Dear respectful fellow practitioners,
Amituofo!
Today,
I would like to continue to practice,
to learn how to understand Buddhism.
Usually for the beginners, as a teacher we always
encourage them to start understanding
Buddhism with the basic stuff.
Although it's basic
for Buddhist practitioners,
we cannot look down on the basics.
We must know
Buddhism has very profound and
deep observations and truths in it.
It's different from religion
commonly known in the world.
This is the first thing we must understand.
Buddhism is what we call
an education, not a religion.
What Buddha teaches is wisdom,
high level wisdom, profound wisdom.
What does it mean by profound wisdom?
What was Shakyamuni Buddha’s goal?
It was to help all beings liberate
themselves from suffering,
not just a simple normal relief from suffering
but relief from the ultimate suffering to
achieve full happiness.
That means you no longer have to suffer.
It's not just for a temporary moment,
but forever.
Today, if you're able to
understand and accept Buddhism,
and if you practice Buddhism,
you're not a common person
because only a person with wisdom
will select this path.
Why we can't fully comprehend the teaching
is because we all have illness,
we all have troubles,
therefore
our wisdom cannot be realized.
There are very deep conditions
that we have planted
from many lives in the past
that kept us from even hearing
of the word “Buddha”,
let alone understand it.
It's not easy to practice Buddhism,
it has high wisdom.
But do not think everything is high wisdom,
all the major sutras
like the Avatamsaka Sutra
or the Diamond Sutra
start from the basics
even though their content is profound.
So today
we will learn about
a couple of very important lessons.
Today, we Buddhists,
we want to learn from
Shakyamuni Buddha, our teacher.
So if we want to learn from our teacher,
our master, what is the most
important thing to learn from him?
The first lesson is Right Awakening.
First, we need to have a goal.
First, we need to learn how to be awakened.
This is very important.
Awakening
means you're aware,
you understand,
but this awareness is not just simple awareness
because there is one condition before that,
it's called Right Awakening, it's different.
If you add this word ‘Right’,
the whole meaning is different.
So what does Right Awakening mean?
We must take our time to understand this.
Nowadays there are a lot of smart
and talented people.
Especially,
in this modern world,
we have a lot of genius level scientists,
we have talented scientists,
talented engineers who devise
a lot of innovations and discoveries
in the tech sector and the scientific sector
because we are in the era of technology.
This is what defines our era.
If you do not follow along in this era
you will get kicked out of the queue,
you'll be left behind.
So that is why
it is a struggle
for a lot of older people,
because technology has been developed
at a speed that is very fast,
astoundingly fast.
For example,
even just two years ago
we never thought we would do this online
and now can you imagine we conduct
the Dharma Ceremony and stuff
without these technologies,
without the internet, without computers?
We're forced to use it, including myself.
I'm forced to use it every day.
So sometimes
when I meet young kids,
when I come across young kids,
when they see me
struggling with phones
they laugh at me.
They say: Even a kid knows how to operate
a smartphone, so how can you be
so clueless about it?
I am always
being laughed at in this regard.
If you look at the Japanese news,
a lot of their temples and
Sanghas have robots.
Obviously they dress them as a monk and
they even sculpted one robot after Buddha
and they are like service robots,
they can also
talk about sutras.
It's kind of like a Q&A.
They allow you
to ask questions and answer you.
So for example, if you have any issues,
you can ask this Buddhist Alexa
about your issues,
ask for their guidance
as long as you call the number
you will be linked to the system
and that system is like a call center.
So this is the level of development
in our technological era.
In the future, even the role of monks will be
replaced by robots and AI. If you do
not believe me, look it up, it’s true.
However, no matter how developed
technology is, if it's not wisely used,
it will always cause more harm than good
and very big trouble
can be caused by technology.
Mostly, because it is destructive.
It's exploitative
and destructive towards nature.
Let's talk about humans, we say
the husband and wife are
the closest group of family, unit of family.
Nowadays,
if you look at couples, do you think
husbands and wives are closer
or husbands and iPhones
or wives and iPhones?
