Let's begin our session by chanting Amituofo 10 times. Amituofo (ten times) I thank everyone for coming to today's session. Today we'll continue Chapter Three of Liao Fan’s Four Lessons, Cultivating Goodness. We have discussed the types of goodness and that they are categorized into eight pairs. We have discussed in some detail the first five. I'll briefly review them. Liao Fan talked about examples of cultivating goodness and then he categorized them into eight pairs. The first five are: the first pair is real and false or real and fake. The second pair is crooked and straight. The third pair is hidden and obvious. The fourth pair is right and wrong. The fifth pair is proper and improper. Now we will talk about the sixth pair which is half and full. Last week I had trouble trying to find the words for proper and improper and I ended up using the original translation because what it was trying to say is that it is not clean cut in terms of goodness. It is always mixed up there. It's trying to tell us that it is very hard to cultivate pure goodness. We need to work harder to achieve that level. I would like to review proper and improper goodness again, because the rest were quite clearly talked about last week. In regards to proper and improper, we talked about a Prime Minister who had a very kind heart, but because of his kind heart it allowed the offender’s bad habits to fester resulting in the offender committing a bad deed worthy of a death sentence. (put on death row) So he felt regret for not giving that offender, who was drunk back then and insulted him in his presence(right to his face) for no reason, a reasonable punishment. When a simple punishment like a bit of a whipping could have straightened him out. We're talking in the context of ancient times. But because he was trying to be kind, because of his personal kindness, instead of thinking it through, he forgot to give him a proper lesson so that he would never do things out of recklessness. That was the problem. Because of his kind heart, he ended up doing something that was not proper. There was an opposite example of a rich merchant who encountered a famine in his area. This famine caused the poor farmers, who because of drought had no crops, to rob in the streets. This rich merchant turned out to be not as noble as we thought. He only wanted to protect his property and his own wealth. So he tried to sue these robbers in court, but the magistrate would not allow it, maybe out of compassion, or he just didn't care, because it was too much because of famine being everywhere, everyone was hungry, so everyone was doing this. So he(the rich merchant) ended up using his own private guards to punish these robbers and unintentionally brought about the effect of stability in the village. So these are examples of a proper in an improper and an improper in a proper. When we look at the events of the world, I think what he(Liao Fan) was trying to teach us is to try not to quickly jump to conclusions and we should think through what kind of effect it brings up, whether or not our intention is good. Let’s continue with the next one, half and full. This one is quite straightforward, half goodness and full goodness. How do you define half or full goodness? So Liao Fan gave us an example of a young woman who was poor, back in the Ming Dynasty. She went into a temple to repent and to pray for good health and good wealth. She was very sincere. She donated her last few cents because she couldn't afford a sizable amount but she still donated. The monk, the Abbot of the monastery, himself held her repentance ceremony, instead of finding one of his disciples to do that. So it shows that the Abbot took this very sincerely, seriously, and was very impressed by her, even though it was just a few cents. 644 A few years later she was selected as an imperial concubine and as usual she became rich and prestigious due to this new role. She went back to the temple to repay thanks for her blessings and she brought a cart full of gold and silver, a very sizable donation. However the monk did not come out this time to perform her dedication of merits ceremony. He just sent out one of his disciples to perform the event. She said: last time, I had given you only two cents but you yourself came out and blessed the ceremony. But today, why did you only send your disciple? So the Abbot said that the last time even though your donation was very small, your heart was full of sincerity and kindness. If I did not come out myself to perform your repentance ceremony, then I could not repay the kind of sincerity that you had. 748 But right now, even though you are in a high position when you donate money, your heart is not full, you have mixed in a bit of arrogance and pride. it's not full of sincerity so my student would be enough. So putting it in a modern context, if some normal person who was very sincere came to the temple and invited a monk to host a ceremony in his own place and the Venerable himself came and did the ceremony because that person was sincere. But on the other hand, if some rich merchant or powerful person came (and made the same request), even though they donated a lot of money if their heart was filled with arrogance and pride, (the