Category: Buddhism

Happy Diwali! May the festival of lights enlighten all of us!

I am most grateful that I get to know the truth from Buddha’s teachings this life. Knowing the truth free us from the anxiety of the turmoils in this phenomena world. Below I would like to quote some more excerpts from Alan Watts’ Book The Wisdom of Insecurity about modern man’s unconscious sufferings in the matrix of illusion. Don’t you share the same sentiments?

By ALL OUTWARD APPEARANCES OUR LIFE IS A SPARK of light between one eternal darkness and another. Nor is the interval between these two nights an unclouded day, for the more we are able to feel pleasure, the more we are vulnerable to pain – and whether in background or foreground, the pain is always with us. We have been accustomed to make this existence worth-while by the belief that there is more than the outward appearance – that we live for a future beyond this life here. For the outward appearance does not seem to make sense. If living is to end in pain, incompleteness, and nothingness, it seems a cruel and futile experience for beings who are born to reason, hope, create, and love. Man, as a being of sense, wants his life to make sense, and he has found it hard to believe that it does so unless there is more than what he sees – unless there is an eternal order and an eternal life behind the uncertain and momentary experience of life-and-death.

…. the problem of making sense out of the seeming chaos of experience reminds me of my childish desire to send someone a parcel of water in the mail. The recipient unites the string, releasing the deluge in his lap. But the game would never work, since it is irritatingly impossible to wrap and tie a pound of water in a paper package. There are kinds of paper which won’t disintegrate when wet, but the trouble is to get the water itself into any manageable shape, and to tie the string without bursting the bundle. The more one studies attempted solutions to problems in politics and economics, in art, philosophy, and religion, the more one has the impression of extremely gifted people wearing out their ingenuity at the impossible and futile task of trying to get the water of life into neat and permanent packages.

There are many reasons why this should be particularly evident to a person living today. We know so much about history, about all the packages which have been tied and which have duly come apart. We know so much detail about the problems of life that they resist easy simplification, and seem more complex and shapeless than ever. Furthermore, science and industry have so increased both the tempo and the violence of living that our packages seem to come apart faster and faster every day.

There is, then, the feeling that we live in a time of unusual insecurity. In the past hundred years so many long-established traditions have broken down – traditions of family and social life, of government, of the economic order, and of religious belief. As the years go by, there seem to be fewer and fewer rocks to which we can hold, fewer things which we can regard as absolutely right and true, and fixed for all time.

To some this is a welcome release from the restraints of moral, social, and spiritual dogma. To others it is a dangerous and terrifying breach with reason and sanity, tending to plunge human life into hopeless chaos. To most, perhaps, the immediate sense of release has given a brief exhilaration, to be followed by the deepest anxiety. For if all is relative, if life is a torrent without form or goals in whose flood absolutely nothing save change itself can last, it seems to be something in which there is “no future” and thus no hope.

Human being appear to be happy just so long as they have a future to which they can look forward – whether it be a “good time” tomorrow or an everlasting life beyond the grave. For various reasons, more and more people find it hard to believe in the latter. On the other hand, the former has the disadvantage that when this “good time” arrives, it is difficult to enjoy it to the full without some promise of more to come. If happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o’-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss of death.

As a matter of fact, our age is no more insecure than any other. Poverty, disease, war, change, and death are nothing new. in the best of times “security” has never been more than temporary and apparent. But it has been possible to make the insecurity of human life supportable by belief in unchanging things beyond the reach of calamity – in God, in man’s immortal soul, and in the government of the universe by eternal laws of right.

Today such convictions are rare, even in religious circles. There is no level of society, there must even be few individuals, touched by modern education, where there is not some trace of the leaven of doubt. it is simply self-evident that during the past century the authority of science has taken the place of the authority of religion in the popular imagination, and that skepticism, at least in spiritual things, has become more general than belief.

