Understanding Buddhism (12)
Today, I would like to get into the topic
of how we fulfill our filial duty
to our parents.
In the previous sessions
we learned how to be
a decent human being
because
that is the starting point
for our Buddhist cultivation.
Shakyamuni Buddha
gave Dharma talks for 49 years.
Where do we start
among these vast teachings?
Buddha told us to start with Filial Piety.
There's no beating around
the bush about this.
This is the foundation.
When he said that it's actually very wise
because it brings out all the afflictions,
all the troubles, bad habits we have to the surface.
Every one of us has bad habits and
these bad habits have created
a lot of obstacles in our life.
If you want to list them out one by one,
they are too numerous.
So using Filial Piety (孝 in Chinese),
he has summarized everything
that is wrong with our current state
as ordinary beings
because if you want to
overcome your own habits,
everything, every single habit,
that happens in your life,
if you want to uproot them, resolve them,
you have to start with Filial Piety.
This is by far
the best part of
Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings.
So we will go in depth about Filial Piety and
why Buddha started from there,
told us to start from there,
if you want to go
more deeply into Buddhism.
So why do we begin with Filial Piety?
How do we do that?
How do we do our best being filial?
If you look at modern times, this concept
of being loving and respectful towards your
parents and elders is quite strange, foreign.
Some people don’t even
know because some people,
a lot of people have this idea:
As long as I have money, I earn a lot
of money, I can support my parents
with a lot of good food and good shelter.
Let them live a luxurious, lavish life.
I think that's Filial Piety. But,
is it actually Filial Piety if we just do that?
You can't say it's not,
it's treating them well.
You're treating your own parents well,
but to be actually filial,
you cannot measure it,
it's not quantifiable.
You can't use money, how much money you
give your parents to measure how filial you
are because what about those who are poor?
Does it mean
that only the rich people can
be filial and the poor people cannot?
No. So we need to
have wisdom
in regard to these teachings.
So how do we do that?
How do we actually fulfill our
Filial responsibility towards our parents?
What kind of attitude
should we have?
This is a very important question for youth,
young people, because this idea is quite
distant so we need to remind ourselves.
Some people might say
cook good food for parents,
buy good clothes or gifts for them
and that's what we call perfecting Filial Piety,
but it's not there yet,
because anyone can do that,
there's no need to
practice or cultivate at all.
If so, anyone can,
if they earn enough money to,
just buy whatever gifts,
whatever clothes,
whatever food for their parents
and consider that Filial Piety.
If they want a TV, buy them a TV.
Is that called fulfilling your
filial responsibility?
No.
A lot of people do in this era,
if you talk to them,
I want to share with you the importance
of being filial towards your elders or
being loving and respectful to elders.
A lot of people say:
Are you out of your mind
or are you outdated?
Are you one of those people who are like statues
made from 1,000 years ago and that would
never change according to the era?
Isn't Buddhism about following the era,
adapting to the era? Why do we
stick to such outdated concepts?
What era are we in now?!
This is a view that's shared by
a lot of people nowadays.
Some even say
Buddhism itself is outdated,
cannot follow, adapt to the time, to that era.
Some even told me: Master,
do you know what era this is?!
It's the era of looking forward to wealth!
Without money, without wealth,
even though wealth cannot do everything
but without wealth it's a lot of pain.
Some people when they hear this,
it might make sense, without money,
how can you eat?
Without money, how can you pay for
your living expenses, for buying clothes
or building a Dharma Center?
Without funds,
how do you make offerings?
Right? It makes sense
but we need to see it from a point of wisdom,
we need to look at it wisely,
instead of being dragged by it,
being enslaved by the idea because
it will push us towards extremes
in hedonism and all that.
Everything is about money.
It has become extreme now.
So back to Filial Piety,
if you look at the West,
in regards to this idea of Xiao孝,
education is very common, very developed.
It's everywhere. Everyone got educated
but unfortunately,
these kinds of
human values, moral values
about love and respect towards parents,
about how you live with other people
peacefully, harmoniously, are neglected,
moral values are neglected.
They don’t have a concept of Filial Piety.
Most of them only retain the value of
taking care of only your children.
So only take care of your children,
children are the only ones who
need to be taken care of.
Not just the West anymore,
it's already commonplace
throughout the world.
The adults are
only focusing on the youngest,
neglecting their elders.
So as a child, as a son or daughter of the
parents, they focus their gaze towards
the next generation
and very few will look
back at their older generations.
So being an old man or old woman
in this era is very lonely,
the family tie is very loose.
In the Dharma Place I host,
there's a lot of elderly people.
I asked them: Why do you like to come here?
Usually they come by themself.
A lot of these elderly practitioners,
brothers and sisters, told me:
There is no one with me at home,
I feel lonely. When I come to the temple
I have people to talk with.
The temple is good
because I have a social environment,
at home everyone's busy with their own family
and with their work.
I can't find a chance to talk
with them often.
So this is a reality facing a lot of families
nowadays and thinking about ourselves
we'll be old one day.
One type of suffering is loneliness.
Loneliness itself is suffering.
Why do I teach this from this perspective?
I would like to give you an example
so that you have a concept of
why Filial Piety is important.
Then, I will explain how you do it,
how you fulfill Filial Piety
towards your elders.
For example, a new couple focuses on
setting funds away for their youngest
rather than the elders.
Say, a married couple who have children
or when they start having
their own family,
plan very well on giving their children funds,
saving funds for their children's education
and living expenses.
They take great care to make sure
their children are well
taken care of.
Some even do that before they have children
because they need to think about funding
for their children's education,
universities,
projects and all that.
Like my sister, I asked her:
Why do you work so hard making a living
and earning your money?
My sister would reply without thinking:
Without money how can I support my children?
So that's the framework.
The emphasis is heavily on children
and that's the part where
parents are great
because
they all think about
their own children at their own expense.
It's correct to have this planning,
but how many couples think
about their own parents,
say planning a retirement fund
or giving them funds so that
they are settled?
Some are
from a wealthy family
and their parents are very rich.
They don't even need to think about
helping save for emergencies,
in order to help their parents.
So they don't think like that.
There are good people that are not like this,
but very few.
As you can see from the news,
most of the cases are like this.
My parents are wealthy now,
I will wait out my parents so that I can
split the inheritance when they pass away.
So they are
looking at the money
rather than their own parents.
So their eyes are focused,
their whole mental energy is
focused on how to get the money
rather than
taking care of their parents.
Some are even worse,
they think about
how my siblings got more than I have,
that's not fair!
So you plan for your own children
but your children are looking
after your inheritance
rather than
taking care of you.
So we need to know about this.
It sounds like we're sharing the inheritance
from our parents, but most of the time,
the reality is they are fighting in court
or outside the court
over the inheritance.
Being a parent, sometimes it's a hard
thing because without money
you can’t support them
and with too much money
you have this problem,
everyone is fighting for inheritance.
So having a child
who is not filial is a lot of pain
waiting for you.
I myself have witnessed this,
a few years ago, this father
had passed away not long ago,
his children already argued for the money,
the inheritance of their parents,
of their father.
With this kind of attitude, how can
you let your parents pass in peace?
How can their parents pass in peace?
Some don't even wait until their parents
pass away, they already do that
while their parents are still alive.
Some are even worse,
as worse as they fought
so much over the inheritance,
they neglected the funds needed
to help their parents
in the hospital.
When their parents
got ill due to old age,
they even neglected that part.
So if we look at all these cases
that actually happen in society,
read the news, in each society,
not just one part,
you see that happening everywhere.
So I have a friend, when he was rich,
everyone liked to be his friend.
When his company went bankrupt,
everyone disappeared.
People nowadays.
That sort of human love
among each other,
the brotherhood, sisterhood is lost.
Everything is about money,
everything's about
taking advantage over others.
When they eat, they think about money,
when they sleep, they think about money,
when they wake up, they think about money.
Everything is about money, enslaved by money,
losing their humanity in the process
and becoming a goblin basically.
Sometimes among different religions. Some,
their parents are Buddhists and the
children are believing in a different faith.
So they, the children, are even threatening
their own parents, to believe,
to follow their faith.
Threaten them, say:
When you pass away,
I will not take care of your passing,
take care of everything that happens
during your passing including
the grave and all that.
The basic human respect isn’t there,
it should be there, human decency,
that’s what we call it.
Is it because of the era?
Is it very modern to be like that?
Where did we go wrong with human society?
So let's
take a daily scenario
rather than just inheritance.
When they look at good food,
good clothes, good gifts,
daily provisions,
how many people
are thinking about their parents first,
before they think about their children?
Mostly they are like: Oh, my son likes this,
my daughter likes this. How many people
think about their parents?
Hey, I think my Mom likes this,
my Dad likes this,
there are very few.
Back then, I used to bring a lot of young
people to visit another country
and I observed them.
Like other young couples,
they usually think about their babies,
their newborns or their own young children.
Very few of them think about their own parents,
but you can see the way it goes, when their
children grow up, the same thing happens.
This is the consequence of only thinking
downwards without thinking about
what comes before you.
Downwards means children,
upwards means parents.
So I like to continue to say:
Is it wrong to think about
your own children?
Being a parent, is it wrong for me
to think about my children, plan for
my children's well-being? No, it's not.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But respectful practitioners, we must know
that there's a saying in Chinese goes like this:
【A tree has its roots,
water has its sources】
Remember your roots,
where your roots are.
Who gave you a condition to have a life?
Who gave you a condition so that
you can live happily, be able to stand
in society and be able to make a living?
The things you wear, the things you eat,
the things you achieved,
who gave it to you?
Who helped you to kickstart that?
Your own parents, our own parents.
So that's why when I look at some families
who have their own
parents nagging them,
I feel very happy for them.
It's also a joy
in the world to be
nagged by your own parents.
I think this way, because in my case my Mom
passed away when I was studying and
my father passed away not long ago.
So I
became an orphan in a way.
I am an orphan now.
Appreciate the presence of your family,
especially when you're hungry,
someone's cooking for you.
When you're sick,
someone's taking care of you,
finding the best medicine for you.
When I'm sick,
who takes care of me?
No one, it's true.
Sometimes, I think, I live by myself,
when I pass away, no one will know.
That's why I cannot be sick (said jokingly).
Everyday,
the Dharma Protectors,
they call me and say:
Master, please make sure
your phone is on all the time, 24/7,
because if anything happens to you,
when we try to reach you,
we will know
if something's wrong.
If you turn off your phone,
you will not be able to communicate
with us.
It’s a blessing
to have your parents
with you, still with you.
This is why in Chinese ancient wisdom,
the sages kept saying you have to
think about your roots
to remind ourselves
to be a decent human,
to be a proper human.
Once you become a decent human,
only then are you able to actually
achieve happiness.
If you can't even be a good human,
decent human, let's not talk about
going to the Pure Land,
the Three Upper Realms, the Three Good Realms,
the human and heaven realms are
not achievable at all.
So being a decent human is the basic goal
because our parents gave birth to us,
nurtured us and educated us
and because of them we can grow up
as healthy adults, able to make a living
in society, achieve great things in society.
There's a saying as well in Chinese about our
parents' kindness towards us. It's boundless,
as boundless as the sky, as the universe.
Buddha said in the sutra of
Profound Kindness of Parents
and Difficulties in Repaying Them,
as it describes the parents’ kindness
as like the heavens and the sky,
there's no end to it.
No matter how much you do,
no matter what you do,
it's very hard to repay them in full.
In my case
I can't even repay them anymore
when I have the ability.
This is
to remind ourselves
of the importance of Filial Piety.
Also we need to learn to remember their
kindness because if we don't remember their
kindness towards us, how can we repay them?
Also in return, we do our duties to
take care of them and
make them happy.
So that's where the saying of
Remember Your Roots
came from.
However we need to see in modern times,
those who can be filial towards
their parents,
it's not like no one is good,
no one is filial,
no one loves their own parents or elders.
There are people who love and respect their parents,
but it's already considered a rare case.
This human demographic is rare.
Therefore, in Buddhism, when you practice,
it will point out among the
Four Great Bodhisattvas,
you all have to start from Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva.
The sutra of the Original Vows of Ksitigarbha
Bodhisattva talks about Filial Piety,
about roots and foundation of a human,
of a Buddhist, is Filial Piety and repaying
kindness because if you do that,
you are a good example to the world.
Everyone will feel the importance
of being good,
remembering the goodness,
kindness and repaying the kindness
of their dear parents.
If a person can't even remember and
repay the kindness of others, how can
this person stand their ground in society?
How can this person
survive in this society and
be able to develop in this society?
How can you
have a harmonious
and prosperous life?
This is why this sutra
the Original Vows of Ksitigarbha
Bodhisattva《地藏菩薩本願經》
becomes
a foundation of 49 years
of Shakyamuni Buddha’s Dharma.
It's the groundwork
for Buddhism to grow
and humanity to grow.
It's a necessity
for human beings to learn it.
That's why although
education is very good and
highly developed in the western nations,
this concept of repaying kindness,
Filial Piety is non-existent
or uncommon,
not just in the West, right now,
it's global, universal.
If this world keeps going on like that,
forgetting their roots,
forgetting being kind,
then being a human
in this kind of world is a torture.
It's a lot of suffering.
It will get
more and more torturous,
more and more insufferable.
We are not trying to be pessimistic
or depressing but this is the trend
we're going towards.
For example, a lot of people who are raised
or educated in the West or grown up
in their society are very curious
about the ritual
of Ancestor Remembrance
or what we call Ancestor Worship.
They feel it’s very weird
how some followed their own parents,
Asian parents back in the East,
do this worshiping
to their ancestors.
They feel it’s very weird
because ancestors passed away
centuries, millennia ago,
like thousands of years ago,
why do we remember these people
who we never met?
Why do we remember them at all?
It is because of that kind of view,
they treat it as superstitious.
Say, in Chinese, there's a very important day,
it's called Ching Ming清明 it's a day where
we visit the graves of our ancestors,
passed away family members.
Many people join the family
to sweep the graves.
This is a common thing we do,
we sweep the graves.
They feel that it is weird
and do not understand why we
still visit those who have passed away.
All of these traditions
now stop at the elderly people
because they still have the idea that
I still need to remember my grandparents,
my ancestors,
but nowadays
young people, you see,
have stopped this practice.
Some, even in the temple,
one of the lay Buddhists said to me:
Master,
when I pass away,
please spread my ashes
after my cremation into the sea.
I told him:
You cannot say that because
we never know who will go first.
The world is impermanent,
so you cannot say that.
So we don’t know why a lot of people
treat this kind of ancestor worship
as superstitious, impractical.
It’s normal. Why? No one's saying anything
about why. That's why no one's talking
about why you do that.
Why should we have to remember our ancestors,
worship our ancestors, like the act of
worshiping ancestors, what does it mean?
No one talks about that,
they just follow.
That's it.
In Indonesia, myself,
I promote Ancestor Remembrance
so that they are remembering,
know how to feel gratitude, experience the
gratitude, the feeling of gratitude towards
their parents and ancestors.
That's the point.
However, when Covid happened,
it cut short our activities.
I hope that in the future,
Sydney could do that as well,
celebrate Ancestor Remembrance.
If it's not promoted
that means no one is
explaining why we do that
and what's
the core value behind this ancestor
worshiping, the act of ancestor worshiping.
Then humanity is,
that's it,
it's gone. Humanity's gone.
That's why I felt like I was encouraging
the Sydney temple to celebrate the spirit of
remembrance towards our ancestors.
So that they cultivate a sense of gratefulness,
experience the gratefulness towards their
own parents and their own ancestors.
But in all honesty,
people are not aware of it.
That's why.
Buddha told us
that the Chinese word:
Filial Piety孝 was very well made.
This is one of the examples why Chinese
characters could be regarded
as the best, complete,
is the best
among many words made in the world.
Why is it best?
It is because it has been passed down
for five thousand years
without stopping.
It is because Chinese characters are made
of symbols. Every symbol has meanings,
a lot of meanings.
It can
go everywhere,
carrying wisdom inside.
We must understand these Chinese
characters were made according to the
Six Principles, according to the Six Writings.
Filial Piety is based
on one of the Six Writings,
one of them is called ideographs.
What are ideographs? Ideographs,
when you look at this word, immediately
you experience the meaning it carries.
So the word is supposed to
show you the meaning
straight away.
Like, patience忍, in Chinese, the word is a
combination of symbols, on top is a knife,
at the bottom is a heart.
That means even if the sword is on top of
your heart, you must persevere and
this is the feeling of patience.
You need to let go of
these agitations,
things that agitate you.
So in this society,
it's even more important
to be patient.
So back to the word Filial Piety, we already
mentioned the combination of two other
Chinese characters into this one Filial Piety,
it combines elder and the young.
When two become one,
then it is Filial Piety.
A lot of people, they say Generation Gap.
Oh I don't understand my parents,
okay boomer and all that.
Why does that happen?
We could understand it as
an absence of Filial Piety,
absence of heart to heart, absence of oneness
between the elders and the youngest
because we must understand one reality,
the younger generations will have their
own younger generations, the elders
have their own elder generations.
They are one thing.
The elder was once the younger.
The younger will become the elder.
So they are one.
In Buddhism
what do we learn about
Filial Piety?
In Mahayana Buddhism, Filial Piety,
the whole of the universe is one with ourselves,
like a body, not a family, a body
and this is very profound, straight to the core of it.
It is because when you expand Filial Piety,
love and respect, when you expand it,
you can go
all the way to the end of
the universe which is endless.
Other than Buddhism, Buddhist sutras,
there's no teachings of philosophies that
can expand this to this level,
that can’t
talk about Filial Piety
to this level, to this scale
so without Buddhism we couldn't fully grasp
the profoundness of Filial Piety beyond
just your parents
because it's about one with everyone else,
everything. How can the left hand
work against the right hand?
What I mean is that
they don't oppose each other.
So understanding this,
if you humiliate others,
you are humiliating yourself.
If you're
hurting or harming others,
it equals harming yourself.
If you understand why we need to be
compassionate and filial we will
understand why Buddha told us to be filial,
knowing this relationship we will understand
why Buddha tells us to start
from Filial Piety.
In Buddhism,
there is a sutra:
The Brahma Net Sutra. …
It's about precepts
or conduct of a Bodhisattva.
You have to expand your love and respect
towards your parents i.e Filial Piety
towards your parents,
beyond them, to all beings and this is the standard
set by Shakyamuni in this Brahma Net Sutra
towards all the Bodhisattvas.
To qualify as a Bodhisattva,
you need to have this
kind of heart,
this kind of filial heart towards
not just your parents
but towards everyone,
everyone's my parents,
everyone's my father,
everyone's my mother.
This is because
every single being,
not just sentient beings only,
but all beings,
are future Buddhas and
our parents in the past lives.
This is the foundation of Buddhist Filial Piety,
oneness with the whole universe, love all
because everyone is one with you.
This is a very deep, very,
very profound understanding.
So in daily life, how do we start with this?
How do we achieve
this perfection of Filial Piety?
So the Buddha has already given us
the foundation, the basis, the
theoretical foundation of Filial Piety.
If you can start from your parents, love and
respect your parents and expand this love
and respect towards all beings,
then you are a Bodhisattva.
This is why Amitabha Buddha is great
because he treats everyone like
he treats his own dear parents.
His way to show his love to all beings is
Pure Land. As a human, on our level,
how do we do that?
My Mom has passed away.
Some people might say:
I'm very old. I'm 80 already.
How do I
even be filial at this age,
right? What should I do?
There are three ways in total,
how we perform Filial Piety
in our daily life.
First towards the people, towards any encounter,
towards the material, our environment,
we must be grateful.
Like how we feel from our parents,
their love, from them, we use
that kind of love towards all beings.
It is because in this life,
it's very hard for us to
fully repay our parents’ love,
but the least we can do in our repayment
of this kindness is to expand this love
towards everything you interact with,
the people, the encounters,
the events and the actual
material world.
In Buddhism
we categorize this into four
targets of repayment of kindness.
First is parents,
then is the Triple Gem
which are teachers.
Starting from parents,
by loving and respecting them,
only then can we expand to our teachers.
When you love
your parents you will learn
how to respect the teachers.
Then towards the country that gives you
a safe environment and then
towards all beings
because
think about our position
in this world, are we alone?
Can you survive by only being with
yourself, by being alone? No.
This is why the Triple Gem is precious.
Dharma teachings
are precious
because they teach you about this.
They tell you to open up your mind
towards all beings, be grateful
towards them.
Then we move on to the country.
Without country stability,
how can we prosper,
how can we survive
and continue to
live happily?
And finally,
all beings who give all the services,
all the material resources,
without them,
how can we have an environment
like happiness right now?
When
someone scolds you,
you also need to be grateful.
When people criticize you,
we need to practice gratefulness
towards them.
When we are defamed, slandered or humiliated,
we all need to learn how to even be
grateful towards these people.
It is because no matter
what happens to us in the future,
no matter what happens,
no matter
who does what towards you
or no matter who you are in future,
doctors, teachers, leaders of your own field
or public servants or being parents,
no matter what you are doing,
we must always remember that we cannot
lose our moral compass and virtues,
that means we cannot lose our ground.
We cannot live without this bottom line
because if you always cross the bottom line,
which is against your conscience,
the consequences are not only impacting
your own family, you're impacting
your own next generations
and also your own past generations.
Say, if you always do things
against your conscience,
doing something that's harmful towards
others, how will society look at you,
how will society look at your family
and your own descendants?
This is such
a big transgression.
The point is no matter
how wealthy you will be in future
or how powerful you will be in future,
that's not the main point,
it's just the fruit.The root is
you must not lose your compass,
you must not lose
your virtues as a human.
How can we be a virtuous person?
Start from Buddhism,
start from listening to the Dharma,
listen often to them.
Some examples are like Teacher Chai talks
about starting with Di Zi Gui,
Ven. Chin Kung’s talks on 太上感應篇,
Cause and Effect and
The Sutra of Ten Virtuous Deeds,
all of these are good teachings.
The last one, on the path to being a Bodhisattva,
we need to guide our parents to liberate
them from the sufferings of life and death,
which is to help them
to give rise to the vow
to be reborn in the Pure Land.
Only when they are born in the Pure Land
will they no longer have to
suffer life and death.
When your parents
go to the Pure Land is
when your Filial Piety is completed.
Same for us, when we chant Amituofo,
even though I'm 90 years old,
but if I chant Amituofo earnestly,
when I manage to be born in the Pure Land,
when my time's up, I will not fall into
the Three Lower Realms.
This is the best thing we can do for our parents
because not only are you helping yourself
when you go to the Pure Land,
you're also able to know where
your parents are and help them
to increase their current standards.
In Taiwan, there was a lady, a lay Buddhist,
who accompanied her mother
when chanting Amituofo,
accompanied her Mom
to pray to Amitabha Buddha,
describing how good the Pure Land is
and how there's
no death, no aging, no illness.
How good that place is!
That's the only place
where we can be together forever!
This is how she encouraged
her Mom to chant Amituofo, to be
strong and to vow to be reborn there.
That's how
we fulfill our Filial Piety
towards our parents.
If we go to the Pure Land, if you go to
the Pure land, you are considered
as fully repaying your parents.
If you're able to reach the Pure Land
that means you are able to
repay your parents in full.
So how do we start this journey?
We start from being grateful, being
ready to repay their kindness at any time.
Then move on to increasing our virtues,
our moral conduct and then
in the end we go to the Pure Land.
So in summary,
what's the best way
to practice Filial Piety?
Chanting Amituofo earnestly.
This is the simple explanation on
how we fulfill our duty of Filial Piety.
If I want to go in detail, go in depth,
you cannot finish the concept of
Filial Piety in one day.
What we need to
know is how we practice it.
We start with our attitude, with our conduct.
Parents do not need you
to worship them every day,
like you worship Buddha.
They don't need you to do that. They just
want your attitude, a loving attitude,
good attitude, harmonious attitude.
That can establish a very beautiful,
peaceful relationship between
parents and children
because if we have a very bad temper,
very rebellious temper, that kind of attitude
towards them, it causes them to worry.
So to be filial,
to be loving and respectful
towards them,
we need to use the best condition,
best attitude we have
towards them,
offer them
our best attitude,
our most virtuous conduct.
Filial Piety can be considered
as hard but at the same time,
easy to be achieved,
because towards other people,
we are virtuous.
We can easily be patient and kind,
but towards our family, our parents,
we can't be as gentle and as loving as
we are towards others.
If we can't
do that towards our parents,
be kind to our parents,
then whatever kindness we have
towards others is false.
It's not real.
If our parents
have a very bad temper
or bad habits, we need to be patient,
we need to
use a very good
attitude to melt their shell.
So one day they will be touched
by your change, by your kindness,
by your gentleness.
So this is how we,
as children, as a son
or daughter treat our parents.
Only ask this question:
Is my attitude good
towards my parents?
First, are my words kind towards my parents?
This is something we need to know and
keep asking ourselves every day.
So that's it for today. Next Wednesday,
I would like to continue Understanding
Buddhism, other parts of it,
because we still need
about six or seven more courses
to complete these teachings.
If there's any misunderstanding from
the way I expressed these teachings,
please give me feedback,
because the point is
we know a lot of teachings,
we know a lot of what is right,
but when we
implement it we need to
practice how to implement it.
How we practice being grateful,
being aware of others' kindness and
repaying the kindness towards them.
That's the basics of being a decent human being.
So I wish you all a healthy life,
chant Amituofo earnestly
and that
everything accords to your wishes.
Thank you! Amituofo!
Let us dedicate our merits:
May the merits and virtues
accrued from this work,
repay the karmic
creditors of many lives,
repay the sentient beings of all time
May all the calamities
turn from big to small,
small to nothing.
Repay the Four Kindnesses Above,
relieve the suffering of those
in the Three Paths Below
May those
who see or hear of this
aspire to invoke the Bodhi heart
and cultivate the teachings
for the rest of this life,
then be born together
in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.
Namo Amituofo!
****
Understanding Buddhism (11)
So
we'll continue
today's session with
where
do we begin
learning Buddhism?
The teachings that were given by
Shakyamuni Buddha can be categorized
into 84,000 methods of cultivation
and among so many methods that were
given by him, how do we choose
among so many choices?
Every method given by Buddha is correct
but which one is the one
suitable for us?
This is a very important point for us,
something we need to be concerned
about when we're learning.
So when we are learning Buddhism,
we go to a temple and burn incense
to offer to the Buddha
or offer flowers to the Triple Gem.
Some people might think
that's it for Buddhism,
that's all that Buddhism is about.
However, if you actually want
to learn Buddhism,
where do we start,
where do we begin?
We must be clear and we must be aware
of that, otherwise we will waste
our time when we learn,
otherwise we will spend years
reaping nothing in return,
learning nothing in return.
In the past, our patriarchs have said that
everyone who chants Amituofo,
practices this method,
will be able to
reach the Pure Land,
no one will be left behind.
But why, in reality,
are so many people who
chant Amituofo not getting there?
It is because
we have habits that stop us
from getting there. What is the cause?
What are the habits that stop
us from getting to the Pure Land?
That's what we need to discuss today.
If we're not clear
what obstacle lies in front of us,
how do we get blessings, actual blessings,
actual help
from Buddha and Bodhisattvas?
If we do not understand
how to begin learning Buddhism,
unfortunately, it becomes a religion instead.
So that's
what we will discuss today.
Where do we begin in learning Buddhism,
where do we enter? Which door do
we enter in this vast ocean?
In Chinese Mahayana Buddhism,
we usually use Four Great Bodhisattvas
as a method to educate everyone.
In China, there are four very famous
Buddhist mountains (that correspond
to these Four Great Bodhisattvas).
In Jiu Hua九華山(mountain)
there's Ksitigarbha
(DiZang) Bodhisattva,
in Pu Tuo普陀山(mountain)
there’s Guan Yin Bodhisattva
and in Er Mei峨眉山(mountain)
there’s Samantabhadra Bodhisattva
(Pu Xian)
and in WuTai五臺山(mountain)
there’s Manjushri Bodhisattva.
These are the Four Great Bodhisattvas
and mountains that are commonly used
in the education of Buddhism.
So what do they represent?
We must be clear
what they represent,
what do these
Four Great Bodhisattvas symbolize?
They show when we learn Buddhism,
we need to have an order of learning,
we need to have a sequence,
we need to follow certain steps,
a sequence when we learn Buddhism,
step one, step two, step three,
step four,
one by one, step by step.
Why? It is because
it depends on our capability, like
you're born with a certain capability.
Some people who are, what we call genius,
can immediately reach the highest
level in Buddhism,
but for us on the common level,
we need to follow the steps,
one by one, so that we can learn it,
we can actually learn them.
So of these Four Great Bodhisattvas,
among all four of them,
with whom do we start?
It's a very
important question.
What do they represent?
The spirit, as in what value
do they represent?
Each of them represents one of the four
core values when we're learning
Buddhism that we need to master,
we need to grasp.
As a Buddhist we need to master and
hold on to these values.
What are these Four Values
that we should
learn about from Bodhisattvas?
We will talk about that in detail later.
For example, what does Ksitigarbha
Bodhisattva or in Chinese Dizang which
translates to Earth Treasure represent?
What level of attainment? Other than order
of learning, the second one is the
level of attainment in Buddhism.
What is
the level of attainment?
That means the level of wisdom,
the scale, the depth,
the horizon of their wisdom,
which level do they represent?
Number three is to improve your capability,
your skills, your wisdom to see through
the delusions in this world,
we call it the Saha World or the world
that is messy, full of false views
and false thoughts.
How do you see through it,
knowing right from wrong?
How do you solve it?
It all relies on the level of your attainment.
If our level of attainment did not increase,
how do we have wisdom?
Higher wisdom means our level of attainment
is better and we can get better
at handling the world.
These Four Great
Bodhisattvas represent that
so we need to learn about that.
All of these Four Great Bodhisattvas represent
different aspects, different spirits,
stages of learning Buddhism.
What does Manjushri Bodhisattva or
the Universal Worthy Bodhisattva
represent?
They all represent different values but
their goal, their principle, all encompass
one another, we call it well-roundedness.
For example, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva,
whatever value he represents,
whatever virtues he has,
Guan Yin Bodhisattva has it,
Manjushri Bodhisattva has it,
Universal Worthy Bodhisattva has it.
Four is one, one is four.
Each one of them has
a very specialized virtue
but each of the others
have the same virtues, they are
just trying to stand out to help us.
Among the four of them, we do need
to know the order of learning,
where do we start
and then where do we end.
There's a reason
why there are four of them.
You cannot jump the queue.
you can't be like:
I like Guan Yin Bodhisattva,
I will just learn straight from her,
nothing's wrong with that.
Manjushri Bodhisattva
represents wisdom,
I will learn straight from him,
nothing's wrong with that.
However, why we have this order of learning
is we might waste our energy
if we skip steps.
Every Bodhisattva is actually
well-rounded and perfect.
That means they have everything,
they encompass everything but what
they represent is the order
of learning for us.
Each of them is trying to tell us,
trying to teach us to reach
the same perfection,
the same well-roundedness,
to get to the highest level of attainment,
if we follow, we will get there.
So today among the values that each of
the Four Great Bodhisattvas represent,
you cannot skip one,
if you lack one out of the four,
your attainment is not perfect, that
means you cannot reach Buddhahood.
You cannot
leave one behind
because people of the world,
what they lack the most are the values
these Four Great Bodhisattvas
represent.
Us Buddhists want to be wise,
so we chant Amituofo but without
Manjushri Bodhisattva, we cannot,
also if you want to be as wise as
Manjushri Bodhisattva, without the
foundation of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva,
you can't get to that level or if you
want to be as compassionate as
Guanyin Bodhisattva
or Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva,
but without wisdom,
your compassion will not be perfect,
you will not use it in the right way.
Like when you walk, it requires
two legs to walk properly.
If you lack one leg,
you can't walk properly.
So, now we know
these Four Great Bodhisattvas
are equally important in our life.
They all represent something we
need to have a happy life,
they all have high wisdom.
Since we now understand
that they are well-rounded,
they are perfect, where do we begin?
The order of learning is: The first one is
Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva or Dizang,
direct translation: Earth Treasure.
We begin with him.
When we learn Buddhism,
we start from there.
If you ask Buddha:
Where do I begin, Buddha,
in learning your Dharma?
He will point out:
Learn the spirit of
Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva. Why?
It is because
this Bodhisattva has
infinite wisdom, merits and skills.
Of all the Buddhas
from all directions,
from the past, present and future,
why do we begin with him among
so many choices to learn from? Why
do we begin with him among everyone?
Like for us, Pure Land practitioners,
if we depart from Ksitigarbha
Bodhisattva’s spirit, value,
you cannot go to the Pure Land.
Without this foundation,
there's no Pure Land for us.
Buddha told us:
we begin with Him, from what
value he represents,
they are not
just there for us to
offer incense and flowers.
What do they represent? Ksitigarbha
Bodhisattva represents our root,
our heart, the ground that we stand on,
no matter what method you practice,
without Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva’s
value in you,
the basic (value) that he represents,
like the character, if your character
doesn't have that value as a basis,
you could not reach the highest
attainment which is Buddhahood:
Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodhi,
(Unsurpassed)
Equally Perfect Enlightenment.
It is because without his foundation,
you cannot achieve anything
in Buddhism.
No matter how well you chant Amituofo,
how frequently you chant Amituofo
or any other methods of Buddhism,
without his value
imbued in your character,
your action, speech, thought,
you can't have a guarantee (to be reborn in)
the Pure Land. That's why he
represents the root.
Without a root, how can a tree have fruits?
Without roots, where are the stems?
Where are the branches?
Where
are the fruits?
Where are the flowers?
How do we
live in this world without
our parents, how do we survive?
They gave us this (life), like our parents
provide us with everything: food,
shelter, love, family love and all that.
Without these,
how do we grow properly?
So they are like the roots.
The case is when we are very, very
successful in our business
with a lot of money,
with a lot of results, however (if you)
compare your achievements in this society
to your own parents towards you,
it is not comparable.
Their spirit and kindness
is immeasurable.
So this is why
we say Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva
represents the root.
If you want
to learn Buddhism,
you need to begin with filial piety,
how to (show our) love
and respect towards
our parents.
That's the first step and
that's what he's trying to
tell us through his example.
Being human, we also need to learn
how to be respectful towards
our teachers.
These are
very important factors
and we will explain them in detail.
The 49 years
of Buddha’s teachings all
follow this core value.
49 years of his speeches
were all about this foundation.
You can say it is an annotation
of the Original Vows of Ksitigarbha
Bodhisattva Sutra《地藏菩薩本願經》.
Look at the era nowadays,
if we look at our friends,
people around us,
observe carefully, friends, relatives,
people in this era, especially right now,
in this time, including ourselves,
why is our affliction so heavy?
Why do we find trouble
in chanting Amituofo?
Have we grown our wisdom?
So number one
is we are severely afflicted.
After chanting for so many years,
we still feel restless in the face of all of
the turbulent times in society
and our family as well.
The cause of
all these problems is that
we have forgotten our roots.
We've forgotten our foundation to
our correct well-being and character,
this is another way to say:
you forgot your roots.
It's a way to remind you.
This is very easy to do,
people
easily forget
where they came from.
I'd like to share a story from 10 years ago.
There was a young person who came
to my temple to find me.
He wanted to debate me.
Do I have to respond to him?
No.
I don't have to,
because it's a waste of time.
He told me,
after telling me so many things,
one of them was:
Buddhism,
it's all about filial piety,
because you guys talk a lot about that!
What era is this?!
What time is this?!
This is an era of technology!
Why do we need filial piety?
If you don't follow the flow of the era,
change according to the era,
we’ll be rejected.
What he meant was
that Buddhism is outdated,
the values are outdated,
so this is a very severe view.
It’s quite common.
What he meant was that in the future
you won't even need to have parents,
you can use In vitro fertilization.
But I didn't respond.
When I heard that,
I had a thought
upon hearing his view.
I knew why
society had gotten messy,
chaotic and turbulent.
It is because
when there is interaction
between parents and children,
there's a lot of young people who are
not patient with their parents
and they easily get angry
and talk back in a very rude way.
Why do we have such a turbulent society?
It is because of people like this.
