of all our
errors; we then can live with bliss.
It is true that no one can take something
from nothing. For
example, when you go to a supermarket to buy something, you need to pay
before taking it home; otherwise, you are committing a crime.
Therefore, only by doing a kind act per
day and eliminating an error per week, can one lead a sound and delightful
life.
To witness those two seniors, who either
repairing mountain tracks or picking up dumped trash, we should take them
as our role models.
Realistically, what they did is the
practice of Bodhisattva.
Many people are religiously biased.
Some Buddhists try to defame other
religions, and vice versa.
It is all wrong.
It
is acceptable for religious clergymen to behave so, because they need to
defend their profession.
Nevertheless, we cannot do so.
As
both genuine religions and arts are man’s common assets, and there should
not be any biases between each other or among one another.
On television, I saw a cosmetic surgeon
specialised in treating children’s cleft lips.
Though he is also a priest, in my eyes,
he is a living Bodhisattva.
Some people criticize that the Old Testament is
quite unscientific and absurd by asserting that human beings are born with
sins, the original sins.
Unfortunately, it is very true that human
beings do carry with their original sins.
It is because human beings can think, and
thus have likes and dislikes, which arouse their self-attachment to
appear.
One’s self-attachment breeds one’s
possessive desire, and one’s dominant desire naturally comes with one’s
possessive desire.
Consequently, one’s karma starts to be
formed, and that is the origin of sins!
Why is it called “the original sin”?
Adam and Eve lived happily in the Garden
of Eden for aeons of time without feeling anything wrong with their
nudity.
After having eaten the forbidden fruit,
they suddenly discovered the differences between men and women, and
started feeling embarrassed by being nude.
This problem did not ever exist until
they had eaten the forbidden fruit to bring about the differential mind.
When the differential mind appears,
dualistic thoughts simultaneously arrive to generate contradictions.
Being conscious of the difference
between you and me, people start to develop the desire of possession. Do you
think that children carry an original sin?
Yes, they do.
As soon as they become conscious, they
start to misbehave.
When my son was three years old, he got
bored of the toy I bought him and left it under his bed.
I asked him whether he still wanted to
play with it, he told me to throw it away because he got bored of it.
A
few days later, when a little boy from next door came to visit, and played
with his toy, he immediately hit the little boy, and said, “Don’t touch
it, it is mine!”
Simply
looking at this incident, we realize that human beings are born with
original sins.
Next to talk about is the source of bliss.
While thinking of a problem, we are
consuming our energy; having completed a task, we have also consumed our
energy; therefore, to attain bliss, we surely must find its source.
To take a car for example, when a car
runs out of petrol, it is even less useful than an oxcart.
Well, what is the source of bliss?
It is love and mercy.
Nowadays, there are countless incidents of
murder, homicide, kidnapping, blackmail, embezzlement, crooks, hostile
couples, and broken families, happening all over the world, which are all
due to lack of love.
Love
means sacrifice, also means to burn oneself for lighting up others, and is
the origin of morality.
Without
love, there is no creation, no morality, and no life.
Well, how to interpret it?
Throughout the history of all creatures, the
largest and most vicious animal is the dinosaur.
They were huge and powerful, with big
appetites, but now they are extinct species.
Some say they became extinct because of
the Ice Age, but that is not entirely correct.
As we know that many other animals and
plants lived through the same time as them, they remain survived.
Some others say meteors brought about
their extinction, which is not true, either.
Human beings are much weaker than
dinosaurs. If
human beings could survive, why couldn’t they?
It was simply because dinosaurs were lack
of love.
When being starved and failing to find
food, they would even eat their own babies for survival.
Due to the lack of the very foundational
love, no wonder they became extinct.
Love is life.
The essential reason for all living
beings to sustain their lives is because of love.
You can see how hostile and severe of the
contamination along the Tan-shui River have become; however, still many
aquatic birds come to hatch their eggs and feed their young there.
That is also due to love.
Love is the dynamics and root of life, and also
is our human nature.
Couples’ love is the merge of two lives,
rather than the worldly love-making, which is a human instinct, not love.
Are human instincts sinful?
No, they are not!
We are born with them.
However, if you violate the mean, you may
go wrong.
Why is love the origin of life?
If mother birds do not love chicks, and
tigers are cruel enough to eat their own cubs, both of them may have
become extinct by now.
Love is also the origin of morality.
According to “The Doctrine of the Mean” (中庸),
"The way of a gentleman originates from the formation of husband and
wife".
Then, how to define a gentleman?
A gentleman refers to a person who has
his own self-respect and dignity, and his morality starts from the
formation of husband and wife.
Having
gone from the stage of primitiveness to the stage of civilization and from
a chaotic state to a disciplined society, the journey of human evolution
was also originated from the formation of husband and wife.
Before
that, people only knew their mother but not their father.
In such a social setting, it was unlikely
to address the issue of a loving father and his filial son, and a caring
elder brother and his respectful younger one.
It only occurred when the love between
couples was established.
Since then, we have had loving fathers
and filial sons; caring elder brothers and respectful younger ones.
Moreover, there has been love between fathers and sons, and obligations
between couples.
Consequently, love is the origin of
morality.
The
main guidelines of morality are intelligence, benevolence and courage.
Human
intelligence results from love.
As you know, Thomas Edison had only two
years of private lessons and did not receive any formal education.
Then, where did he get his intelligence?
It all came from his love for
researching. One
day while doing research on a train, he carelessly dropped some yellow
phosphorus on the floor, and burned the floor.
In a fit of rage, the conductor slapped
in his face and made him deaf on one ear; even so, he continued his
research.