The decay of belief has come about through the honest doubt, the careful and fearless thinking of highly intelligent men of science and philosophy. Moved by a zeal and reverence for facts, they have tried to see, understand, and face life as it is without wishful thinking. yet for all that they have done to improve the conditions of life, their picture of the universe seems to leave the individual without ultimate hope The price of their miracles in this world has been the disappearance of the world-to-come, and one is inclined to ask the old question, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?” Logic, intelligence, and reason are satisfied, but the heart goes hungry. For the heart has learned to feel that we live fro the future. Science may slowly and uncertainly, give us a better future – for a few years. And then, for each of us, it will end. it will all end. However long postponed, everything composed must decompose.

Despite some opinions to the contrary, this is still the general view of science. in literary and religious circles it is now often supposed that the conflict between science and belief is a thing of the past. There are even some rather wishful scientists who feel that when modern physics abandoned a crude atomistic materialism, the chief reasons for this conflict were resolved. But this is not at all the case. In most of our great centers of learning, those who make it their business to study the full implications of science and its methods are as far as ever from what they understand as a religious point of view.

Nuclear physics and relativity have, it is true, done away with the old materialism, but they now give us a view of the universe in which there is even less room for ideas of any absolute purpose or design. The modern scientist is not so naive as to deny God because he cannot be found with a telescope, or the soul because it is not revealed by the scalpel. He has merely noted that the idea of God is logically unnecessary. He even doubts that it has any meaning. It does not help him to explain anything which he can not explain in some other, and simpler, way.

He argues that if everything which happens is said to be under the providence and control of God, this actually amounts to saying nothing. To say that everything is governed and created by God is like saying, “Everything is up,” – which means nothing at all. The notion does not help us to make any verifiable predictions, and so, from the scientific stand point, is of no value whatsoever. Scientists may be right in this respect. They may be wrong. It is not our purpose here to argue this point. We need only note that such skepticism has immense influence, and sets the prevailing mood of the age.

What science has said, in sum, is this: We do not, and in all probability cannot, know whether God exists. Nothing that we do know suggests that he does, and all the arguments which claim to prove his existence are found to be without logical meaning. There is nothing, indeed, to prove that there is no God, but the burden of proof rests with those who propose the idea. if, the scientists would say, you believe in God, you must do so on purely emotional grounds, without basis in logic or fact. Practically speaking, this may amount to atheism. Theoretically, it is simple agnosticism. For it is of the essence of scientific honesty that you do not pretend to know what you do know know, and of the essence of scientific method that you do not employ hypotheses which cannot be tested.

The immediate results of this honesty have been deeply unsettling and depressing. For man seems to be unable to live without myth, without the belief that he routine and drudgery, the pain and fear of this life have some meaning and goal in the future. At once new myths come into being – political and economic myths with extravagant promises of the best of futures in the present world. These myths give the individual a certain sense of meaning by making him part of a vast social effort, in which he loses something of his own emptiness and loneliness. Yet the very violence of these political religions betrays the anxiety beneath them – for they are but men huddling together and shouting to give themselves courage in the dark.

Once there is the suspicion that a religion is a myth, its power has gone. It may be necessary for man to have a myth, but he cannot self-consciously prescribe one as he can mix a pill for a headache. A myth can only “work” when it is thought to be truth, and man cannot for long knowingly and intentionally “kid” himself.

Even the best modern apologists for religion seem to overlook this fact. For their most forceful arguments for some sort of return to orthodoxy are those which show the social and moral advantages of belief in God. but this does not prove that God is a reality. it proves, at most, that believing in God is useful. “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” Perhaps. But if the public has any suspicion that he does not exist, the invention is in vain.

…. Consequently our age is one of frustration, anxiety, agitation, and addiction to “dope.” somehow we must grab what we can while we can, and drown out the realization that the whole thing is futile and meaningless. This “dope” we call our high standard of living, a violent and complex stimulation of the senses, which makes them progressively less sensitive and thus in need of yet more violent stimulation. We crave distractions – a panorama of sights, sounds, thrills, and titillation into which as much as possible must be crowded in he shortest possible time.

