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 only taught here
for 49 (years).
I mean, 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 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 the 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 our life, or many lives.
Why is Buddhism so good?
Because it has a lot of good stuff in it.
Why should we learn it?
because it helps you to achieve
what you want,
to live a happy life.
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, this relationship
between a master and a disciple
is more than just teacher and 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?
What is 師道? There is a saying
about discipleship in Buddhism:
There are only disciples
who seek answers from the Master,
never heard of a master
who has forced a student to learn
or goes to find a student to teach.
If you look at the stories of Buddha,
all students go to Buddha to ask,
seek for help, seek for answers,
and their attitude
is very respectful
in their deeds and speech and ethics.
In comparison current students, current disciples,
their level of seriousness, their level of sincerity,
in seeking teachings varies too much.
It becomes a joke,
(they) don't really want 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."
something like that.
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. Right?
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 to 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 that much, we can 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,
Chinese Chan禪 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 around
after three days and said:
What do you seek for my student?
The second Patriarch
of Zen Buddhism,
(when he) still was a student said:
“Please settle my heart. My heart isn’t at peace.”
and he(BodhiDharma ) replied : “Give me
your heart and I'll settle it for you.”
So this Second Patriarch,
to show his sincerity,
cut off one of his arms to seek it.
So it's 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 come to the teacher,
why you need to show respect and bow.
Not because
the teacher wants
you to respect them.
“I am your teacher, I'm your boss,
I’m your parents, 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 are willing to learn,
you show a willingness to learn,
he would
teach you everything
you could understand and know.
He would
teach without hesitation,
without reservation.
It is like
Master Yin Guang 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 printed a lot easily,
you can get it 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.
Nowadays,
like I saw someone
who listened to the Dharma,
they open
a YouTube video of
Master Chin Kung’s speech
and then while listening to it,
they have a 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 from the same teacher,
same words,
same people,
but 10 different people, right?
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.
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 have attained nothing.
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 or15 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 more relies 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 learning.
In the past,
there have been a lot of
lay practitioners say to 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.”
Same lessons were given to everyone,
but 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 everything, if we go
against that, we will not achieve anything.
In the history records,
Shakyamuni Buddha's students
who followed him around,
when he was walking around India,
most of them had attained enlightenment,
at least attained Arhathood.
None of them
was left without achievements,
1255 of them, they were not just common
people, they all had achievements,
all of these students that followed him.
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, in the Dharma Center,
it’s the same everywhere,
it's getting harder to be a teacher.
That's why we have like Di Zi Gui《弟子規》,
the Guideline of Being a Good Person
in this temple,
because we need to 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
nowadays is because the students
nowadays are off the track by a lot.
The level of sincerity,
the level of the attitude
towards the teachings is not there.
In Indonesia, we have these examples,
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 all almost unanimously
answered that the students
are not listening to the instructions.
A lot of parents
have this misconception that if
the children are not gaining anything,
because they paid a lot of money
to hire a private tutor.
They will commonly blame the teachers,
but
they do not reflect on
how they raise their kids,
how they impart that level of attitude
and sincerity inside their children's mind,
it was not thought of in that way.
For example, today if we found a good
Dharma teacher who has the right view,
the right virtue and then you ask him:
Could you
teach me how to be successful
in my cultivation?
And if you're really real,
if you take it seriously,
if you are for real, seeking guidance,
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 our sincerity, our attitudes, number one,
number two
is choosing a 善知識
noble friend.
For example, you 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 liked how this person carried himself,
this noble friend, what he did, she did,
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, Mencius learned from who?
Do you know that?
He learned from Confucius,
who was like a few 100 years
prior to his time?
But even though they were not facing
each other face to face,
or in the same era,
Mencius was able to achieve second only to
his example, which was Confucius, he became
the second sage of the Confucius school.
There was 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 every day,
he learned
every single day to mimic every
single feature of Michael Jackson
and when he 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 friend is good,
and we should learn.
But we must stick to one.
Because
if we have too many,
we will be distracted.
Because our hearts are not settled,
if we follow too many examples,
they're all 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, ... your studies,
your Buddhist cultivation, do not mix and match
because our time is so short.
Everything's changing so fast.
There are four 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.
For now, the time, environment, …
and everything is pushing us, so we only can
focus on one, we only have energy for one.