He was not forced to do his research, nor
for making money, but simply enjoyed doing his research to develop his
intelligence. As
a result, he became a great inventor, and invented more than 1300 items.
The
light bulbs we are using, the movies we are watching, and the stereo we
are listening, all come from his inventions.
Surely, his original inventions were
primitive, but many improvements had been made to bring about their modern
forms.
For example, he used carbon as filament
for the bulbs he invented, and later on the carbon was replaced with
tungsten. Even
though he did not personally invent fluorescent lamps, if not because he
invented the electric bulb with carbon as filament, we may never have had
fluorescent lamps to use.
For Edison, he was truly interested in
working on his invention; therefore, working itself was a great joy to
him.
Then, let’s have a look at James Watt!
When he was doing experiments, he often
forgot to eat and sleep.
One night, his family brought him two
eggs and left them beside a kerosene stove, and told him if he felt hungry
during the night, he could cook the eggs with the stove.
In the morning, he felt hungry and wanted
to take the eggs out of the stove to eat, but he could only find his own
pocket watch, not eggs, in the stove.
Confucius said, "Persisting in one’s work
makes one forget to eat, too happy to worry, and even unconscious of one’s
ageing.” Therefore,
for a person who is fully focusing on his work, his working equates to his
enjoyment.
By reading
Ju-Lin-Wai-Shih (儒林外史:
Legends of Confucians), we know that Wang-Mien’s lotus paintings could
even attract bees and butterflies.
Originally,
he was a shepherd boy, but due to his great passion for lotus, he became a
great artist.
He observed the purity of the rain-washed
lotus and the crystal raindrops rolling over the lotus leaves, which made
him falling deeply in love with lotus and even dreamed of it.
Therefore, first he started using sticks
to paint lotus flowers on the ground.
Later he used the very limited money
earned from looking after cattle to buy pigments and paper for painting
them. Eventually
he became a great painter.
This is another successful example
telling us that intelligence can be developed because of love. Chang Tai-Yan
(章太炎),
a great contemporary scholar of Chinese classics, often studied through
the night without any sleep.
He claimed that he could attain the
vitality of life simply by studying.
One day, he studied from night to dawn.
His elder sister brought him a plate of
refined sugar and a plate of Chinese New Year's sticky cake.
He told his sister to leave them on his
desk, and he would eat it while reading.
By the time his elder sister came back to
collect the plates, she was shocked to see his mouth and lips be smudged
black.
Was he poisoned by the food?
Upon having a closer look, she found the
plate of sugar was completely untouched.
Chang had finished all the cake by
dipping it into the black ink.
This exactly proves that one is
absolutely single-minded when one has completely immersed oneself in work.
Many academics think that the Chinese sincerity
denotes Confucius’ mental methodology, which is quite true.
What is sincerity?
It is the combination of knowledge,
emotion and will.
That to inject all one’s love into one’s
true reason and to remain steadfast will bring one a strong will.
The will generated from one’s true love
is overwhelmingly powerful, even more powerful than that from Yoga
practice. According to the Western academic, knowledge, emotion and will are separated, but the Chinese academic do not think so. The combination of them denotes sincerity, and its dynamic origin is love - genuine and passionate love. By western interpretation, philosophy means the love of wisdom. Genuine love is the origin of our bliss, which can make us develop the true value and significance of life to dedicate ourselves to our society and community. Love itself is a kind of morality and courage. Love truly can make a timid person brave.
I ever had a colleague, who was my roommate.
He was so timid that he dared not get
into the room by himself.
At that time, there was no electric light
but only oil lamps.
He
was so afraid of ghosts that he dared not enter the dark room alone.
After a while, he made an acquaintance of
a girl.
Every time when he had a date with her,
he had to go through a public cemetery yard.
As long as his girl friend set a time, he
could always arrive on time.
At that time, people were used to dating
secretly, but not like today’s outing.
In order to avoid all sorts of gossips,
people always dated secretly.
Therefore, he often dated at night, and
came home around the midnight.
Every time, he had to go through the
cemetery yard, and I asked him whether he was afraid of ghosts.
He replied, "What ghosts?" "Where are
ghosts?" (Loud
laughter)
Consequently, love can also breed
courage. Everybody
knows Huang-Hsiang’s story about
fighting off a tiger, which is
one of the famous twenty-four classic anecdotes of filial piety.
When little Huang Shiang was naughty and
slept late, his mother always scared him by saying, “A tiger is coming!”
Then, he would immediately hide himself
in the comforter and quickly fell into sleep.
Truly, he was afraid of tigers.
One day, his father took him to mountains
to collect some firewood; suddenly, a tiger came to bite on his father and
tried to take him away.
Huang Shiang, who was only eight years
old, took an axe, chased after the tiger and chopped on its butt.
The tiger dropped his father and ran away
because of this sudden and unexpected attack.
His neighbours asked him how he could
resist his fear to attack the tiger.
He replied it was all for loving his
father, because he could not allow his father to be taken away by the
tiger.
Once again, love spells courage.
Christianity claims that God loves all beings,
Jesus said to love your enemies, and Buddhism teaches to equally treat
people whom you love or hate.
You
should love both your enemies and benefactors.
Therefore,
love is the origin of our bliss.
A family without love is incomplete and
cold.
To love whoever you should, and do not
mind how they behave, or if they meet your standard.
Generally, people tend to criticize
others about their faults; however, when you look at yourself, have you
ever pleased anyone?
If,
during your whole life, you hardly please anyone, how could you ask others
to meet your standard?
It is a tyrannical thought, and is wrong.
If the offer of one’s filial piety is
subject to how one’s parent behave, then Shun (舜)
in the ancient time would not have been so filial to his father Ku-Sou (瞽叟).