To keep up this “standard” most of us are willing to put up with lives that consist largely in doing jobs that are a bore, earning the means to seek relief from the tedium by intervals of hectic and expensive pleasure. These intervals are supposed to be the real living, the real purpose served by the necessary evil of world. or we imagine that the justification of such work is the rearing of a family to go on doing the same kind of thing, in order to rear another family … and so ad infinitum.

This is no caricature. It is the simple reality of millions of lives, so commonplace that we need hardly dwell upon the details, save to note the anxiety and frustration of those who put up with it, not knowing what else to do.

A blind turtle lives on the ocean bed and surfaces just once every hundred years. A golden yoke floats on the vast ocean, blown here and there by the wind. What are the chances of the turtle surfacing at just the right time and in just the right place to be able to put its head through the yoke? Our chances of gaining a life of freedom and fortune are just as improbable. You may think it couldn’t possibly be so difficult, but cyclic existence is like a vast and stormy ocean and we are like the turtle that spends most of its time in the depths and only surfaces very occasionally. For most of our lives we have been in bad rebirths and it happens only very rarely that we emerge from these into a good rebirth.

The yoke is made of gold and is therefore heavy, so it often sinks and is invisible. The yoke symbolizes the teachings of an enlightened one. An age of illumination is a period dur­ing which an enlightened one has taught in the world and those teachings are still extant, but there are much longer dark periods of time when the world is without such teachings.

Don’t treat the story of the turtle merely as an amusing little fable, but allow it to act as a vivid reminder of how rare your present situation is. There are many good uses to which you can put your human life and when you are conscious of its true value, you will surely wish to choose the very best. What could be better than developing the wish to leave cyclic existence, the altruistic intention to attain enlightenment for the sake of others and the correct understanding of reality?

If we cannot point to anything we have done which has been genuinely constructive for ourselves and others, then from the point of view of the Buddha’s teachings we have wasted our time. And unless we make some changes now, we will probably remain the slaves of our food, clothing, property and social status for the rest of our lives. While these engross us, time passes and life will soon be over. No matter how long we live, we will never find time to practice the Way. In his Letter to a Friend Nagarjuna says:

Many things threaten life, which is even more
Ephemeral than a bubble of water full of air.
How amazing is the opportunity to exhale
After inhaling and to awake from sleep.

The following is an excerpt from a chapter from Alan Watts‘ The Wisdom of Insecurity. He addresses here some fundamental issues about awareness and our insatiable, but wrongheaded, obsession with finding/having “security.” Everything he says applies to all levels of reality…micro/meso/macro.

“THE QUESTION ‘WHAT SHALL WE DO ABOUT IT?’ IS only asked by those who do not understand the problem. If a problem can be solved at all, to understand it and to know what to do about it are the same thing. On the other hand, doing something about a problem which you do not understand is like trying to clear away darkness by thrusting it aside with your hands. When light is brought, the darkness vanishes at once. This applies particularly to the problem now before us. How are we to heal the split between “I” and “me’, the brain and the body, man and nature, and bring all the vicious circles which it produces to an end? How are we to experience life as something other than a honey trap in which we are the struggling flies? How are we to find security and peace of mind in a world whose very nature is insecurity, impermanence, and unceasing change? All these questions demand a method and a course of action. At the same time, all of them show that the problem has not been understood. We do not need action – yet. We need more light.

Light, here, means awareness – to be aware of life, of experience as it is at this moment, without any judgments or ideas about it. In other worlds, you have to see and feel what you are experiencing as it is, and not as it is named. This very simple “opening of the eyes” brings about the mos extraordinary transformation of understanding and living, and shows that many of our most baffling problems are pure illusion. This may sound like an over-simplification because most people imagine themselves to be fully enough aware of the present already, but we shall see that this is far from true.

…. We saw that the questions about finding security and peace of mind in an impermanent wold showed that the problem had not been understood. Before going any further, it must be clear that the kind of security we are talking about is primarily spiritual and psychological. To exist at all, human beings must have a minimum livelihood in terms of food, drink, and clothing – with the understanding, however, that it cannot last indefinitely. But if the assurance of minimum livelihood for sixty years would even begin to satisfy the heart of man, human problems would amount to very little. Indeed, the very reason why we do not have this assurance is that we want so much more than the minimum necessities.