I saw a case where
a lay Buddhist, he's a guy and
he has a family and if his wife is not home,
maybe she has gone out shopping
or somewhere else, it doesn't even matter
if she's late returning home,
but when he lost his phone,
he threw a fit.
It's like: Where's my phone?
So this is
a not so normal thing
which I have observed.
These technologists, philosophers, scientists
and religious workers are very smart,
they should be,
they are
leaders of their communities,
they are innovators.
However, even though they are very intelligent
and their IQ is way above average,
Buddha will not give them the title,
the qualification of having Right Awakening.
So their intelligence is not considered,
not qualified as Right Awakening.
We must understand why these people, who are
in the top percentile of human intelligence,
are not considered Rightly Awakened.
In Buddhism, the word “right”, right view,
Right Awakening, right thought,
right speech is not easy to obtain.
Even if you want to
actually achieve this level,
it's not easily obtained by anyone.
So how come
their intelligence is not
considered as Right Awakening?
Very simply, it is because their heart has not
been freed from afflictions, their heart is
bound by their habits and desires.
They are smart but they have not severed
their afflictions, they have not purified
their heart, their mind,
they are still entangled with things and people,
like you're right, I'm wrong,
all of the (worldly) conflicts.
They still have hatred, greed,
ignorance and arrogance,
especially arrogance.
On top of that they have wandering thoughts,
discriminations or prejudice and
attachments to things or people.
They have selfishness
and they are attached with
desires of amassing profits and prestige.
No matter
how capable their mental faculties are,
they're not rightly awakened.
That's why,
from this, we understand
how important Right Awakening is.
The number of people who chant Amituofo,
to be honest, is a lot, but how many actually
made it to the Pure Land from this earth
because
they haven't achieved
the level of Right Awakening?
A lot of people
think that Amitabha Buddha
will bestow a lot of fortunes on them.
They come for that,
but they have not seen
the awakening side of it,
and the whole core of Right Awakening
is about a pure heart;
it's about your heart instead of your mind.
Is your state of mind pure,
clear of afflictions from clouded judgments?
Is your heart pure?
If your heart is pure, if your wisdom is crystal clear,
that means you have pierced through things
very clearly without clouded judgment,
only then is it
called Right Awakening.
Because a pure heart nurtures this kind of
wisdom that is able to awaken you
to the reality of everything.
This wisdom,
the use of this wisdom
is called Right Awakening.
The standard of
Right Awakening is only available
in Buddhism and the teachings of Buddha.
Because as long as we are in the six realms,
everything we see, everything we understand
is not considered Right Awakening
because of the reasons mentioned,
the afflictions. Today you chant Amituofo,
the same thing happens.
It all relies on a pure heart,
a chant of Amituofo that comes
from a pure heart is very powerful.
So what are we
trying to learn from Buddha,
Shakyamuni Buddha, our original teacher?
The first step
is to achieve Right Awakening.
Only when we are rightly awakened
can we truly understand
how to navigate out of this suffering.
Without Right Awakening,
we can't get out of
this puzzle.
Even if we want to go to the Pure Land,
which is liberation from
the puzzle of suffering,
we can't go there because we are not
letting go of the afflictions
that bind us here, of the attachments.
Only when you have attained the level of
Right Awakening are you qualified to be
liberated from the cycle of life and death,
liberated from the sufferings to happiness.
Otherwise, departing from this principle,
even though we're chanting Amituofo,
worshiping the Buddha
or listening to the Dharma, it's all
about fortune rather than the true merits
that are able to
bring you to liberation,
so it's all about a (pure) heart.
This is a very
concise summary
of Right Awakening.
When you hear
Right Awakening
it means having a pure heart,
Right Awakening
equals to having a pure heart,
having a pure heart means that you are
unmoved by the phenomena
that happens to you outside,
whether it be people or things or calamities
or anything, you're unmoved, only then
are you considered as having a pure heart.
If one achieves the pure heart or
Right Awakening in Buddhism,
what is the title we confer to these people?
If you have achieved
Right Awakening in Buddhism,
in this educational system,
what is the status that would be conferred
upon you? We must be clear on this
very important terminology used.