Shun's filial piety was truly authentic.
The reason why a person being filial is for
loving his parents, and the reason why a person being benign is for loving
his children; loving knowledge makes one wise, and for protecting one’s
love makes one brave.
Only
when one has fully realized what true love is, can one respect and value
oneself.
Nothing else but love can last, lead to
harmony, and develop the potential of one’s life and create the value of
one’s life.
Why to lecture about kindness and compassion?
They are the sublimation of love. Love is
conditional, hierarchical, and has its own process.
I love my own country before loving
others’, and love my own parents before loving others’ parents.
This is so-called, "To care for our own
elders and then to extend our care to others’ elders."
Yang-Chu (楊朱)
advocated egoism.
It
appears that Yang-Chu only cared about himself rather than about others,
his community, or even the emperor.
In our modern language, he respected
neither his country nor the government.
In fact, a country would be prosperous
and strong if everyone were like Yang-Chu.
He said, "I would not even pluck out a
single hair of mine to benefit the world"; however, his following remark
was, "I would not take anything from the wealth of the world even they
have been offered in front of me.”
Yes, he would not take anything from
others; he advocated an extreme individualism.
If everybody can take good care of
himself, the country will become strong and prosperous.
Why?
It is because there will be neither
rubbish nor burden for a society, and a country surely will prosper.
Buddha’s love lies in kindness and compassion.
What is kindness?
It is to offer all beings joy.
Then, what is compassion?
It is to remove all beings’ suffering,
and give them joy, happiness, and bliss.
Over all, that is what kindness and
compassion mean. The grand
kindness of Bodhisattva Guan-Yin (觀音菩薩)
is absolutely unconditional.
She feels sympathy for everyone who is
suffering.
It does not matter whether you are her
acquaintance or not; her sympathy is genuine. What does her
“shared compassion”(同體大悲)
mean?
It
means that when you are having an ulcer, she feels like having one
herself, too.
This is the “shared compassion.”
People like
her can attain not only bliss, but also the eternity of life. Bodhisattva
Guan-Yin is virtually omnipresent; her
Dharma body is everywhere in the universe.
From China to Southeast Asia, She is
worshipped almost in every country.
We can even claim that she has been
worshipped all over the world.
We realize that love is the momentum of bliss.
If
a family is full of love, it must be warm, harmonious and complete.
If
a society is full of love, there will be no homicide, kidnapping, and
blackmail.
Surely, a society will become harmonious
and warm.
If every member of a society is devoted
to giving love, the society will become a paradise and the country can be
fairly claimed as an advanced one.
Finally, let’s talk about the thieves of bliss,
which are the items of introspection we just mentioned.
Well, what to introspect about?
It is about the thieves of bliss.
Why do we name them the thieves of bliss?
It is because these elements can
definitely jeopardize our health, interpersonal relationship,
moral conscience, and bliss; therefore,
we name them as is.
Inductively speaking, what are they?
1. Falsehood
2. Folly & Superstition
Sometime ago when the lottery game of Ta-chia-Le
was popular, many statues of Bodhisattva were in trouble.
People
suddenly flocked to them to pray for lucky numbers to bet on.
When
the number offered was not right, they went to chop off the ears or hands
of those statues to release their disappointment and anger.
What a stroke of bad luck for those
Bodhisattvas who had not offended anyone!
That was superstition. It is totally
against the law of the universe when people only ask for rewards but
without making any efforts, for harvest with no cultivation, and for gain
with no pain.
The governor of the grand universe, no matter
what we name him, either God or Buddha, abides by the law of causality.
People should not be superstitious, and
only ask for blessings without sowing any good seeds.
Buddha has neither privilege, nor
hegemony, and simply emphasizes the law of causality.
Therefore, when you are equipped with the
condition of bliss, you surely will be blissful even you do not believe in
Buddha.
However, if you do not believe in Buddha,
you can never be equipped with the condition of bliss.
It
is because the condition of bliss virtually equates to Dharma.
The methodology of Buddhahood taught by
the Buddha is not a truth, but a method.
In fact, nothing in the universe can be
claimed as truth.
It is all about a method.
Even we just talked a lot; we talked
nothing about a truth, at most just a method.
Next to talk about is folly.
Folly is a crime and ignorance.
Primordial ignorance stated in the
Buddhist scriptures exactly means folly.
Human beings start making mistakes since
they are born.
It is correct to say that life is a
journey of exploration.
It is because man does not know what is
right or wrong from the beginning of their birth, and it takes time for
them to explore.
Even
though human history has been developing over several thousands of years,
we are still exploring, and fail to get rid of folly.
Why is folly a crime?
Many years ago, I remember an incident
happened in my village.
A high voltage wire fell on the ground
because of a typhoon passing by.
A mother saw it and asked her son to pick
it up and take it home as a clothing line.
As soon as the boy touched the wire, he
was immediately electrocuted to death. His mother rushed to pull him, and
also got killed immediately.
Obviously, folly can kill people.
Another example is about an old lady and her
grandson. It
occurred about 30 years ago.
The lady was in her late 70s, and kept
complaining about her unfilial son, a general in his 50s, and her
daughter-in-law, a professor in her 40s, for not giving her a grandson.
At that time, medicine was not fully
developed yet; therefore, she visited as many temples as possible to pray
for a grandson.
Eventually
her daughter-in-law was pregnant, and gave birth to a baby boy, which
delighted all of them.
However, her grandson died at the age of
two because of getting sick.
The old lady blamed her daughter-in-law
for working to have neglected her grandson.
Her
daughter-in-law could only tolerate all the blame until one day the
family’s nanny could not help but tell the truth that the real cause of
the death was the old lady.