It must be obvious, from the start, that there is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity. But the contradiction lies a little deeper than the mere conflict between the desire for security and the fact of change. if I want to be secure, that is, protected from the flux of life, I am wanting to be separate from life. Yet it is this very sense of separateness which makes me feel insecure. To be secure means to isolate and fortify the “I,” but it is just the feeling of being an isolated “I” which makes me feel lonely and afraid. In other worlds, the more security I can get, the more I shall want.

To put it still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.

We look for this security by fortifying and enclosing ourselves in innumerable ways. We want the protection of being “exclusive” and “special,” seeking to belong to the safest church, the best nation, the highest class, the right set, and the “nice” people. These defenses lead to divisions between us, and so to more insecurity demanding more defenses. Of course it is all done in the sincere belief that we are trying to do the right things and living the best ways; but this, too, is a contradiction.

I can only think seriously of trying to live up to an ideal, to improve myself, if I am split in two pieces. There must be a good “I” who is going to improve the bad “me.” “I,” who has the best intentions, will go to work on wayward “me,” and the tussle between the two will very much stress the difference between them. Consequently “I ” will feel more separate than ever, and so merely increase the lonely and cut-off feelings which make “me” behave so badly.

We can hardly begin to consider this problem unless it is clear that the craving for security is itself a pain and a contradiction, and that the more we pursue it, the more painful it becomes. This si true in whatever form security may be conceived.

You want to be happy, to forget yourself, and yet the more you try to forget yourself, the more you remember the self you want to forget. you want to escape from pain, but the more you struggle to escape, the more you inflame the agony. You are afraid and want to be brave, but the effort to be brave is fear trying to run away from itself. You want peace of mind, but eh attempt to pacify it is like trying to clam the waves with a flat-iron.

We are all familiar with this kind of vicious circle in the form of worry. We know that worrying is futile, but we go on doing it because calling it futile does not stop it. We worry because we feel unsafe, and want to be safe. Yet it is perfectly useless to say that we should not want to be safe. Calling a desire bad names doesn’t get rid of it. What we have to discover is that there is no safety, that seeking it is painful, and that when we imagine that we have found it – we shall see that we do not want it at all. No one has to tell you that you should not hold your breath for ten minutes. You know that you can’t do it, and that the attempt is most uncomfortable.

The principal thing is to understand that there is no safety or security. One of the worst vicious circles is the problem of the alcoholic. In very many cases he knows quite clearly that he is destroying himself, that, for him, liquor is poison, that he actually hates being drunk, and even dislikes the taste of liquor. And yet he drinks. For , dislike it as he may, the experience of not drinking is worse. It gives him the “horrors,” for he stands face to face with the unveiled, basic insecurity of the world.

Herein lies the crux of the matter. To stand face to face with insecurity is still not to understand it. To understand it, you must not face it but be it. It is like the Persian story of the sage who came to the door of Heaven and knocked. From within the voice of God asked, ” Who is there” and the sage answered, “It is I.” ” In this House, ” replied the voice, “there is no room for thee and me.” So the sage went away, and spent many years pondering over this answer in deep meditation. Returning a second time, the voice asked the same question, and again the sage answered, “It is I.” The door remained closed. After some years he returned for the third time, and, as his knocking, the voice once more demanded, “Who is there?” And the sage cried, “It is thyself!” The door was opened.

To understand that there is no security is far more than to agree with the theory that all things change, more even than to observe the transitioriness of life. The notion of security is based on the feeling that there is something within us which is permanent, something which endures through all the days and changes of life. We are struggling to make sure of the permanence, continuity, and safety of this enduring core, this center and soul of our being which we call “I.” For this we think to be the real man – the thinker of our thoughts, the feeler of our feelings, and the knower of our knowledge. We do not actually understand that there is no security until we realize that this “I” does not exit.