A lot of these kinds of people
forget where they come from,
that why they are here today
is because of
people who gave everything
they have for them, they forgot them.
Everyone forgets about their roots,
the society is a mess,
in a mess.
So that's why I advise all the elder
people, those who are parents,
to take care of yourself,
you can't rely on your children anymore
because if you have too much hope
(you might be disappointed).
There's a common Chinese saying that
you have children to help you to
overcome the pain of aging.
So right now, in this era, it's hard,
you can't rely on them because
of these false views.
The first thing is society,
everything is busier,
everything is on a more tight schedule.
They don't have time to
take care of their
own (parents),
not even
their own children,
let alone their own parents.
This is
one of the pathetic
parts about people nowadays.
This is why
there is such a
booming industry in retirement,
because of this reality.
So young people,
I urge all of you, all of us,
no matter how successful, how high,
what peak you have achieved in your field,
never forget the love your
parents gave to you,
never forget those who give everything
they have to you, their love to you,
their care to you.
That's what matters, truly,
because if we can't even get
this point correct,
there's no point
to come to Buddhism
and learn from Buddha.
You have
no roots, no land,
you can’t build anything.
This is why we need to start from
Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva.
This is why.
If you want to be
successful in cultivating Buddhism,
achieving Buddhahood, begin from here.
Number one
is Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva
represents filial piety,
love and respect towards our elders.
The first thing that defines humanity
is repaying kindness.
The second thing is being aware,
appreciating the kindness we actually
receive from people around us,
starting from our parents and
from everyone else.
It's not given from God,
it's not from a heavenly being up above,
it's by people, your society that gives
you everything you have.
So repay
the kindness for those
who actually give it to you.
So number one,
among
the Four Kindnesses above
when we
do the Dedication of Merits,
the first one is parents,
the second is
the teacher or the Triple Gem,
Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
The third is the country,
the fourth is the society,
all the sentient beings.
Number three
is promoting virtues,
the merits of cultivating virtues.
If you look at modern people,
when you look at society nowadays,
you can see a common problem:
people lacking virtues,
lacking decency.
We use a simple word, decency.
If you
look around them,
no matter what they do,
there's a lot of those
driven purely by self-interest,
purely driven by desires
because of that they're willing to let go of
any semblance of dignity as a human and
do something that is basically disgusting.
So I have another story.
I have a movie given to me
by my friend, my classmate.
This movie is about observations about
current society and the story is
about a good doctor.
Why is he
addressed as a good doctor?
It is because in this hospital,
a lot of other doctors are
lacking virtues, lacking ethics.
I think it's a documentary.
It's showing behind
the scenes,
what actually happens in the hospital
and those doctors not following
their ethics.
Knowing this reality, not just in one field,
in many fields, we understand that
this is truly the end,
like the world that Buddha
described for a Dharma Ending Age.
So back to the point,
we need to understand the
worldly goodness of all goodness,
all kinds (of goodness), all things that are
good in the world, do not depart from
the foundation of filial piety,
from being
respectful and loving
towards your parents and elders.
Without this foundation,
whatever good you did towards anyone else,
it's not sincere.
A lot of people like to give, for example,
to offer to a temple,
I like this temple,
I give a lot of money
to help them to build it up.
If this Dharma Center
likes to build something,
they will help.
However, if you look at their character,
their character in private,
behind the scenes,
to those who
give everything to them,
to those who are kind to this person,
he's not
being very kind
towards his own loved ones.
So this person might look like a good person,
donating all these things,
but behind the scenes,
when treating their own parents,
they are lacking a basic
virtue of respect.
Shakyamuni Buddha
gave Dharma talks
for 49 years.
All of them, every detail, every sutra,
actually all center around
the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Sutra,
the sutra about filial piety.
They do not depart from this,
you can call it
an annotation of this sutra.
So we cannot just
read through this sutra
and treat it like anything (insignificant).
We need to
appreciate the importance of this
in our cultivation.
Talking about filial piety,
what does it look like in Chinese?
In Chinese characters filial piety
or Xiao(孝) in pronunciation,
is a symbol.
So every
Chinese character is a symbol.
What does this symbol comprise of?
The symbol of
elder on the top and
symbol of young on the bottom,
elder and young when you combine them,
means elder generation and
younger generation are one.
It's what we call filial piety.
The elder is above, on top.
We're not talking about Laozi in Taoism.
We're talking about
a combination of these two words.
It's called filial piety
and this is where this word
Xiao孝 in Chinese
came from.
If we want to go further with the meaning:
Elder generations and younger generations,
together they are one, one entity.
They cannot be separated.
You cannot be separated from
your own parents,
you cannot separate yourself
from your own ancestors.
This is the original meaning
of filial piety, Xiao孝.
That's why the patriarchs of Buddhism told us
that the elder generations have their
own elder generations,
that means the past has no beginning,
there's no origin,
there's endless beginnings;
the younger generations
have their own younger generations,
there is no end for the next generation,
it will be infinite.
So how can it be separated?
The beginning and end are one.
So no matter what the situation is,
the relationship between
you and your elders, your parents,
the relationship is there,
you cannot be separated
no matter good or bad.
For example,
when I met someone in the past,
he told me he hated his father.
But I told him:
No matter how much you hate him,
the fact is: he is your father.
For example, on the other hand,
your children, no matter
how much you dislike your children
because maybe they are not being good,
they are still your children.
This relationship cannot be separated.
In Buddhism,
filial piety has another word for it,
if you perfect filial piety,
it becomes Dharmakaya
or the Body of the Truth.
What does it mean for us?
You want to be
born in the Pure Land,
you want to be liberated from sufferings,
you want to sever
the cause of life, reincarnation.
Anything that happens in the world
born from DharmaKaya,
arises from this Body of the Truth.
What does this Dharmakaya
break down to?
It’s called filial piety.
For example,
Buddhas of the past, present
and future, of the ten directions,
have attained Buddhahood
that means perfection of virtues.
Some haven't reached it yet,
future Buddhas, but each of them,
no matter where they are,
when they want to begin
this journey towards Buddhahood,
they begin with filial piety.
Why?
It is because Buddhas
always want to help all beings,
just like being filial towards all beings,
treating everyone like their parents,
this is the heart of Buddha.
If you are not filial,
could you even get anywhere
in Buddhism?
Say Amitabha Buddha,
he is now already a Buddha,
even when he's a Buddha,
he is still continuing
the practice of filial piety.
To whom? To all of us, to all beings.
He keeps giving and helping and taking
care of all beings, that's filial piety,
love and respect.
So we need to
know filial piety is the ship
that carries Buddha to Buddhahood.
If you're born into this world with fortunes,
into a fortunate family, where did this
merit come from? Filial piety.
So if you go back to
Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Sutra,
what is the special part about his symbol?
In the sutra,
the most unique part about him,
the excellent part about him,
is that
he started his act
of filial piety with his mother.
For example, nowadays,
we always have Mother's Day.
No matter what
country you are from,
you always have Mother's day.
Father's day is
relatively not as popular
as Mother's day, right? Why?
It is because of mother's virtue towards
us, the kindness they gave to us is
immeasurable, always immeasurable.
First thing is
the kindness of giving birth
to us, carrying us into this world,
so if you read the sutra of
How Hard It is to Repay the Kindness
of the Parents《父母恩重難報經》,
Buddha has a description: No matter
how you repay their kindness, you still
cannot reach full repayment to them
and that means:
a parent, a mother especially,
how respected they should be,
like how we should be respectful to
them because of their kindness,
(it will never be enough).
In the Ksitigarbha Sutra,
there are two famous stories,
tales that represent this value.
The first one is Brahman Woman,
the second one is Bright Eyes,
the woman with bright eyes.
These are all about his past life,
where he saved his Mom, her Mom,
back then he was a lady,
her Mom, both of these ladies,
their Moms committed negative karma
and were born in the Three Lower Realms
and when they knew, when this past life
of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva knew that
his mother was suffering,
she immediately used a lot of energy
trying to get them back to the
Three Higher Realms.
It was very touching and very sincere.
Like Brahman Woman,
in order to save her Mom
to be reborn
into the better realms,
she was willing to sacrifice her life.
Other than that,
she also helped the Triple Gem,
built the Buddha tower and helped the poor.
All of these merits were dedicated to
her Mom so that her Mom could be
reborn into a better realm.
All she could think about was to repay
the kindness of her Mom and knowing
that her Mom fell into the lower realms,
was feeling urgent,
like very, very desperate
to help her.
Same goes for the Bright Eyes.
To find people like that right now,
in our society, is rare, it's very rare.
Therefore,
we need to rely on ourselves.
It's very rare to find people like this.
In the end,
the lesson we need to bring home
is that we need to rely on ourselves.
Break all the evil deeds
and do all the good deeds,
so that at the very least,
even if you do not
manage to go to the Pure Land,
you're not falling into the three lower realms.
Who wants to go there,
who wants to be an animal,
a ghost or a hell being?
Let's not talk about the Three Lower Realms,
even now, here, who wants to go and who
wants to take suffering upon themselves?
So in order to repay the
kindness of our mother, not only
do we need to refrain from wrongdoing,
we also need to
prevent any wrong thoughts
from arising in our mind,
that your mind has to be
right, righteous, clear, only then
are you able to repay their kindness.
With this
filial piety in our mind,
we have restraint in our conduct,
we do not dare do something
that hurts their heart and
causes them to be sad.
So what Buddha is trying to teach us in this
is the power of filial piety, the power
of love towards your parents.
It stops you from doing something extreme,
something bad. It helps you
to have restraint.
If we go beyond that,
how powerful is
the virtue of filial piety?
Buddha has mentioned once in the sutra:
the drawing falls behind one's
diligent pursuit of Bodhi.
That means
if you want to get full enlightenment,
it's filial piety.
This is how powerful it is.
It usually takes a long time
for normal people to be Buddha,
but if you look at Amitabha Buddha,
it only took him five kalpas,
instead of infinite or three Big Kalpas
that means it shortened the time,
because Amitabha always
thinks about all beings,
he wants to build a Pure Land so that
everyone can suffer less and quickly go
to the Pure Land and this filial piety,
this heart of love and respect towards
all beings drives him to speed up
his enlightenment.
Also as you perfect this virtue
towards your parents,
towards every being,
so does it drive your progression
towards the perfection of Bodhi
which is Buddhahood.
For example,
why do normal people nowadays
all work so hard to make more money?
Why?
It is because
they were driven by incentives,
monetary incentives or other forms
of incentives, without incentives
they would not work so hard
to want money
in the form of prestige,
especially money.
Like, if
I want to do business,
my goal is to earn money.
Same for Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,
but the target of their incentive
is filial piety,
because the urge to relieve the sufferings
of all beings is driven to speed up
their enlightenment
so that
they can quickly help them,
that's the intention.
Buddha told us that the driving force
behind our diligent pursuit of Bodhi
(enlightenment) is filial piety,
it nurtures us
towards achieving the
excellence of our Bodhi path.
In other words, as we are perfecting
the virtue of filial piety
towards our parents,
so does our progression
towards the perfection
of Bodhi.
Amitabha Buddha
is the best example.
Why does the Western Pure Land
outshine all other Buddha’s Pure
Lands in 10 directions?
All Buddhas from
10 directions are praising
this (Amitabha Buddha’s) Pure Land.
They all praise it to a level where they
say that he's the Supreme among
the enlightened,
a Supreme King among the Buddhas
to that level according to
the Infinite Life Sutra
because of these achievements,
because of his heart.
At our level, if we want to live a better life
in the next life, next existence, we need
to have huge merits, huge fortunes.
How do we have a huge fortune?
In Chinese, there are five
categories of fortunes:
1)Longevity長夀
2)wealth and high position 富貴,
3)health and a peaceful mind康寧,
4)virtues好德 and
5)a Good Death善終 and all
these fortunes come from filial piety,
from a heart of love and respect
towards your parents.
This is true! Filial piety,
the love and respect towards elders,
is the root of fortune.
A historical example,
in the Han Dynasty, 1500 years ago,
it was a very long era,
about 300 to 400 years of the Dynasty's lifespan.
It began when a Han Emperor wanted to
fill the role of the Minister,
he began by
looking at the reputation of
this person towards their parents,
if they were being good
towards their own parents,
because if he or she could be loving
towards people who have
been kind to them, then obviously
he knows how to repay kindness.
They would be very loyal and
very honest officials in the nation.
There are very few Chinese Dynasties
prior to unification that lasted
longer than the Han Dynasty
because the Han Dynasty
built its empire on the
basis of filial piety.
In Buddhism, this is why we have
Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva
as the first step,
it's the first
example we should learn
when practicing Buddhism.
It's trying to tell us Buddhism
starts from filial piety
and respect.
Buddhism starts from appreciating
the kindness shown by others,
by paying them in return.
Buddhism
starts from respecting
the teacher and their teachings.
Buddhism starts from broadening the heart
and mind and because of this we are able
to liberate ourselves from suffering.
From here we start to appreciate
the compassion of Buddha.
He taught us the root,
the first important thing
we should grasp.
The spirit of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva,
is like what we mentioned just now,
is like a big tree.
Without roots,
how can there be stems,
branches, leaves, flowers and fruits?
That's the root of our cultivation,
basics of our cultivation,
perfection of our practice.
So the education system represented
by Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva is
perfect, well-rounded.
No matter the content of the teaching
or the methods of teaching,
the way they teach
and the content they teach,
it's perfect, it's well-rounded.
We should know that.
Of the Four Great Bodhisattvas,
Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva
is the first in line,
because this is what Buddhism is founded
upon and the name is already telling
us this, Earth Treasure.
Buddhism
is built on discipleship,
we all know that.
Teacher and student relationships are
educational relationships,
rather than religious relationships,
because
we must be aware:
if it becomes a religion,
it is superstitious
by nature because it is
all based on blind worshiping.
If you look at the worldly religions,
if they're not using education,
it becomes superstitious.
When we
become superstitious in a sense,
we are blind.
Well, look at our current situation,
we are already lost in our
wandering thoughts,
because we have so many wandering thoughts.
We got confused with so many things
happening around us.
Are we
going to add
another layer of confusion to us,
another layer of superstition to
confuse ourselves further?
There's no need for that.
The purpose of Shakyamuni Buddha's Dharma
is to help us to break through delusions
and be awakened to the truth,
because only when you're awake,
knowing what is the Cause and Effect,
what to prevent, when to do it,
can you have real happiness,
preventing yourself from
falling into sufferings.
Having a peaceful mind
and a fulfilling life
is the discipleship of Buddhism.
Now that we know the foundation of
Buddhist education is built
on discipleship,
but discipleship,
Buddha also told us is built
on filial piety,
without love and respect towards your
parents, how can you be respectful
towards your teacher?
Without this as a call, we can’t grow.
For a person who disrespects
the ones we should love the most,
which is our parents, how can they be
respectful towards the teacher?
Impossible!
Basic logic,
when you look at students
in the school nowadays,
the way
their disrespectful attitude
shows towards teachers,
then
you understand that
there is something lacking at home.
It's not easy for a teacher
because parents' home education
has issues,
teachers can only do so much.
If they can't even respect their teacher,
how can they learn anything?
That means
how can they be awakened
to the truth?
Say, if you are disrespectful towards
Amitabha, your teacher, how can
you gain enlightenment?
How can you be liberated,
without this awakening,
how can you be liberated from suffering
because
you're not listening
to anything he says?
Like Shakyamuni Buddha,
everything he taught us, every single
word is not there just for the sake of it,
everything is coming out from the True Nature.
Buddhism relies on your respect in order
to dig up the treasure of our True Nature,
without that,
how can we be awakened?
If there is a lack of discipleship,
it represents a lack of respect in general
towards your own teacher
and that means you lack love
and respect towards your
own parents.
That means if you're not listening to anything
because of a lack of respect,
you just let it be,
you don't even take in what they said,
how can we achieve anything,
how can we learn anything?
That's why Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva,
everyone knows him already at this stage,
represents filial piety.
The sutra about him,
Ksitigarbha Sutra, is like
Buddhism's doctrine of filial piety.
A person who is filial to his parents and
respectful to his teacher is given
the title Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva.
It's a title given if you are being respectful
and loving towards your parents
and teacher,
if you treat your parents with a loving heart,
if you treat your teachers with reverence
and respect towards the teaching,
then you are Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva.
This is the way you enter,
this is how you begin your journey.
Not just the parents of this life,
the parents of past lives,
many many past lives,
that means all beginnings in general.
You need to expand this loving heart
from the people close to you
towards everyone else, expand.
With this foundation in your character,
if you are like that, truly like that,
then when you want to learn further and
get better and more sophisticated
in your learning,
you progress very quickly.
That's why all the
Bodhisattvas or the Buddhas,
when they try to turn the Dharma Wheel,
are all born
into the family of Emperors
and Kings.
You can imagine how big their merit
and fortune is because they all
cultivate this filial piety.
In our case,
if you want to have a good
family or be born into a happy family
or you want to
have your children to be
loving and respect towards you,
then you
need to start doing it
towards your own parents.
If we can't even be respectful and loving
towards our elders, how can you expect,
when you become an elder,
to be respected by your youngest?
So as young people,
we must understand that.
No matter how smart we are,
how capable we are,
never fall into the trap of arrogance,
always remember your roots,
only then can you grow
very far.
As a Buddhist,
we need to learn how to love people,
how to respect people.
Especially in modern times, we need to learn,
because it is unfamiliar and
even unknown to people,
how to be loving people.
Next week, we'll talk about that in detail:
How do we be filial?
So that's it for today.
So to recap,
this was a basic introduction on
where to start in learning Buddhism,
explaining why we need to be respectful
towards our elders, our parents and
not just parents of this life,
parents of many,
many lives in the past.
If your understanding
is clear about these teachings,
this principle,
you will understand that all beings
are your parents at one point in time
and how can you harm your own parents,
knowing that
they are your parents.
Even if they harm you,
you will not have the heart to retaliate,
because you are one.
It's like the left hand harming the right hand.
You can't. If you have this foundation
of filial piety in your character,
your cultivation, say, chanting Amituofo,
the speed of your progress is very quick.
Every day you improve.
So this is the basic introduction we learned
today: Where do we start in learning
Buddhism? Filial piety.
Where do we start from filial piety?
How do we perform filial piety or love
and respect towards our parents?
We'll talk about it next week.
So today we stop here.
I hope that everyone could honestly
chant Amituofo and be healthy
so that you all can
be peaceful and prosperous.
Okay? Also, let's go to the Pure Land.
Amituofo!
Let's dedicate our merits:
May
the merits and virtues
accrued from this work,
repay to the karma creditors of all times
and also be born in the Pure Land,
repay to the beings from all directions
so that
they may be liberated
from the sufferings.
Repay the Four Kindnesses above,
relieve the sufferings of those
in the three paths below.
May those
who see or hear of this,
aspired to invoke the Bodhi heart
cultivate the teachings
for the rest of this life,
Then be born together
in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.
Amituofo
****
《Understanding Buddhism》（11） 2022 02 23
So we'll continue today's session with “where do we begin learning Buddhism?”
The teachings that were given by Shakyamuni Buddha can be categorized into 84,000 methods of cultivation and among so many methods that were given by him, how do we choose among so many choices? Every method given by Buddha is correct but which one is the one suitable for us?
This is a very important point for us, something we need to be concerned about when we're learning.
So when we are learning Buddhism, we go to a temple and burn incense to offer to the Buddha or offer flowers to the Triple Gem. Some people might think that's it for Buddhism, that's all that Buddhism is about. However, if you actually want to learn Buddhism, where do we start, where do we begin?
We must be clear and we must be aware of that, otherwise we will waste our time when we learn, otherwise we will spend years reaping nothing in return, learning nothing in return.
In the past, our patriarchs have said that everyone who chants Amituofo, practices this method, will be able to reach the Pure Land, no one will be left behind. But why, in reality, are so many people who chant Amituofo not getting there? It is because we have habits that stop us from getting there. What is the cause? What are the habits that stop us from getting to the Pure Land? That's what we need to discuss today. If we're not clear what obstacle lies in front of us, how do we get blessings, actual blessings, actual help from Buddha and Bodhisattvas?
If we do not understand how to begin learning Buddhism, unfortunately, it becomes a religion instead.
So that's what we will discuss today.
Where do we begin in learning Buddhism, where do we enter? Which door do we enter in this vast ocean?
In Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, we usually use Four Great Bodhisattvas as a method to educate everyone. In China, there are four very famous Buddhist mountains (that correspond to these Four Great Bodhisattvas). In Jiu Hua九華山(mountain) there's Ksitigarbha (DiZang) Bodhisattva, in Pu Tuo普陀山(mountain) there’s Guan Yin and in E Mei峨眉山(mountain) there’s Samantabhadra Bodhisattva (Pu Xian) and in WuTai五臺山(mountain) there’s Manjushri Bodhisattva. These are the Four Great Bodhisattvas and mountains that are commonly used in the education of Buddhism. So what do they represent? We must be clear what they represent, what do these Four Great Bodhisattvas symbolize?
They show when we learn Buddhism, we need to have an order of learning, we need to have a sequence, we need to follow certain steps, a sequence when we learn Buddhism, step one, step two, step three, step four, one by one, step by step.
Why? It is because it depends on our capability, like you're born with a certain capability. Some people who are, what we call genius, can immediately reach the highest level in Buddhism, but for us on the common level, we need to follow the steps, one by one, so that we can learn it, we can actually learn them. So of these Four Great Bodhisattvas, among all four of them, with whom do we start? It's a very important question.
What do they represent? The spirit, as in what value do they represent? Each of them represents one of the four core values when we're learning Buddhism that we need to master, we need to grasp. As a Buddhist we need to master and hold on to these values. What are these Four Values that we should learn from Bodhisattvas? We will talk about that in detail later. For example, what does Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva or in Chinese Dizang which translates to Earth Treasure represent? What level of attainment? Other than order of learning, the second one is the level of attainment in Buddhism. What is the level of attainment? That means the level of wisdom, the scale, the depth, the horizon of their wisdom, which level do they represent?
Number three is to improve your capability, your skills, your wisdom to see through the delusions in this world, we call it the Saha World or the world that is messy, full of false views and false thoughts. How do you see through it, knowing right from wrong? How do you solve it? It all relies on the level of your attainment. If our level of attainment did not increase, how do we have wisdom?
Higher wisdom means our level of attainment is better and we can get better at handling the world. These Four Great Bodhisattvas represent that so we need to learn about that.
All of these Four Great Bodhisattvas represent different aspects, different spirits, stages of learning Buddhism. What does Manjushri Bodhisattva or the Universal Worthy Bodhisattva represent?
They all represent different values but their goal, their principle, all encompass one another, we call it well-roundedness.
For example, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, whatever value he represents, whatever virtues he has, Guan Yin Bodhisattva has it, Manjushri Bodhisattva has it, Universal Worthy Bodhisattva has it. Four is one, one is four. Each one of them has a very specialized virtue but each of the others have the same virtues, they are just trying to stand out to help us.
Among the four of them, we do need to know the order of learning, where do we start and then where do we end. There's a reason why there are four of them. You cannot jump the queue. you can't be like: “I like Guan Yin Bodhisattva, I will just learn straight from her, nothing's wrong with that. Manjushri Bodhisattva represents wisdom, I will learn straight from him, nothing's wrong with that.”
However, why we have this order of learning is we might waste our energy if we skip steps. Every Bodhisattva is actually well-rounded and perfect. That means they have everything, they encompass everything but what they represent is the order of learning for us. Each of them is trying to tell us, trying to teach us to reach the same perfection, the same well-roundedness, to get to the highest level of attainment, if we follow, we will get there.
So today among the values that each of the Four Great Bodhisattvas represent, you cannot skip one, if you lack one out of the four, your attainment is not perfect, that means you cannot reach Buddhahood. You cannot leave one behind because people of the world, what they lack the most are the values these Four Great Bodhisattvas represent.
Us Buddhists want to be wise, so we chant Amituofo but without Manjushri Bodhisattva, we cannot, also if you want to be as wise as Manjushri Bodhisattva, without the foundation of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, you can't get to that level or if you want to be as compassionate as Guanyin Bodhisattva or Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, but without wisdom, your compassion will not be perfect, you will not use it in the right way. Like when you walk, it requires two legs to walk properly. If you lack one leg, you can't walk properly.
So, now we know these Four Great Bodhisattvas are equally important in our life. They all represent something we need to have a happy life, they all have high wisdom.
Since we now understand that they are well-rounded, they are perfect, where do we begin?
The order of learning is: The first one is Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva or Dizang, direct translation: Earth Treasure. We begin with him. When we learn Buddhism, we start from there.
If you ask Buddha: Where do I begin, Buddha, in learning your Dharma? He will point out: Learn the spirit of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva. Why? It is because this Bodhisattva has infinite wisdom, merits and skills. Of all the Buddhas from all directions, from the past, present and future, why do we begin with him among so many choices to learn from? Why do we begin with him among everyone?
Like for us, Pure Land practitioners, if we depart from Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva’s spirit, value, you cannot go to the Pure Land. Without this foundation, there's no Pure Land for us. Buddha told us: we begin with Him, from what value he represents, they are not just there for us to offer incense and flowers.
What do they represent? Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva represents our root, our heart, the ground that we stand on, no matter what method you practice, without Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva’s value in you, the basic (value) that he represents, like the character, if your character doesn't have that value as a basis, you could not reach the highest attainment which is Buddhahood: Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodhi, (Unsurpassed) Equally Perfect Enlightenment.
It is because without his foundation, you cannot achieve anything in Buddhism. No matter how well you chant Amituofo, how frequently you chant Amituofo or any other methods of Buddhism, without his value imbued in your character, your action, speech, thought, you can't have a guarantee (to be reborn in) the Pure Land. That's why he represents the root. Without a root, how can a tree have fruits? Without roots, where are the stems? Where are the branches? Where are the fruits? Where are the flowers?
How do we live in this world without our parents, how do we survive? They gave us this (life), like our parents provide us with everything: food, shelter, love, family love and all that. Without these, how do we grow properly? So they are like the roots. The case is when we are very, very successful in our business with a lot of money, with a lot of results, however (if you) compare your achievements in this society to your own parents towards you, it is not comparable.
1643 Their spirit and kindness is immeasurable. So this is why we say Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva represents the root.
If you want to learn Buddhism, you need to begin with filial piety, how to (show our) love and respect towards our parents. That's the first step and that's what he's trying to tell us through his example.
Being human, we also need to learn how to be respectful towards our teachers. These are very important factors and we will explain them in detail.
The 49 years of Buddha’s teachings all follow this core value. 49 years of his speeches were all about this foundation. You can say it is an annotation of the Original Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Sutra《地藏菩薩本願經》.
1806 Look at the era nowadays, if we look at our friends, people around us, observe carefully, friends, relatives, people in this era, especially right now, in this time, including ourselves, why is our affliction so heavy? Why do we find trouble in chanting Amituofo? Have we grown our wisdom?
So number one is we are severely afflicted. After chanting for so many years, we still feel restless in the face of all of the turbulent times in society and our family as well.
The cause of all these problems is that we have forgotten our roots. We've forgotten our foundation to our correct well-being and character, this is another way to say: you forgot your roots. It's a way to remind you. This is very easy to do, people easily forget where they came from.
1940 I'd like to share a story from 10 years ago. There was a young person who came to my temple to find me. He wanted to debate me. Do I have to respond to him? No. I don't have to, because it's a waste of time. He told me, after telling me so many things, one of them was: Buddhism, it's all about filial piety, because you guys talk a lot about that. What era is this?! What time is this?! This is an era of technology! Why do we need filial piety? If you don't follow the flow of the era, change according to the era, we’ll be rejected. What he meant was that Buddhism is outdated, the values are outdated, so this is a very severe view. It’s quite common. What he meant was that in the future you won't even need to have parents, you can use In vitro fertilization.
2108 But I didn't respond. When I heard that, I had a thought upon hearing his view. I knew why society had gotten messy, chaotic and turbulent. It is because when there is interaction between parents and children, there's a lot of young people who are not patient with their parents and they easily get angry and talk back in a very rude way. Why do we have such a turbulent society? It is because of people like this.
2151 A lot of these kinds of people forget where they come from, that why they are here today is because of people who gave everything they have for them, they forgot them.
Everyone forgets about their roots, the society is a mess, in a mess. So that's why I advise all the elder people, those who are parents, to take care of yourself, you can't rely on your children anymore because if you have too much hope (you might be disappointed). There's a common Chinese saying that you have children to help you to overcome the pain of aging. So right now, in this era, it's hard, you can't rely on them because of these false views. The first thing is society, everything is busier, everything is on a more tight schedule. They don't have time to take care of their own (parents), not even their own children, let alone their own parents.
2253 This is one of the pathetic parts about people nowadays. This is why there is such a booming industry in retirement, because of this reality. So young people, I urge all of you, all of us, no matter how successful, how high, what peak you have achieved in your field, never forget the love your parents gave to you, never forget those who give everything they have to you, their love to you, their care to you. That's what matters, truly, because if we can't even get this point correct, there's no point to come to Buddhism and learn from Buddha. You have no roots, no land, you can’t build anything. This is why we need to start from Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva. This is why.
2352 If you want to be successful in cultivating Buddhism, achieving Buddhahood, begin from here. Number one is Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva represents filial piety, love and respect towards our elders. The first thing that defines humanity is repaying kindness.
The second thing is being aware, appreciating the kindness we actually receive from people around us, starting from our parents and from everyone else. It's not given from God, it's not from a heavenly being up above, it's by people, your society that gives you everything you have. So repay the kindness for those who actually give it to you.
2456 So number one, among the Four Kindnesses above when we do the Dedication of Merits, the first one is parents, the second is the teacher or the Triple Gem, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The third is the country, the fourth is the society, all the sentient beings.
Number three is promoting virtues, the merits of cultivating virtues. If you look at modern people, when you look at society nowadays, you can see a common problem: people lacking virtues, lacking decency. We use a simple word, decency.
2536 If you look around them, no matter what they do, there's a lot of those driven purely by self-interest, purely driven by desires because of that they're willing to let go of any semblance of dignity as a human and do something that is basically disgusting.
2607 So I have another story. I have a movie given to me by my friend, my classmate. This movie is about observations about current society and the story is about a good doctor.
Why is he addressed as a good doctor? It is because in this hospital, a lot of other doctors are lacking virtues, lacking ethics.
I think it's a documentary. It's showing behind the scenes, what actually happens in the hospital and those doctors not following their ethics.
Knowing this reality, not just in one field, in many fields, we understand that this is truly the end, like the world that Buddha described for a Dharma Ending Age. So back to the point, we need to understand the worldly goodness of all goodness, all kinds (of goodness), all things that are good in the world, do not depart from the foundation of filial piety, from being respectful and loving towards your parents and elders.
2735 Without this foundation, whatever good you did towards anyone else, it's not sincere. A lot of people like to give, for example, to offer to a temple, I like this temple, I give a lot of money to help them to build it up. If this Dharma Center likes to build something, they will help. However, if you look at their character, their character in private, behind the scenes, to those who give everything to them, to those who are kind to this person, he's not being very kind towards his own loved ones. So this person might look like a good person, donating all these things, but behind the scenes, when treating their own parents, they are lacking a basic virtue of respect.
Shakyamuni Buddha gave Dharma talks for 49 years. All of them, every detail, every sutra, actually all center around the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Sutra, the sutra about filial piety. They do not depart from this, you can call it an annotation of this sutra. So we cannot just read through this sutra and treat it like anything (insignificant). We need to appreciate the importance of this in our cultivation.
Talking about filial piety, what does it look like in Chinese? In Chinese characters filial piety or Xiao(孝) in pronunciation, is a symbol. So every Chinese character is a symbol. What does this symbol comprise of? The symbol of elder on the top and symbol of young on the bottom, elder and young when you combine them, means elder generation and younger generation are one. It's what we call filial piety. The elder is above, on top. We're not talking about Laozi in Taoism. We're talking about a combination of these two words. It's called filial piety and this is where this word Xiao孝 in Chinese came from. If we want to go further with the meaning: Elder generations and younger generations, together they are one, one entity. They cannot be separated. You cannot be separated from your own parents, you cannot separate yourself from your own ancestors. This is the original meaning of filial piety, Xiao孝.
That's why the patriarchs of Buddhism told us that the elder generations have their own elder generations, that means the past has no beginning, there's no origin, there's endless beginnings; the younger generations have their own younger generations, there is no end for the next generation, it will be infinite. So how can it be separated? The beginning and end are one.
So no matter what the situation is, the relationship between you and your elders, your parents, the relationship is there, you cannot be separated no matter good or bad.
For example, when I met someone in the past, he told me he hated his father. But I told him: “No matter how much you hate him, the fact is: he is your father.”
For example, on the other hand, your children, no matter how much you dislike your children or because maybe they are not being good, they are still your children. This relationship cannot be separated.
3211 In Buddhism, filial piety has another word for it, if you perfect filial piety, it becomes Dharmakaya or the Body of the Truth. What does it mean for us? You want to be born in the Pure Land, you want to be liberated from sufferings, you want to sever the cause of life, reincarnation. Anything that happens in the world born from DharmaKaya, arises from this Body of the Truth. What does this Dharmakaya break down to? It’s called filial piety.
For example, Buddhas of the past, present and future, of the ten directions, have attained Buddhahood that means perfection of virtues. Some haven't reached it yet, future Buddhas, but each of them, no matter where they are, when they want to begin this journey towards Buddhahood, they begin with filial piety.
Why? It is because Buddhas always want to help all beings, just like being filial towards all beings, treating everyone like their parents, this is the heart of Buddha. If you are not filial, could you even get anywhere in Buddhism?
Say Amitabha Buddha, he is now already a Buddha, even when he's a Buddha, he is still continuing the practice of filial piety. To whom? To all of us, to all beings. He keeps giving and helping and taking care of all beings, that's filial piety, love and respect.
So we need to know filial piety is the ship that carries Buddha to Buddhahood.
If you're born into this world with fortunes, into a fortunate family, where did this merit come from? Filial piety.
So if you go back to Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Sutra, what is the special part about his symbol? In the sutra, the most unique part about him, the excellent part about him, is that he started his act of filial piety with his mother.
For example, nowadays, we always have Mother's Day. No matter what country you are from, you always have Mother's day. Father's day is relatively not as popular as Mother's day, right? Why? It is because of mother's virtue towards us, the kindness they gave to us is immeasurable, always immeasurable. First thing is the kindness of giving birth to us, carrying us into this world, so if you read the sutra of How Hard It is to Repay the Kindness of the Parents, Buddha has a description: No matter how you repay their kindness, you still cannot reach full repayment to them and that means: a parent, a mother especially, how respected they should be, like how we should be respectful to them because of their kindness, (it will never be enough).
In the Ksitigarbha Sutra, there are two famous stories, tales that represent this value. The first one is Brahman Woman, the second one is Bright Eyes, the woman with bright eyes. These are all about his past life, where he saved his Mom, her Mom, back then he was a lady, her Mom, both of these ladies, their Moms committed negative karma and were born in the Three Lower Realms and when they knew, when this past life of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva knew that his mother was suffering, she immediately used a lot of energy trying to get them back to the Three higher Realms.
It was very touching and very sincere. Like Brahman Woman, in order to save her Mom to be reborn into the better realms, she was willing to sacrifice her life.
Other than that, she also helped the Triple Gem, built the Buddha tower and helped the poor.
All of these merits were dedicated to her Mom so that her Mom could be reborn into a better realm.
All she could think about was to repay the kindness of her Mom and knowing that her Mom fell into the lower realms, was feeling urgent, like very very desperate to help her.
Same goes for the Bright Eyes. To find people like that right now, in our society, is rare, it's very rare. Therefore, we need to rely on ourselves. It's very rare to find people like this.
In the end, the lesson we need to bring home is that we need to rely on ourselves. Break all the evil deeds and do all the good deeds, so that at the very least, even if you do not manage to go to the Pure Land, you're not falling into the three lower realms. Who wants to go there, who wants to be an animal, a ghost or a hell being?
Let's not talk about the three lower realms, even now, here, who wants to go and who wants to take suffering upon themselves?