There are titles, like university degrees,
that are conferred upon people reaching
Right Awakening and this title is called Arhat.
So if you have
achieved Right Awakening
you will be called an Arhat.
Just like today, when you graduate
from the first level of University study,
it's called a Bachelor’s Degree.
So
Arhat is the same
in Buddhist education.
Arhat,
Bodhisattva
and Buddha
are the common titles that
we confer to people upon
achieving different degrees of awakening.
If you achieve
the first step of Right Awakening,
you are called an Arhat.
Why is one called an Arhat? Because you are
no longer twisted in views and ideas,
you see things clearly,
your greed, hatred
and ignorance does not exist,
it will not come up, it's cleared.
An Arhat
does not have entanglements
with people and matters,
because Arhats do not attach to
the notion of the body as themselves,
that means no more ego,
they are no longer attached to their bodies.
So what does Bodhisattva mean?
We will talk about this next time.
So Arhat is the first level title
in Buddhist education.
I hope it's clear for you guys.
The best way to define
Arhat is one having a pure heart,
pure heart means Right Awakening.
Why is it pure? Because they no longer
have erroneous views and ideas,
that means it's no longer twisted,
no longer biased, they have no hatred,
they have no greed, they have no ignorance,
they have no afflictions
and they do not entangle with people
and matters because they no longer
attach with the self.
From here
we hopefully learn and experience
that the Buddhist education system is
actually different from the worldly
religious and secular education
that we are going through right now.
So what do we actually
learn from Buddha?
We must be clear in this regard. Buddha
taught us to cultivate the realization of
truth, to cultivate ‘Right Awakening’.
Only when
we achieve Right Awakening,
can we solve the fundamental problem
and be truly
liberated from the pain
that has plagued us forever
and no longer
go through all of this again
and again and again.
Because only when you learn,
truly learn, truly listen to Buddha's words
and truly use your ability to learn,
will you
achieve liberation.
That's the first lesson.
If we look at
the worldly joy and sufferings,
starting from the obvious: ourselves,
we have to go through the Eight Sufferings of life.
These are sufferings that we have to live
through everyday, without a way out.
For example,
if you look at
our world of pain and pleasure.
If there is pain, there's always pleasure,
if there's pleasure,
it is always followed by pain.
In the Pure Land,
they call it
ultimately bliss for a reason
because they only have real bliss,
instead of having pain
following it around.
But over here,
we have a lot of pain
that follows the pleasure.
From the perspective
of pain and pleasure,
the most obvious, the most easily
observed part of suffering
that we have to go through,
is that no one can avoid birth,
age, illness and death.
Can you avoid it? No, right?
And on top of these four, we have the suffering
of not getting what we wish for, what we love,
we can't get it. What we like, we can't get.
And then
the sixth one
is our loved ones leaving us.
There was a case where,
in this form of suffering
when a loved one’s leaving us:
there was an old lady
who laid on the bed dying and
when she died, she left her eyes open.
So she did not go in peace.
When she passed away, her eyes kept
looking in one direction, one place,
because
she could not let go of
her most beloved granddaughter.
So this is
another type of
suffering even until death.
Then we have
the suffering of encountering
someone (or something) you dislike.
So all of these combined with the suffering
of the five Skandhas compose
the Eight Sufferings of Life,
no one can escape them from here.
These are
the Eight Sufferings that
we all have to go through every day.
So
does Buddha have any way
to help us to get out of this?
Buddha told us if we practice Buddhism,
if we practice the path he gave to us,
which is Right Awakening,
just with the first step,
Right Awakening, we can be
free from these Eight Sufferings.
For example, today in the cultivation
group, some of us are seniors,
like 60 or 70 and above,
we think about: does Buddhism help us
to relieve or liberate us from
this phenomena of age, of illness?
To be honest,
if we truly cultivate the teaching, if we
truly understand the teaching and use it,
you would not need doctors or medicine.
You can recover from your ailments
as well as prevent them.
There are cases like that.
Why?
What's the reason?
Including myself,
we should think about it and
reflect on this. What are the reasons?
Because they have realized the truth, before
we realize the truth, we keep asking:
how did the illness come about, right?