Venerable would send his student instead). Obviously the Venerables are cultivated people, they can see through the surface. They can see through you, basically, and understand if you are really real or are filled with a bit of pride and other afflictions. So the same thing over here, this is half and not full goodness. It's not based on wealth, it's not based on material wealth, but it's based on how sincere you are, how real you are, how true you are. This is something we have to ask ourselves. In another case, there was a Taoist, we call them 神仙. In English, we call them cultivated people. Mr. Liu was (a) famous (Chinese figure), 呂洞賓 he had a teacher who taught him the art of alchemy, the transforming of one metal to another, (in this case) transforming iron to gold, making it more valuable. He taught him this art of transmutation, we call it, the art of transforming one form of matter to another. He taught him how to transform iron into gold, because it could save a lot of people, he could use the gold to save people. Those people were cultivated, they were not worldly people. That's why he wanted to teach him this art, because he could use this power to do good deeds. However, before he accepted this teaching, Mr. Liu asked: “Will it change (back into iron) in the future?” “Obviously, it does, 500 years later,” said his teacher. Mr. Liu said: “If that's the case, then I would just be setting a trap for the people who will inherit this gold 500 years later. I do not want to be that person who sets up(harms) others 500 years later. it's not right.” and then his teacher said: “With this kind of (intention)...to cultivate as an immortal” like in one of the spiritual levels, higher spiritual levels in Taoism, we call them 仙. “You need to accumulate 3,000 meritorious deeds. However your heart at this moment already equals those 3,000 meritorious deeds.”
So what happened is because he had the opportunity to learn this art and just do it because no one will stop him but he chose not to use this kind of method that would set up people's loss 500 years later. So he thought far (ahead) and he saw that he did not want to harm people. So his kind heart already overcame one who needed to do 3,000 meritorious deeds like Liao Fan when he started. Liao Fan started small, accumulating good deeds one by one like from the leaves and shoots rather than the roots.
But Mr. Liu went straight to the trunk and the roots which equates to all of the leaves and branches. So then he went up another level and said: “If you cultivate goodness without attaching to the goodness itself, to the notion of you doing good, then whatever you do will always be perfect. That means whatever you do will always be natural, and will always be fully-rounded, but if your heart is attached to the goodness that you did or the goodness itself even though you have done a lot of good deeds, like what they say 3,000 meritorious deeds, you're only restricted to half goodness. So the level of goodness you would reach is half of the weight of full goodness. For example, using wealth to help others you must cultivate non-attachment to the notion of Giving. So you must not see that you have done the good deeds, you must not see the other people receiving your good deeds and you must not see the deeds themselves as good deeds. That is what it means by Emptiness, the Doctrine of Emptiness, when we are cultivating the Parameter of Giving. So this is what we call a pure heart. If we have that level of cultivation in terms of doing good deeds, that means you still have to do it, but when you do it, you do not say Dylan has donated one million dollars and the charity UNESCO has received one million dollars, then there is no notion of this one million dollars having been donated (a good deed having been done.) for a good cause. So you're aware of what's happening, what you are doing, without any form of regret or without any form of trying to get praise, so it just happens naturally by itself. If we can do that then it's what we call with a pure heart and this kind of heart when you use it anywhere, helping anybody, doing any kind thing, then even though your good deed may be small, like helping people to cross the street, small deeds, but the merits that it accrues is infinite. Small deeds can accrue infinite merits, you don't have to do like actually 3,000 deeds for that, because you have captured the roots of it, your heart is right and you're not attached, so you're not bound to a certain ideas on views which is what we call erroneous view, erroneous ideas, you have attained emptiness which is pure heart. So whatever you do is out of the purity of heart, there's no me, you, he and what. So one word(small good deed) can also help to resolve conflicts. When we look at this world, we think about how nowadays the media has posted a lot of fake news, they don't report facts, sometimes they just speculate and speculate and they keep causing a lot of trouble. If there is a person who can come out and say the thing as it is. If we all learn how to do that, then I think society will be much more peaceful. 