So in order to repay the kindness of our mother, not only do we need to refrain from wrongdoing, we also need to prevent any wrong thoughts from arising in our mind, that your mind has to be right, righteous, clear, only then are you able to repay their kindness.
With this filial piety in our mind, we have restraint in our conduct, we do not dare do something that hurts their heart and causes them to be sad.
So what Buddha is trying to teach us in this is the power of filial piety, the power of love towards your parents. It stops you from doing something extreme, something bad. It helps you to have restraint.
If we go beyond that, how powerful is the virtue of filial piety? Buddha has mentioned once in the sutra: the drawing falls behind one's diligent pursuit of Bodhi. That means if you want to get full enlightenment, it's filial piety. This is how powerful it is. It usually takes a long time for normal people to be Buddha, but if you look at Amitabha Buddha, it only took him five kalpas, instead of infinite or three Big Kalpas that means it shortened the time, because Amitabha always thinks about all beings, he wants to build a Pure Land so that everyone can suffer less and quickly go to the Pure Land and this filial piety, this heart of love and respect towards all beings drives him to speed up his enlightenment.
Also as you perfect this virtue towards your parents, towards every being, so does it drive your progression towards the perfection of Bodhi which is Buddhahood. For example, why do normal people nowadays all work so hard to make more money? Why? It is because they were driven by incentives, monetary incentives or other forms of incentives, without incentives they would not work so hard to want money in the form of prestige, especially money. Like, if I want to do business, my goal is to earn money. Same for Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, but the target of their incentive is filial piety, because the urge to relieve the sufferings of all beings is driven to speed up their enlightenment so that they can quickly help them, that's the intention.
Buddha told us that the driving force behind our diligent pursuit of Bodhi (enlightenment) is filial piety, it nurtures us towards achieving the excellence of our Bodhi path. In other words, as we are perfecting the virtue of filial piety towards our parents, so does our progression towards the perfection of Bodhi.
Amitabha Buddha is the best example. Why does the Western Pure Land outshine all other Buddha’s Pure Lands in 10 directions? All Buddhas from 10 directions are praising this (Amitabha Buddha’s) Pure Land. They all praise it to a level where they say that he's the supreme among the enlightened, a Supreme King among the Buddhas to that level according to the Infinite Life Sutra because of these achievements, because of his heart.
At our level, if we want to live a better life in the next life, next existence, we need to have huge merits, huge fortunes. How do we have a huge fortune? In Chinese, there are five categories of fortunes五福: 1)Longevity長夀 2)wealth and high position富貴, 3)health and a peaceful mind康寧, 4)virtues好德 and 5)a Good Death善終 and all these fortunes come from filial piety, from a heart of love and respect towards your parents. This is true! Filial piety, the love and respect towards elders, is the root of fortune.
A historical example, in the Han Dynasty, 1500 years ago, it was a very long era, about 300 to 400 years of the Dynasty's lifespan. It began when a Han Emperor wanted to fill the role of the Minister, he began by looking at the reputation of this person towards their parents, if they were being good towards their own parents, because if he or she could be loving towards people who have been kind to them. then obviously he knows how to repay kindness. They would be very loyal and very honest officials in the nation. There are very few Chinese dynasties prior to unification that lasted longer than the Han Dynasty because the Han Dynasty built its empire on the basis of filial piety.
In Buddhism, this is why we have Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva as the first step, it's the first example we should learn when practicing Buddhism. It's trying to tell us Buddhism starts from filial piety and respect. Buddhism starts from appreciating the kindness shown by others, by paying them in return. Buddhism starts from respecting the teacher and their teachings. Buddhism starts from broadening the heart and mind and because of this we are able to liberate ourselves from suffering. From here we start to appreciate the compassion of Buddha. He taught us the root, the first important thing we should grasp.
The spirit of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, is like what we mentioned just now, is like a big tree. Without roots, how can there be stems, branches, leaves, flowers and fruit? That's the root of our cultivation, basics of our cultivation, perfection of our practice.
So the education system represented by Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva is perfect, well-rounded. No matter the content of the teaching or the methods of teaching, the way they teach and the content they teach, it's perfect, it's well-rounded. We should know that.
Of the Four Great Bodhisattvas, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva is the first in line, because this is what Buddhism is founded upon and the name is already telling us this, Earth Treasure.
Buddhism is built on discipleship, we all know that. Teacher and student relationships are educational relationships, rather than religious relationships, because we must be aware: if it becomes a religion, it is superstitious by nature because it is all based on blind worshiping. If you look at the worldly religions, if they're not using education, it becomes superstitious.
When we become superstitious in a sense, we are blind. Well, look at our current situation, we are already lost in our wandering thoughts, because we have so many wandering thoughts. We got confused with so many things happening around us. Are we going to add another layer of confusion to us, another layer of superstition to confuse ourselves further? There's no need for that.
The purpose of Shakyamuni Buddha's Dharma is to help us to break through delusions and be awakened to the truth, because only when you're awake, knowing what is the Cause and Effect, what to prevent, when to do it, can you have real happiness, preventing yourself from falling into sufferings. Having a peaceful mind and a fulfilling life is the discipleship of Buddhism.
Now that we know the foundation of Buddhist education is built on discipleship, but discipleship, Buddha also told us is built on filial piety, without love and respect towards your parents, how can you be respectful towards your teacher?
Without this as a call, we can’t grow. For a person who disrespects the ones we should love the most, which is our parents, how can they be respectful towards the teacher? Impossible!
Basic logic, when you look at students in the school nowadays, the way their disrespectful attitude shows towards teachers, then you understand that there is something lacking at home.
It's not easy for a teacher because parents' home education has issues, teachers can only do so much. If they can't even respect their teacher, how can they learn anything? That means how can they be awakened to the truth?
Say, if you are disrespectful towards Amitabha, your teacher, how can you gain enlightenment?
How can you be liberated, without this awakening, how can you be liberated from suffering because you're not listening to anything he says?
Like Shakyamuni Buddha, everything he taught us, every single word is not there just for the sake of it, everything is coming out from the True Nature. Buddhism relies on your respect in order to dig up the treasure of our True Nature, without that, how can we be awakened?
If there is a lack of discipleship, it represents a lack of respect in general towards your own teacher and that means you lack love and respect towards your own parents.
That means if you're not listening to anything because of a lack of respect, you just let it be, you don't even take in what they said, how can we achieve anything, how can we learn anything? That's why Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, everyone knows him already at this stage, represents filial piety. The sutra about him, Ksitigarbha Sutra, is like Buddhism's doctrine of filial piety.
A person who is filial to his parents and respectful to his teacher is given the title Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva.
It's a title given if you are being respectful and loving towards your parents and teacher, if you treat your parents with a loving heart, if you treat your teachers with reverence and respect towards the teaching, then you are Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva. This is the way you enter, this is how you begin your journey.
Not just the parents of this life, the parents of past lives, many many past lives, that means all beginnings in general. You need to expand this loving heart from the people close to you towards everyone else, expand. With this foundation in your character, if you are like that, truly like that, then when you want to learn further and get better and more sophisticated in your learning, you progress very quickly.
That's why all the Bodhisattvas or the Buddhas, when they try to turn the Dharma Wheel, are all born into the family of Emperors and Kings. You can imagine how big their merit and fortune is because they all cultivate this filial piety. In our case, if you want to have a good family or be born into a happy family or you want to have your children to be loving and respect towards you, then you need to start doing it towards your own parents. If we can't even be respectful and loving towards our elders, how can you expect, when you become an elder, to be respected by your youngest?
So as young people, we must understand that. No matter how smart we are, how capable we are, never fall into the trap of arrogance, always remember your roots, only then can you grow very far. As a Buddhist, we need to learn how to love people, how to respect people. Especially in modern times, we need to learn, because it is unfamiliar and even unknown to people, how to be loving people.
Next week, we'll talk about that in detail: How do we be filial? So that's it for today.
So to recap, this was a basic introduction on where to start in learning Buddhism, explaining why we need to be respectful towards our elders, our parents and not just parents of this life, parents of many, many lives in the past.
If your understanding is clear about these teachings, this principle, you will understand that all beings are your parents at one point in time and how can you harm your own parents, knowing that they are your parents.
Even if they harm you, you will not have the heart to retaliate, because you are one. It's like the left hand harming the right hand. You can't. If you have this foundation of filial piety in your character, your cultivation, say, chanting Amituofo, the speed of your progress is very quick. Every day you improve. So this is the basic introduction we learned today: Where do we start in learning Buddhism? Filial piety. Where do we start from filial piety? How do we perform filial piety or love and respect towards our parents? We'll talk about it next week.
So today we stop here. I hope that everyone could honestly chant Amituofo and be healthy so that you all can be peaceful and prosperous. Okay? Also, let's go to the Pure Land. Amituofo!
Let's dedicate our merits:
May the merits and virtues accrued from this work,
repay to the karma creditors of all times and also be born in the Pure Land, repay to the beings from all directions so that they may be liberated from the sufferings.
Repay the Four Kindnesses above,
relieve the sufferings of those
in the three paths below.
May those who see or hear of this,
aspired to invoke the Bodhi heart
cultivate the teachings
for the rest of this life,
Then be born together
in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.
Amituofo
****
Understanding Buddhism (10)
Fellow practitioners, fellow Dharma Protectors: Good evening to you all! Amituofo!
Today, I would like to borrow this opportunity, time from you to explain, talk about how we understand Buddhism, actually the fact that we can gather here and learn together means that all of us have an affinity with Buddha.
So, to learn about Understanding Buddhism, the first thing is we need to know our teacher, our teacher is Shakyamuni Buddha. What does Shakyamuni Buddha mean, what is his goal? What is his area of work or responsibility? What is his career or his achievements? Only when we are clear about this, only then do we have confidence, solid confidence in him. Like chanting Amitabha Buddha's name, we need to understand who Amitabha Buddha is, understanding why the Pure Land was built, only when we understand about him and his work, will we grow confidence to seek rebirth in his Pure Land.
Therefore, I would like to borrow this opportunity to explain, simply, about Buddhism, because we have a very short time, half an hour to 45 minutes, because it's quite late.
The first time I arrived in Taiwan to learn Buddhism, the first book I read about Buddhism was Understanding Buddhism. It helped me a lot. In what way? It helped me to build my confidence, to give me a sense of purpose, a goal of what I should do, work towards and how I should proceed on this path, how to guide myself going into the future where I would serve all sentient beings and what kind of attitude I should have when I'm doing this.
So the content of this book, Understanding Buddhism, talks about Shakyamuni Buddha as well. I also read about Shakyamuni Buddha's chronicle, his biography. Every time I read his biography, my tears drop naturally. There were many times when I read it, tears came down from my face, because I felt the greatness from his biography. It is because as a successor to the throne, he could have enjoyed the wealth, the powers from his father and his family. He would succeed his father to not just rule over his kingdom but also there were a lot of Brahmin who prophesied he would have a huge influence over the whole India and the world.
But as you can see, he did not choose the path to succeed his father but rather live under a tree every day, stay under the tree and get by by asking for alms from the common folks so that he could use all of his energy to focus on benefiting sentient beings, to contribute to all beings, to the society, to this country, to this world. That's where his greatness came from. That's why he's great in this sense, he didn't ask for anything in return.
Therefore, from the Sutra of Original Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, DiZang Bodhisattva, he has made a vow that when you mentioned about Shakyamuni Buddha, the Buddha's of 10 directions always praised Buddha about one thing, what is it?
He could be a Buddha in this era, in this world, the Saha World, it's not easy for a person to be a Buddha in this world, because a lot of Bodhisattvas know, it's common knowledge among them, because they've observed in this world, that it is very, very hard for ordinary people to be educated back to good and it's very easy for them to fall into committing bad deeds.
But Buddha himself did not give up on us. He used all of his energy and wisdom to help us to return back to goodness so that we don't fall back into that suffering cycle. That is why he's so great because this is hard. This kind of teacher, this kind of person with such compassion is hard to find.
Especially when we talk about the young people of current times, we should read the chronicles of Shakyamuni Buddha and his biography. If you read it in depth and you really understand who this person was and what he did, how much he gave up and for what, then you will naturally have tears flowing out, because we will understand how hard his work was, how thankless his work was.
If we reflect back on ourselves, sometimes when we meet some obstacles in our life, when we try and do something good, or try to do something useful, we might meet some obstacles, issues and then we feel very sad, not being understood, but if you look at Buddha's time, he had to face a lot of humiliation as well.
There was a person who swore at him actually, swore with all the words, dirty words. But he just sat there, not responding, not just not responding, he's smiling, when this proceeding, this swearing was going on, he didn't even have a sense of anger on his face. A lot of people when they get humiliated like that to their face in front of everyone, usually they would just go to the kitchen and get a knife in retaliation, trying to tell them to stop. So that is another aspect of Buddha, why he was the Buddha, why he was so great. So those are the examples we should know and I'm very interested in this as well, myself, when I started learning.
I went back to Indonesia, this university to give talks, Dharma talks, and I always bring up this book Understanding Buddhism, because it introduces who Shakyamuni Buddha was, to understand who this person was, so that we can feel his work, how his work benefits us.
So, if we want to learn from Shakyamuni Buddha today, what do we need to know: what is the biggest thing we should learn from him, what is the biggest trait we should inherit from Buddha's example? Tolerance, to be able to take in all things good and bad, just like an ocean, like an ocean he can take in all kinds of streams, water, be it rain, the mountain streams or sewage everything, he could take in everything, his heart is big. This is what Shakyamuni Buddha let us experience as a person of that scale in his heart.
When you have this broad heart, big heart, able to take in anything, tolerate everything, more than tolerate, beyond tolerate, accept everything, then your life will be more positive, more active and you will not feel depressed because of a few issues or problems.
It's impossible to have a 100% smooth path in your life, not even Buddha did, but how you treat these issues is important. You must remember, my work today, whatever situation you face today, if you have the right attitude, if you have an attitude of taking it all in with a big heart and understanding, you can convert this issue into your motivation, into energy so that you reflect and can fix where it goes wrong in yourself and others and then it becomes a positive outcome for you.
So, that's what we should learn from Shakyamuni Buddha, to be able to take in everything with a big heart, to tolerate and to take in everything, all kinds of people.
When I started, when I just became a novice monk, my biggest biggest problem that I had to face was, my biggest issue was: arrogance and temper. My temper was big, I had a very bad temper. If a person is arrogant and has a bad temper, who wants to be your friend? That's why I had so few friends, I didn't have many friends.
True, it's true. Also, because of my bad temper, I also lost a good friend of mine. So after that, I reflected, if I don't change this bad temper and my arrogance, it will become the biggest obstacle in my life.
Also, after all this transformation that I have, after learning from Buddha, all of my friends and family started to learn Buddhism, and a lot of them learned because of seeing my transformation from someone who was very angry into someone who's very calm, able to take in situations well. Even though I still have a temper, I have improved a lot since then. I have transformed from getting angry and reactive towards situations that are not to my liking into someone who felt more pity or more sympathetic rather than being angry, like this person has a lot of issues he has to face, that's why he's like that.
So once you understand who your teacher is, the example that he has set, only then do you have confidence in learning from him. So let's continue into the main topic of today.
When we're learning Buddhism, the first thing we need to know is that Shakyamuni Buddha has given a lot of methods of cultivation, but we need to learn how to choose the path that is suitable to us. All these have to be in accordance to our levels. So there are a few ways to choose the path that is suitable to you.
Number one is it has to meet your current situation, your living environment, your capabilities, number one, if you're able to learn from it. If you are not able to learn and keep up with the teachings, then you will find everything's an uphill battle, and you lose a lot of motivation and have issues.
So for example, the reason why we are choosing the Pure Land method is because it's simpler for us. Sometimes when we have issues, meet some problems, we put all our worries into this one Amituofo, Amitabha, seeking his help to give us strength to face these conflicts and issues and overcome them. So how? By increasing my wisdom, so it's easy, just have a central focus.
But if you choose something like Zen Buddhism, we have to know that sampling is pretty good. It's not because it's bad, but the standard is very high, in order to master it you need to be able to see through all phenomena and be aware of its essence so that we do not get dragged away by the surface appearance. So you need to have a very sharp observation, so it's very hard to master it in one lifetime. Other than the capabilities, this method needs to be suitable to our current living environment. Also it has to fit into our current realities that we are living In, now, this era, sensibilities of this era. Right now we are living in a very big society, without societies, without communities, we cannot survive. Say if we want to eat today where did the food come from? Where did this food provision come from? If you want to wear clothes, where were the clothes made? The fact that you can live in this world and not just survive, you can live in peace with food, shelter and safety, it relies on everyone, societies. Without this society, we can't survive.
So right now, since we are living in this setting, we need to choose a method that allows us to continue to live, that is suitable to our current realities. Otherwise, if we pick something that is not suitable to our current living environment, then it's just a waste of time. Because we can't get the results, like picking a major in University.
If we choose something wrong, is not suitable to us, hence, it's wrong for us, then it becomes an obstacle rather than a path to success for us. Alright, if we choose something that is really suitable to us, then we will be achieving success relatively easy and quick and our life will get better and better.
So if we expand this, a lot of parents, as well, always force their own children to learn what they want, rather than what the children want. They hardly communicate with their own children about what their aspirations are, right? Instead, they force their aspirations on them. Therefore, that's why it's hard to see a good relationship between children and parents because both sides do not communicate properly. Everyone is going their own way. There's no communication between us.
For example, if a young person wants to build a family, one must first find a partner. To have a partner, you need to have love, romance and beyond that, you need to have an assessment on this person’s character. Is this person reliable? Is this person trustworthy?
Only when you get more understanding towards each other, only then can you start to be able to live together and go on with this life together for a long, long time. Otherwise if one person just married on impulse for fun, or for one moment of impulse, it won't last, most of the time.
There are cases where some of the lay Buddhists they talk to me: Oh my God, you know right now, I am married and I felt very hard, painful and a lot of issues. Before he married, I asked him if he wanted to be a monk. He refused. I don't really want to go to be a monk. Right now he's already having family conflict issues. Then when he married, he kind of, faced all the troubles, he talked to me and said: “I am thinking back to that choice I could have chosen, you know this path, but it's already too late.”
So back to the point. Buddha talked about all these, you call it 84,000 methods, it’s really more than that. The whole thing is just to give you a choice. So that gives you more choices that you can pick something that's suitable to you, but you need to pick one. That's why today when we choose to learn from Pure Land Buddhism, that means chanting Amituofo. Why? because it's easier. First, the standard is: you don't have to sever all the afflictions. Other methods, other than the Pure Land, need to sever the afflictions in this lifetime.
For our case, we only need to suppress the afflictions, problems. As long as you're able to suppress, not allowing a reaction to come up, you are progressing. First, how to suppress it by putting your focus on Amitabha Buddha and then seek rebirth in the Pure Land. Then you can sort out your afflictions. That’s why there are two stages rather than one.
So that's why if you don't choose the right method, even when you choose this path that is relatively easy, we still have a lot of afflictions after learning for 10 years. Why? The more we learn, the more we chant, the more afflictions we have because we haven't mastered the method.
So this one is already relatively easy, we still take a lot of energy to learn, let alone something that requires you to cut off all of your afflictions right now, in one lifetime. Therefore, we need to choose something in line with our capability and our era and our living environment. So only when we know what to choose, and why we learn this method and why we learn Buddhism, then we would no longer be superstitious towards it. We know why, because we know the methods, we know the theory which it is based on.
We understand that Buddhism is meant to awaken us. After giving 49 years of sermon talks, what's the most important thing? What was Buddha talking about?
Everything is about the truth of the universe and our life. The universe is vast. A lot of planets in the solar system, the milky way, why did that happen? Why is it so many? If you go down to the microscopic level, to our life, what does the universe mean? The universe means, in our sense, is our environment, our living environment.
The universe includes your current living environment. Have you understood your own universe, your living environment? What kind of attitude should you have in face of your current environment? Not just the physical one, also when dealing with people, it's also part of the environment or things, events.
So, the universe is the environment, life is our self, talking about ourselves, the individual, this path of birth to death. Some people from birth all the way to death when they get old and die are still not clear about their life, the purpose of life. If you look at the common majorities, how do they live their life? Eat, sleep, wake up and go to work. When you ask them: “What's your value? What's your principle in life? What's the most important principle and value you have in your life? What's your bottom line?”
They're not clear about it. So we can summarize this kind of life as: You came into this world without a clue, you departed from this world without a clue. That's the fortune we have. No matter our cultivation level, the fortune part we have right now is that we understand we have a purpose. We have been given an option to have a purpose, beyond waking up, eating, earning money, coming back home, bathing, sleeping, and then repeating. Those are mechanical parts.
But for us, we're fortunate in this regard. We have learned Buddhism, we have learned the meaning of Buddha, himself, what example he has set. If you look at young people nowadays, a common habit is a lot of time was wasted on something that is meaningless in the long run.
Some even use their parents wealth, position and power, to commit atrocities or to commit killings, sexual misconduct or something that is pointless. For example, across the world people use very extreme drugs and the majority of them are the young people who are hooked on these drugs, intoxicants. If you have no guide, your life is gone just like that. When we understand, after learning Buddhism, that it takes a huge fortune, a lot of merits, to be able to be born into the human world, in the human body, therefore, we should not waste it.
From this, we understand, when Buddha's talking about all the sutras, it's all about ourselves, it refers to yourself, the target of his speech is you and your environment. That means your life and your universe.
If we do not get this point, after hearing all the sutras or reading all of the sutras, or Dharma Talks, then it becomes separated. Our life becomes separated from what was learned from the book, it's pointless then. So from something that's supposed to be related to our life, we treat it as something separate from us. It becomes like reading a novel. There's no benefit from it, it becomes a superstition.
Today, if you ask one person who claims they learned Buddhism, why, how do you practice Buddhism? What is Buddhism? He might answer: today, I chanted using the beads, I chanted a sutra. When I ask: Why do you learn this?
They reply: I think learning Buddhism is all about chanting and reading the sutras. Most of the people have the attitude of, looking at the statue and like I chant the sutra for him, so that he can bless me, but we must understand the sutra came from Buddha. He was the one who gave us the teaching. He doesn't need you to read it to him.
The whole point is for you to use what you learn in your life. Generate it into something useful for you in your life. That's the point of chanting. So Buddha's Dharma, no matter its scale, its depth, its level, is all related to your life, not just related, intricately tied, because it teaches you how to deal with people and challenges. What kind of mentality do you have, in order to overcome hurdle after hurdle in everyday life? Especially when you're not happy, when you feel trapped, depressed, it can help you to transform this stuck situation into something actionable, movable.
That's why Mr. Ou Yang Jing Wu, who was from the early nationalist era and he was a very famous Buddhist scholar said that Buddhism is a necessity for today's society because today if there's none of this teaching of wisdom, like Buddhism, let's not talk about others, myself, I couldn't change my habits without guidance. After learning, the only thing I realized is that I do have a problem called a bad temper. Or like after learning, I understood what Buddha said, words can bring calamities if not used wisely.
If words are used unwisely, they can bring disasters to yourself. Also, they will take away your merits, all of your good fortune that may happen to you will be taken away because of your own backward doings and you plant a lot of seeds of enmity or make a lot of enemies and then beyond that, like virtue wise, if you are not being respectful and loving to your own parents, then your own children will do the same to you as you do to your own parents. So none of this is superstitious.
Using what you get from the sutra, what you heard from the Dharma talk, you must use it every second, every moment, every minute to fix, to transform your weakness, to overcome your bad habits, to direct yourself using the teaching, to implement this teaching in your own life, that way you can guide yourself into a better life. It is like a lamp that lights up the path in front of us so that we can walk on the right one.
So this is a simple introduction of how we choose correctly what to learn from Buddhism, because it has so many options, because a wrong choice will cause you to use all of your energy with no result at all, spent, wasted your energy, basically your life is your energy. Like in university, after learning all these years, have you used it ever, or be able to use what you have learned in your life. If you aren't able to use what you learn, then you have wasted your time. Many of us have had the experience after spending so many years in an educational institution. Therefore, in Buddhism, the same thing applies.
We need to choose (our method) correctly. Correct to what? Correct to our capability, correct to our living environment and suitable to our current realities, our era. So once we understand what method to choose among the many methods of Buddhism, we also need to pick where we start when practicing Buddhism, right? How do we get real benefit from Buddhism? We must know about this as well.
Like when I first arrived in Taiwan, a lot of people introduced many ways, this is good, this method is good. I was confused about where to start, because I was looking for somewhere to start. Everything has a start, only then could you learn when you know where to start, only then can you build up and become successful. So this is what we call a right understanding and the right answer in this context is choosing where to start our journey of cultivation in Buddhism. Otherwise, people will look at you and say: “After learning so many years, you know nothing about what you learned, or you are clueless about it.”
It has become a superstition because you don't know what you're doing. There are people coming to the temple I reside in and say how they perceived Buddhism. They don't understand what Buddhism is from what they see on the outside, it feels like that, superstitious and all that. So, therefore, right now, we are talking about what all of these names and statues of Buddha mean. What does the name and statues and their post of Buddha and Bodhisattvas refer to? What are they trying to symbolize? Otherwise, every time we pray to Buddha and Bodhisattvas, we do not know why we are doing it, what we are trying to gain from it.
If you ask one of the Buddhists: Why are you praying to the Buddhas? We need to be able to answer it. This is what we call, in Buddhism, we call it expedient means. Or using a modern word is using a highly sophisticated art to educate, an artful education.
Buddhism since its inception, 2500 years ago, has developed into an art form, it talks about using art to educate the masses.
Using technology, for now, we have movies, music and all that, to express the educational content of Buddhism. In the old days, I watched a movie about the Sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism in China, Master Hui Neng. I read his sutra, the Sixth Patriarch Sutra.
I learned about him from this art format, from this media and I felt a sense of respect and reverence for it. Therefore, this is one example of how art was being used to educate, and this is necessary. It's necessary for us to know how they educate, and how we learn using these techniques.
For example, Bodhisattva Guanyin, Bodhisattvas Ksitigarbha or Di Zang no matter their image, name or offering the ceremony, offering flowers, water, or fruits. What are they trying to symbolize? What are they trying to tell us by doing this? We are doing this, to remind us in our daily life, to cultivate the virtues, each of these actions or each of these Buddhas and Bodhisattvas represents. They all symbolize certain virtues we should learn.
So, what kind of virtues? For example, to summarize them, it teaches us to be gentle, to be kind, to be respectful, to be frugal and also let others go first when it comes to our daily life. Beyond that, it is the precepts of No Killing, No Sexual Misconduct, No Stealing, No Lying, No Slandering Words and No Intoxicants.
Those are all about the conduct of our daily lives, help us to regulate our conduct, restrain ourselves. Right now, in our daily life, we have to use these behaviors to live with other people. If everyone has no good manners and lack of conduct and lack of restraint, it becomes hard to deal with, life becomes harder for working, family, everything.
So, if you look at the world, people nowadays, most people, how are they behaving? Lots of arrogance or lots of bias, lots of like tendency to control others, disrespect easily, to be disrespectful to others, not giving other people space, not just other people, strangers, but to their own family, parents, siblings and teachers.
So, lacking this education, this is the consequence and one very solid example, a visual example is food in the canteen, school canteen, university canteen.
Of all of the kids and young people that go to school, see how many of them waste the food given to them. If you look at society at large, how many people are actually cultivating the virtue of patience towards others instead of trying to get ahead of one another. So the basics of virtues is to let everyone be more kind towards one another and respectful towards one another. The elders who require care and love will be taken care of.
So these symbols help us, remind us to bring our compassions, our pure mind, to cultivate a pure mind and also a joyful outlook of life and giving hearts in our daily life through daily practice, daily cultivations. By doing this every time, we get used to being kind, get used to being gentle and get used to being good. Otherwise, if you don't understand why they have this symbolized way of education, you will become superstitious, which is do it for the sake of doing it. We don't know why we are doing this.
People will say you are superstitious and bring people down a wrong path. They know we are not productive towards society by just offering flowers, water and fruit because you want to idol worship some statues made of wood, clay or gold. Those are just materials. Why are you doing that? It is because we don't understand what it means, it looks like that, doesn't it?
So, now, we are learning about understanding Buddhism.
One of them is in offering incense, when we are making the offerings. What does offering incense mean? It has a meaning, everything has a meaning. It means, we are receiving the Dharma without giving any doubts. Right now, the biggest biggest problem of learning this path of enlightenment, what is the biggest obstacle for Buddhists? The biggest obstacle is not greed, hatred, ignorance, it is not about attachment to the senses, desires, power and fame. Those are not the biggest obstacle actually.
The biggest obstacle is doubt, suspicion, the tendency to suspect easily. For example, you are chanting Amituofo and then the following thoughts arise: Did he actually mean it? Is it for real? Can I really be born in the Pure Land? Can I truly be blessed? If you don't even have a basic confidence in the teacher, how can you take in all of his teachings and how can you build up confidence?
So learning from sages’ teachings, like Buddhism and Confucianism, they all start from confidence in the character of the teachers, confidence in the law of Cause and Effect: Do good will reap good, do bad will reap bad, that’s the iron law. If we doubt, (it) becomes like a foundation that you cannot stand on. “Oh, those are the techniques used by people to control the masses or are used by people to scare them from not doing bad.
Even worse, some people think we only live once, there’s only one life and I am already here, so I can do anything I want without restraint. How can we live a happy life like that?
So returning back to understanding why we offer incense? It's not to make Buddha happy or make a Bodhisattva happy. It's not to give fragrance to them. No. It's reminding ourselves, it’s all about you, it’s all for you.
They are doing all this for you to understand, to learn, to be confident in his teachings, to strengthen confidence, to be kind and to be a fragrance towards people around you.
When you light the incense, when you smell the aromatic smell of incense, you must remember that everything I say, everything I do, my character has to be as warm and as fragrant as incense. That means being kind, you always benefit other people, always care and be considerate for them. On the other hand, I do not want to be someone who harms or everything I say, everything I do is harmful or hurtful towards them. That's why we light the incense.
So when you light the incense, the first thing you should think about is I must get my speech out of my mouth, to prevent it from becoming a sword that harms (most of the time is) people close to you. On the other hand, we need to remember when we smell this fragrance of incense, we must remind ourselves how much kindness you have received since you were born. In Buddhism, it is categorized into Four Kindnesses to repay. First are your parents which goes without saying. Second are the teachers who gave you wisdom and gave you the ability to see the truth.
Third is your country. Countries that allow you to have a society that's peaceful to grow. The last one is the sentient beings who provide everything you need in your life. That's why we have the ceremony of offering incense.
Second is the offering of flowers. What do flowers mean? Flowers mean cause, seeds. When you look at the flower, you think of the cause. The common conception of offering flowers is that it will make you look good or you will become beautiful later in this life or in your next life. Most ladies heard of this common saying that when you offer flowers, you offer Buddha the flowers, you will look more dignified but it's not the actual meaning, it's not the ultimate meaning of it.
So, when you look at a lot of Dharma ceremonies, a lot of women are giving flowers because of this understanding, but the actual meaning of offering flowers, in depth, when we look deeper is to cultivate a good cause. Why? If you look at society, there are some people born into poverty while other people are born into wealth, into positions of high power, great power. It has everything to do with the cause they have cultivated. Some people fall into the realm of animals, into the realm of hell or hungry ghosts. It's also because of the cause they cultivated in the past.
So, in simpler words, reminding yourself of Cause means preventing yourself from creating the cause of your sufferings or bad deeds which is the cause of suffering, your speech, your actions and your thoughts.
So when you remind yourself through the offering of flowers, you remind yourself that your deeds, your attitude has to be the same as the Buddha that you offer the flowers to. My cause must be the same as Amitabha or any Buddhas or Bodhisattvas that you are offering to.
That's the point. To remind ourselves, in our living environment, everything is also impermanent, flowers are impermanent, they wilt very quickly.
Flowers should also remind us that everything in our life, everything we have, the relationships that we have and all that, will change, as time goes on. This is the impermanence of life, one of the facts. We should not get too attached to it from this understanding. From here, this small example, we can see how Buddhism overtakes all forms of education in the world.
Other than flowers and incense, we offer water. The offering of water is not mentioned on this slide but it means that calm, clean water is when it's not moved, it's pure and it's equal. Equal or flat means do not be tainted by greed or hatred, that means having a pure heart, do not be discriminative, which is being equal in your heart.
So from this example, we understand that all these offerings of flowers, incense, water, or names of Buddhas, statues of Buddha and Bodhisattvas, they're all to remind us.
Bodhisattva statues represent the virtue you cultivate. When you complete the virtues, this is what Buddha accomplished of virtue looks like through the image of Buddha.
So now I have talked too long, I was supposed to talk for half an hour, till 9 o'clock, but we have extended beyond that. I hope that our Dylan should remind me of the time, it should be 45 minutes instead of one hour.
So next week, next Wednesday, we'll continue with: where do we start when learning Buddhism. Which door do we enter in Buddhism so that we can achieve success?
So now I would like to wish you all a good evening and good health. I also wish that you be happy every day, be positive and be optimistic no matter what happens, be able to see through, see through as much as you can, because life is impermanent. It changes everyday, so there's no need for clinging to it and having a burdened or heavy heart.
No matter how unhappy the situation is, you should always, always remind yourself to keep going with your chin up! Do not be burdened by it.
Looking at my life, I don't have a very smooth and happy situation. You think I'm just relaxed? No, I have a lot of problems and all of them are not always according to my wishes, most of them are not, but what I can do is change my attitude in face of them so that I can keep going, alright? Be positive!
Thank you so much. I hope to meet you all again next week about learning Buddhism. Next week, we will continue to learn Understanding Buddhism together, your participation also gives other people confidence in learning this. So thank you, good night. Amituofo.
Let's dedicate our merits. I'd like to take this opportunity to dedicate the merits. I will read it, you guys can follow. I hope that we can receive the blessings from the Buddha and Bodhisattvas. May the merits and virtues accrued from this work. I, use your own name, would like to dedicate the merits of listening to the Dharma to all the karmic creditors of our lives so that they can all be received by Amitabha Buddha into the Pure Land.
I would also like to dedicate the merits to beings from all directions, everywhere, so that they can be liberated from suffering and achieve ultimate happiness.
Repay the Four Kindnesses above, and
Relieve the Sufferings of those
in the Three Paths below.
May those who see or hear of this,
Aspired to Invoke the Bodhi heart
And cultivate the teachings
for the rest of this life,
Then be born together
in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.
Namo Amituofo.
****
Understanding Buddhism (9)
Today, we will continue to learn how to
understand Buddhism and how to
live a happy and fulfilling life.
Why do we
want to learn Buddhism,
to understand Buddhism?
No matter what race you are or
what country you come from,
we must understand why.
I believe
every one of us has a sense of hope,
especially the young people.
The time for young people to practice is now.
They all hope that they can be successful
in their career ,
not just the professional side
but also their personal life, to be happy,
without pain, without worries.
That's
what we call living a happy life.
A lot of people
want to seek this kind of treasure,
called a perfect, beautiful life.
However, this treasure already exists in us
and also this treasure is found in Buddhism,
or pointed out by Buddhism.
However,
we are not aware of it.
This treasure is very clearly stated in Buddhism.
As long as you learn seriously, you will get it,
you will get the treasure.
We must understand that,
we must understand this point.
Everyone has this treasure,
but you need to
work hard to find it.
In the past, back in the nationalist China era
in the early 1900s, Buddhism was required
not just a choice,
but was a necessity for the people living
in this time, the 20th century and
the 21st century is no exception,
because as humans, we have a lot of
issues that need to be resolved
and seek help to be solved.
So this is
the use of Buddhism to us.
So we have
talked about the terminology
and we have talked about enlightenment.
So we have learned about the first level
of Right Awakening, so we're moving on
to the second level called 正覺,
Equally Perfect Enlightenment
(Samyak Sambodhi).
Why do we need to learn an enlightenment
that is equally perfect to Buddha?
Why do we need to achieve this level?
It is because a person who has
Equally Perfect Enlightenment
has selflessness.
If using a very shallow way
to describe “me”, like, who am I, the self,
the easiest way to understand it,
the shallowest way to see it
is selfishness and
self interest.
