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!