1646 So this is what we are talking about by one word can help you to resolve all sins of the past. So if you haven't forgotten about this idea of goodness, this idea of me doing goodness that means if you haven't attained emptiness even though, if your coffers have millions of dollars or billions of (dollars) in property, your fortune will not be considered as full. So the good fortune that you accrue is only material, so this is restricted(limited, half). People who have good fortune and their fortune is filled to the brim, to the maximum and they don't have attachment to themselves, is a person who has a heart as big as an ocean, because they don't have attachment to themselves, so their heart is not as narrow as ordinary people. This kind of person can take in all sorts of fortune into their coffers, we call it fortune coffers. 心田. So this is how we should understand (half and full) goodness and what we should strive towards, the level that we should strive towards. In Buddhism words, the first step is emptiness, … the ability to let go of all of our attachments. So this was the sixth pair of goodness. The seventh pair is big and small goodness. So big and small, how do we understand if a goodness is big or small? 1834 There was a very good example of a man who was being pulled down into the lower realms, we call it the hell realm or Hades. King Yama, who is the judge of those people who have passed away and in their afterlife decides where they are reborn. He told this man, who was only in his late 30’s: “We're going to measure your good deeds and bad deeds.” They used a scale and put all the bad deeds that he had committed during his life on one side and then put all the good deeds he did on the other side. So his bad deeds were as tall as a mountain and his good deeds were only one scroll of goodness. So before they weighed it, they showed it to him and said: you have a cart full of bad deeds and you only have one scroll of good deeds that you have done in your life. Then he said: “I haven't even reached 40, how could I have committed so many bad deeds? I was not the Emperor or anything, I can't do much.” so that's what he thought. King Yama replied: “you don't need to wait until you do it, if you just think of it, it's already considered a bad deed.” So even thinking about doing a bad deed is itself considered a demerit. But when they put the demerits and the merits on both sides (of the scale), something strange happened. 2033 Obviously a cart full of bad deeds should be heavier than one scroll of good deeds but what happened was when they weighed them, one scroll of good deeds was heavier than the whole cart full of bad deeds. He was very astounded and so was everyone at the scene of the court. King Yama explained to Mr. Wei, who was being judged, said that there was a project to be launched by the government to build the bridge that you tried to stop because it would take a lot of manpower and a lot of resources that could be used better elsewhere. This was not necessary, so, that was a good deed that you did and then Mr. Wei said: “The Emperor didn't even take my advice.” “Well, if he had taken your advice, the good side of your meritorious deeds would be even heavier. But even if you just proposed it, you proposed it out of your heart that was trying to protect the people, so your heart is good, so hence the weight (of your good deeds) is heavier. … you will go to a better place.” 2226 So in other words, it's not about how many activities we do or how many good causes we support or how many charities we donate to, it's about why you do it and how sincere you are when you do it. … you just do it, because it's right. and maybe you have a condition, you have affinity with this group. So, that's what they were trying to say, this is what we call the big goodness. Big goodness does not rely on how much money you donate or how many good deeds you do. It's how sincere you are when you do them. If it's sincere, it's big. No matter how small the deed is, like saving an ant. I'm just gonna add a story on that one, small deeds as well can save your life. This story is about one of those famous zen monks. There was an old monk who sent his young disciple, who was only like 10 years old, back to his family, because he(this old monk) had the ability to see his past, present and future. and sensed that the disciple’s time was up. Even though he was young, his longevity was very short. He was going to die within a month. The disciple was so young, he had not become a fully ordained monk, so the old monk just sent him back to his own family to spend the last month of his life. So when this young disciple passed by a river on the way home he saw there were a lot of ants that were going to be drowned by the river. Obviously he had a heart of compassion at that moment and he acted upon that compassion. He took a leaf and scooped up all these ants to dry land and these ants were all saved. It was a relatively small deed, saving ants’ lives, not like saving a human life. After a few months, because the young novice monk did not know that his life was going to end very soon. So after he went back to his home and had a nice family gathering, returned back to his Shifu師父, to his teacher. He said: “Shifu, I'm back.”
His Shifu said: “oh you're back? Did you know you were supposed to pass away in a month?”