Today, why do we practice Buddhism
for a long amount of time, but there is
no effect or the effect is minimal,
very small
is because of our selfishness.
Some people even have more afflictions,
after learning Buddhism, the more they learn,
the more burden they feel,
the more unhappy they are,
because deep inside their heart,
there is still an “I”, this false self is still there.
Deep inside, it’s still me, me, me, and
because of “I”, because if there is still “I”,
an illusion of self, we have all the afflictions,
because I’m happy, because I'm sad,
because I don't get, I need, I don't need,
I love, I don't love, I love, I hate,
there's a lot
coming from this “I”.
That's why Buddha told us that the first step
to gain enlightenment, which is true freedom,
is to break through this illusion of “I”.
When you are sick,
you go to the doctor, right?
So the same thing, if your view is wrong,
or if you are lost spiritually in all respects,
you need a doctor like Buddha to solve it,
to help you by pointing out the solution.
We need to know
that every one of us has a disease,
not just our body, our heart as well.
Not just mental, like our heart, because of
the false view of self, illusion of self,
because there is self,
then if self cannot be satisfied,
if self cannot reach anything,
then it's not happy.
Therefore, the afflictions begin.
Only a person who is selfless
can see things clearly.
They will be able to discern the truth
from the falsehood, good from evil,
right from wrong and benefit from harm.
It's a bit deep now, because we're talking
about Equally Perfect Enlightenment.
We need to savor it, to pay attention to it.
What is real and false? We use happiness
as a standard. You must see the actual reality
behind our speech, thoughts and actions.
What kind of thing should I avoid,
to avoid falling into the cycle of suffering?
What are the things I need to face?
What is the right thing I need to do,
no matter how hard it is,
in order to face my issues?
Also, we need to see things clearly,
in order to see what is actually evil,
what is actually good,
or what is actually twisted,
or what is actually pure.
Is the path that I'm walking on right?
This is just a metaphor.
The mindset that I have, the attitude,
everything we speak is that on the right path?
In the Five Precepts,
one of them is No Sexual Misconduct.
If we can learn about Buddhism in depth,
especially the Sexual Misconduct Precept,
if we break it, we not only break our marriage,
we cause harm to the people around us
not just husband and wife, your children,
your own parents and
your society in general.
So, this is one of the cases where we need to
have a very clear mind in order to resolve it,
in order to avoid it.
Another case, about right and wrong.
Say today, my actions, my speech,
my decisions, are they right or wrong?
Are they benefiting people
or harming other people?
People who have that level of selflessness
are able to see through the pros and cons,
the benefits and the harms,
the rights and wrongs of everything,
because in a lot of cases,
we do something without knowing
we're harming them or hurting them,
intentionally or unintentionally.
Sometimes our actions,
our speech might harm people
without us knowing it.
Shakyamuni Buddha has told us as soon as
your heart is empty, void of selfishness,
that means you let go of selfishness,
this false sense of self,
only then will your life start to change,
everything you do, the way you eat,
the way you think, the way you see things,
view things will be different, 180 degrees
opposite from the worldly people.
As long as there's this “I”, self still there, you
(your speech, actions and thoughts) will cause
diseases at both the physical and mental levels.
It needs to be solved,
otherwise your suffering will continue.
Therefore, today Buddha taught us that if we
have not broken through the false sense of self,
we have not let go of the false sense of self,
there is no way we are able to see things
unbiased and clearly. Not just Buddhism,
in society, whatever career you're doing,
whatever position you're in,
as long as you have a heavy ego
or self in there, a lot of self in there,
then you can't get happiness.
A lot of people thought
they did good deeds in society.
They thought: I have done so many
good things, I donated money and
much more like picking up the rubbish.
Am I accumulating merits?
Is that actually accumulating merits?
Not necessarily.
There are cases where people are
doing meritorious deeds, look like
they are doing meritorious deeds,
however, they ended up
in the Three Lower Realms.
Why? Why did that happen?
It is because they don't know what is actually
meritorious. They thought what they are
doing is meritorious, but it's not.
It's not harmful now, but it gets worse as it
accumulates and you keep doing the false
things that you bring with you into the next life,
because all of the elements of selfishness
are still there, mixed in there.
It’s like poison inside a beautiful dew.
Some people are very good at speaking
very nicely, looking very nice, and
acting like a very nice person,
and so they look like they are doing good things.
But we must understand
the heart behind it, is it pure?
In the past,
have you seen this Chinese drama?
I always watched it when I was young.
Mr. Bao, you know the Bao Qingtian包青天,
Judge Bao lived during the Song Dynasty
was a very fair judge,
who had a very dark complexion
and was very righteous.
Everyone trusted him,
because he was very unbiased;
there were a lot of case studies
in the stories.
The reason he was called unbiased was
because he dared to challenge the
authorities that were abusing their roles
because in the eyes of the law
everyone is equal.
He was then able to oversee the power
and able to capture these
corrupted people into the law.
So why did Mr. Bao capture all of these
seemingly good people? A lot of them
looked like good people,
everyone praised them, but Mr. Bao exposed
their actual intentions and their deeds behind
the scenes, they were not actually good people.
There were a lot of elements of greed
and hatred inside as well as revenge,
like, trying to get back at someone.
So, we need wisdom to see through this,
something that is hidden very deep and
the point is so that we are able to do good,
actual good things.
In Buddhism,
there is a standard for being good,
you want to be a good person right?
There are standards for being a good person.
To be a true good person, a person
deserving to be called good, what is it?
How do we define it,
how does Buddha define it? Buddha taught
us in the Three Pure Meritorious Deeds.
If you fulfill these three big categories of
meritorious deeds, then you're considered
qualified as being a good person.
What is the first meritorious deed?
The first one is to be filial to your parents,
which is to love and respect your parents,
only then
will you be considered
as an entry level good person.
Then you also need to be
respectful to your teachers.
So love your parents
and respect your teachers.
Buddha is our teacher.
So, when he teaches
you something that you understand,
you should follow it.
When you move up to that level,
uphold the precepts of No Killing, No Harming
sentient beings, verbally or physically.
Other than that, every kind deed you do,
if you divert away from the standards,
then it's not considered as good.
It's true.
Other than these standards,
if you divert from them,
then all the good deeds are not considered
as good without this foundation,
without this guide.
A lot of people ask me: Master,
I want to be a good person.
I want to do good things.
So what are the good things for me to do?
I say: They are right in front of you,
every time, everywhere,
wherever you are,
you can do good (deeds).
So therefore, a lot of people say: Master,
in the Buddhist Dharma Center, for example,
our Dharma Center, should we do charity?
Is it good?
It's good, right?
People say it's good.
If we come here, to the temple, and
I want to start by doing charity,
charitable deeds, I would say not necessarily.
Making offerings to the Buddha,
Dharma and Sangha is a big thing
and is a good merit.
Yes, it is. But what kind of heart do you have?
What kind of attitude do you bring
with you when you offer it?
It's very important,
actually the most important, because
a lot of people bring a lot of elements of self,
which is my fame,
my position, my faith,
my wealth.
They are using that kind of intention to offer.
If people would bring this kind of attitude
and still keep it in their heart,
then we didn't really learn Buddhism,
we didn't really use the Buddha's
Dharma to wash it away.
We are not considered as true Buddhists.
Therefore, when you see things, people
doing charitable (work), it's good, right?
People recognize you, the country will
even give you a plaque saying that
this group of people are very good,
and will put you on a pedestal and
praise you on national television, because
you have contributed a lot to society.
Is it a good thing?
It looks good.
But it's not right. Why?
Where do you go wrong?
Didn't Shakyamuni Buddha (teach us)
to be a good person, to do good deeds,
speak good words?
Yeah, we should come to the Buddha
temple and protect the Dharma
by helping out the temple.
Also give offerings to the Venerables
so that you can accumulate merits.
Yes, it's good.
However, we must know
the core value, the core foundation,
the core purpose of a Dharma Center,
what's the point of a Dharma Center?
What's the 本分? What's the first
responsibility of a Dharma Center?
It's not to seek recognition.
It's not to seek fame
or praise.
We are not here to accumulate wealth or
to want a big temple, with all the beautiful
buildings and architecture
so that I can
control a lot of people in this place.
Is that an actual Dharma Center?
During Shakyamuni Buddha's time,
through his whole life,
he only had three clothes.
And he lived under a tree,
slept under a tree, he didn't
have a place actually, owned by him.
No, he didn't have it. He sat under
trees most of the day. If he wanted
to have a Dharma place, a good one,
or a really luxurious one,
he just needed to say:
I want a Dharma place.
The 16 countries would flock to him and
build one in every single place
he walked by.
It was easy, because all of his Dharma
protectors are Kings, but he did not
accept it. He did not ask for it.
So the point of Buddhism and the point
of building a Dharma place that
we see now is to educate.
If the fundamental responsibility is not clear,
then what's the point of coming here
and learning Buddhism?
There's no benefit from Buddhism,
if we do not understand why we
are learning Buddhism
and then Buddhism's most important role,
for the Dharma Center is to educate
us how to be a human.
This is the first step
and the most fundamental step.
How to be a good human,
how to be a decent human being.
If we can’t even be
a decent human being
and we say
we want to be born in the Pure Land,
do you have guarantees to do it?
It’s the guarantee I'm talking about.
Can you be happy in this life,
if you can't be a decent human?
Can you be healthy,
can you live carefreely,
if you are not a decent person?
Today, to learn Buddhism, we must
understand and be able to break through,
see through what is actually harmful
and what is actually beneficial,
what is right and what is wrong.
So at that point of understanding this,
only then do we know
that attaining enlightenment
is the permanent way.
It's a long term way to actually bring us
to that state of happiness or to liberate
ourselves from suffering, to avoid sufferings.
So every type of Dharma Center must
have a goal when they are established.
So we're talking about a grand plan
like a shared objective,
but every Dharma Center must
have a goal.
Remember, if we are
coming to a Dharma Center,
we must ask the first question:
Today, I come here to learn Buddhism,
what's my goal? Today, I chant Amituofo.
I came to this Dharma place to chant Amituofo.
Have I started
to understand and am I
truly confident in Buddhist teachings?
Because in this era, there are many
denominations and offshoots or schools
and branches of Buddhism that exist.
Every single denomination and every single
offshoot from the denomination have their
own specific cultivation goal, like our family,
each family has different objectives.
Everyone is different, they have different
ambitions and goals and so do Dharma Centers.
Today if we wish to be successful
in cultivating Buddhism in these lessons,
we must not mix them up,
mix all the denominations and offshoots up.
It is because if we mix up different
methods of learning Buddhism,
in the end, you'll learn nothing, master of none,
because we're a jack of all trades.
You can’t get into any depth in anything.
For example, one of the current branches
is Pure Land Buddhism.
If I want to chant Amituofo,
I would go to a Pure Land Dharma Center.
If I like to meditate,
I can go to a Zen Dharma Center.
If you want to learn tantric or
mantra based learning, then you
can go to a Tibetan Buddhism Center,
or if you like to do good deeds, really like
to help vulnerable people and connect
with people then go to (Tzu Chi Foundation).
You can’t mix them up together.
Suddenly, on Monday I wanted to go to
Pure Land (Dharma Center).
On Tuesday, I go to a Zen Temple.
On Thursday, I will go to a Tibetan (Buddhist Temple).
On Friday, I go to Tzu Chi (Foundation.)
It’s mixed up,
it’s too much.
You will get confused because everyone
has a different goal, they say different things
and you hear them all the time,
all of them are right, so
nothing is right in a way
and get nowhere in your practice.
Just like when we learn painting,
if you want to focus on one path,
you need to understand the painting itself,
the techniques and all that.
You need time to get into it.
You can't just on Monday learn painting,
on Tuesday, learn piano, on Thursday,
learn dancing, mix them up.
You need to set aside time for you
to focus on getting in depth into
what you want to learn.
So be specific
and focus on one goal
and one path at a time.
For a beginner of Buddhism, we must
have a goal. We don't do that because
we don't like other branches or temples, no.
It's not because
we're excluding people
who are narrow minded.
The whole point is
to get something in the end,
to learn something in the end,
because especially this denomination is
actually meant for the beginners, helping
the beginners so that when they come in,
they only have one path,
one clear path,
everyone's following that one path.
You have a very clear guideline
and you have peers,
you have a teacher,
they're all following one path, you will easily
achieve success because you will move
forward quickly.
Especially in this era, it is not easy for
a Dharma Center to be certified
as authentic,
because an authentic Dharma Center
will be protected, literally protected
by Buddhas and heavenly beings,
like they will be a bodyguard
of this Dharma Center.
For a Dharma Center to reach this authenticity,
first they must have Saddharma正法
which is the Dharma of the Buddha,
who does the teaching. Secondly, the
people who follow it must be genuine,
actually practice it, not just talk about it
but actually practice it. Thirdly, it truly
benefits all beings. Every one of these
merits are reliant on our own cultivation,
it's all earned from our practice.
If you want to be happy, want to achieve
happiness, achieve that perfect goal
we can’t just ask others to give it to us.
For example, a husband and wife
that argue everyday,
why do they argue?
My wife always demands a lot from me,
she says: I have a lot of
expectations for you,
but in the end,
all I get is disappointment.
In the end, what's left is pain.
The more you expect,
the more you suffer.
So for the ladies here, think about your
husband, do you have expectations
of your husband? Some form of expectations?
Everyone has
expectations of something,
not just of someone, something,
but we must understand that
if you want to truly have merits that are
worthy of protection by the heavenly beings,
we have to start from ourselves,
change from ourselves, be good ourselves,
rely on ourselves and improve our own quality.
To attain Equally Perfect Enlightenment,
we must break through one grade,
there are many grades of ignorance
you must break through at least first grade of
ignorance, only then can you earn enlightenment
to one grade of Dharmakaya法身
which is the "body" of truth or true self
and that kind of attainment is
what Buddha has attained.
So you're actually on the same platform
as Buddha, a long way to go
but you are there.
So hence, it’s called正等正覺
Equally Perfect Enlightenment, when
we attain Equally Perfect Enlightenment,
one’s perception of the universe and life
is very close to that of a Buddha
but we are not Buddha yet.
So this level is called Bodhisattva.
It's called Equally Perfect Enlightenment
and there's no selfishness at all.
We will discuss with everyone,
who can be considered an actual Buddha,
like at the same level of Buddha.
And when you keep going down
this path of breaking ignorance,
and keep bringing back your true self,
your Buddha nature or the Dharmakaya,
then you'll reach a certain level
where everything is clear
and eventually you will achieve Unsurpassed
Equally Perfect Enlightenment.
It's complete. It's perfect.
You no longer have flaws and deficiencies.
It's what we call perfection in the literal sense.
In Buddhism, this person is called a Buddha.
If you attain
Equally Perfect Enlightenment
you'll be called a Bodhisattva.
So this is level two, the first level is Arhat
or Right Awakening and then this one is
Equally Perfect Enlightenment, Bodhisattva,
and then, Buddha, which is the highest level.
So all these names in Buddhism
have a purpose.
If you attain Right Awakening,
(this is) the first step, Right Awakening,
you are called an Arhat.
As you can see in the first sentence
of the slide, Arhat, Bodhisattva
and Buddha are common titles
and there are procedures
in gaining these titles.
They are all humans,
their attainments were accomplished
in the state of the human realm.
They are
not like spirit beings or
something, they're humans.
So,
where do Buddhas, Bodhisattvas
and Arhats currently reside?
It's a way to describe someone who has
reached the other shore, has crossed
this shore of sufferings, of pains,
of complications, all of the pain, then
that person is called an Arhat, Bodhisattva
or Buddha, depending on how far they reach.
Only when you achieve one of
these three levels, can your life be
considered as a successful (one).
These three terms we must be familiar with,
no matter what traditions or anything
as long as it's Buddhism,
we must be very aware of these three terms.
It's not meant to be one person,
it is not an individual.
You say:
Oh this Bodhisattva helped me!
Which Bodhisattva? Which Buddha?
So it's like a Professor, Master, or Bachelor
in university. There are common titles,
conferred to someone who earned it.
For example, our historical Buddha,
Shakyamuni Buddha, is that title only
reserved to him, this Prince Siddhartha?
No, there are many Shakyamuni Buddhas.
If you recall the name, what’s the meaning
of Shakyamuni? Compassion and purity.
So there's a lot of Buddhas
that are compassionate and pure,
across the Dharma Realms.
isn't Shakyamuni Buddha only meant
to the one, the Prince Siddhartha,
it is, in case,
but in its most deepest sense of meaning,
it's not just one person, it goes
beyond one person.
In the Tang Dynasty, Precept Master
Dao Xuan道宣律師 was the first patriarch
of the School of Precepts in China.
Just for information,
the School of Precepts is shared
by both Theravada and Mahayana.
Do you have any impressions of this Master?
I think a lot of us know of him , but there
are many young people who don't know.
Venerable Master Dao Xuan道宣律師
was the patriarch of the
School of Precepts in China.
He was very famous when he cultivated
on the mountain, you know
who gives the offering to Him?
He actually cultivated in the mountains,
the heavenly beings were the ones
who cooked for him,
and offered it to
Venerable Master Dao Xuan道宣律師.
He didn't even need
to ask for alms among the folks.
He didn't need to worry about food,
cooking, washing, heavenly beings
just offered this to him.
You know why Heavenly being thought
he was deserving of receiving alms
because he actually held precepts,
he actually followed precepts,
his behavior was right.
A lot of people say: Shakyamuni Buddha
was the one from India, right?
The sage from India.
No, it’s not just (referring to) him.
He is everywhere,
Shakyamuni Buddha is everywhere,
not just on this earth,
in many, many universes.
Another famous example,
Guan Yin Bodhisattva,
Avolakiteshvara is Guan Yin.
Is this one person?
No. It is also a title.
There are many Guan Yin Bodhisattvas.
Like, is there only one professor in the world?
No, right? There are many Professors,
Professor Lee, Professor Alex,
Professor Malcomb, there are an infinite
number of them, which one are you referring
to if you call their name?
Even with medical doctors, there are many
doctors in hospitals, which doctor
do you want to refer to?
If we think
they are one person
then we are wrong.
Bodhisattva Guan Yin,
what does Bodhisattva Guan Yin mean?
Compassion,
a person who is really
compassionate is Guan Yin Bodhisattva.
There are alot of Bodhisattvas or the
practitioners who have attained Equally
Perfect Enlightenment Bodhisattva level
that are very compassionate, that have
boundless compassion. That means
there are a lot of Guan Yin Bodhisattvas.
Then there is also another Bodhisattva
Di Zang, Di Zang means earth treasure.
Maitreya means happiness,
there are endless Maitreya Buddhas.
They're all compassionate.
So which one are you referring to?
For example, Guan Yin Bodhisattva,
if you are actually as compassionate
as Guan Yin then you are Guan Yin.
If you have a strong vow of saving all the
beings and being respectful and filial
to your parents and all beings,
then you are
Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva.
Buddhists get this mixed up, confused with the
names of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Arhats.
They get confused with it.
If you ask people around, your parents,
your friends, your peers what's a Bodhisattva
or in Chinese Pusa, they can’t explain it,
it’s hard.
They don't understand,
they have no concept of it.
In our Youth Group, if you ask
what a Bodhisattva is, are we clear
what a Bodhisattva is?
Before we learned this,
we were confused.
We did not learn it in depth, so we
didn't know. We always thought
this name was an individual,
we didn't know
that there is infinite meaning
inside this name.
Have you all read
the Infinite Life Sutra?
Yes, we have. It's actually very good.
It’s just that we need to find an English
version. And what is Amitabha Sutra?
What is Amituofo?
We are also not clear.
What is Shakyamuni Buddha?
We also don't know, we should learn.
If we don't learn how can we cultivate?
If we don't know who is my teacher
and what is the profile of my teacher
then how do I
attain anything under him?
If I say Amituofo and I don't know who
Amituofo is, how can I have a connection
with this teacher and actually learn?
Same goes for Guan Yin Bodhisattva
and DiZang Bodhisattva, we need to learn,
there is only benefit and no harm at all.
Buddha in the Infinite Life Sutra,
so in the sutra,
people in the Pure Land,
every one of them practice Samantabhadra
Bodhisattva’s vows so they all act like
Samantabhadra Bodhisattva.
People who are born there, they are
all Samantabhadra Bodhisattvas, which
means they all practice the 10 Great Vows.
And the number of Samantabhadra
Bodhisattvas are infinite, there is
no way you can calculate them.
Where is Samantabhadra Bodhisattva?
We should ask,
Which Samantabhadra Bodhisattva?
As a Buddhist we should understand.
In this way of learning Buddhism,
we will not fall into superstition
or get lost
when we are learning it.
So I would like to continue in depth
next time so that we are no longer
treated as a superstitious group
because we know what we are learning,
we have a clear objective
of what we are learning.
For example, I believe in Buddha,
I have taken the precepts,
I have taken refuge and precepts.
Some will ask: what is Buddha?
They cannot provide a satisfactory answer.
What is refuge? You don't know.
What is a Bodhisattva?
I don’t know.
That statue? I am not sure.
There is a lot of this happening inside
the temple among the Buddhist
community.
It's very unfortunate.
I hope that as the Youth Group,
we need to take it seriously,
take the Buddha's teaching and understanding
of Buddhism seriously, only then can we
understand what we have learned
and how to lead ourselves
and others to learn.
In Buddhism, what do we learn?
If I ask you this question, what do we seek
in Buddhism and all of us should be clear
of what we are looking for.
Let’s continue. We are looking for wisdom.
I would like to repeat myself, seeking
wisdom is the first thing we need to seek.
How do we seek wisdom? Let’s think
about it. In Zen Buddhism, it is
to seek enlightenment.
Pure Land Buddhism
talks about one mindedness,
one heartedness, not moving.
In Pure Land Buddhism, if you have achieved
that single mindedness of Amituofo,
translated into Zen,
you have
gained full enlightenment.
In Pure Land Buddhism chanting Amituofo
everyone has qualifications
to attain that level,
going to the Pure Land and once you deepen
your learning, then you have broken
through the doubt,
you no longer have doubt, and then you know
why we need to go into this single
mindedness of chanting Amituofo.
So, going back to the big question,
why are we learning Buddhism?
To seek wisdom!
So we will go in depth on this next week.
So now I would like to just give you a brief
overview of what is Right Awakening,
Equal Perfect Enlightenment and
Unsurpassed Equally Perfect
Enlightenment.
Unsurpassed Equally Perfect Enlightenment
is Buddha, Bodhisattva and then Arhat,and
knowing these three main titles in Buddhism.
Why do we take refuge?
Why are we learning Buddhism?
These will be explained next week as well.
We have also explained this in the previous
class. Today, we also talked about
denominations and schools of Buddhism,
but we also talked about what the point of,
the goal of Buddhism is and why we choose
this Pure Land School out of all of them,
so we will talk about that next week.
Next week, Wednesday. I would like
to invite you all to learn again.
If today I have said anything not right
or inappropriate, then please give
me some feedback.
Thank you so much. Amituofo,
may you all be healthy.
Amituofo.
Let’s dedicate our merits.
May the Merits and Virtues
accrued from this work
Merits accrued from the Dharma Talks
dedicate to all beings in the universe
and dedicate to our karma creditors
so that they all
may be born in the Pure Land.
Repay the Four Kindnesses above,
and relieve
the Sufferings of those
in the Three Paths below.
May those
who see or hear of this,
Aspire to Invoke the Bodhi heart
And
cultivate the teachings
for the rest of this life,
Then be born together
in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.
****
Master Xue Wu’s《認識佛教》
Respectful fellow practitioners and Dharma protectors: Good evening! Amituofo.
Today, we will continue to learn how to understand Buddhism and how to live a happy and fulfilling life. Why do we want to learn Buddhism, to understand Buddhism? No matter what race you are or what country you come from, we must understand why.
I believe every one of us has a sense of hope, especially the young people. The time for young people to practice is now. They all hope that they can be successful in their career , not just the professional side but also their personal life, to be happy, without pain, without worries. That's what we call living a happy life.
A lot of people want to seek this kind of treasure, called a perfect, beautiful life. However, this treasure already exists in us and also this treasure is found in Buddhism, or pointed out by Buddhism. However, we are not aware of it.
This treasure is very clearly stated in Buddhism. As long as you learn seriously, you will get it, you will get the treasure. We must understand that, we must understand this point. Everyone has this treasure, but you need to work hard to find it.
In the past, back in the nationalist China era in the early 1900s, Buddhism was required not just a choice, but was a necessity for the people living in this time, the 20th century and the 21st century is no exception, because as humans, we have a lot of issues that need to be resolved and seek help to be solved. So this is the use of Buddhism to us.
So we have talked about the terminology and we have talked about enlightenment. So we have learned about the first level of Right Awakening, so we're moving on to the second level called 正覺, Equally Perfect Enlightenment (Samyak Sambodhi). Why do we need to learn an enlightenment that is equally perfect to Buddha? Why do we need to achieve this level? It is because a person who has Equally Perfect Enlightenment has selflessness.
If using a very shallow way to describe “me”, like, who am I, the self, the easiest way to understand it, the shallowest way to see it is selfishness and self interest. Today, why do we practice Buddhism for a long amount of time, but there is no effect or the effect is minimal, very small is because of our selfishness.
Some people even have more afflictions, after learning Buddhism, the more they learn, the more burden they feel, the more unhappy they are, because deep inside their heart, there is still an “I”, this false self is still there.
Deep inside, it’s still me, me, me, and because of “I”, because if there is still “I”, an illusion of self, we have all the afflictions, because I’m happy, because I'm sad, because I don't get, I need, I don't need, I love, I don't love, I love, I hate, there's a lot coming from this “I”.
That's why Buddha told us that the first step to gain enlightenment, which is true freedom, is to break through this illusion of “I”. When you are sick, you go to the doctor, right? So the same thing, if your view is wrong, or if you are lost spiritually in all respects, you need a doctor like Buddha to solve it, to help you by pointing out the solution.
We need to know that every one of us has a disease, not just our body, our heart as well. Not just mental, like our heart, because of the false view of self, illusion of self, because there is self, then if self cannot be satisfied, if self cannot reach anything, then it's not happy.
Therefore, the afflictions begin. Only a person who is selfless can see things clearly. They will be able to discern the truth from the falsehood, good from evil, right from wrong and benefit from harm. It's a bit deep now, because we're talking about Equally Perfect Enlightenment. We need to savor it, to pay attention to it.
What is real and false? We use happiness as a standard. You must see the actual reality behind our speech, thoughts and actions. What kind of thing should I avoid, to avoid falling into the cycle of suffering? What are the things I need to face? What is the right thing I need to do, no matter how hard it is, in order to face my issues? Also, we need to see things clearly, in order to see what is actually evil, what is actually good, or what is actually twisted, or what is actually pure. Is the path that I'm walking on right? This is just a metaphor. The mindset that I have, the attitude, everything we speak is that on the right path?
In the Five Precepts, one of them is No Sexual Misconduct. If we can learn about Buddhism in depth, especially the Sexual Misconduct Precept, if we break it, we not only break our marriage, we cause harm to the people around us not just husband and wife, your children, your own parents and your society in general. So, this is one of the cases where we need to have a very clear mind in order to resolve it, in order to avoid it.
705Another case, about right and wrong. Say today, my actions, my speech, my decisions, are they right or wrong? Are they benefiting people or harming other people? People who have that level of selflessness are able to see through the pros and cons, the benefits and the harms, the rights and wrongs of everything, because in a lot of cases, we do something without knowing we're harming them or hurting them, intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes our actions, our speech might harm people without us knowing it.
Shakyamuni Buddha has told us as soon as your heart is empty, void of selfishness, that means you let go of selfishness, this false sense of self, only then will your life start to change, everything you do, the way you eat, the way you think, the way you see things, view things will be different, 180 degrees opposite from the worldly people. As long as there's this “I”, self still there, you(your speech, actions and thoughts) will cause diseases at both the physical and mental levels. It needs to be solved, otherwise your suffering will continue.
Therefore, today Buddha taught us that if we have not broken through the false sense of self, we have not let go of the false sense of self, there is no way we are able to see things unbiased and clearly. Not just Buddhism, in society, whatever career you're doing, whatever position you're in, as long as you have a heavy ego or self in there, a lot of self in there, then you can't get happiness. A lot of people thought they did good deeds in society. They thought: I have done so many good things, I donated money and much more like picking up the rubbish. Am I accumulating merits? Is that actually accumulating merits? Not necessarily. 929
There are cases where people are doing meritorious deeds, look like they are doing meritorious deeds, however, they ended up in the Three Lower Realms. Why? Why did that happen? It is because they don't know what is actually meritorious. They thought what they are doing is meritorious, but it's not. It's not harmful now, but it gets worse as it accumulates and you keep doing the false things that you bring with you into the next life, because all of the elements of selfishness are still there, mixed in there. It’s like poison inside a beautiful dew. Some people are very good at speaking very nicely, looking very nice, and acting like a very nice person, and so they look like they are doing good things.
1425 But we must understand the heart behind it, is it pure? In the past, have you seen this Chinese drama? I always watched it when I was young.
Mr. Bao, you know the Bao Qingtian包青天, Judge Bao lived during the Song Dynasty was a very fair judge, who had a very dark complexion and was very righteous. Everyone trusted him, because he was very unbiased; there were a lot of case studies in the stories.
The reason he was called unbiased was because he dared to challenge the authorities that were abusing their roles because in the eyes of the law everyone is equal, right? He was then able to oversee the power and able to capture these corrupted people into the law. 1124
So why did Mr. Bao capture all of these seemingly good people? A lot of them looked like good people, everyone praised them, but Mr. Bao exposed their actual intentions and their deeds behind the scenes, they were not actually good people.
There were a lot of elements of greed and hatred inside as well as revenge, like, trying to get back at someone. So, we need wisdom to see through this, something that is hidden very deep and the point is so that we are able to do good, actual good things.
In Buddhism, there is a standard for being good, you want to be a good person right? There are standards for being a good person. To be a true good person, a person deserving to be called good, what is it? How do we define it, how does Buddha define it? Buddha taught us in the Three Pure Meritorious Deeds. If you fulfill these three big categories of meritorious deeds, then you're considered qualified as being a good person.
What is the first meritorious deed? The first one is to be filial to your parents, which is to love and respect your parents, only then will you be considered as an entry level good person. Then you also need to be respectful to your teachers. So love your parents and respect your teachers. Buddha is our teacher. So, when he teaches you something that you understand, you should follow it.
When you move up to that level, uphold the precepts of No Killing, No Harming sentient beings, verbally or physically.
Other than that, every kind deed you do, if you divert away from the standards, then it's not considered as good. It's true. Other than these standards, if you divert from them, then all the good deeds are not considered as good without this foundation, without this guide. A lot of people ask me: Master, I want to be a good person. I want to do good things. So what are the good things for me to do? I say “they are right in front of you, every time, everywhere, wherever you are, you can do good (deeds). ”
So therefore, a lot of people say: Master, in the Buddhist Dharma Center, for example, our Dharma Center, should we do charity? Is it good? It's good, right? People say it's good. If we come here, to the temple, and I want to start by doing charity, charitable deeds, I would say not necessarily. Making offerings to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is a big thing and is a good merit. Yes, it is. But what kind of heart do you have? What kind of attitude do you bring with you when you offer it? It's very important, actually the most important, because a lot of people bring a lot of elements of self, which is my fame, my position, my faith, my wealth.
They are using that kind of intention to offer. If people would bring this kind of attitude and still keep it in their heart, then we didn't really learn Buddhism, we didn't really use the Buddha's Dharma to wash it away. We are not considered as true Buddhists.
Therefore, when you see things, people doing charitable (work), it's good, right? People recognize you, the country will even give you a plaque saying that this group of people are very good, and will put you on a pedestal and praise you on national television, because you have contributed a lot to the society, is it a good thing?
It looks good. But it's not right. Why? Where do you go wrong? Didn't Shakyamuni Buddha (teach us) to be a good person, to do good deeds, speak good words? Yeah, we should come to the Buddha temple and protect the Dharma by helping out the temple. Also give offerings to the Venerables so that you can accumulate merits. Yes, it's good. However, we must know the core value, the core foundation, the core purpose of a Dharma Center, what's the point of a Dharma Center? What's the 本分? What's the first responsibility of a Dharma Center? It's not to seek recognition. It's not to seek fame or praise.
We are not here to accumulate wealth or to want a big temple, with all the beautiful buildings and architecture so that I can control a lot of people in this place. Is that an actual Dharma Center?
During Shakyamuni Buddha's time, through his whole life, he only had three clothes. And he lived under a tree, slept under a tree, he didn't have a place actually, owned by him. No, he didn't have it. He sat under trees most of the day. If he wanted to have a Dharma place, a good one, or a really luxurious one, he just needed to say: I want a Dharma place. The 16 countries would flock to him and build one in every single place he walked by. It was easy, because all of his Dharma protectors are Kings, but he did not accept it. He did not ask for it.
So the point of Buddhism and the point of building a Dharma place that we see now is to educate. If the fundamental responsibility is not clear, then what's the point of coming here and learning Buddhism? There's no benefit from Buddhism, if we do not understand why we are learning Buddhism and then Buddhism's most important role, for the Dharma Center is to educate us how to be a human. This is the first step and the most fundamental step. How to be a good human, how to be a decent human being. If we can’t even be a decent human being and we say we want to be born in the Pure Land, do you have guarantees to do it? It’s the guarantee I'm talking about. Can you be happy in this life, if you can't be a decent human? Can you be healthy, can you live carefreely, if you are not a decent person?
Today, to learn Buddhism, we must understand and be able to break through, see through what is actually harmful and what is actually beneficial, what is right and what is wrong. So at that point of understanding this, only then do we know that attaining enlightenment is the permanent way. It's a long term way to actually bring us to that state of happiness or to liberate ourselves from suffering, to avoid sufferings. So every type of Dharma Center must have a goal when they are established. So we're talking about a grand plan like a shared objective, but every Dharma Center must have a goal.
Remember, if we are coming to a Dharma Center, we must ask the first question: Today, I come here to learn Buddhism, what's my goal? Today, I chant Amituofo. I came to this Dharma place to chant Amituofo. Have I started to understand and am I truly confident in Buddhist teachings? Because in this era, there are many denominations and offshoots or schools and branches of Buddhism that exist. Every single denomination and every single offshoot from the denomination have their own specific cultivation goal, like our family, each family has different objectives. Everyone is different, they have different ambitions and goals and so do Dharma Centers.
Today if we wish to be successful in cultivating Buddhism in these lessons, we must not mix them up, mix all the denominations and offshoots up. It is because if we mix up different methods of learning Buddhism, in the end, you'll learn nothing, master of none, because we're a jack of all trades. You can’t get into any depth in anything.
For example, one of the current branches is Pure Land Buddhism. If I want to chant Amituofo, I would go to a Pure Land Dharma Center. If I like to meditate, I can go to a Zen Dharma Center. If you want to learn tantric or mantra based learning, then you can go to a Tibetan Buddhism Center, or if you like to do good deeds, really like to help vulnerable people and connect with people then go to (Tzu Chi Foundation). You can’t mix them up together. Suddenly, on Monday I wanted to go to Pure Land (Dharma Center). On Tuesday, I go to a Zen Temple. On Thursday, I will go to a Tibetan (Buddhist place). And on Friday, I go to Tzu Chi (Foundation.) It’s mixed up, it’s too much.
You will get confused because everyone has a different goal, they say different things and you hear them all the time, all of them are right, so nothing is right in a way and get nowhere in your practice.
Just like when we learn painting, if you want to focus on one path, you need to understand the painting itself, the techniques and all that. You need time to get into it. You can't just on Monday learn painting, on Tuesday, learn piano, on Thursday, learn dancing, mix them up. You need to set aside time for you to focus on getting in depth into what you want to learn. So be specific and focus on one goal and one path at a time. For a beginner of Buddhism, we must have a goal, we don't do that because we don't like other branches or temples, no. It's not because we're excluding people who are narrow minded.
The whole point is to get something in the end, to learn something in the end, because especially this denomination is actually meant for the beginners, helping the beginners so that when they come in, they only have one path, one clear path, everyone's following that one path. You have a very clear guideline and you have peers, you have a teacher, they're all following one path, you will easily achieve success because you will move forward quickly.
