Leave the suffering of samsara: teaching by Venerable Master a Hai Tao Here are some people making resolution to take refuge in the three jewels. Such resolution is basically the presumption that the three jewels are the true destination where life can depend and rest upon. If one doesnt depend and rest on the three jewels but instead on others, that is relying as they say which cannot be freed from strong attachment. For example, to rely on my husband, my wealth, my body or a relationship, which is in fact the source of sufferings. Buddha said there are three strong attachments of the worldly people: the first is the attachment to the belief that there is a self that will never change; the second is the attachment to the belief that there is a self exists independently; and the third is the attachment to the belief that there is a self that will last forever. But if we think cautiously, how can there be anything that will last forever and exists independently? Sentient beings dont understand the reason and get attached to the belief of the existence of self and the concept of mine so that they are turned by the wheel of samsara incessantly. The samsara doesnt mean the suffering after death, but the forms of the six ways of sentient existence displayed with the afflictions of greed, hatred, ignorance, arrogance, doubt and jealousy which are caused by the sentient beings who are bound by the ignorance and the knots of affection. For example, with greed there will be the hunger spirits; with hatred there will be the hell; with ignorance there will be tiryagyoni; with jealousy there will be asura. Further more, worldly people usually become arrogant when they enjoy honor and glory. This is the haughtiness of deva-gati. And how about the manusya-gati (human beings in Buddhism)? All vexations converge with the kindness and evilness mixing together. Simply put it, all sentient beings are turned by the wheel of samsara in the six ways of sentient existence according to their different vexations. Therefore, Buddha teaches us to turn our mind and our thoughts because all dharma are founded on the basis of the mind. Why do we have to take refuge in Buddha? Because Buddha is the supreme righteous equality and righteous awakening. He walked and rested on the middle path so He is righteous; the purity and equality dependent on the middle path is called the righteous equality; the awakening dependent on the middle path is called righteous awakening. The truth He proved and pondered is equal to all Buddhas from ten directions and three periods which cannot be surpassed so that the dharma He realized is supreme. The World Honored One was endowed with three capabilities when He accomplished Buddha hood: omniscient , great strength and great compassion. Why is He omniscient? Because He realized fully that all dharma are empty in their original nature so that He has complete great wisdom and is omniscient. In addition, His great compassion which was brought up from the dependence on the emptiness is pure without contamination, equal without division, and beyond reach by worldly people. Once a layperson asked me: master, if my son were kidnapped and the kidnappers asked a ransom of ten million dollars and I could not afford it, then what should I do? I asked him: how much do you have? maybe five hundred thousand dollars. Purchase chickens to release their lives with the five hundred thousand dollars. He asked : but if I had released the lives of the chickens and I son were also killed? I said : if you have faith and equal mind, then there is no difference between the life of a chicken and your sons life. You can buy five thousand chickens with the five hundred thousand dollars to save their lives and transfer the merits to your son and the kidnappers. Of course we dont hope such condition really happens, but we will find out that we have never had genuine equal mind if we think it over further. Ordinary person would rather try to collect five million dollars to save his own son than to spend five hundred dollars to save five chickens. Our country has to spend a lot of money to build a neat prison to accommodate the villains, but an ordinary person would not be willing to spend five thousand dollars to build a shelter for animals. Why? Because we dont have the mind of equal compassion, but the Sakayamuni Buddha does! All Buddhas from ten directions and three periods have such characters of great compassion of equality. To leave the suffering of samsara, we have to think about that there is not any sentient being that had never been our parents in our past lives. In Brahmas Net Sutra it is said all male sentient beings had been our fathers, all female sentient beings had been our mothers. To kill sentient beings and eat their flesh means to kill your parents and eat their flesh. Today we find the ultimate way to leave bitterness and get happiness, take refuge in the three jewels, but all our parents in past lives are still suffering in the samsara. We take refuge in three jewels to salvage all sentient beings, that is to bring up the Bodhi mind. Only by brining up our Bodhi mind will we realize the emptiness. Therefore, dont take your wife as a garbage, and dont take your husband as a fool. To cultivate the Mahayana Buddha dharma we need to transform our thoughts. You must take your husband as the metamorphosis of Amitabha; take your wife as the metamorphosis of a Buddha-Mother; all Buddhists cultivating the Bodhi mind have to do so otherwise we cannot take ordinary people as Buddhas. In the concept of Buddhist cultivation, everyone is Buddha no matter how lousy he or she is. Because every dharma is the display of the mind: how he or she looks depends how you think in your mind. With such concept, you will definitely live in this world without grudges or regrets. Your husband is Amitabha, your wife is Avalokiteśvara bodhisattva, your eldest son is Mañjuśrī bodhisattva, your youngest son is Mahāsthāmaprāpta bodhisattva, and the boss who fired you is Kṣitigarbha bodhisattva because he eliminated your karmic hindrance for you. All dribs and drabs in life are the best opportunities to discipline our temperaments. Only by that can we surpass our own disposition to bring up great resolution. There are many role models of great virtues in the history of Chinese Buddhism that we can learn from. For example, the well-known eminent Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who made a resolution to travel to India to pursue dharma, had been through eighty one kinds of adversities to get to the University of Nalanda. He thought: life is so precious and it is not so easy to come to India, and there are so many scriptures needed to be translated into Chinese, how can I waste the precious time to sleep? He lighted up an oil lamp and put the lamp-wick slanted to keep the burning oil dripping on his body to stay awake. He worked so hard to the degree to neglect sleep and meals. He thought: if such excellent scriptures had not been translated into Chinese, how can Chinese be salvaged? He as a Chinese went to India and became the present of the university, even stayed there for five years! He took a day as a whole life! And look at some Buddhists nowadays! They have learned Buddhism for quite some time, have obtained ordination and taken bodhisattva vow, but they usually put Buddha dharma behind and instead put their husbands, kids and wives in the first place once they are occupied by the worldly businesses. That means they have not yet let go the attachments in their minds completely and only take learning Buddhism as a leisure activity. When I wanted to leave home to become an ordained monk, my family objected. At that time my master would build a lecturing hall but there was a shortage of thirty eight million dollars for the down payment. It was exactly the price tag of my two houses. But I have promised my wife when we got married that she could possess both her own wealth and mine. I regretted. Had the houses been mine, I would give them out immediately! After thinking it over, I tried to persuade my wife by exchanging conditions: you sell the two houses to give them to my master and I promise you that I will not leave home to become a monk. My wife didnt take it. So I decided to leave home to become an ordained monk at that time. I felt uncomfortable for I could not fulfill my wish to give, and how could those wealth I keep help to relieve the suffering of life? In Buddhist scriptures it is said that it is not easy for sentient beings in the period of the degeneration and extinction of the Buddha-law to cultivate. I feel the same from what I have experienced all along the way, which makes me be more certain that only by practicing mindfulness of Buddha will sentient beings be salvaged. You dont have to wait until you pass away, just see the world through and let it go, practice mindfulness of Buddha single-mindedly and you will definitely be able to correspond to Amitabha Buddha. Some say I am still young and I have many things to experience and play. If you are unwilling to let go, then there will be hindrance. Therefore, Buddha teaches us to meditate on the precious human life and the impermanence of birth and death without any attachment to the world.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 05:49:57 +0000
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