The disciple then said: “what? I didn't know.”
and then his Shifu went into his Meditative Tranquility and saw his past and future again, and said: “oh because you saved the lives of the ants, because when you did that, you just did it, you didn't have a lot of afflictions in there. So your act of goodness came out of the purest of heart. So your merits have caused your longevity to be extended. Hence you can live a longer life and cultivate better." So something like this, you don't need to wait for something big to happen, just do goodness from the small everyday practical part of your life. Then merits will accumulate by themselves. I'll finish up with the last one. What is easy goodness and what is hard goodness? So there were ancient Confucius scholars, that would always use this one phrase, they would say: “If you want to work on your own cultivation, start from the hardest bad habit that you're trying to correct because that part of yourself is where you have the strongest attachment.” For example, once some people asked Confucius about what benevolence is and Confucius answered that person: Start from the hardest thing that you have to do. He went on with an example: there was a man who was in Jiangxi in China who was trying to protect the lives of a family, a husband and wife actually. He sold his property and used that money to pay the ransom to get back this couple. This money that he used was actually accumulated for 10 years. so using 10 years of his savings to save others, and this is what we call giving something that is hard to be given. 難捨能捨 Something that you are reluctant to give usually, but you are still willing to give. 2745 Another case is, this one was in more ancient times, there was an old man who had no children, but because he had a (high) position, there was a person who sent his own young daughter to this old man as a concubine in a sense, as this was a common practice back then. He could take her without repercussions from society, however, he said that this woman was too young and she was supposed to marry a person of the same age. So he sent her back and said: “No. It's not something I should do.” So something a common person might easily say: This is a young woman and I just want to keep her, but he was able to suppress his lust and send her back, so that this woman had a happier life than being stuck with an old man. So people who can perform an open heart surgery on their most attached habits, their hardest habits to give up, will be rewarded by the heavens with the biggest form of gift. 2903 Then he went on to say that if a person with prestige, power and wealth is able to do good deeds, because of their influence, that person would be able to influence society, direct them and even direct the whole culture into a better one. If you can do that, but you do not want to do that, that is what we call the self abandonment, you're abandoning yourself, because you're not enriching your merits and not enriching your virtues. 2941 A person who is poor, for example, the young lady who before she became an imperial concubine was poor, cultivated goodness even though it was hard, she still donated the few cents that she had, maybe it was as much as she had, is what we call rare indeed. 3008 If we, in our daily encounters, have the chance to help people asking for help, and we do it earnestly, even though we might be a bit reluctant or maybe it's a little bit above your ability to accomplish the request you still do it regardless, obviously this merit is what we call full, … real. So everything we say is good about the (goodness): proper, straight. So this is the hardest one, but it's the most fulfilling one. Once you reap what you sow you will understand why and you will do it even better and better. So the last part of Chapter 3 is about 10 ways of doing good deeds. There are three small parts under Chapter Three. The first part is just stories, they tell stories to give you an impression: okay, these are good deeds, these people are doing this and that good deed and they give you an understanding of what actual good deeds are and what apparent good deeds are. This you need to use your life to experience instead of a textbook. 3104 And in the last one, he just gave us very basic examples of what is considered good. They're quite repetitive in my opinion, but they're just trying to emphasize how we can do better. So I'm not going to go in depth on it, because I would prefer to make more progress in terms of the theory. So I'm just going to briefly say there are 10 examples(models) of good deeds. 1) The first one is: be kind. 2) The second one is: be loving in your heart. 3) The third one is: to complete others, always try to complete others whether it’s in their relationship or their career, whether it is what they wished, complete them, help them to complete it. 4) Number four is: always to advise others to be kind. 5) Number five is: saving others in need, helping others in need, 6) Number six is: to try to engage in any projects that benefit this community, like a community project in your temple or community project in your neighborhood, a neighborhood watch or something like that. 7) Number seven is: donation. It’s very obvious. 8) Number eight is: protect the Dharma. but not just Dharma, including Taoism, Confucianism, anything that is good, and it is trying to direct people towards a kinder kind of mindset, we should protect. 9) Number nine is: be respectful to elders, to your boss, to your parents, to your brothers and sisters. 10) Number 10 is: to be appreciative of your possessions.