Beyond the medical,
the physical observable part,
I'm talking about how it arised,
how it came into being and what were
the conditions that led to this illness
to develop and spread
and what are
the consequences and effects
from this illness in general.
Buddha told us: we can avoid illness, humans
can actually avoid illness, people can
avoid illness, but we need to know why.
Why do we
have illness and old age?
Why do we have these sufferings?
Because the root of these sufferings is our
wandering thoughts that keep generating
and regenerating the same conditions
that lead us to suffering.
So if you use a more common term,
we're thinking everywhere,
we're thinking left, right, up and down,
we are always thinking, we never stop,
we never rest, we're not honest in a sense,
our mind is not honest.
It's like the monkey in our mind keeps
jumping and jumping and jumping,
one thought after another.
Therefore,
Buddha told us as long as
you have wandering thoughts
even a sage Doctor, some cultivated person
like Hua Tuo(華佗) in China
who was a very, very good doctor
who healed a lot of ailments
can't treat your problem,
this kind of problem, this illness.
Talking about Mr. Hua Tuo,
talking about ancient China,
the medical history,
before the Qin Dynasty united China,
there was a person behind the engineering
of unification,
he was called Mr. Ching who was treated
as such an important figure
in Chinese history,
Mr. Hua Tuo華佗, Doctor Hua Tuo華佗.
Maybe not him, I think, sorry.
He was in the Three Kingdoms era, sorry.
There was
another very good doctor
but he could not treat this illness.
Because he kept thinking,
because of wandering thoughts,
he kept thinking about illness,
his mind kept generating the condition of illness.
If our wandering thoughts are blocking us
from returning to the pure state of mind,
it will always beat you in the current condition
of six realms or in our realm, life and death,
life and death, life and death,
it all comes from wandering thoughts.
The six realms arise from
wandering thoughts.
So Buddha, in the Avatamsaka Sutra said:
All beings have the wisdom and virtues
of the Thus Come One.
That's another title for the Buddha.
However, due to wandering thoughts
and discrimination , they cannot realize it.
So the point is he has pointed out
the roots of our illness in the grand scheme
of life and death, in this one sentence.
Using a recent example
that just happened in this decade,
Venerable Master Hai Xian(海賢老和尚)
who just passed away in 2013.
He lived to 112 years old,
being born in the Qing Dynasty.
He could climb
the trees at the age of 112.
The year he went to the Pure Land,
he could still
climb the trees and he could do
all of the rough work on the farm.
Even a 40-year-old could not do that,
but he did all this by himself,
at the age of 112.
Even if you ask
some of the young people
nowadays to do all this in one day,
the volume of the chores
that he had to do on his farm,
near the temple is a lot,
yet he could do it.
How did he achieve
this level of health?
His heart was pure,
that's why he could do that.
How come his heart was pure?
Because he always used Amituofo阿彌陀佛
as the object of his thoughts, no longer
allowing any other thoughts to mix in.
So his heart was pure.
His heart only has Amituofo阿彌陀佛.
Hence it was pure, because of this one thing.
As long as
your heart is pure,
illness will not have an effect on you.
It is a way to reflect for us,
especially myself.
It's true.
Therefore, today we always say:
I'm ill, I caught a cold
and stuff like that.
To be honest,
beyond the physical body, it is
actually our thoughts as well, our mind.
Because if we put our energy and mind
not on our illness but on cultivation and
in terms of us, Amituofo 阿彌陀佛,
if we focus on Amituofo 阿彌陀佛,
our mind will be pure and focused,
then we no longer fall ill,
truly
as long as
you have a pure heart.
If we look into the Tripitaka,
if we look into all of the records
of Buddha himself,
did they mention
anything about Buddha falling ill
or sick in his original state?
Did he
appear ill and aged
in his original state? No.
Have you read of Bodhisattvas,
the students of Buddha, the chief
students of Buddha, also fall ill? No.
Have you heard of Guan Yin Bodhisattva,
Guan Yin falling ill in the middle
of his Dharma talk?
Did he ever take time off from his Dharma talks
because he caught a cold or
had a headache or fever? No.