The hospital told the general that his
son was afflicted with tuberculosis.
Eventually the truth was disclosed.
Due
to the deep love of her grandson, the old lady always chewed and minced
biscuits or cakes in her own mouth, then fed her grandson.
Unfortunately, she had tuberculosis, and
made her grandson infected and killed.
Upon
having learned the truth, she went back home and hanged herself, because
she was deeply ashamed, remorseful and embarrassed.
This old lady did not kill her own
grandson, it was folly that made the whole family miserable with despair
and caused the death of a lovely baby.
Therefore,
man should not be foolish and superstitious.
Nowadays, there are still cannibals in some
backward tribes, which is a display of folly.
In addition, some people pray to God for
rain, which is also a foolish and superstitious act.
When I served in the army, a soldier came back
from his leave with a blind eye.
It was because his eyes got infected, and
his mother sprayed the incense ash obtained from a temple onto his eyes to
make him blind.
His mother truly had good intention to do
so.
She used to suffer from a stomach pain
and incense ash did cure her illness.
Indeed, it is very scientific to have the
result.
Since his mother’s stomach pain was
caused by excessive acid, and the attribute of incense ash is alkaline, no
wonder it could neutralise her excessive stomach acid.
After taking two doses, she was fully
recovered.
Unfortunately, she did not know that
incense ash could not be put in one’s eyes.
Luckily,
doctors cured one of his eyes by having his cornea transplanted.
Consequently, we realize that folly and
superstition can jeopardize bliss most.
In the pursuit of bliss, we must get rid
of both.
It is virtually impossible that you will
fail to attain blessed merits, if you follow the teaching of the Buddhist
scriptures.
However, you must realistically practice
the Buddha’s teaching; to just kowtow and pray is simply useless.
3. Stinginess
4. Reliance
If he is not qualified for the position, even he
has already got it; eventually, he is going to lose it.
Consequently, we should realistically
behave and work, and do not try to build connection with those powerful
authorities or relatives!
Once they lose their power, you will lose
your stand, too.
Hence, simply relying on others will
jeopardize our bliss.
5. Laziness
6. Fear
A student who learned sitting meditation told
me, “Master, whenever I close my eyes, I am afraid of seeing ghosts.”
I replied, “Don’t be afraid of ghosts.
Besides you, there is nothing else.
You ARE the ghost!”
(Loud
laughter)
In fact, ghosts fear man.
If
you are righteous, harmless, and do not hold any hatred for them, they
will not come to you.
If
you are a Ch’an practitioner, you are surrounded by a magnetic field that
radiates energy.
You can have a look at the pictures of
Jesus Christ, Virgin Mary or Bodhisattvas, and you can find a halo
surrounding them, that is the energy.
Recently,
Chi-kong has been popular, and its practitioners also emphasize its energy
and magnetic field, and claim that the energy is sufficient to protect
you.
Taoism also refers it as a kind of mighty
air that can protect you.
Therefore, don’t be afraid!
For a righteous and guiltless person,
there is nothing to fear.
I am not saying that only Bodhisattvas can
radiate; in fact, everything can radiate.
It is just a matter whether you can see
it or not.
When your mentality is sound, you can see
both your thermo flask and bonsai radiate.
In fact, it is your own radiance
projecting on them.
Therefore, do not look down upon
yourself. It
is true that you can save people and give people An-Hsiang.
An-Hsiang is bliss.
Fear makes life decay, whereas An-Hsiang
makes life flourish.
In the morning, when your mentality is
good, you are a Bodhisattva.
However,
in the afternoon, when your mentality turns foul, you immediately become a
devil.
It is transmigration, also spells the
transformation of life and death.
If
you can constantly maintain the radiance of the true nature, you are
identical to Buddha.
Therefore, we must get rid of fear.
Fear can only torture and press people.
Though we do not emphasise that one’s
life, death, and blessings, are all destined, we think that longevity is
achievable only if one can take good care of oneself and keep one’s mind
and body balanced.
Don’t be afraid.
A righteous person will never be killed
by a ghost.
It is said that some evil people were
chased by ghosts for their lives.
In fact, we do not know whether it is
true.
However, at least it must be true that
they were tortured by their own conscience. Therefore we should free
ourselves from fear and do not live in the shadow of fear.
7. Vanity
When I just came to Taiwan, I rented a house
from a civilian at the low cost of 18 kilograms of rice per month.
The rental of rice already made my
landlord very happy.
The reason was that at that time most
people could only afford to eat dried or shredded yam as their main meals.
However, it wasn’t long before he went
bankrupt as a victim of usury. Why did he borrow money at high interest
rates?
It was because he needed to spend a lot
of money on lavishly feasting his relatives and friends for religious
festivals.
It was all for satisfying his personal
vanity; therefore, he had to pay for the usury.
Many people have the same weakness.
Though the wardrobe has been truly full,
one will still buy new clothes for a wedding next week.
Yes, there is no more space left in the
wardrobe, and the new clothes will go out of fashion next year, one still
insists on getting a new one.
It is vanity.
In order to satisfy one’s vanity, one
always spends more than one can afford, and brings oneself poverty.
Therefore, vanity is not admirable at
all.
The Doctrine of Mean states, "If one is wealthy,
one should act as is.
If
one is poor, one should act as is. If one is barbarous, one should act as
is."
Indeed, whatever you do, never go beyond
your capacity or status; otherwise your bliss will surely be ruined.
The family I just talked about could have
lived a balanced life financially.
Nevertheless, due to the application of
the usury for spending on religious festivals, they had to worry about
paying off their debts every day.
Since the interest was so high that all
their annual earnings could only be sufficient to pay for the interest.
Obviously, their bliss was totally
jeopardized.