3345 The number 10, I would like to go a little bit in depth, because a lot of people nowadays are richer material wise, we are more affluent right now, like our material condition is better than 20 years ago, 30 years ago, even in Asia. And what is happening right now is not good, there is a lot of food wasting in canteens and places like that, because they can't finish foods and it started from young people, like we started from primary school secondary school and I saw a lot of documentaries on how much food is thrown away in one day in China and the U.S. And when I look at other examples, good examples, I look at Japan and how they are trying to educate all the young kids. So this is something that we should all learn from, the food portioning must be right because food sustains life. There is an ancient Chinese saying: Food equals to heaven like 民以食為天 folks should treat food as special as heaven, because without food, we would die. So if we treat food, which is one of the most important things in human existence, like trash, then we don't deserve to have any merits. And this is what’s happening exactly in our society right now. With the industrialized world, everyone can produce a huge amount of food in such a short amount of time. But obviously it has to come from somewhere which are the farms, and all the work and all the stuff goes into it, and if you produce this much you're trying to produce on the basis of profits and because on the prices of profits it's not based on how many people need it, it's based on how much I can sell it for. This kind of mindset was already criticized by Confucius as well as back in the 1800s and in earlier times. (This is) the reason why they're trying to suppress the level of merchants to a lower level 士農工商. Start from the scholar, the people who study these classics; and then the farmers and then the artisans and the last one is the merchants, because people who think only from the perspective of profits, are not good. 3614 That's just pure profits, because they're chasing profits, for the sake of profits, they don't understand the whole ecosystem of the world. So these people if you use them as the top of the society which is what is happening to us right now, and I haven't, I'm working in a bank, it's harmful to society in the long run. Yes, you can have rockets flying to Mars, you can have all of those technologies, like nuclear bombs, and you have all the convenience of that stuff, but these are short term profits, just like Atlantis, maybe it's not real, maybe it is. One day or another we’ll exhaust the resources. 3653 So this is something about goodness, it's not just for your personal benefit. It's about how it is sustained for many generations to come. There's a reason why Zhu Geliang(諸葛亮) did not continue to invent, during the Three Kingdoms, he could have invented like the machine tank, mechanical tank, back in the Han Dynasty, which was 1,200 years ago or further. He could have invented that, China could have been the strongest nation. But what is the point? Because when people start to be seduced by all of these material comforts, they will eventually end up creating things like what we have right now: nuclear bombs and the like. 3739 So going back to the point: what I'm trying to say is that being kind is not just about yourself, it's not about thinking I want to be kind, it's about how my kindness can actually help my society, my people to live a better version of life than we have right now. That's what we should all strive for, that's what education should be aiming for, rather than just the technical part. And all of these 10 examples sound normal, like very straightforward ideas but we should appreciate their simplicity, their straightforwardness because so much has been muddled nowadays on values, morals, and virtues, the norm is not as clear-cut as before and obviously we can't use 100% of what people used in the past, but the past has something that does not change, benevolence, being loving, being frugal when you buy stuff, being frugal, not stingy, so the number 10 is about being frugal. Being frugal means you should cut down as much on material comfort for yourself as you can, we call it minimalism. 3859 When you look at recent modern times, it is always very interesting, how back in … as much advancement as possible. But nowadays modern people are getting sick of that kind of mindset. It's starting to go back to a little bit like a… because according to others you should be generous, as much as you can be, because it is helping people. It doesn't matter whether you actually help or not, because … , you just give as much as you can. For yourself, you should always treat your old things with love and kindness. Don't throw it away when you can still use it as much as you could. So continuing on with Protecting the Dharma. How do we protect Dharma? I can expand using Liao Fan because we're going to end Chapter 3 today, so might as well go in a … way. I'm going straight to (explaining) Protecting the Dharma, because it's quite close to us. “Without the sage’s teachings,” I'm reading right now, “we do not have the eye(of right