Especially in this era, it is not easy for a Dharma Center to be certified as authentic, because an authentic Dharma Center will be protected, literally protected by Buddhas and heavenly beings, like they will be a bodyguard of this Dharma Center.
For a Dharma Center to reach this authenticity, first they must have Saddharma正法 which is the Dharma of the Buddha, who does the teaching. Secondly, the people who follow it must be genuine, actually practice it, not just talk about it but actually practice it. Thirdly, it truly benefits all beings. Every one of these merits are reliant on our own cultivation, it's all earned from our practice. If you want to be happy, want to achieve happiness, achieve that perfect goal we can’t just ask others to give it to us.
For example, a husband and wife that argue everyday, why do they argue? My wife always demands a lot from me, she says: “I have a lot of expectations for you, but in the end, all I get is disappointment.” In the end, what's left is pain. The more you expect, the more you suffer.
So for the ladies here, think about your husband, do you have expectations of your husband? Some form of expectations? Everyone has expectations of something, not just of someone, something, but we must understand that if you want to truly have merits that are worthy of protection by the heavenly beings, we have to start from ourselves, change from ourselves, be good ourselves, rely on ourselves and improve our own quality.
To attain Equally Perfect Enlightenment, we must break through one grade, there are many grades of ignorance you must break through at least first grade of ignorance, only then can you earn enlightenment to one grade of Dharmakaya法身 which is the ‘body’ of truth or true self and that kind of attainment is what Buddha has attained. So you're actually on the same platform as Buddha, a long way to go but you are there.
So hence, it’s called正等正覺 Equally Perfect Enlightenment, when we attain Equally Perfect Enlightenment, one’s perception of the universe and life is very close to that of a Buddha but we are not a Buddha yet. So this level is called Bodhisattva. It's called Equally Perfect Enlightenment and there's no selfishness at all. We will discuss with everyone, who can be considered an actual Buddha, like at the same level of Buddha.
3452 And when you keep going down this path of breaking ignorance, and keep bringing back your true self, your Buddha nature or the Dharmakaya, then you'll reach a certain level where everything is clear and eventually you will achieve Unsurpassed Equally Perfect Enlightenment. It's complete. It's perfect. You no longer have flaws and deficiencies. It's what we call perfection in the literal sense. In Buddhism, this person is called a Buddha.
If you attain Equally Perfect Enlightenment you'll be called a Bodhisattva. So this is level two, the first level is Arhat or Right Awakening and then this one is Equally Perfect Enlightenment, Bodhisattva, and then, Buddha, which is the highest level. So all these names in Buddhism have a purpose. If you attain Right Awakening, (this is) the first step, Right Awakening, you are called an Arhat. As you can see in the first sentence of the slide, Arhat, Bodhisattva and Buddha are common titles and there are procedures in gaining these titles.
They are all humans, their attainments were accomplished in the state of the human realm. They are not like spirit beings or something, they're humans. So, where do Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Arhats currently reside? It's a way to describe someone who has reached the other shore, has crossed this shore of sufferings, of pains, of complications, all of the pain, then that person is called an Arhat, Bodhisattva or Buddha, depending on how far they reach.
Only when you achieve one of these three levels, can your life be considered as a successful (one). These three terms we must be familiar with, no matter what traditions or anything as long as it's Buddhism, we must be very aware of these three terms. It's not meant to be one person, it is not an individual. You say: Oh this Bodhisattva helped me! Which Bodhisattva? Which Buddha? So it's like a Professor, Master, or Bachelor in university. There are common titles, conferred to someone who earned it. For example, our historical Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, is that title only reserved to him, this Prince Siddhartha? No, there are many Shakyamuni Buddhas. If you recall the name, what’s the meaning of Shakyamuni? Compassion and purity. So there's a lot of Buddhas that are compassionate and pure, across the Dharma Realms. isn't Shakyamuni Buddha only meant to the one, the Prince Siddhartha, it is, in case, but in its most deepest sense of meaning, it's not just one person, it goes beyond one person.
In the Tang Dynasty, Precept Master Dao Xuan道宣律師 was the first patriarch of the School of Precepts in China. Just for information, the School of Precepts is shared by both Theravada and Mahayana.
Do you have any impressions of this Master? I think a lot of us know of him , but there are many young people who don't know. Venerable Master Dao Xuan道宣律師 was the patriarch of the School of Precepts in China. He was very famous when he cultivated on the mountain, you know who gives the offering to Him? He actually cultivated in the mountains, the heavenly beings were the ones who cooked for him, and offered it to Venerable Master Dao Xuan道宣律師. He didn't even need to ask for alms among the folks. He didn't need to worry about food, cooking, washing, heavenly beings just offered this to him. You know why Heavenly being thought he was deserving of receiving alms because he actually held precepts, he actually followed precepts, his behavior was right.
A lot of people say: Shakyamuni Buddha was the one from India, right? The sage from India. No, it’s not just (referring to) him. He is everywhere, Shakyamuni Buddha is everywhere, not just on this earth, in many, many universes.
Another famous example, Guan Yin Bodhisattva, Avolakiteshvara is Guan Yin. Is this one person? No. It is also a title. There are many Guan Yin Bodhisattvas. Like, is there only one professor in the world? No, right. There are many Professors, Professor Lee, Professor Alex, Professor Malcomb, there are an infinite number of them, which one are you referring to if you call their name? Even with medical doctors, there are many doctors in hospitals, which doctor do you want to refer to?
If we think they are one person then we are wrong. Bodhisattva Guan Yin, what does Bodhisattva Guan Yin mean? Compassion, a person who is really compassionate is Bodhisattva Guan Yin. There are alot of Bodhisattvas or the practitioners who have attained Equally Perfect Enlightenment Bodhisattva level that are very compassionate, that have boundless compassion. That means there are a lot of Guan Yin Bodhisattvas.Then there is also another Bodhisattva Di Zang, Di Zang means earth treasure. Maitreya means happiness, there are endless Maitreya Buddhas. They're all compassionate. So which one are you referring to? For example, Guan Yin Bodhisattva, if you are actually as compassionate as Guan Yin then you are Guan Yin.
If you have a strong vow of saving all the beings and being respectful and filial to your parents and all beings, then you are Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha. Buddhists get this mixed up, confused with the names of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Arhats. They get confused with it. If you ask people around, your parents, your friends, your peers what's a Bodhisattva or in Chinese Pusa, they can’t explain it, it’s hard. They don't understand, they have no concept of it. In our Youth Group, if you ask what a Bodhisattva is, are we clear what a Bodhisattva is? Before we learned this, we were confused.
We did not learn it in depth, so we didn't know. We always thought this name was an individual, we didn't know that there is infinite meaning inside this name.
Have you all read the Infinite Life Sutra? Yes, we have. It's actually very good. It’s just that we need to find an English version. And what is Amitabha Sutra? What is Amituofo? We are also not clear. What is Shakyamuni Buddha? We also don't know, we should learn. If we don't learn how can we cultivate? If we don't know who is my teacher and what is the profile of my teacher then how do I attain anything under him?
If I say Amituofo and I don't know who Amituofo is, how can I have a connection with this teacher and actually learn? Same goes for Guan Yin Bodhisattva and DiZang Bodhisattva, we need to learn, there is only benefit and no harm at all. Buddha in the Infinite Life Sutra, so in the sutra, people in the Pure Land, every one of them practice Samantabhadra Bodhisattva’s vows so they all act like Samantabhadra Bodhisattva. People who are born there, they are all Samantabhadra Bodhisattvas, which means they all practice the 10 Great Vows. And the number of Samantabhadra Bodhisattvas are infinite, there is no way you can calculate them.
Where is Samantabhadra Bodhisattva? We should ask, Which Samantabhadra Bodhisattva? As a Buddhist we should understand. In this way of learning Buddhism, we will not fall into superstition or get lost when we are learning it.
So I would like to continue in depth next time so that we are no longer treated as a superstitious group because we know what we are learning, we have a clear objective of what we are learning. For example, I believe in Buddha, I have taken the precepts, I have taken refuge and precepts. Some will ask: what is Buddha? They cannot provide a satisfactory answer. What is refuge? You don't know. What is a Bodhisattva? I don’t know. That statue? I am not sure. There is a lot of this happening inside the temple among the Buddhist community.
It's very unfortunate. I hope that as the Youth Group, we need to take it seriously, take the Buddha's teaching and understanding of Buddhism seriously, only then can we understand what we have learned and how to lead ourselves and others to learn. In Buddhism, what do we learn? If I ask you this question, what do we seek in Buddhism and all of us should be clear of what we are looking for.
Let’s continue. We are looking for wisdom. I would like to repeat myself, seeking wisdom is the first thing we need to seek. How do we seek wisdom? Let’s think about it. In Zen Buddhism, it is to seek enlightenment. Pure Land Buddhism talks about one mindedness, one heartedness, not moving. In Pure Land Buddhism, if you have achieved that single mindedness of Amituofo, translated into Zen (Buddhism), you have gained full enlightenment.
In Pure Land Buddhism chanting Amituofo everyone has qualifications to attain that level, going to the Pure Land and once you deepen your learning, then you have broken through the doubt, you no longer have doubt, and then you know why we need to go into this single mindedness of chanting Amituofo. So, going back to the big question, why are we learning Buddhism? To seek wisdom!
So we will go in depth on this next week. So now I would like to just give you a brief overview of what is Right Awakening, Equal Perfect Enlightenment and Unsurpassed Equally Perfect Enlightenment. Unsurpassed Equally Perfect Enlightenment is Buddha, Bodhisattva and then Arhat,
and knowing these three main titles in Buddhism.
Why do we take refuge? Why are we learning Buddhism? These will be explained next week as well. We have also explained this in the previous class. Today, we also talked about denominations and schools of Buddhism, but we also talked about what the point of, the goal of Buddhism is and why we choose this Pure Land School out of all of them, so we will talk about that next week.
Next week, Wednesday. I would like to invite you all to learn again. If today I have said anything not right or inappropriate, then please give me some feedback. Thank you so much. Amituofo, may you all be healthy. Amituofo.
Let’s dedicate our merits.
May the Merits and Virtues
accrued from this work
Merits accrued from the Dharma Talks
dedicate to all beings in the universe
and dedicate to our karma creditors
so that they all may be born in the Pure Land
Repay the Four Kindnesses above, and
Relieve the Sufferings of those
in the Three Paths below.
May those who see or hear of this,
Aspire to Invoke the Bodhi heart
And cultivate the teachings
for the rest of this life,
Then be born together
in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.
****
Understanding Buddhism (8)
So, I would like to use this opportunity
to continue introducing how to
understand Buddhism.
Towards Buddhism, we must have the right
understanding, only then will our lessons,
our trip on this journey not be wrong.
We will not think wrongly and
everything we do will not be diverted
in the wrong direction.
Of this, I would like to remind everyone.
Today, we can understand Buddhism
and are able to listen to Buddha's Dharma.
That means our merits,
our roots to accept
the Dharma are very deep.
The condition for a Buddha to appear
in this world is not by accident,
is not accidental
and also in our case,
it is for a very short time.
In Shakyamuni Buddha's case, he propagated
the Dharma for only 49 years
before he went into Parinirvana.
So we must be very appreciative of that.
And speaking of the Dharma,
what are the benefits?
We should understand the benefits are really big.
In this big era, there will be
1000 Buddhas appearing.
In our Saha world, we will have about 1000
Buddhas lining up to appear. Shakyamuni
Buddha was number four out of the 1000.
The next one will be Maitreya Buddha, Maitreya
Buddha will appear in 570 billion years,
which is a very long time gap.
And when he comes, everyone who has affinity
with him in the past will be able to be
liberated from their sufferings.
So, the benefits of Buddhism
are definitely there,
they definitely exist.
Because
they help us to attain true happiness,
it is something that we cannot skip in this life.
Why is Buddhism so good?
Why should we learn it?
Because it helps you
to achieve what you want,
to live a happy life free from suffering.
So from this,
we can start
to appreciate Buddhism.
So the fact that you are here means that
you have affinity with Buddha and his Dharma,
otherwise you wouldn’t be here.
So in the last lesson we talked about
what Buddhism is.
Buddhism is about discipleship.
What is discipleship?
In Buddhism, it is the relationship between
a master and a disciple and it is more than
just a teacher and a student.
It's very close, very tight.
It's a bond.
As a disciple, whether or not you can succeed
relies on, what? That's the question
we need to answer today, figure out today.
I will
give a brief overview
on this topic.
As a student, as a disciple of Buddha, what kind
of attitude should we be equipped
with to learn Buddhism?
What is discipleship?
There is a saying
about discipleship
in Buddhism:
There are only disciples who seek answers
from the Master, you will never hear of a master
who asks for a student to teach.
What does this mean?
If you look at the stories of Buddha,
all students go to Buddha to ask for help,
seek for answers,
and their attitude is very respectful
in their deeds,
speech and ethics.
In comparison, current students, current disciples
level of seriousness, their level of sincerity
in seeking teachings varies too much.
It sometimes
even appears as a joke rather than
really wanting to learn.
So, if you have heard Buddha's story,
you have never heard of Buddha going to
someone's house and say:
Come and join my Sangha,
or walk up to a person
or go to their house and say:
This Buddhism is good,
you should follow me.
It doesn't work like that.
The reason why only students go to the teacher
and not the teacher going to the student
to teach is because the respect is different.
The attitude is different.
If the teacher is the one who comes to you
and teaches, for example, if I,
Venerable Xue Wu,
come to your house
to share the Dharma with you.
What would
people say if I did that every day?
They would be like:
Oh, I'm too busy, I cannot entertain you,
reasons like that.
If we're using
that kind of mentality to learn,
we can't absorb very much, we can’t take in
as much as those who really want to learn
and seek the answers by themselves.
For example,
the first patriarch
of Chinese Zen Buddhism
was BodhiDharma from India.
The second patriarch, before he was a patriarch,
displayed such a high level of sincerity
because he wanted to seek the Dharma to
achieve inner peace. He knelt in front of
BodhiDharma's cave,
where he sat in meditation for nine months,
and stayed three days and three nights
in the snow to seek this teacher's guidance,
and BodhiDharma turned to him
after three days and said:
What do you seek for my student?
The second Patriarch of Zen Buddhism,
who was still a student said:
Please settle my heart.
My heart isn’t at peace.
BodhiDharma replied :
Give me your heart and
I'll settle it for you.
So this Second Patriarch cut off
one of his arms
to show his sincerity.
So this is just to show how serious and sincere
he and people were back then
in seeking Dharma.
And you can see the benefit they reaped from it.
As long as the students are willing to learn,
teachers will not reject them.
However, the teacher
does not seek respect for themselves.
That's not the point of
why students seek the teacher
or why you need to show respect and bow.
It is not because
the teacher wants you to respect them.
I am your teacher,
I'm your boss, I’m your parent,
you must respect me.
No, that's not the mark
of a good teacher.
If a teacher has this kind of mindset,
this is not a good teacher, not worth following.
Shakyamuni Buddha was not like that.
As long as you were willing to learn, you showed
a willingness to learn, he would teach you
everything you could understand and know.
He would
teach you without hesitation,
without reservation.
It is like
Master Yin Guang印光大師
said:
One with an ounce of respect will reap
an ounce of benefit, one with 10 ounces
of respect will reap 10 ounces of benefits.
The whole point is your attitude
when you seek
help and teachings.
If we get it too easily, like nowadays,
sutras can be easily printed from the internet,
that level of respect is not there,
the level of appreciation is not there
and that correlates to our ability
to absorb the Dharma.
Recently, I saw someone open a YouTube video
of Master Chin Kung’s speech and then
while listening to it,
they had their phone out
scrolling through other stuff.
So it's hard to achieve anything like that.
For example, if there are 10 students learning
from a teacher, everyone is listening
to the same lessons.
However,
when you look at the results
after they were tested,
you can observe that
in most cases they are
at different levels of achievement.
Some
will have mastered the lessons,
while some will have failed.
So, in the Buddhist’s case,
some people who listen to Buddha
immediately attain enlightenment
while some people who have been with Buddha
for many, many years still haven’t
attained anything.
If you observe this beyond Buddhism,
in worldly matters,
it’s the same thing.
Those who achieve
will definitely have that level
of respect towards the teacher.
So, if you think from that perspective,
for example, in my case,
every time I listen to the Dharma,
I always prostrate
to Buddha for 10 or 15 minutes,
seeking Buddha's blessings,
so that I can have
enough sincerity to accept
the Dharma,
because
in this Dharma Ending Age,
in this life, in this current era,
without Buddha Dharma, we would definitely,
almost certainly be diverted
from the right path.
So knowing this theory and principle, the point
of success for students in learning what
was taught is not intelligence,
it relies more on the ability to learn,
willingness to learn, willingness to listen,
the sincerity to learn, the sincerity to listen
because students who are respectful towards
their teacher will take every single word
to heart and learn it earnestly,
because if a student refuses to listen,
no matter how good the teacher is,
even if Buddha himself teaches you,
you cannot learn anything at all.
So you cannot blame the teachers
for the journey of your learning.
In the past,
there have been a lot of
lay practitioners who asked me:
Why after listening to so much Dharma,
can't I understand much or improve much?
I mentioned this in last Friday’s Dharma talk.
This is a common problem.
A lot of people cannot hear the core of
the Dharma, even though they hear it
a lot of times, they can't get it,
because they are not
truly listening to it.
That means their hearts are not in it.
Therefore,
this is why Master Yin Guang
told us:
A person with 100% of respect towards
the teacher will receive
100% of the benefits from the lessons.
The same lessons were given to everyone,
but there are different levels of reception,
based on different levels of sincerity.
This is a common principle of education,
regardless if it is of a spiritual
or secular nature.
Whatever you learn, whether it is Buddhism
or any techniques, or any degrees
or anything you pursue,
without a heart of respect towards
the lessons, towards the teacher,
we can't achieve anything.
As long as
we are going against this principle of
sincerity towards learning ,
if we go against that,
we will not achieve anything.
In the history records,
most of Shakyamuni Buddha's students
who followed him around,
when he was walking around India,
attained enlightenment,
at least attained Arhathood.
None of them were left without achievements.
All of the 1,255 students that followed him
were not just common people,
they all had achievements.
They all had a common trait,
they all listened and
took the lessons from Buddha to heart.
Looking at our case, chanting Amitabha Buddha,
the merits of Amitabha Buddha,
of his name is equal, equal,
it is not discriminatory, whoever is willing
to chant will get all the benefits
by being reborn in the Pure Land.
However, people who
practice the recitation of his name
do not seem to get a lot of benefits,
as said in the Buddha’s sutra,
because of their sincerity.
Therefore,
it's not easy to be a teacher,
especially nowadays.
At school or in the Dharma Center,
it’s the same everywhere,
it's getting harder to be a teacher.
That's why we have Di Zi Gui《弟子規》
The Guideline of Being a Good Person
in this temple
because we realize the importance of
having good roots, good beginnings
for the students, for the kids.
The main reason why it's so hard to teach
is because the students nowadays
are off track by a lot.
The level of sincerity,
the level of their attitude
towards the teachings is not there.
In Indonesia, we have this example,
it is common for a teacher to be invited
to the household to teach.
I asked a lot of these teachers: what was
the hardest thing you had to face
when teaching at students' homes?
They almost unanimously answered that
the students are not listening
to the instructions.
A lot of parents
have this misconception
that if their children are not gaining anything
despite having paid a lot of money
to hire a private tutor,
they will commonly blame the teachers
and do not reflect on
how they raised their kids,
how they imparted that level of attitude
and sincerity inside their children's mind,
it was not thought of in that way.
For example, today
if we find a good Dharma teacher
who has the right view, the right virtues
and then you ask him:
Could you teach me how to
be successful in my cultivation?
And if you take seeking guidance seriously,
you don't need to take three years,
you only need three months
to achieve
whatever you want to achieve.
Master Chin Kung has mentioned that
whether we can succeed in anything
depends on two things,
number one is our sincerity,
our attitude and number two is
choosing a noble teacher善知識.
For example, pick one teacher
that you really like, Teacher Chai
or anyone who you really admire,
who you respect
from the depths of your heart,
you like how this teacher carries himself,
what he/she does, their virtue is very good
and you truly respect that person,
then stick to them.
Do not change the target of your learning.
Do not change the examples of your learning,
stick to that person until the very end,
because you will achieve
not just small achievements,
but great achievements in the end.
There's an example of historical precedent,
Mencius. Do you know
who Mencius learned from?
He learned from Confucius, who lived 200
years prior to his time, but even though
they did not even live in the same era,
Mencius was able to achieve
second only to his example,
which was Confucius
and became the second sage
of the Confucius school.
There is a more contemporary example,
there was a kid who really
liked Michael Jackson.
He listened to Michael Jackson songs and
watched his performances
every time he danced,
he learned every single detail and mimicked
every single feature of Michael Jackson
and when this kid performed,
he looked almost like Michael Jackson.
Same thing. Like if I talk about Dharma,
I always listen to Master Chin Kung,
I mimic him as well.
Having a noble teacher is good,
and we should learn.
But we must stick to one
because if we have too many,
we will be distracted.
If we follow too many examples our hearts
are not settled, they might all
be good examples
but if we follow all of them
we'll be in a mess,
we'll be distracted.
If you want to learn
you must focus on and
deepen our studies on one approach.
So that's the principle we're trying to
bring out from these examples,
especially in the Dharma Ending Age,
where
there are so many options and
so many selections,
avoid that and solidify your studies,
your Buddhist cultivation,
do not mix and match
because our time is so short and
everything's changing so fast.
Of the Four Great Vows, Number three is:
May I vow to learn all of the Dharma
approaches towards enlightenment.
However,
this vow is not
for our current situation.
It's meant for after you go to the Pure Land.
In our time, everything is pushing us,
so we can only focus on one,
we only have the energy for one.
Our Pure Land patriarchs
were all enlightened people.
But they let go of all the teachings
and all of the sutras that they
learned and mastered
and focused only on chanting Amituofo in the end.
So therefore, you only need one teacher
if you want to learn.
In your heart, who is your teacher?
It has to be someone
who you admire,
who actually is virtuous
and has profound knowledge,
wisdom.
So,
for many of us,
we choose Master Chin Kung.
We come to
this Dharma place to learn
from him or his teachings.
So, one teacher is enough, if you already
selected this person, stick to him/her,
stick to his/her teachings,
because if you have two masters,
it is like pointing at branching
paths in your learning.
Three masters is like pointing to a T Junction
in your learning. Four masters ends up
as a Cross Junction in your learning.
So which way do you want to go?
Because everyone is good, right?
He's good, she's good, everyone's good.
So you end up
doing nothing at all
and getting confused
Like back when I was being ordained as
a monk, some people told me
I should learn from Zen禪宗,
some said
I should learn from Tibetan Zhonya
which is Aiyana and Tian Tai天台宗,
some said I should learn from the sutra point of view.
There are so many points of view and
all of them are good.
As you see in the picture, one person who
stands in the middle of four directions,
which way should you go?
Everyone says
every direction is good.
You get confused, right?
Therefore, you should pinpoint in one direction
and stick to it. Otherwise, we learn nothing
in the end, we achieve nothing.
We can't achieve anything
if we get distracted.
You have to start from
what your current situation is,
your current circumstance.
Look at the people who are successful,
they put all of their effort and
energy on one thing.
So it also
applies to worldly pursuits,
not only spiritual pursuits in Buddhism.
You can succeed as long as
you are willing to focus,
concentrate on one path.
If you want to be a teacher, you focus on
the skills and the demeanors and
the virtues of being a teacher.
If you want to be a dancing instructor,
you focus on dance techniques and
everything about dancing.
If you want to be a Dharma teacher,
you must focus on all the conditions
that make a good Dharma teacher,
specialize in it.
There are a lot of
people who like to study.
Why are they not successful?
If you're learning
from more than one master
at a time, you are done for.
Why? No matter how accomplished the teacher is,
if our attention is diverted, left and right,
up and down,
if our heart
is not settled in one direction
then we can't achieve anything.
So, hence,
this is what we call discipleship.
One teacher, one path. 一師一道
From now on, after hearing this Dharma talk,
we should constantly reflect on
this phrase: Focus on one approach.
Not only do we need to follow only one teacher,
we must also only focus on
one approach to cultivation.
All Buddhist cultivation methods,
given by Buddha, will help you
achieve a pure heart.
You just need to focus on one path to get there,
you will not go wrong and if you
find a good teacher, stick to him/her.
Because
the problem we have nowadays is,
we are not listening with our heart.
There are many people, no matter what you say,
no matter what you try to
explain or prove,
that will always try to go against what is being
taught because they keep thinking about
a lot of things, they get distracted.
Everyone's trying to learn everything because
we think if we learn a lot of knowledge
then I can help solve society's problems.
However, I ask them:
Have you solved your
own problem first?
Have you solved your own problem that is
facing you right now? If you can't even
fix yourselves, how can you fix others’?
That's why
Buddhism is high wisdom
because it gets to the root of the matter.
And this is why
it's different from religions
as well.
Religions are focused on Gods,
they're not focused on
attaining a pure heart,
only Buddhism keeps
bringing up the attainment
of a pure heart, which is non-attachment.
Only Buddhism
puts so much emphasis on this.
What is the appearance of a person
who has attained a pure heart?
First, less affliction and vexation.
Second, they have more wisdom.
These two are enough to handle everything
you encounter.
It's enough to liberate you
from all of your troubles,
in everything you face.
Purity of heart
comes from the heart of respect,
the heart of sincerity.
All of the worldly problems,
all of your problems,
how do you solve them?
Only wisdom can solve them.
Only wisdom can solve all of these
societal problems or any kind of problems.
There are no alternatives beyond that. That's
why Buddha Dharma focuses so much on
wisdom and awakening from delusion
because we are lacking in both of these.
Especially in this era,
especially nowadays,
if you want to be happy and have a fulfilling life,
the ingredients we lack in achieving this beautiful
ending picture are wisdom and awakening.
So in the past, in my Dharma Center that I host,
after Sunday’s chanting service, we always
gathered together to talk about Buddhism,
and sip some tea along the way.
Tea and Dharma. We can't do it now
in Sydney unfortunately.
After the chanting service,
a few people would stay behind,
especially business people,
I asked them: You do not lack things
because you are wealthy.
But do you know what you guys lack?
They were like:
I don't know.
They could not answer this question.
So let me ask you guys the same question:
What do you guys lack in this life?
You can’t answer it.
Can you chant the sutras? Yes.
Can you chant Amituofo? Yes.
What do you lack in this world?
I answer: a heart of peace,
a heart of joy, a peaceful heart,
a peaceful state of mind,
a joyful state of mind all the time.
To learn,
to start on this journey,
we need to start with
the most everyday problems
that we face.
Only common people, only ordinary people
have afflictions, issues, problems,
depressions and all that.
A sage does not have problems at all.
So we have to start from something close to us,
something we need to solve right away.
I don't even need to ask, by looking at your face,
by looking at your expression I already know
there are a lot of problems, because
what we think appears on our face.
So if you want to truly liberate yourself
from all of your affections,
to be happy and to be fulfilled,
what do we rely on?
Wisdom and awakening,
with this right combination
it becomes Right Awakening.
Only when you have Right Awakening wisdom,
will you be able to navigate
out of these problems.
Because it's safe, it's a solid, safe path.
It's a path that will definitely lead you
to liberation from your suffering.
If you look at society today,
if you look at issues,
a lot of people think:
I would be happy if I had more money,
I can live in a good home, have a good car
and have a good quality of life.
But when we
actually look at those people who
made it, even though they're wealthy,
it's common that these people’s hearts
are not at peace, they are still
agitated and still depressed.
So, in my Indonesian temple,
there are young Buddhists who go to
the temple to be married
and during the ceremony,
most of them take the Three Refuges
and the Five Precepts.
So, the ceremony goes like this,
they ask for the Dharma and
as a Dharma teacher,
I give them the Five Precepts
and the Three Refuges
before they marry.
So, beyond that, I also ask them:
Why do you marry?
To be happy.
If you
want to be happy,
what is the condition for that?
They say:
Having cars, a house and the basic
securities, then we will be happy.
However, when we look at
the actual statistics of divorce,
a lot of these people have good incomes,
most people who get divorced
are good income earners, they have
all of these conditions mentioned,
but they still
end up with a broken family.
So these things are not the cause of happiness.
So, this warrants our rethinking,
our reflection.
All of the problems,
from our personal level,
our livelihood, our lifestyle to society,
family and workplace,
they all rely on wisdom
to be resolved.
We must not neglect the importance of wisdom,
the role of wisdom, because other stuff
is not reliable.
All of these things like possessions,
status and prestige, appear because
the condition is right,
but they will
go away as well and they will not
give you what you are looking for.
You can’t find happiness outside,
no matter how hard you work or
how much OT you perform,
it will only bring you
more and more (worries),
as you own more, you worry more.
The person who truly made it,
made it to the happy place,
is the one who has a very rich inner world,
they will not be moved by outside phenomena.
However, remember that we do not lack
wisdom, but wisdom is pure.
Good fortune is untainted, it is a pure heart,
because our wisdom, our good fortunes are
there but it's mixed up with our afflictions.
Smart people are everywhere as well.
We are not lacking smart people in our country,
in our world.
In Chinese,
there's a saying:
People who are too smart end up toppling
themselves, end up making a fool out of
themselves, trying to be smart.
For example,
you can look at the politicians nowadays,
they're all smart people.
But how
do they use their smarts?
What is the effect of their smartness?
They have to be smart to make it to the top of
the chain right? However, what's the effect
of their policies,
what is the effect of their actions and deeds?
They cause more harm than good to the stability
of society on almost every matter.
They cause more misery to the people
and the people go through worse
and worse times.
So why is that the case?
Because the wisdom they have
is polluted or mixed with afflictions.
What afflictions?
Wandering thoughts, discriminations, prejudice,
attachment to things, selfishness, pursuit of fame,
prestige, greed, hatred and ignorance.
None of them is clear from their heart. And this
is why, with this kind of tainted heart, we face
the external world and end up making it worse.
Very smart, but not wise.
That's a common problem,
a common affliction nowadays.
All of these smart people
were born with desires and
other afflictions.
For example, the first World War and the
Second World War were pushed by desires
such as the desire to expand,
the desire to own
and the desire to inflate the ego.
If there was a First and Second World War,
there is a guarantee
for a Third World War
but I don't know when.
All we can do
is chant Amituofo and really seek
to be reborn in the Pure Land.
If everyone purified their heart,
this world would become
the Pure Land.
Because these two wars happened
without people thinking about it,
they didn't plan for them.
WWI happened because some people
got assassinated, and then
a chain of events caused the war.
WWII was caused by some madman who
wanted to expand his territory and
it ended up causing conflicts.
The third world war will happen
in the same way,
it's not illogical.
Two days ago, there was a lay person who told me:
I regret (not traveling around before Covid,
and now I am) not able to walk around.
I told him: The world is illusionary,
there's no need to be regretful
in this illusory bubble.
Because when we go to the Pure Land,
everything is real. I mean, everything
comes from the True Nature.
So you can go anywhere at any time.
So moving back to our current world,
why is the world not at peace?
Because everyone starts with thinking
from their own self-interest
at the expense of others.
If everyone thinks like that, self-interest as
number one, how can we have a peaceful
world, have a world of harmony?
Because of self attachment, we have hatred,
because you do not follow me
or follow my desires,
or you have greed, I want, I wish, I love.
So the attachment to self is the cause
of all this misery.
If it goes against me, I hate it.
Something I like,
it's great.
And ego brings out that arrogance as well.
I am above others, stuff like that.
Everything's I.
So Buddha starts with
open heart surgery on the ego.
This is how Buddha treats this problem.
We have to break through the illusion of self.
Without true wisdom, without true effort,
even if you learn Mahayana Buddhism,
it will have no effect on us.
There's no achievement in our cultivation
because the pollution is there.
The ego is still there.
Everything you do is tainted
by that perspective.
So no matter what we do, we will be tainted
by the ego and end up creating bad karma.
So our life becomes miserable.
A person who is full of ego, cannot be at peace.
A person who is full of ego cannot have
a united family or a united nation.
Even in an organization like a Dharma place,
you will not be brought up to the good point
if everyone's egotistical.
So Buddha advised us if we can take our
“I” out of the way when we are doing stuff,
thinking stuff, speaking stuff, planning stuff,
and instead we
always think about others,
then eventually, everything gets better.
If we think more about benefiting others,
less about ourselves,
then we get closer to that happy life.
I met a householder, a lay Buddhist and
I said to her: You seem to have a very good
material life, everything you need is there.
This was an elderly lady who served the
community every day in the temple.
I asked her:
Do you feel tired, fatigued?
This elderly lady said,
No, I don't feel fatigued at all,
I feel more energetic. The more I do,
the more energy I have.
I feel the world is bigger.
On the other hand, when people who have
everything, but only think of themselves
rather than to benefit others,
experience any little triggers, any little
wrong tone, or being brushed the wrong way,
begin bickering, ranting and whining.
Everything
comes from hatred,
because it touches the ego.
Therefore, if we remove selfishness,
we will gain true benefits. With that,
we will attain Right Awakening.
So we understand that Right Awakening
has its own standard to measure against,
it's not a title you can give to anyone.
Why do we start from Right Awakening?
A person with this level of cultivation,
has let go of ego and selfishness,
the idea that “I” comes first.
Do you understand? If so,
we should take it seriously and start
aiming for Right Awakening.
So how do we attain Right Awakening?
We need to let go of our selfishness, purify
our heart from all this selfishness, narrowness.
On one side you're letting go of this, and
on the other side recovering your compassion,
the broad mindedness.
So, this is a brief introduction
on the first level of
Buddhist cultivation.
The definition of Right Awakening
is the absence of selfishness,
the absence of ego.
So, using that standard, if we look at ourselves,
if we have a desire for fame, prestige,
lust and all that, still have those desires,
then
we have not attained Right Awakening.
Now we move into the second level.
Because when we learn Buddhism, we need
to go to the highest level gradually.
So, number two is Samyak-Sambodi.
So, Equally Perfect Enlightenment.
This is like a Master level
in university qualifications.
So from a Bachelor degree to a Masters Degree,
a Masters Degree in Buddhism is Equally
Perfect Enlightenment. Equal to what?
At this level, we are equal to Buddha in terms of
if we achieve this level, your level of enlightenment,
awakening, is the same as Buddha.
You have not attained Buddhahood but your
understanding and your awakening is already
at the same level as Buddha.
So you see what Buddha sees. So,what does it mean?
We should continue next week,
because our time has passed.
I would like to summarize it.
There's a lot more actually, that follows about
this Equally Perfect Enlightenment.
Not only do you need to attain Right Awakening,
which is Sambodhi, you need to attain
Equally Perfect Enlightenment,
which is Samyak-Sambodhi.
How do you get Samyak-Sambodhi?
Do you believe in yourself?
Do you have confidence in achieving it?
Don't be stuck being an Arhat.
You want to be a Buddha,
don't stop at the first level, you want to be
equal to Amitabha Buddha,
to Shakyamuni Buddha.
You should have this, Buddha
encouraged that you should. This is
what differentiates Buddhism from religions.
In Buddhism,
everyone is encouraged
to become a Buddha.
First you need to believe in yourself (have faith),
as long as you have the will and the persistence,
you will achieve that.
Obviously, during the process, you need to
pay the price equivalent to the level
of attainment you achieve. What price?
The price of your ego, that means you need
to be patient, you need to take
the test in everyday life.
Because without tests, the tribulations of life,
you never know how far you have reached,
how much you can take in,
how much you can resolve.
No matter what you see, what you hear,
what you touch, what you eat, what
you think, you must be patient, let it go.
If you have done it to a level where you do
not give rise to a single thought, congratulations!
You have attained the level of Buddhahood!
So now we will stop here.
We'll continue next week explaining
what Equally Perfect Enlightenment is.
Why it is not a normal level of attainment
and why it is so good. So we'll stop here.
If there were any errors,
please give me a bit of feedback.
I would like to wish everyone a good,
beautiful evening. Amituofo, thank you!