In fact, I have quite a few friends, who were
usurers.
I tried to persuade them not to do the
business, and thankfully, they all took my advice.
To make money by unrighteous ways will
also ruin one’s bliss.
A friend of mine from the city of Hua-lien
argued with me about my lecture on the law of causality.
He agreed that wrong speech could cause
trouble, because he had proved it.
However, he did not believe that evil
would be recompensed with evil.
He said someone who was seriously corrupt
lived in a grand mansion; whereas, he behaved himself so well, but
struggled to make ends meet.
I said to him, “Alright, I am wrong and I
owe you an apology.
I now bow to you.
If it’s not enough, I can also kowtow to
you.”
Ladies and gentlemen, please do not ever
try to convince others of your thoughts.
Originally, it does not matter whose idea
is better.
However, when you intend to convince
someone of some ideas, he would start to become rebellious.
Moreover, do not even try to convince
your own kids, which may harm your relationship.
Therefore, I apologised to my friend and
told him never to listen to me again.
A week later, he came back to knock at my door
again saying that he was very uncomfortable for a whole week, and felt
like being pressed by a rock on his chest.
He could not find a reason and thought it
could be my bowing to him that made him suffering.
Then, he said to me, “Master, please sit
still, and allow me to do three kowtows to you.
If you accept, I will leave right after
my kowtow; otherwise, I will stay till you say yes….”
I could tell his sincerity, so I accepted his
kowtow. Then I said to him, “I do not make any illusive remarks that have
not been verified.
You can go to visit a corrupt official’s
house, and when you step into the house, you will feel an air of stuffy
pressure in the house.
Even though the house is luxuriously
decorated, you do not enjoy staying inside and cannot help running out of
it.
Though the lighting system has been fully
established, the house still looks dim, dark, and eye-hurting.
Moreover, though the house owner is rich,
his son must behave differently in front of him, and behind his back.
It is called [pretending submission
versus realistic disobedience.]
You can try to prove what I said to find
out it is true or not.
If it is not, you can come back to slap
in my face.”
Not long thereafter, he came back to see
me again, saying that I was absolutely right.
He said that sitting in his friend’s
house was like sitting on a bed of thorns, and he also felt the air of the
stuffy pressure which made the room similar to a room of carbon dioxide
(laughter).
Why did I say so?
It is exactly the retribution of
causality.
Some retribution are visible, some are
not.
Before an invisible retribution comes,
you will feel very uncomfortable for no reason.
Even just sitting alone at home, you feel
restless.
When it happens to you like this, you
must start introspecting yourself.
Why
does retribution appear?
It is all because evil surely is
recompensed with evil.
If you practice An-Hsiang Ch’an well, your
friends will enjoy staying in your house and have no intention to leave.
They cannot describe how good your house
is, but simply feel comfortable and warm there.
Man’s mind can transform everything, as
Buddhist Sutras claim, "When a person’s mind can transform things, he
equates to Tathagata Buddha".
If the root of bliss is sown in your
mind, you definitely can live with An-Hsiang, and be blissful.
However, if you live with vanity, your
life will surely be miserable.
People should not insist on keeping their pride.
When you make a mistake, just confess it!
Never
go beyond your own capacity.
It is needless to say that I want to
starve myself today for saving the money to sponsor you tomorrow, which is
against the mean.
Let me restate that the essence of the mean is
to benefit both others and oneself, and have no one else harmed.
When doing business with the others, we
must be sure that the deal is beneficial to both sides, and no one else is
disadvantaged because of our deal.
That is the mean of a decent person.
One does not need vanity, or religious
festivals.
What can one gain from those religious
festivals?
It is nothing but the high interest to
gain. Of course, some people do make a fortune by gambling at Ta-chia-Le;
however, such a fortune must be followed by a misfortune.
Why?
It is simply because they get their lucky
numbers from demons, and demons are very hard to deal with.
If
demons are slightly annoyed, they must come to take your lives.
Broadly speaking, demons are referred to people
who are tortured by their own mistakes; whereas, narrowly speaking, they
are evil spirits – very vicious ones.
It is true that there are evil spirits;
however, ladies and gentlemen, is it possible that you will be approached
by them?
No, you will never have the chance.
Referring to the saying of “birds of a
feather flock together”, you are very different from them.
Even you wish to get close to them, they
would not take it.
To be your friends will make them very
uncomfortable.
You seem like a shiny sun constantly
radiating warmth, which makes them unbearable and melting.
It goes without saying that the safest
way to bust demons is to constantly maintain An-Hsiang in one’s mind.
8. Dissatisfaction
If you have too much dissatisfaction to result
in a poor interpersonal relationship, you will lead a miserable life.
People who do not have good interpersonal
relationship are mostly used to complaining constantly.
They are always complaining about their
children as well as their husbands.
For example, when a husband came home
after a long day of tiring work and enjoyed eating his dinner, his wife
started criticising on the hoggish sound he made while eating.
How could he go on to enjoy the meal?
In
fact, her husband simply enjoyed the great dishes she cooked.
Nevertheless, she could not stand the
noise he made, and even criticised him eating like a pig.
This is an act of releasing one’s emotion
of dissatisfaction, and it will harm people’s feeling.
In fact, the great time of being happy is right
now, the perfect location of being happy is exactly where you are, and the
effective method of getting happiness is to make others happy, which is
the true essence of happiness.
If you cannot make others happy; namely,
you are not willing to offer others happiness, how can you attain
happiness?
Is it possible that you make everyone
annoyed and simply enjoy your own solitary joy?
My answer definitely is “no.”
Therefore, you need to contribute more,
and try to work harder to make people happy; then, you can become happy.
It is man’s natural reflex.