understanding). Without the eye(of right understanding) to clear the path for us, then how can we understand what is right, what is wrong. From what we have learned, (how do we know )what is real goodness, what is false goodness. Protecting the Dharma means you're protecting the eyes of all sentient beings, you're protecting the eyes so that they are not blind and walk down the wrong path. It's not just about protecting this religion or that religion, it's about protecting the heart, not the physical heart, the spiritual heart, the spirit of this community, keeping it alive, keeping it humane, keeping it kind. Otherwise it becomes like what we have started experiencing, a mechanical society. Everyone's just trying to produce as much as they can but their hearts are empty, not in the Buddhist way, but empty as in like wood or a stone. They become mechanical and their creativity is bound, their life is miserable. So this is why we need to protect the Dharma, because it helps them to liberate themselves from those problems. 4135 Be respectful towards the sages, because every sage is thinking about the world. If they are thinking only about themselves, they are not a sage, they are normal people like us. But if they are aspiring to think just for the world, small stage, they think about this world, big stage, they think about the universe, the whole thing, because their vision gets bigger and bigger as they cultivate deeper and deeper insights, and meditative tranquility, (they deserve our respect.) Respecting them, it's not about them, it's about what they represent, they represent a potential of humankind to extend their wisdom, that goodness, that ability to actually be a human. In Chinese, the word “human” is equal to heaven and earth, that importance of humanity is as powerful as, what we call the heavens which is the one that the weather, the climate, the whole law of Cause and Effect and 天地人三法 and then, the Earth that nurtures the whole land, like nurtures us, that nurtures our whole family and generations to come. Humans are equally important as them, to be that sort of human, you need to have a heart that is as big as heaven, and a heart that can take as much as the Earth, only then will you be considered as, in Taoism, we call them: 正人 real human. So if we use that kind of mindset, I divert, but it still makes the point, if you use this mindset to think about our current society, ourself especially, we've been a fake person for a long time, a fake human for a long time, and a real human is one that lives with the heavens and the Earth as one in a very practical way, in a sense, everything they do is not mechanical, it's not calculated, everything they do is as natural as the Spring flowers blossoming and the Autumn leaves falling, everything has a season. So this is the kind of mindset we should have. Sages always follow this law, they will never forget about this law and they will always use this law to benefit everyone. So it's something we need to use our life to experience, how to become a real human. Think about that. We can think about activism and all that, but that is still very pretentious, it's not enough, it's not getting to the heart, the heart of the matter is the heart. 4426 The heart of the matter is the heart, so the root of it, the mindset like Master Chin Kung mentioned about the water experiments, if the kindness of the people has accumulated to a certain level, we can purify the environment. And they tested it in Japan, using a lake as an example. because we are in the scientific world, we should use this example. This lake was dirty in Japan and this old Buddhist monk was invited to host the ceremony, just maybe chanting a sutra, actually he was not told to chant a sutra, he was told to lead everyone to think about one thing and one thing only, and all of the disciples about 50 or 60 people, it was quite a few people, not a lot, but at least 20 or 30. I forgot the numbers. 4527 But these disciples and this master were all thinking about one thing: please let the lake water be clean! 湖水乾淨 in Japan. They spent one hour, I think, just focused on, concentrating on this polluted water that is in the lake. After an hour it has been purified and the PH level is balanced now, no longer acidic. So everyone's like: thought really can change things. There's a reason why Master Chin Kung emphasizes it every single time he talks about it, because right now, we are talking about science. Let's talk about science, but we talk about science in terms of quantum physics, not in terms of Newtonian, 1800 science. That's outdated. We're talking about modern science. Getting closer to this kind of thing gives us confidence that what we are learning in Liao Fan, it's not about just trying to go back to the Ming Dynasty. 