Have you seen anywhere in any of the sutras
that says: Bodhisattva Guan Yin, Ksitigarbha,
Manjushri fell ill? No.
Even Arhats
do not fall ill or age.
To be honest, they are no longer
bound by this, what we call
the worldly law of life and death.
They have been liberated,
they have liberated themselves,
to be honest, it's not fake, it happens,
but how do we do that?
What's the reason
for them achieving that?
Buddha and Bodhisattvas thoroughly
realize the truth of this universe,
how it came to be in all these conditions.
So once they understood that,
they immediately followed their true nature,
they no longer used thoughts,
because they had no wandering thoughts,
everything they did flowed naturally from
their Buddha nature,
their true heart,
their pure heart.
So everything
they did was without pretensions
because being natural is the healthiest thing.
So nowadays the technology is very advanced
however the cause of this advancement is
the destruction of nature, of the environment.
If we look at this earth right now that we live in,
it's already sick, gravely sick, gravely ill,
because we keep destroying it.
If we
look nowadays at
these Covid pandemic times,
it gets
more and more
serious and more contagious.
It keeps
evolving, mutating
because our hearts are not pure.
All this Covid,
all this pandemic,
why does it mutate?
It mutates
in accordance with our heart,
in accordance with our thoughts.
If our thoughts and our heart turns pure,
focuses on pure stuff, I can tell you,
you will no longer be affected by it
if our hearts
are pure and clean.
If you look at the Pure Land, is there any
sutra that says any pandemic happened
in the Pure Land
or
in the land of the Buddha?
No.
Because the Pure Land
is comprised of people
who have an environmentalist heart.
All the residents
of the Pure Land are
environmentalists.
Why?
Because their hearts are pure,
so they purify their environment.
So why is our world in such a state?
Because we are polluting it
with our wandering thoughts.
The root cause of our illness is
because of our wandering thoughts,
discriminations and attachments.
It comes from that.
If you want to be healthy,
you must cultivate a pure heart.
To start cultivating a pure heart
for Right Awakening
we need to start letting go of attachments
that we have strongly adhered to,
let go of any situation,
adverse or favorable.
In case of adverse conditions,
something that causes us to be unhappy,
we let go and chant Amituofo to replace it.
Once you do that as a habit,
your heart gets purified further and further
hence your health gets better.
If we practice Buddhist teachings,
we must listen to Buddha’s advice
to let go of these afflictions
because
only a pure heart can nurture
true wisdom and Right Awakening.
The problem of us practitioners of
Buddhist teachings is that we are
not listening to the Buddha's advice,
we're not putting in our heart.
Yes, we come here to
attend the sessions,
but a lot of people say I'm busy,
I have a lot of work, I have a lot of chores
or family business to tend to,
a lot of excuses sometimes,
to be honest.
In this world
other than cultivating Amitabha's name
in our heart
nothing else you do
can be brought to the next one.
Very few people
in this world
can live to be 100 years old,
even if
you reach 100 years old
it is nothing compared to eternity.
In this tiny speck
of our existence
in this universe,
why aren't we doing something that we can
exchange for something bigger and infinite
instead of clinging to something that cannot last?
True,
it is like that.
We must
listen to Buddha’s teachings
because he's been there.
If we do not listen
we'll still cling to this entanglement,
get entangled in these afflictions.
Only from a pure heart,
a heart free from all this selfishness
and afflictions, entanglement
can we nurture true wisdom
that leads you to Right Awakening.
However
on the other hand
if our heart is not pure,
if our mind is not pure
even though
we are wise and smart,
Buddha and Bodhisattvas will not recognize
our wisdom and smarts as Right Awakening.
They will not.
Because the person
who attains Right Awakening, an Arhat,
does not get bound by life and death,
let's call it
the state of cessation of
life and death or Nirvana.
If you transcend the six realms,
if you achieve Right Awakening through
having a pure heart,
birth, aging,
sickness and death
are no longer a problem.
All of our afflictions
come from a polluted heart.
If we get through these issues
by achieving Right Awakening,
they no longer matter.
What about the rest?
Nothing else can trouble you anymore.