Our
Pure Land patriarchs are
all enlightened people.
But they let go of
all the teachings and all of
the sutras that they have 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,
all of us mostly,
we aim for 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 where do you want to go?
Because everyone is good, right?
So you're good, he's good, she's good.
Everyone's good.
So you end up doing nothing
at all and getting confused.
Like back when I started being ordained
as a monk, some people told me
you should learn from Zen禪宗,
some said you should learn from Tibetan Zhonya
which is Aiyana and Tian Tai天台宗, we should
learn from the sutra point of view.
There are so many points of view,
and all good as you see
in the picture,
one person who stands
in the middle of four directions,
where do you want to go?
Everyone says every direction is good.
You get confused, right? Therefore one,
you pinpoint in one direction, 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 the dance technique
and everything.
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's 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
(Dharma Doors), 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 nowadays we have 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,
they 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 no-attachments.
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 the troubles,
in everything you face.
Purity of heart
comes from your heart of respect,
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 to the delusion
because we are lacking
in both of these.
Especially in this era, especially
nowadays, if you want to be
happy and fulfilling
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
got together to talk about Buddhism,
and sip some tea along the way.
Tea and Dharma. We can't do it now
in Sydney unfortunately.
In Jakarta,
we usually do that.
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 (for you):
a heart of peace,
a heart of joy,
a peaceful heart,
a peaceful state of mind,
a joyful state of mind all the time.
(Dharma Joy) To learn, to start on this journey,
we need to start from 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's 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 fulfilling, 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,
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,
good and 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 have to go to the temple
to be married and during the ceremony,
most of them
take the Triple Refuge and
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 Triple Refuge
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,
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 that is not the cause of happiness.
So, this warrants our rethinking,
our reflection.
All of these problems,
from our personal level,
our livelihood, all that lifestyle to society,
family, 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 possessions, status, prestige,
they appear because the condition is right,
but they will go away as well
and they will not give you what you look for.
You can’t find it outside, no matter how hard
you work or how much OT you perform,
it will only
bring more and more (worries),
as you own more, you worry more
because 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, is (a pure) heart,
because our wisdom, our good fortunes
are there but it's mixed up
with our afflictions.
It's mixed
with all of our selfishness
and all that.
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 where 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, people,
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,
we will end up making it worse.
Very smart, but not honest.
That's a common problem,
a common affliction nowadays.
All of these
smart people were born
with strong desires.
For example, the first World War,
the Second World War,
were all pushed by desires,
desire to expand,
desire to own,
desire to inflate the ego and stuff.
If
everyone is pure by heart,
it becomes the Pure Land.
Because nowadays, if there was a First and
Second World War, there is a guarantee for the
Third World War but I don't know when.
All we can do is chanting Amituofo,
and really seek to be reborn
in the Pure Land.
Because these two wars happened
without people thinking about it,
they didn't plan for them.
They happened because some people got
assassinated, and then a chain of
events caused the war.
World War II was caused by some madman
who wanted to expand their territory and
it ended up causing conflicts. It's 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 (about) "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,
there's no effect on us.
There's no achievements in our cultivation.
Because the pollution is there.
The ego is still there.
Everything you do
was tainted by that perspective.
So no matter what we did, we would be tainted
by the ego and would end up creating
not a good 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,
when we're planning stuff, and we always
think about others, then eventually,
everything gets better.
If we think more about benefiting others,
less about myself, then you're getting
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 old lady who served
the community every day in the temple.
I asked her: Do you feel tired, fatigued?
This old 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,
people who have everything,
but they only think of themselves,
their own perspective,
rather than to benefit others,
anything, any little triggers,
any little wrong tone,
or being brushed the wrong way,
then they all become like,
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 of “Me” comes first.
Do you understand that?
Do you understand?
So if we understand,
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.
Everything
that satisfies yourself.
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.
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 religions, no one can become God.)
In Buddhism, everyone is
encouraged to become a Buddha.
First you need to believe in yourself, as long
as you have the vow 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 can you take in,
how much can you 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!
Good!
You have attained
the level of Buddhahood!
So now we will stop here.
We'll continue next week on
what is Equally Perfect Enlightenment.
Why is it not a normal level of attainment?
Why is it 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!