4623 It's about how these people from the Ming Dynasty or people from the ancient times in our culture, Confucius, they all teach us to be kind, to be good, to be respectful, be fearful, be reverent towards the spirits, because of the repercussions from them. In more scientific terms, everything you do reflects on the material world and material world, like the crystallization of the water, it can understand what you're talking about. So the water has the ability to hear, ability to see, to smell, to taste, to touch. It's just that they don't have developed so much, we call it evolution, they're not involved so much to have those features, apparence. But think about our body, we are made out of water, a lot of blood cells and all that. How do they work together? This is something very interesting to read. If we develop out of these good books. All this thing has ability to do it and then when they accumulate together so we are 衆生, in Buddhism, we call it, beings, more accurate thing is: conditioned beings, conditioned existence. Who is not a conditioned existence? 4741 I am conditioned, I'm made out of blood, bones, flesh, and my flesh is made of a lot of small stuff. Tables are also conditioned beings, tables are made of wood, fibers and all the metals that work together. So everyone is a conditioned being, that means if I can see and hear and touch, my blood cell can see and hear and touch, it's just the ability to do it is lesser, it's just the degree of doing it. So going back to the water experiment, it is trying to prove that we should not separate our material world from our spiritual side of ourselves. And we should not just psychologize everything as well, everything should be connected, should be life. It's not just in your mind, the reason why we do not have the ability to transform things outside is because our heart is not pure. What Liao Fan is trying to say in Chapter Three is that all these people who can accumulate up to three years or five years, for us chanting Amituofo, I made it for three years or five years, it would transform into a material change, maybe in the form of going to the Pure Land. So our energy level has improved, no longer bound by this lower frequency, we call it the human world, we're going to a better world which is a higher frequency. Just like the Water Crystal Experiment, if people keep thinking bad things and the crystal will crystallize ugly. They tested it in the 80s, they're still testing it in Tainan Pure Land Temple. they have an experiment, they bought a million dollars set up just to get this point across to the UN(UNESCO). The whole point is: if you want to change your material condition, you're gonna have to start from your heart, you have to start from the thought, and that thought, first is very pretentious. Unfortunately, it has to be like that you have to pretend to be good until you are actually good, 藉假成真 in Chinese, like you act like something (imitate) that you want to be, the idealized version of yourself until you become that person. So same thing for us, yes, what Liao Fan said: I might not be able to do like especially 三輪體空 which is what we talk about non-attachment to the givings. you have to do the givings, but you must not attach to the givings. there's no me who gives, there's no you who received, there's no things they were given. These three things must be empty, “empty” means: you do not have the concept of attachment to it, you're aware, but you're not attached to it. So this is hard because we always think about: I gave that person ten dollars. next time he owes me a …, bubble tea, something like that. But in a serious way, if you want to bring Liao Fan’s examples alive, we must not take it in a textbook value, but we also must not attach to the idea of: everything's empty, why am I learning this book? And Buddha told me going into emptiness, then you misunderstood Buddha. Buddha does not… if everything is empty, and should not do anything, because it's empty, then why did Buddha come down here and tell you 49 years of Sutras. He might as well have said: “Just be aware of the emptiness, bye bye!” but he didn't , and he might as well just go ahead and say: “Just chant Amituofo, bye bye!” Unfortunately, we are not like that, we need understanding: “Hey, what does it mean, Sir? ” And then he's like: “Okay, if you want to know what it means, here are the sutras.” He started with the Arhats, the Arhat Sutras, because we're a Buddhist community, so the Arhat Sutras are talking about this: Cause and Effect, be good to your parents, be kind to your… nothing, no good religion or no good teaching education leaves this one. So you can imagine our modern education, how far it has departed from humanities. So good luck to us, we still have 9,000 years of the Dharma Ending Age, so a lot of hard work to be done. Going back to the main point, this is my 感想, I would say. This is my opinion on this matter, if anything I said has gone against whatever the teaching is, then please correct me if I'm wrong. So the stories I think I'm not going too deep in there, because we already talked about it. The Dharma one I already have talked about, is very important, just trying to get through this properly. I mean this is the kind of thing we need to just repeat again and again, you keep imitating until you get it 熏 where you stay immersed, until you actually are like that thing, if you are around lavender you smell like lavender, right? I myself have not been infused enough, hence the stuttering in my words. So shall we end this?