****
Understanding Buddhism (7)
Dear respectful fellow practitioners,
Amituofo!
Today,
I would like to continue to practice,
to learn how to understand Buddhism.
Usually for the beginners, as a teacher we always
encourage them to start understanding
Buddhism with the basic stuff.
Although it's basic
for Buddhist practitioners,
we cannot look down on the basics.
We must know
Buddhism has very profound and
deep observations and truths in it.
It's different from religion
commonly known in the world.
This is the first thing we must understand.
Buddhism is what we call
an education, not a religion.
What Buddha teaches is wisdom,
high level wisdom, profound wisdom.
What does it mean by profound wisdom?
What was Shakyamuni Buddha’s goal?
It was to help all beings liberate
themselves from suffering,
not just a simple normal relief from suffering
but relief from the ultimate suffering to
achieve full happiness.
That means you no longer have to suffer.
It's not just for a temporary moment,
but forever.
Today, if you're able to
understand and accept Buddhism,
and if you practice Buddhism,
you're not a common person
because only a person with wisdom
will select this path.
Why we can't fully comprehend the teaching
is because we all have illness,
we all have troubles,
therefore
our wisdom cannot be realized.
There are very deep conditions
that we have planted
from many lives in the past
that kept us from even hearing
of the word “Buddha”,
let alone understand it.
It's not easy to practice Buddhism,
it has high wisdom.
But do not think everything is high wisdom,
all the major sutras
like the Avatamsaka Sutra
or the Diamond Sutra
start from the basics
even though their content is profound.
So today
we will learn about
a couple of very important lessons.
Today, we Buddhists,
we want to learn from
Shakyamuni Buddha, our teacher.
So if we want to learn from our teacher,
our master, what is the most
important thing to learn from him?
The first lesson is Right Awakening.
First, we need to have a goal.
First, we need to learn how to be awakened.
This is very important.
Awakening
means you're aware,
you understand,
but this awareness is not just simple awareness
because there is one condition before that,
it's called Right Awakening, it's different.
If you add this word ‘Right’,
the whole meaning is different.
So what does Right Awakening mean?
We must take our time to understand this.
Nowadays there are a lot of smart
and talented people.
Especially,
in this modern world,
we have a lot of genius level scientists,
we have talented scientists,
talented engineers who devise
a lot of innovations and discoveries
in the tech sector and the scientific sector
because we are in the era of technology.
This is what defines our era.
If you do not follow along in this era
you will get kicked out of the queue,
you'll be left behind.
So that is why
it is a struggle
for a lot of older people,
because technology has been developed
at a speed that is very fast,
astoundingly fast.
For example,
even just two years ago
we never thought we would do this online
and now can you imagine we conduct
the Dharma Ceremony and stuff
without these technologies,
without the internet, without computers?
We're forced to use it, including myself.
I'm forced to use it every day.
So sometimes
when I meet young kids,
when I come across young kids,
when they see me
struggling with phones
they laugh at me.
They say: Even a kid knows how to operate
a smartphone, so how can you be
so clueless about it?
I am always
being laughed at in this regard.
If you look at the Japanese news,
a lot of their temples and
Sanghas have robots.
Obviously they dress them as a monk and
they even sculpted one robot after Buddha
and they are like service robots,
they can also
talk about sutras.
It's kind of like a Q&A.
They allow you
to ask questions and answer you.
So for example, if you have any issues,
you can ask this Buddhist Alexa
about your issues,
ask for their guidance
as long as you call the number
you will be linked to the system
and that system is like a call center.
So this is the level of development
in our technological era.
In the future, even the role of monks will be
replaced by robots and AI. If you do
not believe me, look it up, it’s true.
However, no matter how developed
technology is, if it's not wisely used,
it will always cause more harm than good
and very big trouble
can be caused by technology.
Mostly, because it is destructive.
It's exploitative
and destructive towards nature.
Let's talk about humans, we say
the husband and wife are
the closest group of family, unit of family.
Nowadays,
if you look at couples, do you think
husbands and wives are closer
or husbands and iPhones
or wives and iPhones?
I saw a case where
a lay Buddhist, he's a guy and
he has a family and if his wife is not home,
maybe she has gone out shopping
or somewhere else, it doesn't even matter
if she's late returning home,
but when he lost his phone,
he threw a fit.
It's like: Where's my phone?
So this is
a not so normal thing
which I have observed.
These technologists, philosophers, scientists
and religious workers are very smart,
they should be,
they are
leaders of their communities,
they are innovators.
However, even though they are very intelligent
and their IQ is way above average,
Buddha will not give them the title,
the qualification of having Right Awakening.
So their intelligence is not considered,
not qualified as Right Awakening.
We must understand why these people, who are
in the top percentile of human intelligence,
are not considered Rightly Awakened.
In Buddhism, the word “right”, right view,
Right Awakening, right thought,
right speech is not easy to obtain.
Even if you want to
actually achieve this level,
it's not easily obtained by anyone.
So how come
their intelligence is not
considered as Right Awakening?
Very simply, it is because their heart has not
been freed from afflictions, their heart is
bound by their habits and desires.
They are smart but they have not severed
their afflictions, they have not purified
their heart, their mind,
they are still entangled with things and people,
like you're right, I'm wrong,
all of the (worldly) conflicts.
They still have hatred, greed,
ignorance and arrogance,
especially arrogance.
On top of that they have wandering thoughts,
discriminations or prejudice and
attachments to things or people.
They have selfishness
and they are attached with
desires of amassing profits and prestige.
No matter
how capable their mental faculties are,
they're not rightly awakened.
That's why,
from this, we understand
how important Right Awakening is.
The number of people who chant Amituofo,
to be honest, is a lot, but how many actually
made it to the Pure Land from this earth
because
they haven't achieved
the level of Right Awakening?
A lot of people
think that Amitabha Buddha
will bestow a lot of fortunes on them.
They come for that,
but they have not seen
the awakening side of it,
and the whole core of Right Awakening
is about a pure heart;
it's about your heart instead of your mind.
Is your state of mind pure,
clear of afflictions from clouded judgments?
Is your heart pure?
If your heart is pure, if your wisdom is crystal clear,
that means you have pierced through things
very clearly without clouded judgment,
only then is it
called Right Awakening.
Because a pure heart nurtures this kind of
wisdom that is able to awaken you
to the reality of everything.
This wisdom,
the use of this wisdom
is called Right Awakening.
The standard of
Right Awakening is only available
in Buddhism and the teachings of Buddha.
Because as long as we are in the six realms,
everything we see, everything we understand
is not considered Right Awakening
because of the reasons mentioned,
the afflictions. Today you chant Amituofo,
the same thing happens.
It all relies on a pure heart,
a chant of Amituofo that comes
from a pure heart is very powerful.
So what are we
trying to learn from Buddha,
Shakyamuni Buddha, our original teacher?
The first step
is to achieve Right Awakening.
Only when we are rightly awakened
can we truly understand
how to navigate out of this suffering.
Without Right Awakening,
we can't get out of
this puzzle.
Even if we want to go to the Pure Land,
which is liberation from
the puzzle of suffering,
we can't go there because we are not
letting go of the afflictions
that bind us here, of the attachments.
Only when you have attained the level of
Right Awakening are you qualified to be
liberated from the cycle of life and death,
liberated from the sufferings to happiness.
Otherwise, departing from this principle,
even though we're chanting Amituofo,
worshiping the Buddha
or listening to the Dharma, it's all
about fortune rather than the true merits
that are able to
bring you to liberation,
so it's all about a (pure) heart.
This is a very
concise summary
of Right Awakening.
When you hear
Right Awakening
it means having a pure heart,
Right Awakening
equals to having a pure heart,
having a pure heart means that you are
unmoved by the phenomena
that happens to you outside,
whether it be people or things or calamities
or anything, you're unmoved, only then
are you considered as having a pure heart.
If one achieves the pure heart or
Right Awakening in Buddhism,
what is the title we confer to these people?
If you have achieved
Right Awakening in Buddhism,
in this educational system,
what is the status that would be conferred
upon you? We must be clear on this
very important terminology used.
There are titles, like university degrees,
that are conferred upon people reaching
Right Awakening and this title is called Arhat.
So if you have
achieved Right Awakening
you will be called an Arhat.
Just like today, when you graduate
from the first level of University study,
it's called a Bachelor’s Degree.
So
Arhat is the same
in Buddhist education.
Arhat,
Bodhisattva
and Buddha
are the common titles that
we confer to people upon
achieving different degrees of awakening.
If you achieve
the first step of Right Awakening,
you are called an Arhat.
Why is one called an Arhat? Because you are
no longer twisted in views and ideas,
you see things clearly,
your greed, hatred
and ignorance does not exist,
it will not come up, it's cleared.
An Arhat
does not have entanglements
with people and matters,
because Arhats do not attach to
the notion of the body as themselves,
that means no more ego,
they are no longer attached to their bodies.
So what does Bodhisattva mean?
We will talk about this next time.
So Arhat is the first level title
in Buddhist education.
I hope it's clear for you guys.
The best way to define
Arhat is one having a pure heart,
pure heart means Right Awakening.
Why is it pure? Because they no longer
have erroneous views and ideas,
that means it's no longer twisted,
no longer biased, they have no hatred,
they have no greed, they have no ignorance,
they have no afflictions
and they do not entangle with people
and matters because they no longer
attach with the self.
From here
we hopefully learn and experience
that the Buddhist education system is
actually different from the worldly
religious and secular education
that we are going through right now.
So what do we actually
learn from Buddha?
We must be clear in this regard. Buddha
taught us to cultivate the realization of
truth, to cultivate ‘Right Awakening’.
Only when
we achieve Right Awakening,
can we solve the fundamental problem
and be truly
liberated from the pain
that has plagued us forever
and no longer
go through all of this again
and again and again.
Because only when you learn,
truly learn, truly listen to Buddha's words
and truly use your ability to learn,
will you
achieve liberation.
That's the first lesson.
If we look at
the worldly joy and sufferings,
starting from the obvious: ourselves,
we have to go through the Eight Sufferings of life.
These are sufferings that we have to live
through everyday, without a way out.
For example,
if you look at
our world of pain and pleasure.
If there is pain, there's always pleasure,
if there's pleasure,
it is always followed by pain.
In the Pure Land,
they call it
ultimately bliss for a reason
because they only have real bliss,
instead of having pain
following it around.
But over here,
we have a lot of pain
that follows the pleasure.
From the perspective
of pain and pleasure,
the most obvious, the most easily
observed part of suffering
that we have to go through,
is that no one can avoid birth,
age, illness and death.
Can you avoid it? No, right?
And on top of these four, we have the suffering
of not getting what we wish for, what we love,
we can't get it. What we like, we can't get.
And then
the sixth one
is our loved ones leaving us.
There was a case where,
in this form of suffering
when a loved one’s leaving us:
there was an old lady
who laid on the bed dying and
when she died, she left her eyes open.
So she did not go in peace.
When she passed away, her eyes kept
looking in one direction, one place,
because
she could not let go of
her most beloved granddaughter.
So this is
another type of
suffering even until death.
Then we have
the suffering of encountering
someone (or something) you dislike.
So all of these combined with the suffering
of the five Skandhas compose
the Eight Sufferings of Life,
no one can escape them from here.
These are
the Eight Sufferings that
we all have to go through every day.
So
does Buddha have any way
to help us to get out of this?
Buddha told us if we practice Buddhism,
if we practice the path he gave to us,
which is Right Awakening,
just with the first step,
Right Awakening, we can be
free from these Eight Sufferings.
For example, today in the cultivation
group, some of us are seniors,
like 60 or 70 and above,
we think about: does Buddhism help us
to relieve or liberate us from
this phenomena of age, of illness?
To be honest,
if we truly cultivate the teaching, if we
truly understand the teaching and use it,
you would not need doctors or medicine.
You can recover from your ailments
as well as prevent them.
There are cases like that.
Why?
What's the reason?
Including myself,
we should think about it and
reflect on this. What are the reasons?
Because they have realized the truth, before
we realize the truth, we keep asking:
how did the illness come about, right?
Beyond the medical,
the physical observable part,
I'm talking about how it arised,
how it came into being and what were
the conditions that led to this illness
to develop and spread
and what are
the consequences and effects
from this illness in general.
Buddha told us: we can avoid illness, humans
can actually avoid illness, people can
avoid illness, but we need to know why.
Why do we
have illness and old age?
Why do we have these sufferings?
Because the root of these sufferings is our
wandering thoughts that keep generating
and regenerating the same conditions
that lead us to suffering.
So if you use a more common term,
we're thinking everywhere,
we're thinking left, right, up and down,
we are always thinking, we never stop,
we never rest, we're not honest in a sense,
our mind is not honest.
It's like the monkey in our mind keeps
jumping and jumping and jumping,
one thought after another.
Therefore,
Buddha told us as long as
you have wandering thoughts
even a sage Doctor, some cultivated person
like Hua Tuo(華佗) in China
who was a very, very good doctor
who healed a lot of ailments
can't treat your problem,
this kind of problem, this illness.
Talking about Mr. Hua Tuo,
talking about ancient China,
the medical history,
before the Qin Dynasty united China,
there was a person behind the engineering
of unification,
he was called Mr. Ching who was treated
as such an important figure
in Chinese history,
Mr. Hua Tuo華佗, Doctor Hua Tuo華佗.
Maybe not him, I think, sorry.
He was in the Three Kingdoms era, sorry.
There was
another very good doctor
but he could not treat this illness.
Because he kept thinking,
because of wandering thoughts,
he kept thinking about illness,
his mind kept generating the condition of illness.
If our wandering thoughts are blocking us
from returning to the pure state of mind,
it will always beat you in the current condition
of six realms or in our realm, life and death,
life and death, life and death,
it all comes from wandering thoughts.
The six realms arise from
wandering thoughts.
So Buddha, in the Avatamsaka Sutra said:
All beings have the wisdom and virtues
of the Thus Come One.
That's another title for the Buddha.
However, due to wandering thoughts
and discrimination , they cannot realize it.
So the point is he has pointed out
the roots of our illness in the grand scheme
of life and death, in this one sentence.
Using a recent example
that just happened in this decade,
Venerable Master Hai Xian(海賢老和尚)
who just passed away in 2013.
He lived to 112 years old,
being born in the Qing Dynasty.
He could climb
the trees at the age of 112.
The year he went to the Pure Land,
he could still
climb the trees and he could do
all of the rough work on the farm.
Even a 40-year-old could not do that,
but he did all this by himself,
at the age of 112.
Even if you ask
some of the young people
nowadays to do all this in one day,
the volume of the chores
that he had to do on his farm,
near the temple is a lot,
yet he could do it.
How did he achieve
this level of health?
His heart was pure,
that's why he could do that.
How come his heart was pure?
Because he always used Amituofo阿彌陀佛
as the object of his thoughts, no longer
allowing any other thoughts to mix in.
So his heart was pure.
His heart only has Amituofo阿彌陀佛.
Hence it was pure, because of this one thing.
As long as
your heart is pure,
illness will not have an effect on you.
It is a way to reflect for us,
especially myself.
It's true.
Therefore, today we always say:
I'm ill, I caught a cold
and stuff like that.
To be honest,
beyond the physical body, it is
actually our thoughts as well, our mind.
Because if we put our energy and mind
not on our illness but on cultivation and
in terms of us, Amituofo 阿彌陀佛,
if we focus on Amituofo 阿彌陀佛,
our mind will be pure and focused,
then we no longer fall ill,
truly
as long as
you have a pure heart.
If we look into the Tripitaka,
if we look into all of the records
of Buddha himself,
did they mention
anything about Buddha falling ill
or sick in his original state?
Did he
appear ill and aged
in his original state? No.
Have you read of Bodhisattvas,
the students of Buddha, the chief
students of Buddha, also fall ill? No.
Have you heard of Guan Yin Bodhisattva,
Guan Yin falling ill in the middle
of his Dharma talk?
Did he ever take time off from his Dharma talks
because he caught a cold or
had a headache or fever? No.
Have you seen anywhere in any of the sutras
that says: Bodhisattva Guan Yin, Ksitigarbha,
Manjushri fell ill? No.
Even Arhats
do not fall ill or age.
To be honest, they are no longer
bound by this, what we call
the worldly law of life and death.
They have been liberated,
they have liberated themselves,
to be honest, it's not fake, it happens,
but how do we do that?
What's the reason
for them achieving that?
Buddha and Bodhisattvas thoroughly
realize the truth of this universe,
how it came to be in all these conditions.
So once they understood that,
they immediately followed their true nature,
they no longer used thoughts,
because they had no wandering thoughts,
everything they did flowed naturally from
their Buddha nature,
their true heart,
their pure heart.
So everything
they did was without pretensions
because being natural is the healthiest thing.
So nowadays the technology is very advanced
however the cause of this advancement is
the destruction of nature, of the environment.
If we look at this earth right now that we live in,
it's already sick, gravely sick, gravely ill,
because we keep destroying it.
If we
look nowadays at
these Covid pandemic times,
it gets
more and more
serious and more contagious.
It keeps
evolving, mutating
because our hearts are not pure.
All this Covid,
all this pandemic,
why does it mutate?
It mutates
in accordance with our heart,
in accordance with our thoughts.
If our thoughts and our heart turns pure,
focuses on pure stuff, I can tell you,
you will no longer be affected by it
if our hearts
are pure and clean.
If you look at the Pure Land, is there any
sutra that says any pandemic happened
in the Pure Land
or
in the land of the Buddha?
No.
Because the Pure Land
is comprised of people
who have an environmentalist heart.
All the residents
of the Pure Land are
environmentalists.
Why?
Because their hearts are pure,
so they purify their environment.
So why is our world in such a state?
Because we are polluting it
with our wandering thoughts.
The root cause of our illness is
because of our wandering thoughts,
discriminations and attachments.
It comes from that.
If you want to be healthy,
you must cultivate a pure heart.
To start cultivating a pure heart
for Right Awakening
we need to start letting go of attachments
that we have strongly adhered to,
let go of any situation,
adverse or favorable.
In case of adverse conditions,
something that causes us to be unhappy,
we let go and chant Amituofo to replace it.
Once you do that as a habit,
your heart gets purified further and further
hence your health gets better.
If we practice Buddhist teachings,
we must listen to Buddha’s advice
to let go of these afflictions
because
only a pure heart can nurture
true wisdom and Right Awakening.
The problem of us practitioners of
Buddhist teachings is that we are
not listening to the Buddha's advice,
we're not putting in our heart.
Yes, we come here to
attend the sessions,
but a lot of people say I'm busy,
I have a lot of work, I have a lot of chores
or family business to tend to,
a lot of excuses sometimes,
to be honest.
In this world
other than cultivating Amitabha's name
in our heart
nothing else you do
can be brought to the next one.
Very few people
in this world
can live to be 100 years old,
even if
you reach 100 years old
it is nothing compared to eternity.
In this tiny speck
of our existence
in this universe,
why aren't we doing something that we can
exchange for something bigger and infinite
instead of clinging to something that cannot last?
True,
it is like that.
We must
listen to Buddha’s teachings
because he's been there.
If we do not listen
we'll still cling to this entanglement,
get entangled in these afflictions.
Only from a pure heart,
a heart free from all this selfishness
and afflictions, entanglement
can we nurture true wisdom
that leads you to Right Awakening.
However
on the other hand
if our heart is not pure,
if our mind is not pure
even though
we are wise and smart,
Buddha and Bodhisattvas will not recognize
our wisdom and smarts as Right Awakening.
They will not.
Because the person
who attains Right Awakening, an Arhat,
does not get bound by life and death,
let's call it
the state of cessation of
life and death or Nirvana.
If you transcend the six realms,
if you achieve Right Awakening through
having a pure heart,
birth, aging,
sickness and death
are no longer a problem.
All of our afflictions
come from a polluted heart.
If we get through these issues
by achieving Right Awakening,
they no longer matter.
What about the rest?
Nothing else can trouble you anymore.
If we have solved the problem
of life and death,
that means we're no longer bound by it,
everything else is not a problem.
Our lives will be truly happy and fulfilling
in this way.
This is
what we should seek
from Buddhism.
Only then
can we be happy.
To do that, to achieve that
we need to start following
Buddha’s teachings, his education.
However,
if we treat Buddhism as a religion,
a dogmatic approach,
we can never achieve
Right Awakening which
brings us towards the ultimate happiness
and that means
we cannot stop suffering
because we are still lost.
Religion itself, the nature of
religious worshiping is being lost,
call it superstitious in a way.
Why is it superstitious?
Emotion is the basis of religion.
In English
there are two words:
emotion and sensibility.
Emotion,
in other words,
is called blind faith.
Buddhism does not encourage blind faith,
it encourages rational, clear,
precise thinking.
Some religions
use blind faith as a tight leash
on its worshippers
and the more devoted you are
to that emotion, we call them,
the more truly devoted, sincere worshipers.
The more lost you are, the better it is.
They are labeled as devoted and
there is a leash so that you can’t escape.
If you look at some religions,
there are a lot of evangelists that
try to woo disciples into their congregation,
as part of that religion
that uses
this evangelist approach.
They use that mindset to get students
and then there are cases
where it's very well known:
“If you don't believe in me, you go to hell.”
There are religions that always use
this kind of an approach,
using a leash
on the people.
They feel obligated to pray
and worship everyday
and to give donations to them.
This is a common problem
among religions nowadays.
“I'm real, you're fake, holier than thou.”
But to be honest, at the end of the day,
none of them knows what is happening,
none of them solve the real problems,
hence it's fake.
Buddhism is never like that.
Buddhism is not about followers,
how many people come and follow me.
Why? Because it's all about education.
Education is about teachers and students,
disciples and masters.
There's
a very important phrase:
There's only disciples who seek answers
from the master, never heard of a master
who asks for a student to teach.
What does it mean?
We'll talk about it in the next session.
Only students
seek answers from masters,
so seek teachings from the teacher,
a teacher should not
come to you
and tell you to learn from him.
Going back to the point,
we need to start with
Right Awakening.
To be rightly awakened
we need to have
a pure heart,
we need to learn
the practice
of purifying our heart,
without a pure heart
everything you learn in Buddhism is just
planting a seed of Buddhism for the future,
it does not
have an immediate effect
on your current condition,
it will not
be used to help you
elevate your current condition.
Therefore
Shakyamuni Buddha's appearance
in this world
is just to help you to liberate from suffering
and the first level you have to go through
is life and death
and to liberate
from life and death
you need to start with Right Awakening,
to start from Right Awakening
you use your pure heart.
In our terms
we use Amitabha Buddha's name
to cultivate our pure heart.
This is a very simple overview
on what we should seek
in Buddhism.
Next session I look forward to
learning more with you,
about Buddhism, understanding Buddhism.
I would also
like to announce that
this Friday
I will also practice talking about the
Original Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva,
Di Zang.
In the evening,
around 8 pm,
we will have a session on this sutra,
and will dedicate our merits
(together after that).
So now
back to understanding Buddhism,
that's it for today.
I hope everyone can cultivate their pure heart.
Put in the effort because the only person
who benefits from doing this is yourself.
I hope
that you can have something
to carry home with you.
So a good evening to everyone, to you,
and may you be prosperous and healthy.
Thank you so much. Amituofo!
Let's dedicate our merits.
Let's join our palms.
Use your own name and repeat after me.
May I use
the merits accrued from now,
me, a student of Buddha,
(your name)
would like to dedicate the merits
of listening to this Dharma talk
to all of my karmic creditors
so that they may be born
in the Pure Land.
Also dedicate the merits to all beings
in the 10 directions and also dedicate
them toward world peace.
May the calamities
be turned from big to small,
small to none.
Repay the four kindnesses above
and relieve the suffering of those
in the three paths below.
May those
who see and hear of this
aspire to invoke the Bodhi heart
and cultivate the teachings
for the rest of this life then be born together
in the Land of Ultimate Bliss. Amituofo.
****
Understanding Buddhism (6)
Let us join our palms.
Namo Founding
Teacher Shakyamuni Buddha
Dear fellow practitioners,
fellow Dharma Protectors:
I wish
you all an auspicious evening!
Amituofo!
Today, I will
continue the sermon
on Understanding Buddhism.
It is very crucial for Buddhist practitioners.
It’s a very important lesson and also
Buddhism is a high level wisdom
because it can lead
all beings to attain true happiness
and liberate them from their sufferings.
Also it helps all beings
to attain a life of happiness
so that we can live a meaningful life;
that is
what Buddha taught us
through the wisdom of his teachings.
It helps us (learn that) in any place, any
time, any environment, the inner world
in our heart is always beautiful.
It also helps us (learn how) to overcome
any circumstances so that
we are not attached
or dragged away by
the circumstances that
cause us to bring out the afflictions
and lead us into creating unwholesome deeds.
So it has that ability to prevent
this from happening.
So this requires wisdom.
All of (these circumstances) are to help us,
no matter if they are
good or bad,
whether they happen in adversity or
in a very favorable condition, they
all can help us to improve our wisdom.
The value of
the wisdom in our heart is to
help us to transform these conditions.
That's why it's important.
It teaches us
how to change our environment.
It can (help us)
break through a lot of obstacles.
Where did
the wisdom of this caliber come from?
So that's why we're here.
We need to understand what he taught so that
we can appreciate and actually use
the wisdom he imparted on us.
That is
the true goal of
the Buddha’s teachings.
So this is a summary,
a brief introduction to everyone
so that we all can learn and practice.
If you think I have
made any mistakes in my speech,
please don't hesitate to give me some feedback
so that we can all improve together, so that
we can go in depth on the true
meanings of Buddhism.
Last time, we briefly talked about
how Buddhism is an education,
it’s about discipleships.
So it is an education.
That means the relationship between ourselves
and Shakyamuni Buddha is one of a Master
and a disciple, a teacher and a student.
Just like
Amitabha Buddha
that we chant every day,
what's the relationship
between us
and Amitabha Buddha?
It is one of a teacher and a student,
it is actually beyond that.
It's one of a Master and a disciple,
because it's like
parents and children,
they cannot be separated.
So it is
with a Master
and a disciple, they are one.
Buddhism is not about gods, or worshiping
gods or deities. It's about education.
It's about discipleships.
So one day, if someone asks you:
What is Buddhism? You can
answer that Buddhism is an education.
(There are)
a lot of wise men (intellectuals)
in the west, they are not ordinary people,
these wise people, after observing all of the
recent phenomena in society, in the
environment and in religions,
made a conclusion
especially on religion:
Religions are all about gods, that means
it's just about worshiping a deity.
To put it even more bluntly,
religions have
become superstitious.
So hence the word
“areligious” because it has
turned into something superstitious,
including
Buddhism and other religions.
You can see that all these religions
have diverted too far from
its founder's purpose.
It has become a form rather than substance.
Hence it becomes superstitious because
people attach to the form.
They no longer understand the essence.
So the question is: Is that too much,
if we put this statement like that?
To be honest, it's not,
it's not an overstatement
It's exactly what happened.
Let's not talk about others, even ourselves as
a person who chants Amitabha
Buddha's name
even though
I call myself a reciter of
Amitabha Buddha's name.
Have I truly chanted
his name in my heart,
or do I just do it with the mouth?
Do I just do it
all without or from my heart?
So is it just form or substance?
Let's put the example closer to us:
How many humans populate the earth?
We have about seven billion right now.
Where is
everyone in this room?
Everyone is gone from my sight.
When I was a kid,
we used to play hide-and-seek.
We all hid in the house.
Same thing is going on now.
So right now
if we look at the global human
population, how many are there?
There are approximately seven billion ,
around seven billion.
Is that a lot?
There are around 1 billion atheists.
About one billion people who do
not practice any form of religion.
1 billion people
are atheist and the rest
practice some form of religion or faith.
So it's about 80
percent of the human
population who practices a faith.
So in Buddhism, we have two types,
two main branches,
in the entire world there are about 15 types
of faith practiced throughout
this human population.
So we have
about 80% of people who
practice faith in one form or another.
The question is:
Since we have so many people
who practice religion(faith),
who are supposed to teach kindness
and goodness in this world,
why is the world still messy?
Why is it
still very turbulent?
If you look at our environment, look at
the natural disasters that happen
again and again,
one wave after another it gets worse and worse.
Let's not talk about something far away
in the past or future,
let's look at the Covid cases in Australia,
in New South Wales especially, it has
already reached ten thousand.
Obviously we are still far behind the
United States and Europe,
especially the UK.
So Australians are considered lucky,
not being affected by it so much,
but still a lot.
Sydney has
already reached ten thousand,
a Covid milestone today.
A lot of people have called me and said:
Try to stay at home. Don't go out,
take care of yourself.
Not including other stuff,
this infectious disease
alone has already affected us so much.
Not to mention other stuff,
like the bushfires and
man-made disasters.
So back to this question: there are 80% of
the human population right now who
practice faiths or religions
so why is
the world still messed up?
And it will continue.
Why is
religion helpless
in teaching and educating humans?
Because we only stay on the form,
on the rituals,
on the appearance of practicing faith,
instead of
doing what was taught to us.
Did we put it in action?
Did we actually
accumulate the merits,
the real merits, the real virtues?
No.
Everything stays on the surface appearance.
In one word: superficial.
So in reality,
we keep permitting unwholesome karma
every single day, every single second.
No matter where they are, people keep
committing the killing, the sexual
misconduct and the stealing,
the lying, breaking the precepts.
Hence, that's the cause, the effect is:
Disaster is happening every day.
In our case,
we have not applied
Buddha’s teaching in our life,
hence,
we are not able to
prevent ourselves from committing it.
Therefore we need to understand the teaching,
so that we can actually do it
from our heart.
These wise men, great intellects of the west,
also observed that religions of nowadays
have this one issue (superstition).
Therefore, that’s the issue.
So that’s why,
my respectful practitioners,
we must
understand the
purpose of Buddhist education.
What's the highest goal in Buddhist teaching?
What is the ultimate goal of going
through this education?
Because if
you don't have a purpose and goal,
we cannot get any benefits.
For example, chanting Amituofo,
if we don't understand why
we're doing that,
how can we reap the real benefit from it
and how can we break through the
delusion and be enlightened?
So the goal is to break through
the delusion and be aware
of the truth.
Therefore, I keep advising my dear fellow
university students in Indonesia
and even professors.
I always tell them,
people who actually
practice Buddhism are great people.
Because their goal
is to break through the
delusions, cut to the heart of the matter,
to be enlightened
to the reality of everything.
People who truly invoke the vow to practice
Buddhism will be able to truly get
the benefits of it.
People who truly
practice it are high level wise people.
Their wisdom is very high.
Only then will they be able to practice it properly.
This is not a normal religion,
worshiping a deity.
So back to our reality, why do all beings suffer?
Why do we have one form or another
of ailment and suffering?
Because we are all diluted in some
way, to some degree and then
it gets worse and worse.
All these delusions and ignorance have clouded
our wisdom, our clarity of thoughts,
our capabilities, our virtues.
And because of that, we are committing
wrong stuff as in our ideas, our views,
our speech, our deeds,
towards the life that we're living in, towards
the universe we are living in, that is
erroneous and unwholesome.
We are not
aware of the standards.
We are not aware of the path.
We commit it
(wrongdoings) on a daily basis.
Some of us understand that we have to
change our ways but they still
walk on the wrong path.
If you extend it further,
to the people around us, so do
most human beings, including ourselves,
do we also create a form of
unwholesome deeds in karma?
Yes.
Do you have these kinds of errors in ideas
and views and speech and deeds?
We must acknowledge it.
By acknowledging it, we are doing repentance,
especially in front of a Venerable.
We all have these shortcomings.
Not only do we not change it, sometimes
we don't even realize it.
We just leave it be.
Let it fester,
like a wound festers and do not change
our ways, not repenting.
Hence,
that's the cause, the effect is:
Our life is getting harder and harder.
If we understand this truth,
get to the bottom of the matter,
and do something about it.
Let me tell you: Your life will change at that point.
Because you will truly live a guilt-free, happy
life, a very balanced life in your heart,
emotions
and everything will
be very calm, at peace.
Because you will have understood how
you got to where you are and
where you're going.
I also knew a couple that were very kind
and helped me a lot to propagate
the Dharma.
The wife was always going after the sensory
desires, was always pursuing something,
luxurious goods,
something better,
to eat better, sleep better.
All the comforts need to be better.
Her
attitude towards her
family was always nitpicky.
So this wife was always consumed by her
desires and when dealing with
people in her own family,
she always nitpicks.
She does live a life of luxury.
She has a luxurious life.
However,
she's always unhappy.
She's always not balanced inside.
She's always seeking something
more, more, more.
So that was
her state before she
actually practiced Buddhism.
So once she understood
and got in contact with
Buddhism, she started to reflect inside.
She understood why she was always unhappy
and always making a mess in the
relationship with her family.
She has changed 180 degrees.
Once she learned the teachings,
she kept practicing in her daily life.
One of her practices is showing gratitude.
No matter what kind of condition she
met, be it favorable or adverse,
she would always keep a grateful heart
and that helped her to get through
it and retain her balance.
So we also have pursuits in Buddhism,
but we pursue inner peace, we
pursue inner wisdom,
instead of
going outside and
satisfying our sensory desires.
The true treasure is in your heart,
the true wealth bank is in your heart.
The true wealth lies inside your heart.
If she has anything extra,
she will give it to other people,
to people in need.
She lives carefree,
happily,
she does not nitpick anymore.
That's the look of
a person who truly practices Buddhism.
Are we like that? Not necessarily.
When we look at people or when we look at
how people handle things or look at
(other people’s) stuff,
we might actually fall into the trap of
holding a grudge, nitpicking and
pursuing more desires.
We are deluded in that way.
That’s why we have these teachings telling us
we can awaken from that as long as
you're not fully awakened
you will
definitely commit
a certain degree of faults.
So now
the point is I have
done something wrong.
The problem is if I'm not aware of it and
do not repent and do not
attempt to change it.
Every day
allowing it to fester, that
means allowing it to grow every day.
Then I must
understand that there
are consequences behind that.
So if you
keep committing negative karma,
then the consequences are:
You will
continue to suffer
in this life and the next life.
Because
we keep doing
the cause that leads us there,
committing wrong views,
wrong ideas, wrong deeds,
wrong speech and wrong actions.
We are all accumulating
negative karmas
and are bound
not just to any of the six realms: the lower
three paths, hungry ghost, animal
and even worse, the hell realm.
Trust me, it’s hard to get out, it’s easy to
go in, but very hard to get out
(of the three bad realms).
We must understand that. We will confirm
that later, with a sutra called: the
Original Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva.
This Bodhisattva,
in Chinese, is called Di Zang.
He is very compassionate, trying to help
the beings in hell to liberate
them from there
and so he
explained why hell happens.
Buddha asked him:
How does hell happen to appear?
So Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva said:
Because everything we do,
everything we think,
everything we say
commits the negative
karma that creates hell.
That is why
our life is full of suffering.
Because we are not aware,
because we are not aware of the real realities.
We are not aware of the truth
of these matters.
Therefore
we have no
compass in our actions.
Once we are aware of it, we'll learn how
to let it go. Because we don't attach
to the good or the bad.
No matter what things we're doing,
we don't attach to it.
We are suffering
because we are strongly attached,
hence the six realms.
My respectful fellow practitioners, last time
I saw the news recently there was
a story about a very famous star.
Because of
the work stress and competition
from his peers,
his body has
weakened and he couldn't
accept that he has weakened in health.
Because that's
the truth of human life,
we always have deteriorating health.
He couldn't accept it because it hurt
his profile as a star in
the film industry.
His current life
is something like a very
intense and action-packed one.
So he's willing
to pay whatever cost it takes
to repair his health.
It doesn’t matter
what deeds he had to do.
He's trying to get himself back in shape.
It doesn't matter how long it takes
or whatever the cost is.
A lot of people asked this star: Is your life hard?
And then this star says: Yes, it's very hard.
It's full of suffering. He is suffering.
So if he understood the truth that
life itself is suffering, then,
he won't do that.
As long as you are
deluded, you cannot stop
yourself from committing negative karmas.
People who
commit negative karma obviously
will reap what they sow.
So they will
obviously reap the negative effect,
which is suffering.