Someone asked me where the strength of An-Hsiang
Ch’an lies. I told him not to mention about those superb achievements,
such as transforming an ordinary person to a saint, or attaining one’s
enlightenment to become a Buddha.
I only want to claim that an An-Hsiang
Ch’an practitioner can attain two kinds of strength: one is the strength
of amiability, which can improve your interpersonal relationship, and the
other is the strength of assimilation.
When you achieve a successful practice
and well maintain your An-Hsiang, you can transmit it to people who are
close to you, and make them unwilling to leave your place, which exactly
displays the strength of assimilation.
It is worth being congratulated, if you
attain both.
However, if your mind is filled with
dissatisfaction, there is no way to attain them.
9. Suspicion
There is a high marble-made tower near Calcutta
of India, and it was built about 3000 years ago in memory of a dog.
It was said that this tower was
constructed by a royal couple.
The husband was a prince and the wife was
a princess, and they had a very faithful dog.
One day, the couple went hunting and left
the dog to look after their son at home. Upon returning home, they found
their son disappeared and the dog’s mouth was full of blood.
They thought that their dog might have
eaten their son because of hunger.
They thought, “Yes, it must be our late
return to make the starving dog eat our boy as its snack!”
They got so furious as to kill their dog.
The dying dog was shedding tears on the
ground, and still wagging its tail to show its affection for them even
before its last breath.
Not long after, suddenly, their son
crawled out from the underneath of his own bed, and told his parents that
he was so frightened because of the appearance of a huge python.
They asked him where it was.
He said that their dog had killed the
python in the back yard.
Finally, they realized that the blood in
the dog’s month was the python’s, and their son was hiding underneath his
own bed.
They felt incredibly sad and remorseful
for what they had done to the dog.
Therefore,
they built the tower which was above the average height to be dedicated to
the dog, and they also hired venerable monks to recite sutras to offer the
merits to the dog.
Nevertheless, it was unlikely to relieve
them from regrets.
Consequently, suspicion is truly a very vicious
weakness.
When interacting with friends, we should
not be suspicious.
If you have any doubts, just inquire, but
do not guess.
It is fine to inquire, but to guess will
result in a huge mistake.
All the misunderstanding between couples
or among friends can be solved by making an inquiry.
After having clarified your doubts, if
you can apologize for your confusion, it will even be better.
It will be a permanent regret and
unrepairable mistake when a suspicion occurs between or among good
friends.
Try to think for the loyal dog, who
sacrificed its own life to protect its master’s son, and what could it
make up to build a memorial tower for the dog?
Therefore, suspicion can lead to a
tremendous remorse.
Please do not be suspicious, if we want
to keep our bliss and free our conscience from any guilt.
Whenever we have any doubt, we must do
whatever we can to find out the truth.
10. Worry
11. Evasion
When I was young, a friend of mine asked me to
send his girlfriend away by lying to her that he was out of town on an
errand.
Why?
It was because the girl was pregnant and
wanted to marry him, but he did not just have one girlfriend.
What a headache!
I told him that to evade his
responsibility might end up with losing a human life.
Unfortunately, it happened as I
predicted.
One should not arbitrarily make causes.
A cause must result in its effect.
One may spoil oneself to attain a
temporary pleasure, but not a true bliss.
It is simply because one does not realize
the law of causality and surely will bring oneself countless disasters.
Therefore, we should not evade our
responsibilities and should persist in fulfilling our own duties.
We should only get a loan that we can
afford to pay back; otherwise, do not even have one.
As for helping others, do not make a
promise that you can never achieve; otherwise, you will try to evade it
when you are unable to make it.
12. Cruelty
We do not particularly emphasize on going
vegetarian, why?
It
is because some people are brain workers, and a deficient intake of high
protein will seriously affect their health.
In addition, labourers need sufficient
calories to maintain their strength to work.
Malnutrition not only weakens one’s
working efficiency, but also adversely affects one’s marital harmony.
Though it is truly admirable to go
vegetarian, we do not advocate it, nor object to it.
We do not insist on going vegetarian, but
we strongly object to killing any beings.
13. Greed
If contentment is a sign of prosperity; then,
greed is undoubtedly a special feature of poverty.
Greedy people are unlikely to build a
blissful family, because they are not equipped with the conditions of
bliss. Greed
can only bring troubles to ruin your family, to deprive the honour your
family deserves, and also to make your children failing to relieve them
from a mental stress.
To
sum up, corruption, tax evasion and the sale of counterfeit medicine all
are various facets of greed, and they all can kill without bloodshed.
People who sell counterfeit medicine are
actually life-takers.
They not only will cause a delay of a
diagnosis, but also may take a person’s life.
In particular, counterfeit eye-care
products can simply impair people’s vision.
It is completely beyond one’s imagination
to realize how overwhelming the harm will be brought to individuals and a
society.
14. Indulgence
Indulgence also refers to one’s appetite.
It means one is desperately eating all
kinds of delicious food without a stop.
Though food is truly delicious, it may
threaten your health.
Eating as such may bring illness through
your mouth to you, what can you do if it costs your life?
I had a friend who was in charge of public
affairs, and organized all sorts of functions for his company.
Surely, he attended all the parties, and
enjoyed eating here and there.
As a result, he died in his late 40s
because of getting a stomach expansion, alcoholic toxin, high blood
pressure and irregular heartbeat.
The development of all these illnesses
resulted from his indulgence in food.
In Spring and Autumn Period of China, a person
named Chun-Shen-Chun could not even straight his back up, and looked like
a prawn, which was all because of his indulgence in sex.
The story was recorded in the history,
and not made up by me.
Therefore, never indulge yourself in
various desires.