If we have solved the problem
of life and death,
that means we're no longer bound by it,
everything else is not a problem.
Our lives will be truly happy and fulfilling
in this way.
This is
what we should seek
from Buddhism.
Only then
can we be happy.
To do that, to achieve that
we need to start following
Buddha’s teachings, his education.
However,
if we treat Buddhism as a religion,
a dogmatic approach,
we can never achieve
Right Awakening which
brings us towards the ultimate happiness
and that means
we cannot stop suffering
because we are still lost.
Religion itself, the nature of
religious worshiping is being lost,
call it superstitious in a way.
Why is it superstitious?
Emotion is the basis of religion.
In English
there are two words:
emotion and sensibility.
Emotion,
in other words,
is called blind faith.
Buddhism does not encourage blind faith,
it encourages rational, clear,
precise thinking.
Some religions
use blind faith as a tight leash
on its worshippers
and the more devoted you are
to that emotion, we call them,
the more truly devoted, sincere worshipers.
The more lost you are, the better it is.
They are labeled as devoted and
there is a leash so that you can’t escape.
If you look at some religions,
there are a lot of evangelists that
try to woo disciples into their congregation,
as part of that religion
that uses
this evangelist approach.
They use that mindset to get students
and then there are cases
where it's very well known:
“If you don't believe in me, you go to hell.”
There are religions that always use
this kind of an approach,
using a leash
on the people.
They feel obligated to pray
and worship everyday
and to give donations to them.
This is a common problem
among religions nowadays.
“I'm real, you're fake, holier than thou.”
But to be honest, at the end of the day,
none of them knows what is happening,
none of them solve the real problems,
hence it's fake.
Buddhism is never like that.
Buddhism is not about followers,
how many people come and follow me.
Why? Because it's all about education.
Education is about teachers and students,
disciples and masters.
There's
a very important phrase:
There's only disciples who seek answers
from the master, never heard of a master
who asks for a student to teach.
What does it mean?
We'll talk about it in the next session.
Only students
seek answers from masters,
so seek teachings from the teacher,
a teacher should not
come to you
and tell you to learn from him.
Going back to the point,
we need to start with
Right Awakening.
To be rightly awakened
we need to have
a pure heart,
we need to learn
the practice
of purifying our heart,
without a pure heart
everything you learn in Buddhism is just
planting a seed of Buddhism for the future,
it does not
have an immediate effect
on your current condition,
it will not
be used to help you
elevate your current condition.
Therefore
Shakyamuni Buddha's appearance
in this world
is just to help you to liberate from suffering
and the first level you have to go through
is life and death
and to liberate
from life and death
you need to start with Right Awakening,
to start from Right Awakening
you use your pure heart.
In our terms
we use Amitabha Buddha's name
to cultivate our pure heart.
This is a very simple overview
on what we should seek
in Buddhism.
Next session I look forward to
learning more with you,
about Buddhism, understanding Buddhism.
I would also
like to announce that
this Friday
I will also practice talking about the
Original Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva,
Di Zang.
In the evening,
around 8 pm,
we will have a session on this sutra,
and will dedicate our merits
(together after that).
So now
back to understanding Buddhism,
that's it for today.
I hope everyone can cultivate their pure heart.
Put in the effort because the only person
who benefits from doing this is yourself.
I hope
that you can have something
to carry home with you.
So a good evening to everyone, to you,
and may you be prosperous and healthy.
Thank you so much. Amituofo!
Let's dedicate our merits.
Let's join our palms.
Use your own name and repeat after me.
May I use
the merits accrued from now,
me, a student of Buddha,
(your name)
would like to dedicate the merits
of listening to this Dharma talk
to all of my karmic creditors
so that they may be born
in the Pure Land.
Also dedicate the merits to all beings
in the 10 directions and also dedicate
them toward world peace.
May the calamities
be turned from big to small,
small to none.
Repay the four kindnesses above
and relieve the suffering of those
in the three paths below.
May those
who see and hear of this
aspire to invoke the Bodhi heart
and cultivate the teachings
for the rest of this life then be born together
in the Land of Ultimate Bliss. Amituofo.