In Korea, it is very famous.
A lot of people go there for surgeries
trying to make themselves look beautiful.
Anyone interested?
Being a woman is very hard as well,
they even have these norms.
As a male member of society,
we should understand and be empathetic
towards our female counterparts.
It’s not asking too much.
There's
a lot of this thing
hidden from our sight.
Doing
these kinds of surgeries,
facial surgeries,
you know cosmetically, not because of
medical reasons, is really disrespectful
to your parents who gave you your body.
And there is also karma inflicted there.
People who are wise,
they will not do things like this.
Therefore the goal of Buddhist education is,
we must be clear on this,
is to help us,
to help all beings
liberate from the sufferings of Samsara,
and attain ultimate happiness.
That's the effect.
The cause is to break through
the delusion and be enlightened.
If you want to be happy,
really happy and ultimately happy
then you must cultivate the cause.
There's no effect without cause.
There's no fruit without seeds.
So what's the seed?
What is the cause?
We need to let go of the delusion.
That's why we're learning Buddhism right now.
It helps us to break through these layers
and layers and layers of delusions,
only then can you improve.
So where does our suffering come from?
Delusion.
Because we are not aware of the actual
reality underneath the phenomena
in your environment,
in your life and the things that happen in your life.
Why does this happen?
We're not aware of the truth.
That's it.
However, if you are awakened
to the truth of your life,
if you are aware, understand, you know why,
you know the Cause and Effect, then you
will be a very happy person. Why?
Because all you think, all you see, you know
your ideas and views and all of your
actions and thoughts
that you generate are correct and wise naturally.
So just change your compass a little bit to
the right direction.
Everything
will be in the right place.
Everything will come together.
So in summary,
being awakened from
the delusion
is the cause that will liberate yourself and
others from sufferings and attain
(ultimate) happiness which is the effect.
What should we be aware of, awakened to?
If you want to be aware,
what are you going to be aware of?
Because you need to get the cause right,
only then you can get the
effect you desire.
So during the time of Buddha,
he kept repeating four
characters(快快覺悟).
In English, it's called: Get awakened quickly,
as soon as possible. Be awakened
as soon as possible.
The first thing to be
aware of is the impermanence in our life.
That is the first part, the first step.
If you understand
the essence of this teaching
then your whole life will change.
The way that you view your life will be different.
Because knowing that everything
is impermanent,
would you be
nitpicking this little stuff
that doesn't matter in the long run?
Sometimes we may meet some situations that
teach us that everything (life)
is impermanent.
No matter what you pursue at the moment,
when you pursue it, how much you pursue it,
how much you own,
it will always
change and the only
constant is the change.
Your body for example, something very close
to you, your body, I'm 23 years old,
I'm 25 years old,
I'm very handsome
and all that, very young,
but remember that it's impermanent
it will become old,
it will age, (get sick and die).
That's the iron rule.
Not long after (our birth), the human world
compared to the universe is very small,
we will pass away, long or short,
it is still very short in the long run.
Whatever you own, obviously, we cannot
even keep ourselves young forever,
let alone the things around us, our properties,
our families or anything,
they all change as time passes.
That is the truth in everything.
Once we can see through that reality,
our life would be very peaceful,
very happy,
because we won't fear losing anything.
That thing (fear) does not
happen anymore.
Because you accept,
once you're aware of the truth,
you accept whatever comes to you.
You change your attitudes.
You will no longer attach like you did before
for something that does not matter
in the long run.
Because in your heart,
you have this word,
this word is: Impermanence無常.
That's the way
Buddha helped us to get awakened.
He kept
He kept saying to us:
Have you got enlightened?
Buddha kept repeating these four sentences:
Are you enlightened?
Have you been enlightened?
Some people might say: It's okay.
Take your time. One by one.
Step by step.
Buddha is very,
very compassionate and
Amitabha Buddha as well.
Because you take it slowly,
Buddha is very compassionate,
he won't force you.
He will follow you slowly.
If you're awakened to this a little bit,
he will help you a little bit.
If you're not urgent,
then
Buddha won’t be urgent.
Buddha always
wants us to be awakened
as soon as possible.
This process of turning from
an ordinary person to a sage,
it has to be done as soon as possible.
How did he show his commitment to this
goal of helping everyone enlighten
as soon as possible?
He gave Dharma sermons ever since
he got enlightened under
the Bodhi tree.
Every single day, until the very end of his life
that he appeared on this earth,
to the age of 80,
he gave Dharma talks,
basically every single day, until
his parinirvana.
He did not even
take a day off from the sermons.
The best example
was on the very last day
of his existence in this world,
he even
managed to help an old man
to attain Arhathood.
Basically he got to
the first stage of enlightenment,
being liberated from the six realms.
So this man
was especially very wise,
but he had not fully awakened.
He has been hearing of
the Buddha
during Buddha's time.
But he heard Buddha’s going to nirvana soon,
that means he's going to pass away
in our terms.
He immediately
ran to Buddha and seeked guidance
before (Buddha) passes away
and
he's the last one to
attain Arhathood from (Buddha).
Shakyamuni Buddha
contributed a lot during his
time to his society and the world.
Back then
his students came
from different kingdoms.
After he passed away,
he was cremated .
So Buddha, being very compassionate,
saw that this might happen because
everyone respected him so much,
that
they might even
go to war over his remains.
People who cultivate,
when they get cremated,
they have remains of crystals.
This last student of Buddha
who attained Arhathood,
he helped to resolve this conflict that
was about to happen over the
Buddha’s crystal remains.
It's very beautiful.
So this last student has
helped to divert the war away,
so very good.
So what did he do
to prevent this from happening?
That's your homework.
So you can search for
the last student of Buddha before
his nirvana.
So in short, holding all these talks that
Buddha gave was to help us to
break the fetters and attachments.
Because
these things are why we are
paying for (suffering) every single day.
These attachments and fetters.
If you ask young people for example:
Do you feel pain and suffering
during your romantic relationships?
He says yes, yes.
But why are you going through this?
Because it's enjoyable,
they're enjoying the pain and suffering
and that is the delusion,
the ignorance of the beings.
That's why
I would like to encourage
our translator here to become a monk!
If you
become a monk
we will have a lot of fortune,
because going through relationships,
those romantic relationships,
is not real.
Because
most of the time, not all, but
most of the time love might turn into hate.
That's the spirit of Buddha’s teachings.
This is what the teacher
taught us.
How to
get through the delusions
and get enlightened.
Buddhist education is not about divinity,
not about religion and definitely
not about superstition.
It's about discipleship,
emphasis on master and disciple,
passing down the teachings,
learning all the examples
from role models not
just knowledge.
So we must understand that.
Teachers do not
have any conditions for us.
Shakyamuni Buddha
does not ask anything from us.
They do not ask any favors in return.
Obviously includes all Buddhas,
Amitabha Buddha is not
exempted from that.
He does not ask for
anything in return for all
these benefits he bestowed on us.
What makes
these great teachers happy
is you're successfully liberated from
the sufferings and attain
the ultimate happiness.
That's the happiest person.
That's the happiest news that
Buddha could receive.
Truly, if you attain enlightenment they will
come and congratulate you and
welcome you to the Buddha club for real.
Because you are free. You are truly free.
The thing that he enjoys the most
is that you are awakened.
You understand
the realities of life and death.
Congratulations!
Therefore, being able to see his students
liberate from the Six Realms,
the sufferings,
to live a happy and fulfilling life in the present
and be able to liberate from the sufferings
of the Six Realms.
How? By being reborn in the Pure Land.
That's the best thing, that's the only
thing that he'll ask,
he wants to see from us.
So he didn't ask for anything else.
He doesn't say:
Oh you have to offer me a lot of incense,
offer me a lot of water, juice or
wealth or anything
or you need to
give me your most precious thing.
He doesn't need that.
This is not what Buddha would ask for. One
thing that he hopes is everyone to be awakened,
to be like him, free and awakened.
Once you are awakened, you are happy.
You will never be truly happy
if you are fully deluded.
Every day he gives you the sermon but
we are still attached to the things
that are impermanent,
so how can we be happy?
He already told you: These things are dragging
you down and not making you free,
just like a wing being clipped,
how can you be happy if you got clipped,
how can you be free? He tells you to
let it go so that you can be free.
That's why you need to listen to his teachings.
That’s the whole point of giving sermons,
Dharma talks.
That is the mission for
doing that.
It's not for others. People who give Dharma talks,
to be honest, are talking to themselves
rather than talking to others.
Talking to yourself is the first point of giving
sermons, encouraging yourself to
be liberated, to be awakened.
So as a student of the Buddha,
as a disciple of the Buddha,
in Buddhism,
what's the biggest show of gratitude
that we can repay our teachers?
How do we repay our teachers?
Live happily, live decently, live righteously,
do right by the people, your loved ones,
pay love and respect to your family,
your parents,
that’s how you repay them.
That's whyBuddhism cannot
depart from filial piety, cannot
depart from respect towards teachers.
If you can be filial
to your parents and be
respectful to your teacher,
then you are
the number one
happiest person in the world.
Because you're
repaying someone
who gives you the most.
This is very important.
That’s the root of all virtues.
If you don't even know
how to repay the person who
gives you the most unconditionally,
for now it is
your parents and
your teachers who are the masters,
people who help you along, then how can
you be real if you treat someone else
outside respectfully, right?
That means to be
a decent human being
we need to repay our gratitude.
At least it's to start with a person
who actually gave us a lot of
(kindness),
that is the person that we have
a lot of gratitude for,
are grateful for.
So it all starts
with family and to start with family,
how do you educate your family?
Filial piety,
which means love and respect.
So saying this,
upon touching these subjects,
any masters, good masters, they will always
treat disciples like parents looking
after their children.
Just like the parents that always want to see
their children be successful in whatever
they do in society, so do the teachers.
Same meaning, same sentiment, same relationship,
that's the relationship Buddha has with us,
like parents to children.
Is that easier
to understand
if I explain it like that?
So this is a brief summary of the first part of
the class today about the goal of
practicing Buddhism.
So what is the goal of practicing Buddhism?
Liberated from suffering, to attain
ultimate happiness.
That is the fruit. What is the seed, the cause,
is to break through the delusions
and attain enlightenment.
Enlightenment
means being aware of the realities
and not being deluded by it.
So that
you don't create
the cause of your suffering.
And hence because of these teachings,
it proves that Buddhism is
no longer a superstition,
it's not
a religion in the
sense of divine worshiping,
it's just a very down-to-earth education
of helping us to get through
sufferings.
That is the highest goal,
to get liberation
from the pain that we face now.
So what is the second lesson?
Just now,
in the first part of the talk,
I analyzed a lot of times that the goal of learning
Buddhism is to attain happiness,
to be awakened.
Now we must understand:
What are we seeking for in Buddhism?
What are we looking for in Buddhism?
What do we ask for in Buddhism?
This is also very important
so that our goal is not misaligned.
So first is purpose, second is
what do you look for in Buddhism.
Otherwise why would you come here, right?
We must be
looking for something.
So now we need to be clear about
what we are looking for
in Buddhism.
If we do not believe it,
you can ask people around you,
people you know, your acquaintances,
your family,
your relatives, including
the people around us in this club.
Today you learn Buddhism,
you say you practice
Buddhism,
what is
the main thing a Buddhist practitioner
should seek for,
the reason for being, raison d’etre, of Buddhism?
A lot of people wouldn't be able to answer.
A lot of people are not aware of it.
A lot of people say:
It's just to ask for peace,
prosperity, safety and wealth.
A lot of people have this one idea
of Buddhism, seeking for wealth,
securing promotions,
safety
and security
and prosperity in business.
Really, they all look for that.
If you look in the Buddhist temple,
a lot of people contribute flowers and incense.
What do they look for?
Worldly stuff.
However we must understand:
Asking for this wealth, promotion,
safety, security, prosperity,
you can't seek it like that.
If that's what we
understand Buddhism is
and this is how we ask Buddha to help us.
Then we can't get it, not even just Buddhism,
other churches, Christianity, Islam or
any religions, it doesn't work like that.
What do we call this phenomenon?
It's what we call being superstitious and
acting blindly without guidance.
That's what happens when you don't understand
the reason for being, of a religion,
of a teaching.
In Singapore, there’s a temple,
it is called the Temple of
Guan Yin Miao(觀音廟).
This temple is focused
on the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara,
who is Guan Yin, very famous.
A lot of people (go) there, giving incense and
wishing they will be able to attain wealth,
high positions and promotions,
just by touching the statue,
the idol of Guan Yin.
Some people say: Oh yeah I just touched the
statue of Guan Yin, because by doing that
it will give good luck to my hand
so that I can earn a lot of money
using this hand.
So you can see that the majority of people
who say that they practice this faith
and they go to the temples.
What are they looking for?
All of these things!
Before we learn Buddhism in depth,
we always perform these
kinds of actions.
For example, my Mom went to the temple.
What did she look for?
So that my children can grow up,
live a happy life, a peaceful life so that
whatever they do, it'd be successful.
It's common. It's very common.
I believe it's very common when people look
at Buddha (or Bodhisattvas), they just
pray for peace, pray for good luck,
prosperity
and change
of luck for the better.
Including my own temple,
the temple that I preside over,
they open at 5: 00 am, very early.
We open the door
at 5 a.m to receive the...
A lot of people come to the temple
because our temple is very
close to a supermarket.
A lot of people say:
Hey, the temple is next door.
I might as well go there
before I shop for groceries.
They come here, they ask for this.
If you ask them:
Do you want to listen to the Dharma talk to
understand the Buddhism in truth,
the actual Buddhism? No.
They're not interested.
They're only there asking for wealth,
asking for a promotion.
That’s why
we label religion as superstition.
In Buddhism,
what are we looking for?
What should we look for in Buddhism?
Buddha calls it
in very special terms.
Buddha has given a lot of talks,
the term is called Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodi.
That's the thing we're looking for
in Buddhism阿耨多羅三藐三菩提.
It's a Sanskrit word.
This is what Shakyamuni Buddha never fails to
mention in every single sutra that
he taught during his time.
When you open the book, there will always
be this word appearing in the sutra
that recorded his teachings.
This is a Sanskrit word.
If we translate it into Chinese or English,
it's called:
Unsurpassed Equal Enlightenment.
A (pronounced ‘ah’) in Sanskrit means Without.
Nuttara is Surpassed, Excelled
Sam is Right, Correct, Complete.
Yak is Equally, Identical
Bodhi is Awakening,
enlightenment.
Combining all these words together,
Unsurpassed, Equally Perfect Enlightenment
This is the ultimate goal of Buddhism:
Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodi.
And that's what we all
should seek for.
What Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
seek for in the end,
work so hard for this one thing.
This enlightenment is pure,
perfect and unsurpassed. If you
look for this, then you are truly a hero!
Because this enlightenment is real,
put it in any circumstances
you will generate a lot of good stuff.
But if you look for this wealth,
we call it the phenomena, the form,
those things are conditional.
They will appear when
the condition is met and cease
to appear when the condition is not met.
So they
are fake in that sense.
They are not permanent.
But this enlightenment means
the awakening to it.
It's unsurpassed.
We'll leave it to next week to understand
why it is called Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodi.
What does it mean?
Every single sutra has it, because I would like
to get in depth, in better depth,
so that we can understand.
The first step
in learning Buddhism is
to set a goal and the first goal
is to liberate yourself from sufferings
and attain happiness.
And the second goal we set in Buddhism
which is what
we look for in Buddhism
is this Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodi.
Why do we go to the Pure Land?
Why do we pay so much
hard work to do that?
It gives
so much hard work to chant
and join because you want to attain
Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodi
in the Pure Land.
No matter
what method you're learning under
Buddha's teaching,
the whole thing is
to lead you to
Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodi.
So next week,
I wish to see you all again
to share the content of this word.
Today I would like to be grateful to everyone
else to give me a chance to explain how
we understand Buddhism better.
I am thankful to the Youth Group,
our Uncle James and Auntie Cynthia,
for giving us a chance, a place,
people and the conditions to enable this
to happen so that we can better
understand Buddhism
because it's
very important to us in our life.
Next week, next Wednesday,
I look forward to your attendance,
your participation, your appearance,
gives me the energy to keep going,
gives me the encouragement
to keep going.
Without you guys,
how can I improve myself?
I'm the student, you are the teachers.
The person
who gives the Dharma talk
is the student.
The people who sit and watch me do
the Dharma talks are the teachers.
I am not trying to flatter anyone.
This is what happens.
This is the right attitude we should have
if you're giving a Dharma talk.
Everyone is a teacher,
I'm the only student.
So I hope
that we can all learn
from each other better.
Also I would like to take this chance to wish
you all a Happy New Year in advance.
Saying goodbye to 2021, to welcome 2022.
In the past, before I arrived in Australia,
I always saw the news
on our Sydney Harbour Bridge.
They always have
a very nice firework display,
a beautiful firework display.
Every year Australia is the first country that
spends the most in celebrating the New
Year in terms of the fireworks.
Your nation’s coffers
are very deep in
Australia.
If you can
use the money to
donate to the poor people,
to the people in need,
to impoverished people, that would
be very good.
You guys will get even more merits.
People ask me: Since you are in Sydney,
why don't you go and watch the fireworks?
I say: Is that important?
So in these Covid times,
if you have nothing important,
try to stay at home, prevent contact.
Now the most important priority
is to protect your life.
Because you need to borrow this life that
you have to cultivate, to leap forward,
leap higher, to the Pure Land.
So take care of
yourself and earnestly chant,
recite the name of Amitabha Buddha.
I also would like
to advise all of you young
people to care for your parents,
no matter
their temperaments
or what they did in the past.
So be kind to them, loving to them and
also cultivating good relationships
with everyone.
This is an important attitude to have.
So next week, we will continue
to learn Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodi.
Thank you so much!
I wish you a good night!
Thank you! Amituofo!
Let us all dedicate our merits.
Let us join our palms.
Disciple (your name)
would like to dedicate
the merits today to all beings
so that
they are liberated from
sufferings,
to dedicate all merits to all of the
karma creditors to be born in
the Pure Land.
Repay the four kindnesses above,
relieve the sufferings of those
in the Three Paths below.
May those who see and hear of this aspire
to invoke the Bodhi Heart and cultivate
the teachings for the rest of this life
then be born together
in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.
Amituofo! Thank you so much!
****
Understanding Buddhism (5)
Let us join our palms. Let us chant the name of
our Founding Teacher Shakyamuni Buddha.
Namo Founding
Teacher Shakyamuni Buddha
(Three Times)
May we cherish the chance, this rare
chance of encountering the Dharma.
A one in a million kalpas opportunity,
so that we can truly understand and
practice the teachings of the Buddha.
Respectful fellow practitioners,
good evening to you all.
Amituofo!
Today we will continue our practice,
giving my speech to you on the
topic of Understanding Buddhism.
Originally it was supposed to happen
yesterday, Wednesday, but because
yesterday my body,
my physical condition had a little
bit of issues,
I called in sick a bit.
So today
I would like to make up for yesterday
to explain how we understand Buddhism.
If during this speech, if I make any mistakes or
mention anything that doesn't sound right
please do not hesitate to give me feedback.
Last week we briefly talked about the
imageries of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
and their purpose, their meaning.
What are
they trying to
represent and to understand
that there are vast meanings packed
behind these images and names.
In fact it is infinite
and it's not too much to describe it as having infinite meanings.
So to categorize everything there are two meanings.
Last week,
we talked about
those two meanings
but of all the meanings we must understand why
we have so many names and so many images
of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
There's only one purpose behind it.
Be it Shakyamuni Buddha,
Amituofo Buddha, Medicine Buddha,
Avalokitesvara, Guan Yin Bodhisattva or
Manjushri Bodhisattva, all these
only have one purpose,
it's to benefit all sentient beings,
that's what they're
trying to do.
So from here we understand
that all Buddhas from
all directions,
each Buddha when they become enlightened
and attained full Buddhahood
their methods are infinite,
there's a lot of ways to gain (Buddhahood)
but they never left the principle of
filial piety, of love and respect.
Last week we learned briefly about that,
about the names and images of
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
but I would like to re-emphasize it and
also later on I will add in anything
left out last week.
We talked about making offerings to the
images of Buddha and Bodhisattvas.
There are two main meanings,
number one is to repay their kindness , being
aware of the kindness we received and
repaying it with gratitude.
So we must know who we received
this kindness from and who we
are repaying with gratitude.
In fact it's actually our teachers, not just
Buddha as the teacher but all Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas and all teachers
who have contributed to our wisdom and
our knowledge. So we must be truly
grateful to all of our teachers.
Hence, the phrase: Reaffirm the roots and
retrace the beginning of our lineage, our
education and who gave us that foundation.
So this is
what we talked about last week.
So as a student of Buddha, how do we
repay his kindness? How do we
repay all of them?
In fact, the merits of our teachers,
the kindness that we receive from our teachers
and the benefits are vast.
In the Sutras, Shakyamuni Buddha has
categorized them into four
kinds of kindnesses.
We all know number one is to repay our
parents kindness. We have heard of
these four kinds of kindnesses above
but what do they mean? Some of us might
not have heard of it before so we
need to get more in depth on it.
So the first people we need to be grateful for
are our parents, number two is
the teacher's kindness,
(the third is) the country's kindness
and then (the fourth is) repaying
all beings’ kindness.
The beings are not just sentient beings but also
non-sentient beings, for example, like
sunlight, oxygen and our home.
To repay our parents' kindness, how do
we repay them? If our parents or
grandparents are still with us,
as children, grandchildren,
how do we repay their kindness,
how do we repay them?
In fact we all know the best way to repay them
is to advise them, to encourage them to recite
the name of Namo Amitabha Buddha.
Because you help them to plant the seeds
for their full happiness in the future,
to no longer suffer.
So this is
one of the best and most
well-rounded ways to repay them
because you help them to truly liberate
themselves from the sufferings of life
and death, aging and sickness.
No more
six realms for them.
No more of these tortures.
If they can chant Amituofo in this lifetime,
all the way to their last breath and
be born in the Pure Land,
this is
the biggest gift and the biggest gratitude
we can repay.
What about our teachers?
How do we repay them?
Buddha is not here anymore, right?
Our teacher, our original teacher, but
he left a lot of sutras, such a vast
collection of teachings.
How do we practice, how do we repay
him in light of all the teachings
he left behind?
For example,
if you can bring this
Understanding of Buddhism to other people
so that
other people can truly
understand Buddhism's essence,
so that they can
revert from the misunderstanding
towards Buddhism and most importantly
they can truly benefit in a practical way from
these teachings not just to the individuals
but also to their families,
their communities, their countries and the world
so that everyone can live happily with
each other without doubt,
without suspicions against each other.
They can all live in true
peace and prosperity,
so that's
the best way
to repay Buddha's kindness.
One way of reaching this noble goal is to
explain it to other people whoever
it is, no matter where you are.
If you have this opportunity and if you can
see they are interested in receiving this,
just tell them, just say it,
on the spot,
as much as they can take in.
So for example, if what the person needs to
know is how do I bring my family
towards happiness,
how do I achieve happiness not just myself
for my family and you have heard of
these teachings and then
you tell them how you did this,
how you achieved happiness
with your family
and this is what I learned from Buddha that
enables me to achieve this result and
then you show it to them
and so they too will learn from the teachings
of Buddha and so will their families and
they can all live happily together.
That's the best way
to repay Shakyamuni Buddha's kindness
or Buddha's kindness.
In summary,
be a role model of one who truly
benefited and cultivated these teachings
and show it to them and help them to achieve
the same thing as you have,
the same benefits,
but even more,
in the bigger way,
is the benefit for the future.
The biggest benefit is to go to the Pure
Land and become a Buddha
or a Bodhisattva.
Through yourself as an example they will
see how powerful and how beneficial
Buddhism is towards them,
the world,
this is something we need to know.
So moving on to our country's kindness.
How do we repay the kindness of
our country and countrymen?
The first thing
is to build a nation,
it's a very long and arduous process.
How many people had to die, how many
sacrifices had to be made, how much
blood had to be shed to build your nation?
So how do we repay all of these people,
the people that fought and
died for your nation
or died
in the process
of building your nation?
So how do we repay them?
The first thing
are the governors and the governed.
If the people who
govern are not being virtuous,
if they use laws for their own selfish means
then how can the people in this nation be happy?
For the governed, start with the law,
everyone needs to obey the law.
So that
everyone can live
peacefully together, not in fear,
and from there we use Buddhism to spread
all the moral teachings and virtuous
teachings, do not be greedy,
do not be corrupted,
put nations and people
above yourself.
So the last one is the beings, so not just
sentient beings, not just living
beings but also non-sentient beings,
all of the environment that we are living in,
we call it environmentalism. We all rely
on it to have a proper life, right?
We need sunlight, we need oxygen,
we need shelter and of course,
other living beings,
without (other people performing) services
how can we have
a comfortable life?
Without people
picking up your garbage
how can we have a clean environment?
So those are
all the beings whose
kindness we need to repay.
If you understand and are truly aware,
if we all understand and are aware
of these kindnesses,
do we have the heart to harm them through
our speech, through our thoughts
and through our actions?
Impossible, you can't, you just can't
because once you see the world
from this perspective,
understanding the kindnesses
that you have received
are immeasurable.
Then you will understand that no matter
what happens to you, good or bad,
favorable or adverse,
you remind yourself of these four kinds
of kindnesses, four types of
kindnesses to be repaid,
then we would not
allow the hatred to grow,
our compassion will be stronger.
So this is what Shakyamuni Buddha's
mission was in this world,
to educate us through role modeling.
What did he try to teach?
What role did he model? Being a human,
how to be a decent human being.
For example, when we see an image of Buddha
or Guan Yin Bodhisattva in front of us,
they are there to teach us,
to remind us
of how to become
a decent human being.
The roots of a happy human existence,
a happy human life is
being grateful.
For example, for a family, if you want a
family to live harmoniously,
coexist harmoniously,
if we cannot be grateful and we cannot be
thinking of the kindness from our family,
how can we live with them every day?
Expand this from family to society members
and countries, if we can't think of
each other's kindness,
each other's contributions or the good
side of them, how can we have
a peaceful society?
So for us, as Buddhist practitioners, if you
want to be a Buddha or a Bodhisattva
or as a Pure Land practitioner,
you want to go to the Pure Land, if you
can't even be a decent human being
we need to ask: do we deserve it?
I mean, do we have the guarantee to be
reborn in the Pure Land?
It's very hard, right?
That's why it all starts from the roots,
from being a decent human being
and to build up a happy life,
a happy family,
a happy, harmonious society
and a peaceful, prosperous country,
we need to start with these four (types of
kindnesses to be repaid) and
this one word, gratefulness.
If we see everything from the perspective
of being grateful and looking back
at the Buddha's image
then
we understand that
Buddhism is truly not a superstition,
it's not telling you to worship a sort of
deity that grants you something,
it's to ask you to be this role model.
The reason we have a statue, an idol,
in any era is because this is something
we look up to, so this has the same meaning.
If everyone is taught to be a decent human
being and practice it through role
modeling from parents,
teachers and each other,
it's very easy
to achieve what we call World Peace
that has been out of reach for so many years.
With this education starting with
gratitude toward each other
only then can we not allow any hatred or any
jealousy to overcome our rational mind,
our kind heart. So this is Buddhism.
Gratefulness is Buddhism.
Number two, learn from the best role models.
Let’s think about it, this phrase and
then relate it to Buddha,
Shakyamuni Buddha in particular.
As a prince, the crown prince to his father's
kingdom he could have had
a very lavish life,
he could have had a better life that anyone
could dream of. Why would he leave
all of that behind
and go through this arduous journey of
living under the trees every day,
back in India?
He didn't even have proper shelter
every day and had to find food
by seeking alms,
basically begging for food in a frank manner.
So his shelter was the trees. Let's
not talk about 10 years,
20 years or decades like Buddha did, look at
one day for us to bring it back to reality,
to put it in perspective.
If we try to do what he did for just one day,
not outside, not other countries,
not different cultures
but in your own country, in your own backyard
not outside of your property,
under the trees
let's go under the trees.
Sleep under
the trees for one night,
exactly how Buddha did.
Can you imagine that you can do that
without any problem to your body,
not even sickness, the comfort,
can you imagine the lack of comfort,
how uncomfortable
it would be?
Before he attained enlightenment,
he was under the trees,
not eating, not drinking,
what was it for? Why did he go through
all of this suffering?
For himself? No.
He was trying to find a way out of life
and death, not just for himself,
but for everyone,
otherwise
he wouldn't stay
there and teach us this.
All he thought about was how he could
lead all beings from his era
to the future,
many many thousand years from his
time towards the liberation
of life and death,
toward
liberation of these
fundamental sufferings.
On the other hand, most of us, ordinary
people mostly think about ourselves
or our little groups,
our families,
we can't think big.
We must understand the Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas images, their statues
are meant to ask us to reflect,
to remind us to reflect. They didn't talk
to you and tell you to reflect,
they showed it to you to,
let you decide to reflect on what kind of
person do I want to be and that’s
why we have image offerings,
why we make offerings to the images, make
offerings to the statues of Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas.
When we look at the image of the Buddha
his peaceful face and serene (composure).
What do we think of?
Before I sleep, I pray to Buddha three times.
Every time I think of Buddha
and Bodhisattvas
I always reflect back on myself, what do
I reflect in relation to the Buddha
and Bodhisattvas?
I always ask myself: Have my thoughts
turned kinder, purer, better, are
my actions better, purer, kinder?
Is the way
I handle things thoughtful,
considerate towards others?
That's the
whole point of making offerings
to the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas.
Because humans are not saints.
We are not saints; humans make mistakes,
we all make mistakes.
We definitely
have committed
and will commit mistakes
but
just because we're making mistakes
doesn't mean
we don't have a chance to overcome
them and change for the better
or improve.
Back in my childhood, my Mom told me all
the time it's not a problem for humans
to make mistakes,
humans should not fear making mistakes,
but do fear the unwillingness
to change for the better.
So every day when we look at images or
statues of Buddha and Bodhisattvas,
we educate ourselves each time:
I must change my speech, my thoughts and
my actions from unwholesome, evil,
lustful, greedy and hateful
into something pure, kind, wholesome and
beneficial to everyone. So that is
why we have imagery,
to sculpt ourselves into the best version
of ourselves with a role model
in front of us.
It's not superstitious from this angle. Do not
treat Buddha and Bodhisattvas
as deities, as gods,
it's wrong
and it's disrespectful
towards the Buddha if we do that.
Because it defeats the purpose
of them trying to
educate us.
Even though there are so many
meanings behind their images,
their names,
it never departs from this goal to be grateful
towards, not just towards them,
towards their contributions,
towards human beings and all beings.
Their contribution is huge,
humongous, vast.
This is the
brief introduction in this chapter
on imagery of Buddhism.
So knowing this, when we pray to
the Buddha we must understand
that we're actually praying to ourselves,
the best version of ourselves!
If you just pray to sculptured Buddha and
Bodhisattvas images, it's superstition,
because they're made of wood,
they're made of clay, sand.
The point of doing this prostration
every day is to say
I want to be the best version as shown
in front of me, as shown by the images of
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
There are so many Buddha names, Amitabha
Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, Medicine
Buddha and Bodhisattvas as well,
when we look at their names we are reminded
of their virtues and remind ourselves
to cultivate these virtues.
Let's continue to the next slide.
So there are many Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas.
Last week, I mentioned that in the Tripitaka,
the Collection of Buddhist Sutras,
there are so many names,
they even have a sutra dedicated to
naming the names of Buddhas
and it's tens of thousands in volume.
If we truly dig deep into the merits and virtues
represented by the name of Shakyamuni
Buddha, there is no limit, it is infinite.
A very important point is that the names
of the Buddhas represent the
infinitude of our virtues,
capabilities, wisdom, good fortune and
talent in you, your True Nature,
that's the point.
You have endless, there's no boundary
to your wisdom, there is no boundary
to your good fortune,
there's no boundary to your capabilities,
to your virtues or to your talents, that's
the truth they're trying to bring across.
However, why are we stuck in our current
predicaments, trapped from
achieving our full potential?
There's a saying in the Thrice Yearning
Ceremony: I am Amitabha Buddha,
Amitabha Buddha is me.
That is the truth, the ultimate reality and
that's the point of why there are so many
names of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
because they
are asked to tell you that
you have such a vast range of,
an endless range of meritorious deeds and
meritorious qualities, in the truest sense
of words, there are no limits.
For example, nowadays in this society when
we want to introduce ourselves as a
person with a high position,
with great capabilities, with great wealth
and talents, we will give out our
business card that says:
I am the CEO of this company,
I'm the director of that board
and I hold many positions,
important roles
in these companies.
Why doesn’t it
just say I am a CEO of
many companies? It doesn’t, right?
The business card brings up so many
titles of this person to show that
he has a lot of capabilities, doesn’t it?
It is the same
for the names of Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas in multitudes.
So back in Indonesia,
we also had the same
thing like this,
you know Business Cards in the Dharma Place,
they also tried to do that for my name:
You have this many Dharma Centers
and are the president of whatever associations.
I asked: Is that important?
It's not important.
It's good
to keep a low profile.
It's good advice, the best advice
says we should keep
a low profile
otherwise you will
attract a lot of obstacles
if you have a high profile,
if everyone knows you, that means you lose
your freedom in many ways.
So back to the point.
Take Shakyamuni Buddha for example,
Shakyamuni Buddha is only
one of his titles,
it's not just one Shakyamuni Buddha,
there’s tens of thousands of
names behind it,
there are so many names to describe (him)
and all of them are to remind us
that our true heart,
our True Nature, our Buddha Nature,
our Awakened Nature has
infinite virtues,
capabilities, infinite wisdom,
infinite good fortunes and
infinite talents.
That's it,
that's the point.
When you chant Amituofo every day,
it is to remind yourself that your
capability is the same,
equal to Buddha,
which are all of the
above-mentioned qualities.
If we use the modern terms to describe
the names of Buddhas they are
all talking about yourself,
all the sutras
in the Tripitaka
are talking about yourself.
When you chant Amitabha Buddha, you are
actually chanting the names of the
Amitabha Buddha’s qualities in yourself,
when you chant
Shakyamuni Buddha’s name,
you are chanting his qualities in yourself,
when you chant
Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva’s name,
you are chanting his qualities in yourself,
same with
Manjushri or Ksitigarbha
Bodhisattva, etc.
So in short, it's all about how you reflect
and how you change your life.
It has nothing to do with other people.
Why do you have such an afflicted life,
why do you have such a stressful
life or a depressed life?
It has nothing to do with anyone else, it's
all about yourself. The key to change
is all in yourself, we must believe that.
Do you understand? Have you heard it clearly?
When someone asks you: who are you?
You must answer: I am Amitabha.
Who are you? I am Guan Yin Bodhisattva.
Don't say: I'm Mr. Chai or I'm Joe
or John or something. No!
You must be clear
about your True Nature!
What does it mean? If you can answer,
I am Amitabha, that means you
have transcended the “me”,
you know the ego, the shell that we are
living in now, the illusion that
we are in now.
So if I am asked: Who are you? I answer:
I am Venerable Xue Wu.
I'm still not there yet.
It's all about yourself.
We can talk about it in relation to others
but ultimately everything is
surrounding this True Nature,
yourself, as in
your True Nature,
not the illusionary shell.
So by saying the names, by reciting the names,
by recognizing the names of these
awakened people
(you realize that) you can do that,
you are like that,
you are able to achieve that.
The most important thing Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas names represent is to
educate us to cultivate our virtues.
When we chant
Avalokitesvara, Guan Yin,
Manjushri, Ksitigarba,
they're all
telling us to cultivate
the virtues they represent.
Each of these bodhisattvas have virtues that
they have mastered and tried to represent.
Buddha represents your True Nature,
your potential, your full rounded qualities.
Bodhisattvas represent the
cultivation of virtues,
to shine the light upon this True Nature,
that means the True Nature appears
when you cultivate these virtues.
Bodhisattvas
represent the merit
of cultivating our virtues.
One name of
a Bodhisattva represents
one virtue that we should cultivate.
If we don't cultivate these particular
virtues we can't be shown
the light of our True Nature.