We should only be 80 percent full when
having meals, which can allow us to have a smooth digestion, and also
prevent us from dozing off.
If you eat too much, you tend to feel
sleepy.
If you are a teacher, and feel sleepy
when teaching, you owe students an apology; if you doze off in the office,
you have to say sorry to your boss.
Consequently,
we should never indulge ourselves.
In addition, indulgence can also be referred to
many other aspects, such as staying up for reading a novel, focusing on
playing video games, and playing chess without eating and sleeping.
All these are various types of
indulgence. Once
you have something to love, you become attached; as you are attached, you
become biased; as you are biased, you become inadequate; as you are
inadequate, you definitely have lost something.
Indeed, your indulgence must interfere
with your routine duties and affect the bliss of your life.
15. Complaint
16. Jealousy
One should not be jealous, because it will
create trouble for both oneself and others.
Moreover, do not be jealous of others
when they have made a fortune, because it results from their individual
causality.
In addition, do not be overly critical,
like searching bones in eggs, and keep trying to purposely find the faults
of others.
In the long run, your jealousy will
jeopardise your own bliss, if you are always unwilling to acknowledge the
merits of others.
17. Arrogance
18. Anger
That "The fire of anger can burn down the forest
of one’s moral merits” refers to that due to your anger, all the merits
you have attained throughout the journey of your practice all vanish, and
all your efforts have been down the drain.
Moreover,
one’s anger can also attract a devil, because “birds of a feather flock
together.”
Devils feel that you are one of them, and
come closely to you.
In addition, if you get depressed, you
can also attract ghosts.
There was a girl, who was adopted to be a
daughter-in-law since little, and was treated badly by her foster
mother-in-law who did not offer her any good food or clothing.
She
felt so painful and depressed that she constantly wept alone.
In the neighbourhood, a ghost who died by
hanging himself found her similar to him, and decided to induce her to
kill herself, then she could replace him and allow him to go on for his
own reincarnation.
The
ghost told her, “Look, there is a garden outside of your window!
As long as you stretch your head into it,
you can get into the garden and set yourself free.”
Though she was depressed, she did not
mean to die.
Therefore, she was unwilling to stretch
her head into it.
The ghost tried all sorts of tricks to
get her into trouble, such as using a stick to break every piece of meat
dumplings she cooked to make her scolded by her mother-in-law.
Things like this happened again and
again; eventually, she could not bear it and hanged herself.
I did not personally see the incident,
but a senior of mine told me about it.
To sum up, we should not get angry or depressed.
We do not induce devils or ghosts, nor
nurture the energy of anger or complaints; in a long run, we can cultivate
an air of harmony and blessing.
19. Mischief
In Buddhism, there are precepts for “two
tongues” and “verbal abuse”.
“Verbal abuse” refers to making untrue
and harsh speeches, which equates to defamation abuse; whereas, “two
tongues” refers to making different speeches to two parties on the same
issue to ruin the harmony between them, and get up to make mischief
between them.
These acts make one’s bliss truly
difficult to be maintained.
It also happens in the field of religions.
This
religion criticises that religion as a devil, and that religion claims
that the preaching of this region is totally wrong.
In fact, all these mischief and
defamation simply come from few ignorant and biased clergy.
I can assure you that all those saints,
such as Jesus Christ, Confucius, Lao-Tzu, and Shakyamuni, definitely will
not fight against one another, because God is Shakyamuni, and vice versa.
There are two kinds of God.
One is the existent God, so God is truth.
As truth is omnipresent; therefore, it is
the existent God.
The other God is formed through practice
and cultivation, such as
Krishna of India, who is worshipped by Indians
as God, so is Jesus Christ to westerners.
Taoism emphasizes the three purities:
superb purity, grand purity and jade-like purity, and the Great Highest
Elder Lord is God.
Undoubtedly, God is omnipresent, and so
is the Dharma-body of Buddha.
Both of them are in the same space;
consequently, Buddha is God - a cultivated one.
What is the difference between a cultivated God
and the originally existent God?
In fact, there is no difference.
According to the Chinese ideology, heaven
and man are combined as one.
It is likened to throwing a particle of
H2O into an ocean where you can find countless water particles are not
just similar to the one thrown, but are totally identical to it.
Therefore, Buddhist sutras state that one
should identify with the ocean rather than with its bubbles, then claim
that “the universe is I, and vice versa.”
I spent almost twenty years on researching the
statement of "The universe is I, and vice versa." Why?
It is because the statement is irrelevant
to any reason or knowledge, and is nothing but a state where one should
personally reach.
Otherwise, how could you claim that you
are the universe?
You must personally reach it.
If you only know about it, it does not
count at all.
It is just like you came across a friend
in the street, and he/she asked you - “Did you have your lunch?”
Though
you said yes, you might not have it yet.
Therefore, in the field of religions,
abusive and mischievous speeches must be prohibited; instead, a harmony
should be maintained among all religions.
As An-Hsiang Ch’an does not follow any religious
route, we welcome all religions to join our research on it.
It is because culture is a common asset
of all man, and An-Hsian is the true essence and life of all religions.
What is God?
What
is a spiritual life?
What is the trinity?
Without An-Hsiang, all these are just
verbal expressions. With
An-Hsiang, there is a spiritual life. With
An-Hsiang, there is a genuine perception, which is one’s true benefit and
correct sensation.
With
An-Hsiang, people can really lead a blissful and free life. With
An-Hsiang, people can enter the methodology of non-dualistic Dharma,
where having thoughts
equates to not having thoughts, and vice versa.
We all know a language is the voice of one’s
thoughts.
Without thoughts, there is no language.