Our True Nature cannot come out.
If we do not cultivate our capabilities
of good fortune, wisdom, and
your special gifts (talents) properly,
you cannot break through this threshold
and you will be stuck in
your illusory shell.
That's why we need to cultivate our virtues.
If you want to go to the Pure Land,
we must cultivate our infinite qualities.
If we don't cultivate properly, if we don't
chant his name properly to
the depth of our heart,
you can't achieve
the happiness of the Pure Land.
A lot of people say I want to live a long life,
I want to be healthy, I want to be
wealthy and prestigious.
Some people say I want to have a good death.
If one achieves these, especially a good
death they'll have a good life beyond that.
So where do all of these good qualities
come from? How do we cultivate them?
How do we achieve this?
All these things we trust, all this knowledge
we learn, they are just a way,
they’re a method.
A few days ago
someone asked me:
How do I achieve longevity?
I told him as long as you hold the precept
of No Killing then you will
achieve longevity.
Back in Shakyamuni Buddha’s time,
there was a Venerable who
lived to be 160 years old.
How did he achieve this longevity, this merit?
Because in his past life he held
the precept of No Killing.
The Bodhisattva's name represents the merits
of cultivating the virtues. Buddha
represents our True Nature,
the inherent qualities of our True Nature.
Bodhisattvas are asking you to
cultivate and to improve.
Buddha represents and reminds us of our
inherent qualities which are
well-rounded,
there's no
imperfection in them.
However
you must go through
what the Bodhisattvas did
which is cultivating virtues to shed away
the darkness that shrouds
this True Nature
and the person they're trying to talk to
is yourself, no one else, yourself,
just you, there's no second person in this.
You must remember that.
It's a very clear point
they're trying to
bring across in the sutras,
all the names of
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
are used to describe your True Nature.
So right now,
on knowing that when we
cultivate Buddhism, what's the point?
To be enlightened,
enlightened of our qualities
and the need to cultivate them.
Once we understand this meaning,
we understand the way
of Buddha teachings,
we use the modern terms, sophisticated art,
the way they teach is sophisticated,
they don't just blab
and talk
all the time,
it’s sophisticated art.
We must understand that. The pedagogy
(the method and practice of teaching) which
you will see in the slides when we get there
is high level wisdom pedagogy as in the way
they educate, the method used to
educate is sophisticated,
it’s high level wisdom. Once we understand,
have achieved the correct
understanding of Buddhism,
only then
are we benefited
from Buddha's teachings.
This is a simple introduction
so that we can all understand,
really get in depth,
everything
goes back to education truly.
Is it easy to understand if I explain
it in this way? Is it okay
or is it too fast?
Because what I'm trying to achieve here is just
a simple overview because we all make
offerings to the image of Buddha.
Don't just pray every day without
knowing why. Don't always
think about:
I want to be rich and wealthy in front of them.
Trust me, the more you ask,
the less you get.
Don't ask (Buddha), ask yourself, have I
achieved the qualities, have I paid
the cost needed,
the Cause and Effect, have I achieved the
qualities required to (gain and) retain
the wealth, position, and longevity?
That's the point of offering
to the Buddha and
Bodhisattvas.
So in Buddhism
there are,
like Buddha and Bodhisattva,
there are titles in Buddhism conferred upon
the Sangha members like Acarya
and Upadhyaya.
In Chinese Buddhism,
we say He Shang和尚,
which is Sanskrit for upadhyaya.
Another title used in Chinese Buddhism
is Dharma-bhanaka, or Dharma-Master,
an Instructor of Buddha Dharma.
Especially
when we take the
precepts or the Eight Precepts,
when a Venerable chants the rites,
they start with Acarya, (they say:)
May Acarya know my meaning,
May Acarya witness this.
In Buddhism, the titles of Acarya, Upadhyaya
or He Shang和尚 are reserved
for education, not religion.
These names are not used in religions.
So what does Acarya and
Upadhyaya mean?
They are
the most commonly used titles.
Number 1 is Upadyaya,
it is Sanskrit for mentors who personally
mentors us or takes charge in
mentoring our educational development.
In modern society,
in modern educational terms,
it’s a mentor.
So we call these people,
Upadhyaya,
personal mentors.
For myself, every time I go back to Indonesia
I always go and see my teacher
in the mountains.
I call him Upadhyaya,
Elder Upadhyaya.
He is 90 years old and very healthy.
He's my teacher,
he's my mentor.
like Master Chin Kung
is also our Upadhyaya,
He Shong和尚, our personal mentor.
So what's the difference between this teacher
and the common teacher? This teacher
is the one who affects you,
who influences your educational development,
and personally takes charge of
your educational development.
So the meaning of Upadhyaya
is very deep.
In everyday life, do you have a teacher?
Yeah, I have a teacher even though
he is not a monk,
he is a lay person you can also call
him Upadhyaya, they are also
your He Shang和尚
even though they are not monks,
because they are your teachers, they
take care of your educational development.
In a school, the person who's in charge of
educating or implementing the curriculum
and administration is called the Principle.
The Principal is the Upadhyaya. All of the
teachers are only performing
educational tasks under his direction.
Therefore an Upadhyaya is
actually a Principle put in
a modern way.
So the Principle is very important because
he is responsible for the success
of the education program.
So if you put the Principle of modern day
in Buddhism terms they are an
Upadhyaya, a He Shang和尚.
Again, He Shang和尚 and Upadhyaya are not
exclusive to monks. Everyone thinks
He Shang和尚 must be a monk,
no, it doesn't
have to be a monk,
it's not necessarily a monk.
Upadhyaya and He Shang和尚 are also
called Koshan in different
geographical regions.
There was
a case where an Upadhyaya
was not doing his job
and as a result Buddhism was being
misunderstood by the society
as superstitious,
religious and as the Koshan, as the Upadhyaya,
they are the same words,
as the Upadhyaya,
if this educational group, we call it the temple
members, are not achieving positive
results in educating themselves
and societies, especially in Buddhism,
the Upadhyaya’s karmic repercussion
is very heavy
as they are responsible for the failure
of the education and as a result
they will go to Avici hell,
so
this is very serious.
So Upadhyaya is not even exclusive
to Buddhism, it's just like saying
the Principle of a school.
It can be used in
common societies which
was the case back in Buddha's time,
as long as this person is in charge of your
educational development they
are your Upadhyaya,
they are your He Shang和尚.
When people call you He Shang和尚,
or ceremoniously call you He Shang和尚,
you are responsible,
even for that ceremony
to go well.
Do you have the merits, qualities to be
revered as an Upadhyaya?
That's very important.
We always remind ourselves when
we are called this name,
He Shang和尚.
It's not a monk exclusive term, as long as
this teacher is involved in teaching you
or of developing your educational skill
or developing you, educating you so that
you can be beneficial to the society,
then they are your Upadhyaya.
Is this explanation easily understood?
So from now on we understand what
He Shang和尚 or Upadhyaya means.
Let’s continue to the next one, Acarya.
In modern terms Acarya is the Sanskrit
equivalent of Professor.
It is a professor of a discipline however
in Buddhism it goes beyond just
simply professor
because Acarya has an even more well-rounded
meaning. Why? Why does it have
a different meaning?
Because it's not a normal professor who
transmits just the knowledge
or technical skills.
What distinguishes an Acarya from a professor,
is an Acarya must have manners
of speech, of deeds,
of virtues deserving of a role model,
they deserve to be our role model.
Everything they say,
everything
they do is virtuous,
you can follow them.
They go beyond just knowledge, they are
teachers but this teacher has virtues,
real virtues, from their speech,
from their thoughts, from their actions,
they are worthy to be emulated,
worthy to be exemplified.
A common professor does not necessarily
have these qualities, these virtues,
they may be smart
but
they may not have virtues.
But as an Acarya, one must have that level,
that quality. He or she can be
an example to you,
the student or to society,
making a contribution to society.
Do you understand?
When we receive the Eight Precepts:
May Acarya witness this,
or may we be in Acarya's thoughts.
That means my action and speech must be
in accordance with the precepts,
hence an Acarya. May I be an Acarya.
So today, Shakyamuni’s Buddhism has been
transmitting for 3000 years according
to the Chinese calendar.
Are there a lot of Buddhists who follow
his teaching? Yes. Why is it still
acceptable in modern society?
It is because of his virtues, if he just only
talked and did not walk the walk,
could anyone accept his teachings?
No way, because he's not real, right?
If he didn't practice what he preached
no one would follow him.
A person who was well loved, well cared for,
well respected, to be honest
it's not all about money,
it's not all about positions, if that person
is worthy to be respected, to be loved,
to be respected by the nation,
it's because of his virtues, it's because of
his contributions to society, his virtues,
his role modeling towards the society.
If a person is worthy of respect, they must
be a self-respecting person,
you must be a role model.
If you don't want to anger other people,
we must have virtues especially
in this society nowadays
where
people get easily angered,
we must have good virtues.
It's not because I am number one and
you're number two or because
I'm the boss
and you're my subordinate, no,
it's because you have achieved
the quality of Buddha
or anyone of virtuous nature and people
naturally respect you, flock to you
and revere you as a role model.
So from all these titles, Acarya, Upadhyaya
or He Shang和尚 we understand
Buddhism is an education,
not a theism (deity-worshipping). It is not
about worshiping a certain god.
A blunt way of putting it,
religions are superstitious.
Why do I say that?
I will explain it in the next session.
This is a simple
way of understanding Buddhism,
explaining it simply
so that
we understand all the
terminologies used in Buddhist Communities.
From today's lesson,
we learned that Acarya
means to be an Acarya, my speech,
my thoughts, my actions have to be up
to standard, have to be a role model,
only then can I be an Acarya.
People called Acarya need to reflect that,
same for Upadhyaya or
He Shang和尚.
So this was a simple introduction to the terms.
So in the next session we will learn about
why religion is superstitious.
There is a very big reason, a big meaning
behind why religion has
become superstitious.
So we'll continue that in the next session
because next week we have
the seven day retreat,
the Amitabha-Name-Chanting
Retreat.
So we
would like to take a break during
the seven day recitation,
so next week we'll take a break.
I will continue after,
which is a fortnight, two weeks after.
If I have mentioned anything not right,
please give me criticism and feedback,
point it out to me.
Thank you!
Amituofo!
So let us dedicate our merits.
I, the student of Buddha, would like to dedicate
these merits towards my karmic creditors
to be born in the Pure Land.
Dedicate the merits to all beings,
sentient beings,
to liberate from sufferings.
Repay the four kinds of kindnesses above,
relieve the suffering of those
in the three paths below.
May those who see and hear of this,
aspire to invoke the Bodhi heart
and cultivate the teachings
for the rest of this life, then be born together
in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.
Thank you! Amituofo!
Let us all pay respect to Buddha and
the teacher by three prostrations
and the Venerable says it is okay.
****
Understanding Buddhism (4)
Today we will continue a simple introduction
on how we can better understand
Buddhism.
Shakyamuni Buddha gave Dharma talks
for 49 years. He taught as many as 84,000
methods of practicing Buddhism.
So where
do we start practicing Buddhism?
That's a very important point.
Where do we start with all these vast teachings
for us as Pure Land cultivators? Whether or
not we can go to the Pure Land,
we need to understand where do we find the roots?
Where do we start to get our
foundation steady?
Once our foundation is strong,
we can grow and develop the goal
that we want to attain.
As a Buddhist,
our first step is to learn about Buddha.
If we don't understand Buddha himself,
his teachings and his intentions,
we will not only be confused
but will also have a strong misunderstanding
that will affect the progress
of our learning.
It may look simple,
sound simple,
but to act on it is not an easy feat.
So hopefully,
we can use this short period of time
that we have here to talk about this.
So what's our duty as a Buddhist?
So how did our teacher Shakyamuni Buddha
teach 2500 years ago?
How did he teach his students,
his disciples so that,
at that moment,
all of his students
attained the higher
levels of Arhat and Bodhisattva?
Last week, we talked about how to understand
Buddha like what Buddha represents through
his name and through his actions.
This had to be clarified because there are strong
misunderstandings towards the Buddhist
community and Buddhism in general.
We also learned how Buddha has attained
enlightenment after all the trials that
he had gone through,
all the seeking he had gone through.
Buddha summed up everything that he
experienced and observed by saying:
You have an innate wisdom, one that is perfect
and well rounded, but unfortunately,
you have lost it.
So last week,
we left off here.
Why from a person,
from a being who has
the ability to overcome life and death,
ability to be free from the bonds
of this suffering,
Samsara in Sanskrit,
did we fall into this current state bound
by external circumstances and not
able to overcome life and death?
For example, closer to us, as a human,
we are not always guaranteed
to be a human,
because it's easier to fall into the lower
three realms then going to the
higher three realms,
human, heaven and asura,
it is harder to get there.
It is easier to go to the Naraka,
which is the hell realm,
the hungry ghost and the animal realms.
So, Buddha told us: we lost our potential,
we lost our capabilities,
we lost our wisdom.
And because we have lost it, today we have
become like this, ordinary beings.
We are Buddhas;
however, we lost it, how did we lose it?
Because we are bound to the
outside environment,
our five stimuli and
our six senses.
Buddha,
after his enlightenment under
the Bodhi tree said this statement :
All things, not just sentient beings, all things have
Buddha Nature, just like the Buddha, with
full fortune and full wisdom.
So, the current situation that befalls us is that
we are temporarily lost. It is a long temporary,
but it's still temporary.
We didn't lose it forever but we kind of,
like dropped it somewhere and
forgot where it was.
Because we are lost,
we commit a lot of Karma,
that is not wholesome, hence
all the effects
come back to us
in this form that we feel today.
Looking at
Shakyamuni Buddha’s life through
the sutras, through the Master’s talks,
he lived everyday without a shelter over his head,
he lived under the trees in India and he only
ate one meal per day before noon,
but he lived a much happier life than the rest of
the world combined, where the riches
and desires did not move him.
Why? Because he was not moved by the outside
circumstances. He was in control of his life,
his destiny.
His spiritual life was full. So what should we
do if we want to return to our full wisdom,
our full fortune?
What kind of wisdom is that? The kind of
wisdom that can get us through our
current circumstances
and in the future will get us through life and
death and even better get us through
to the Pure Land.
So now we have the great fortune to encounter
Buddhism. We all have encountered it now.
Right? There's no doubt about that.
The question is
how do we make
use of this opportunity?
We know we are lost but we are not lost forever.
There are two terms, one is lost,
one is destroyed.
It's not destroyed, it is lost. It is like Lost
and Found. Right? So how do we
find it back?
By saying lost,
we must clarify that lost means
you temporarily dropped it somewhere.
That means you have all of this wisdom,
all of this great fortune like Buddha,
you have that,
but you're not tapping into it, it is hidden
underneath. So, under what?
Under delusions,
only when we break through these delusions that
cloud and cover up our wisdom, only then
will we fully tap into our full potential.
So the question for today is how do we find it back?
How do we break through this cloud of delusions?
Remember, the reason we have afflictions,
we call it suffering, we call it unpleasantness and
unhappiness are these delusions. It's like
a drunk person, right? He's drunk.
She's drunk. Have you seen someone
who's drunk? What happens
when they're drunk?
What's their behavior? When I was
a young boy, I had a neighbor,
an old man who was often drunk.
He scolded and hit people when he was drunk.
So he lost control of himself. When you
asked him after he woke up,
he knew nothing of what he did
during his drunken state.
Just like this drunken man, we are drunk by all
of these delusions. It doesn't mean that
you lost yourself, you just covered it up,
it’s just hidden. So, Buddha Nature,
which is our true self,
we are Buddha, is lost,
it’s temporarily covered up,
because we are drunk.
So by removing these delusions, we go back,
go back to our own home,
back to our true self.
To go back from delusion to fully awakened is
a journey that we must discuss to
(re)discover ourselves.
Buddha did not
teach anything else but this
one thing, he only taught this one thing,
all the methods he taught were all aimed
at this one lesson, removing the delusion
and returning back to our Buddha Nature,
which is our true self.
The Sutras in Mahayana Buddhism have a saying
like this: Buddha does not transcend
any beings to enlightenment.
If that is the case, how do beings become
a Buddha? By themselves. We have to
be willing to remove delusions by ourselves.
When someone asks me: How do I have a happy
life, live a happy life, attain a happy life? I say:
You can't find it from the outside.
That's the first step. Look within.
Only when you look inside yourself,
deep into yourself,
can you understand
the factors you need to know ,
to become happy, to attain Buddhahood.
So what role did Buddha play in this? How did
Buddha help us in this? He told us the truth.
He gave us the tools.
He told us 2500 years ago about
the universe, how it came into being
but more importantly
Buddha’s role was to help sentient beings to
uncover the truth of life for us,
so that we are aware of it.
Everyone has birth, aging, sickness and death.
When there's birth, there's death.
When there's life, there's death.
Hence, impermanence is established.
How do we overcome this? Are we
fully aware of this in the first place?
How do we become fully aware?
By letting go of our delusions,
we attain Buddhahood!
If we go through this process, with all
of the temptations and all the
confusions (delusions).
We need to go through this and truly uncover
it and let it go, only then can
we become a Buddha.
That means back to nirvana.
However, it's not easy to
do it straight away.
On paper, it's easy. That is true.
There's just one thing,
you let go of delusions, that's it, done.
But in practice, are we willing to let it go?
In theory, in its essence, there's only
this one thing, are we willing to let go?
Are we willing to let go of our delusions? Because
once we have delusions, attachments,
discriminations and wandering thoughts,
we start to have afflictions and become
slaves to our desires, why? What
does becoming a slave mean?
A lot of people wonder why they are suffering.
It is because all of them become slaves to
their desires, slaves to fame,
slaves to wealth,
slaves to relationships,
romantic relationships.
They get all tied up,
bound by these temptations.
They can't control themselves.
Once you understand this, a person who can
truly see through all of this phenomena,
to its bottom, to its reality,
will they be willing to be born to this, put
themselves in the slavery situation?
No. One who's aware of this,
they not only will not jump into it and become
bounded, they will also help to transform
the environment back to its original nature.
For example, if someone gossips behind your
back or in front of you, or criticizes you
to your face most of us will get angry
and allow our temper to flare.
That's the common case.
A person who is awakened,
who has
let go of the delusion,
is not moved by these things.
So if you want to benefit from practicing
Buddhism, if you want to get the
benefit of living a happy life,
you must pay a price for it. What is the price?
There's always a price, it is that you
must put in the effort,
you must put in your patience, you must put in
your time, this is the price in order to
cultivate what you want.
Someone asked me:
Why do I have a life of misery?
Why do I have a miserable life?
I told him: Because you're not allowing yourself
to live a happy life. Because you're
making yourself miserable.
For example, there was a couple, a husband and
wife, they had been married for four years
and his wife kept nagging him.
Before they were married, they loved each other
so much, they made a lot of effort to build
their family and after marriage,
because of many little things, they argued and
argued and argued, all of their hard work
was gone, for nothing.
As a practitioner of Buddhism, we know
that to let go is to complete things,
our family, our goal.
The first thing is to communicate, a lot of things
go wrong because we can’t be patient with
a word that doesn't sound right
or for a look that does not look right. We just
need to communicate, build a bridge.
So this is an act of awakening.
As long as you're willing,
it's not impossible. It's just your will.
Are you willing to do it?
For example, Shakyamuni Buddha himself,
after finding so many teachers,
attempted to fast,
and searching for so long, he couldn’t find it.
But he had the will to find a way to
transcend life and death
and he sat under the Bodhi tree
for 30 days and he attained
it (Buddhahood).
Buddhism is a path of mentorship. Mentor refers
to a teacher who can guide us. So in summary,
Buddhism is an education
and Buddhism is about mentorship,
Master and disciples.
The teacher only teaches the way,
the student has to put in the effort to walk
the way that was pointed out.
No one can do it for you.
Buddha made it very clear in his sutras
how you can overcome suffering,
minor sufferings, major sufferings
and how you can become successful,
that means become awakened.
To use ourselves as an example,
as a Pure Land practitioner, whether
we can go to Pure Land does not
rely on Buddha,
as in Shakyamuni Buddha or even Amitabha
Buddha, even though they already laid
out the groundwork for us.
Amitabha Buddha already said as soon as you
chant my name wholeheartedly
in your very last breath,
you will go there.
So it's up to you now.
The problem is not on the outside,
not on the Buddhas,
it is on us.
The success of a disciple relies on themselves.
A mentor cannot help the disciple to put
in the effort to master the lessons learnt.
That's true,
the teacher cannot help
beyond clarifying, telling you how to go.
We must understand how mentors can help
is to clarify the theories, the methods,
the truth behind (the events in) your life,
the truth of your life and how we overcome it.
They also use their own experience
as a point of reference,
so that you have something
to compare to and say,
okay, I can do this.
The goal is to correct our delusions
and erroneous viewpoints and
to put our navigation,
our GPS in the right direction because
he has been there. Right? We're walking
in his path towards enlightenment.
Our job is to walk.
So there's no superstition
in Buddhism.
All that was taught
by Buddha must be verified
and it must be practiced in our life.
The goal is to correct our delusions or
erroneous viewpoints. We all know this.
To be honest, we all know this.
It's just are we willing to walk the walk?
Are we willing to do it and go through
the failures and successes of the process?
Just like Buddha’s mother asked Bodhisattva
Ksitigarbha: Why do humans go to hell?
Why does hell exist at all?
No one's constructing it, the people who go there,
they are deluded, with heavy delusion.
The one with a clear mind will not go there.
The reason they were there is because they
created that place for themselves,
through delusion.
Hence, Buddhism is about mentorship,
it is about guiding people
towards enlightenment,
towards liberation from life and death, from
suffering to bliss and we must believe these
teachings so that we can use them.
As a Buddhist, we also need to have the right
view regarding the Buddha. Who is
Buddha in relation to us?
He is our teacher, our mentor.
As a Buddhist, we must regard Buddha
as our Teacher, our Mentor.
When a mentor, like Buddha, has told us what
to do and what not to do, it is out of
experience, it is out of observation.
We must avoid the
things that he said to avoid,
and do the things he said to do.
How did all of the great Venerables,
including Master Ching Kung,
improve so quickly?
How did they achieve this level of cultivation?
Because they are honest and
they follow the teachings.
Why are we slow?
Why are we still lagging behind?
Because we are not honest.
Because
we are slacking a little bit,
a lot.
So, also, at home, we have an image of the
Buddha and we make offerings to
the image of the Buddha.
I have the image of
Shakyamuni Buddha in my room,
and everyday before I sleep,
I look at this image of Amitabha Buddha
and all of the Bodhisattvas and
Arhats around him in the Pure Land
and I always think about
how do I get there,
how to be a part of them.
So in your home, chances are, you have a
Buddha image or a statue, right?
How do you view the statue?
What do you regard the statue as?
There are cases where people think of it,
like a god, like a God of fortune,
God of Fertility, God of Wealth, or God of
Protectors, protecting my family
from evil spirits.
Sometimes, there
are cases where lay Buddhists
come to me and invite me to a temple.
Some ask me: Do you have any Buddha images
and can I have one of these images?
I say: I have some,
but why do you need it?
The answer is
I want to put it in my car.
Why, I ask? They say it is because it can
protect us, keep us safe. They then ask:
Could you bless this Buddha Image card?
Could you give it some blessings?
I do that, but when I asked them,
what's the purpose?
What's the real purpose
of having a Buddha's image?
They can't answer it.
Most people will answer every Chu Yi, the first
day of the lunar calendar or the 15th
day of the lunar calendar,
we just put some offerings,
like fruit and incense
as a ritual.
There was another lay Buddhist who just bought
a house. They invited a statue of Buddha
there and then they asked me:
What should I offer to the Buddha statue?
I told him you don't need to do much,
don't need to offer much,
just a glass of clean water.
Why, he asked? I said: pure heart, remind
yourself to have a pure heart like
this glass of water.
There was a case where on Buddha's birthday
or an event in the temple where we
offered water to the Buddha.
So what did they think of that?
They said you must leave the cup open
because Buddha wants to drink it
during the event, during the ceremony.
So this happens a lot,
this is very common among
the Buddhist community.
Buddhism has became a religion, Buddha
became a deity, a God to worship which
is not the point of Buddhism.
Some people are even worse, they treat it like,
you know, a bribery, bribing Buddha into
giving me more fortune.
So, nowadays, we hear people say Buddhism
is a religion, even worse it is a superstition.
We cannot deny it.
We truly cannot deny it. Why? Because Buddhism
of today has become a religion, in that sense,
it's very unfortunate.
It has become a superstitious practice. It's very
unfortunate to the Buddhist community and
to the founder, Shakyamuni Buddha.
If you observe modern society,
how many people practice Buddhism?
A lot, right?
But how many people truly treat Buddha and
Bodhisattvas as teachers rather
than gods? Very few.
Most treat Buddha as a deity to be worshipped
and this way has departed too far, too far
away from the original intent of Buddhism.
Just like my neighbors, there's a lot of them who
pray to Guan Yu(關羽) he's deified as
Guan Gong(關公), Master Guan,
a very famous
historical figure from
the Three Kingdoms in China.
So a lot of people pray to Him,
for protection from the evils,
from misfortunes.
There was a case where an old lady kept asking:
I offer you so much wine, so much good stuff,
why do you not protect my children,
my grandchildren?
This is also very common.
I have also encountered a lot of Buddhists
who brought many fruits to the Buddhist
temple in front of Bodhisattva Guan Yin,
Avalokitesvara. They are not just purely offering
out of respect, they are like trading,
negotiating, like a business.
If I give you this much fruit,
you must protect me from evil
or anything (bad).
So, my mom was very
sharp in this regard. Once,
there was a lottery for a racing car.
A lot of people participated and they prayed
to Guan Gong, Master Guan, to bless
them to win the jackpot.
My mom told them the horse only runs
with 80 horsepower, but the car
has 500 horsepower,
so Guan Gong
cannot bless you
in this regard, it’s a satire.
The problem is, we haven't done the job
ourselves, Cause and Effect,
Cause and Effect.
If we understand the spirit of Buddhism,
the most core Buddhism, the core
meaning and if we act it out,
live the teaching in every breath of our existence,
people will truly understand what
Buddhism is really about. Why?
Because it will truly bring you
safety, not just safety,
happiness.
True happiness from inside, a life of stability,
good relationships, including our practice
of chanting Amitabha Buddha's name.
How do we make our family and people around
us truly understand the meaning of
practicing Pure Land Buddhism?
We need to do it ourselves
and show them.
We need to live by example,
what Amitabha Buddha is in our life.
So this is why we make offerings to Buddha.
There are two meanings of why we place
offerings to the image of Buddha,
why we still continue this practice,
there are two of them.
Number one is to repay our gratitude.
It doesn't matter which
Buddha or Bodhisattva
the whole point of us putting the image in
the most respectful corner of our house
is to remind ourselves of their teachings,
of what they have contributed to us,
to society, to all of us,
all beings.
But throughout 49 years of education by Buddha
towards the world, what has he left to us?
What's his contribution,
what has he gone through? What did he have
to face and encounter to provide us
these teachings that enlighten us,
that allow us to enlighten ourselves and
our families, to give us the truth,
so that we can awaken
and no longer
live confusingly
in blindness, in darkness?
So such meaningful teachings that transcend
time, race and religion, can help you not
only in this life but many lives,
not only you, but many of your family members.
This is why we need to remind
ourselves all the time.
The first one is to remind ourselves of his teaching,
to show gratitude towards his teaching.
And it is, of course, so rare, guys,
it is so rare amongst 7 billion how many people
have encountered this? The fact that we
have the chance to encounter
and accept such comprehensive
and well-rounded education in this
lifetime is rare and fortunate indeed!
And the chance of encountering Buddha’s Dharma
is so hard as seen in this slide, is one in a
million kalpas or 1,300 billion years.
It's a long time, guys,
it's very hard.
So we keep it in our memory just like the Chinese
and the East Asian people who offer
a plaque to their ancestors.
Like our great
great great grandfather,
we do the same for Buddha.
This form of expression is called
Reaffirming our roots and retracing
the beginnings of our lineage.
In this case of our teachings and this activity,
this ritual is important because it helps
to express our deep feeling of gratitude.
Just like
you hug your good friends, right?
Same thing.
Every April, every Chinese community and
I think in many East Asian communities,
celebrate Ching Ming.
We all sweep the Tombs of our ancestors.
What does Ching Ming mean?
What's the meaning of doing this?
Why do we sweep the tombs and clean the
tombs of our ancestors? To reaffirm
the roots and retrace our beginnings.
Where did my lineage come from? What have
they gone through to put me here,
in this condition?
To think of your roots,
to go back to your roots.
So when I was young, my parents would always
bring me every April to celebrate Chin Ming,
to sweep the tombs.
I always asked my mom,
why do we have to do this?
Why do we have to sweep the tombs?
Because I was young, I didn't know much.
I just knew that we had to
repay our gratitude.
My mom gave me a very simple explanation,
she told me that without your grandparents,
without your great great great grandparents,
there's no Mom and Dad today and without them,
where are you? So we need to be respectful
and grateful towards them.
So who do we pay our gratitude to? Our loved ones,
our parents, our teachers who gave us
wisdom and knowledge, right?
Also our country,
if there's no stability in our country,
how can we have a good life?
Also all the sentient beings, without different
professions providing services, how do
we have all the services available to us
and give us such convenience?
This is the point of paying gratitude.
All of that is within
one image or statue of Buddha.
The whole point is to do that.
The question now is, have you walked the walk?
How do we pay our gratitude?
We do it by walking the walk.
Do as much as you know how to, as much as
you have learned from these teachings.
This is the biggest form of gratitude.
So what is number two?
Learn from the best role models.
When you look at a role model,
you want to act like them, walk like them
and talk like them. Think about
our role model, Shakyamuni Buddha.
He was an ordinary being like us at one point.
He achieved Buddhahood by attaining
full enlightenment,
why can't we do the same?
Why can't we too become a Buddha?
Like Amitabha Buddha as well,
he has become a Buddha.
So can we.
That's the point of the Pure Land,
otherwise the Pure Land cannot be.
Everyone is a Buddha,
hence he can invite you to become Buddha
in the Pure Land, all of this is to remind
us that you can become as great as he is,
as well-rounded as he is,
equal to him,
equal.
Every day, we give offerings to the image
of the Buddha, and the point is to
remind ourselves.
Have you enlightened yourself?
Have you shown your temper?
Have you become jealous today?
Are you being honest today? Are you being
truly honest to yourself? Because Buddhas
did not lie to themselves right?
They are true to themselves.
Are you more
compassionate?
What if
someone prostrates
to Buddha every single day,
but once they're outside that chanting hall
or their own Buddha offering place,
they gossip behind people's back
or they lose their temper.
So, we see the irony in that, right?
That's the point of having this image, to remind us
we are not like that and we need to return
to our true nature, our full potential.
It is not to promote superstitions,
nor to worship an image of a God.
Because if we treat him as a God,
then we already twisted the meaning.
Like Bodhisattva Guan Yin
is very famous right?
Why do we make offerings to Guan Yin
Bodhisattva? We need to learn
from her, from him.
What’s the most important example learned
from the best role model, what is the
model set by Bodhisattva Guan Yin?
Compassion, selflessness, right?
No jealousy, no divisions,
full of love, full of kindness,
embracing all beings
regardless of their situation,
their status,
because a person with compassion will
not prevent other people from
achieving success,
they would help them to achieve success.
We do not gossip behind people's back,
we help them to improve the best
version of themselves.
We are all very clear of our own faults, right?
So, by looking at Guan Yin Bodhisattva
we learn that we need to improve ourselves.
We can be better than this,
better than yesterday’s version.
The unfortunate part of Buddhism nowadays
is that it is regarded as polytheism,
practicing polytheism,
worshiping many gods, commonly regarded
as a primitive religion or
a lower religion.
In contrast, what is regarded as
a sophisticated religion or
a higher religion
has only one God, monotheism. Take a look at
the slide shown here. There are a lot of
images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
They are misunderstood.
They are not Gods,
we're not praying to many gods, right?
Why do we have so many Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas appear in the image,
in the murals?
Because Buddha has employed many
terminologies in his teachings,
including his own name,
Shakyamuni Buddha
According to the Tripitaka there's a sutra called
The Buddha Proclaims the Names
of Buddhas Sutra.
In this sutra,
there are around 12,000 names
of Buddha's, even more for the Bodhisattvas.
Usually every year
in the Dharma place
where we celebrate the new year,
we always have
praying for the names of
the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
and the meanings behind them,
like Bodhisattva Guan Yin
and Bodhisattva Di Zang.
A lot of people love to prostrate to the image
of Bodhisattva DiZang, right?
Ksitigarbha.
I asked them why do you do that?
Why do you prostrate?
What's the meaning behind it?
A lot of them answered,
because in the underworld, in hell,
there's a Yama King.
Yama King is a person
who reigns over
the underworld, right? or Hades.
So the Yama King
always had deep
respect for Bodhisattva Di Zang.
So if I pray to Bodhisattva Di Zang,
King Yama won't treat me
badly when I die.
But the point is,
what does Bodhisattva Di Zang represent?
Why is he a role model?
He represents filial piety, love and
respect towards your elders
and your parents.
That's what it means, by praying to Him
we learn to be more loving and respectful
towards our parents, our loved ones.
Buddha names such as Shakyamuni Buddha,
or the Medicine Buddha, or the
Pure Land Amitabha Buddha,
their names have substance in them.
And that substance must be known to us
for our practice to continue
in the proper direction.
Why are there so many Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas? We must understand
the meaning behind this:
What is the meaning behind the naming
of 1000’s of Buddhas? We will
talk about it next week.
So, today, we had a very brief introduction
of the two meanings of making
offerings to the Buddha image.
The first one is to repay our gratitude,
and then to know what they have done for
us and how we repay their kindness,
in memory of them.
The second one
is to learn
from the best role models.
We discussed how we learn by making offerings
towards a certain Buddha, how we learn
from the merits of the best role models.
Also how I can change myself to be a better
version like them, because as ordinary
beings, as humans, we always have faults,
we definitely have faults, it is inevitable.
The key is how much have
we changed
and how have we changed everyday
to be a better version
of ourselves.
So that's the point of having an image in front
of you. It's an error, a deep error, if we
treat Buddha as a god to be worshiped.
If we are still stuck in that idea of Buddha
as a deity to be worshiped, to get
something in return,
then no matter
how many years
we call ourselves Buddhists,
practice Buddhism,
we will never get
the true benefit of Buddhism.
So one day, since today's lesson,
when people ask you,
what does Buddhism mean?
Why do you pray to Buddha?
How will you answer?
You must give me the answer.
I will give you some homework
so you guys
can think about it.
By engaging with our lessons,
it's a better way for us to learn,
right?
Back in my Dharma Place
in Indonesia,
I always had a Q & A afterwards.
What level of competency does one
need to have to go to
the Pure Land?
I usually had a study group
where students raised questions
and then I answered them.
The point is to get a clearer, fuller
picture of Buddhism and of
Buddha’s teachings.
Once we understand Buddha's teachings,
we can use them in our life and
benefit from them.
So today, we learned about the meaning
of role models of Buddha, through his image,
through his action and through his sutras.
So after today's lesson, you should know
the meaning behind making offerings
to the statue or image of Buddha.
This is a simple
explanation for this part.
If I have any mistaken words or meanings
that you guy's got from me, hopefully
you can give me some feedback
so we can all improve together.
I hope that next week
we can continue to learn
as well,
to research, to get more in depth on the
great benefits brought by the
teachings of Buddha.
Your presence here today is already
a great encouragement to me.
Thank you very much.
Good night.
Amituofo!
Let us dedicate our merits.
Repentance
All the harm I have ever done,
since time immemorial,
Are caused by greed, anger, and ignorance,
And produced through my body, speech, and will,
Now I confess and amend all.
Dedication
May the Merits and Virtues
accrued from this work
Adorn the Buddha’s Pure Land,
Repay the Four Kindnesses above, and
Relieve the Sufferings of those
in the Three Paths below.
May those who see or hear of this,
Aspired to Invoke the Bodhi heart
And cultivate the teachings
for the rest of this life,
Then be born together
in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.