Though I am lecturing now, there is
definitely no illusive thought in my mind, and I believe your mind is
exactly like mine.
This denotes the essence of the
methodology of Non-dualistic Dharma.
When a religion detaches from a soul, it is no
longer true.
What is a soul?
It is the pure life.
Once a religion detaches from the pure
life, it becomes fake, superstitious, anti-scientific, anti-evolution and
anti-truth.
Therefore, An-Hsiang Ch’an invites all
religions to join us to do research on it and share its benefits.
We do not reject any religions, nor have
any particular rituals or abstentions.
We abide by nothing but a precept, which
is, “Never do things that you are ashamed to tell, and never think of
things that you are not allowed to do.”
If
you do something shameful, your mind turns restless.
If you think illusively, your mind will
be polluted to turn dark, gloomy, and unrighteous, and your ignorance will
also be deepened.
All these will even make you fearful to
meet the Lord of Hell upon your death.
If you have not done anything shameful,
you will feel like seeing an old friend when meeting the Lord of Hell.
Yes, why to be afraid of him!
Maybe
he will organize a band to welcome your arrival.
I am not telling a joke.
Many successful practitioners did hear
music when dying.
Many
similar incidents were recorded in the book named, “Pure Land of Saints
and Sages.”
Though there is only one way to reach the
origin, there may be many accesses to get to it.
The success of any practice completely
lies in personal persistence, but not in defaming others.
20. Gamble
Today
I am lecturing about “A path to bliss” which refers to a way that leads
people to reach bliss.
To sum up, it covers the conditions of
bliss, the price of bliss, the origin of bliss, etc.
In
addition, we talked about the factors that jeopardize bliss, and those are
what we should introspect on.
Finally, we want to talk about the
sublimation of bliss.
In other words, the real purpose of
pursuing bliss lies in the pursuit of the eternal bliss rather than the
temporary bliss at present.
The eternal bliss refers to the
sublimated bliss, which is completely free from any impurities and
conditions and is called the pure bliss.
Sublimation
is a chemical term.
Things
after having been sublimated must turn out pure and refined.
It is conditional to attain the pure
bliss; then, who is eligible to enjoy it?
Only
when a person has reached the pure life through his successful practice
can he attain it.
The lives of ordinary people are mostly impure.
They have seven emotions and six desires,
such as love, hatred, anxiety, joy, anger, sorrow and delight; moreover,
they also have many other weaknesses, such as jealousy, dissatisfaction,
fury, hatred etc.
We have to eliminate all these that do
not exist originally, and the remained that is true and original is the
pure life.
Some people say that life comes from nowhere,
and originally there was no life.
That
is totally untrue.
Without wind, there will be no waves;
without water, waves cannot be made.
Therefore, our lives are absolutely
eternal.
Otherwise, I am telling a big lie, and
will get an evil retribution.
Life definitely is eternal, and it will
not end as an extinguished light.
Consequently, as far as the true bliss is
concerned, we should pursue the eternal bliss, and should not feel content
with a few decades of worldly bliss in this lifetime.
What is the pure life?
It refers to the life that has been
sublimated.
To what extent should one sublimate one’s
life?
One should sublimate one’s life to reach
the state of the pure life, and that is to attain Buddhahood.
Buddha
means awareness which is a pure consciousness.
The pure consciousness can be conscious
of everything coming into one’s mind; however, it does not allow anything
to stay in one’s mind.
This is what Diamond Sutra states, "A
mind of no attachment".
Our
eyes can see everything, but they do not allow anything to stay.
Otherwise, they will become impaired like
those developed films.
If after seeing you, my eyes become fully
occupied by your image, and unable to see anything else, that is rigidity.
In order to sustain our eternal life, we
have to constantly keep our awareness fully alert to sublimate our life.
It is not unlikely to achieve it.
Only if you can maintain your present
mentality, can you start to have your life sublimated.
Now, I stop talking, and you try to see
what is in your mind.
That is the state of the pure life where
there is only knowing, but without the contents of knowing. Once you
possess the pure life, you also can attain the pure bliss.
What is the pure bliss?
It is as Nirvana Sutra states, “Eternity,
delight, self, and purity.”
Eternity refers to the permanent life;
delight is joy, and self is self-awakening, which denotes, “I am aware;
therefore, I am,” rather than “I think; therefore, I am.”
The
“self” equates to emptiness.
Buddhism does not emphasize on the theory
of emptiness, but on the true reality of emptiness which is unlimited
quantum and infinity.
Therefore, the emptiness allows the
heaven and man to be combined as one and become omnipresent.
Otherwise, how could a person like you,
who are shorter than two meters, reach the state of the combination of the
heaven and man?
It is simply impossible!
When you reach the pure life, you are
simultaneously combined with the heaven to attain your Buddhahood and
become a cultivated God as Krishna of India.
What I lectured today is about the mystery of
life that I have never mentioned before.
When you reach the pure life, you must
also have possessed the pure bliss, which includes: eternity – permanence,
delight - joy, self – self-awakening, and purity which is free from worry,
sin, impurity, complaint and disturbance, and eventually, you become
omnipresent.
It is the state where you are Tathagata,
Arhat, Samyaksam buddha, omnipresent, fully aware, fully joyful without
any worry, and fully independent within the whole universe without
confronting any conflicts or competitions.
There is nothing but a perfect life, and
then you can claim that “I am the universe!”
Selflessness is the authentic grand self, which
defines the Buddhist methodology of non-dualistic Dharma.
Truly, selflessness is the true self.
Only when one has verified the true self, can one attain the true bliss.
The so-called true self is the pure self,
and the true bliss is the pure bliss.
The self of the pure life and the pure
self of the pure bliss are completely identical, not dualistic.
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