“How does one bring oneself into accord with it [the Tao]?” “If you try to accord with it, you will get away from it”. For to imagine there is a “you” separate from life which somehow has to accord with life is to fall straight into the trap. If you try to find the Tao, you are at once presupposing a difference between yourself and the Tao.” —Alan Watts, Become What You Are. This divide between our daily life and the natural world has grown so much that most of us don’t know where the food we eat every day comes from and feel out of place in the silence and vastness of open, cementless spaces， and how each of us are connected together in this web of universe.

Namo Fundamental Teacher Shakyamuni Buddha !(three times) 南无本师释迦牟尼佛（三称）

Easy things are not difficult. Things that are not easy are adversities. Adverse states are not easily understood or recognized. Easy things are convenient; convenience makes people feel better about them. The twenty items on this list are all hard to accomplish.

The first difficulty is that it is difficult to give when one is poor. If you have money and you want to give, it’s easy; because if you give a little money, it doesn’t count for much. But if you don’t have anything to give and yet you still can give, that is genuine giving. What counts is to do things that can’t be done. 

Speaking of the difficulty of giving when one is poor, there is a story that illustrates this truth. When Shakyamuni Buddha was living in the world, there was a very poor person. Now, although he was poor, he still had a wife. This couple had each other, but their lives were very difficult. They had only a little hut to live in; they had nothing to eat and no clothes to wear. Being so poor, they had to beg for their food every day out on the streets.

Begging isn’t that difficult a thing, but what made it hard was that the couple had no clothes to wear. All they had was one pair of pants. How could two people wear one pair of pants? They could only take turns. One day the husband would wear the pants and go out begging for food, and bring it back to share with his wife. The next day the wife would go out wearing that pair of pants. Her husband, left at home, had no pants to wear. The one who went out to beg would wear the pants and bring back the food for the two of them to eat. In this way they were able to sustain themselves day by day. Alas! You might say they were about as poor as could be.

At that time there was a Pratyekabuddha, and as mentioned before, Pratyekabuddhas have the spiritual power of knowing past lives. He took a look at their situation and saw that the couple was not able to give in past lives; that’s why they were so poor that they owned only one pair of pants in this life. The Pratyekabuddha thought, “I must try to take these two people across.” He made a vow to take them across by helping them plant the seeds of blessings.

So the Pratyekabuddha went begging at the couple’s door. He looked like a Bhikshu as he stood there, with his bowl in his hand, seeking alms. The couple saw the monk seeking alms, but they didn’t have any food or drink to give him, and all they had in the way of clothing was their one pair of pants. The husband said to his wife, “We ought to do a little giving and seek some blessings. Why do you think we’re so poor? It’s because we couldn’t give in the past. We should give now.”

And the wife said, “Give? Well, what do we have to give?”

Her husband said, “Well, we still have a pair of pants. We could give that pair of pants to this Bhikshu.”

The wife lost her temper at that. “You’re really an idiot! We’ve only got one pair of pants, which we take turns wearing. If we give it to that Bhikshu, we will lose our only means of going out to beg. With this one pair of pants that we take turns wearing, we can still go begging for food. If we were to give it away, how could we go out?”

The husband exhorted his wife, “That’s true, it’s not at all easy, but we shouldn’t take ourselves into account. We should just give the pants to the Bhikshu, and if the two of us can’t go out and beg, we’ll stay here and starve to death. Why worry so much about it? You see, the Bhikshu isn’t leaving.”

His wife, after hearing him out, sighed and said, “Okay, if you want to give, then give!” So this is what they did: they stuck their only pair of pants out the window and handed it to the Bhikshu. The Bhikshu, who had reached the fruition of a Pratyekabuddha, took the pants to where Shakyamuni Buddha was and offered the pants to him. He then explained, “I just received this pair of pants from a poor household. It was all they had in the house, and they gave it to me.”

Shakyamuni Buddha took the pair of pants and said to everyone, “Here is a case of great merit and virtue. A poor couple had nothing but a pair of pants in the house, and they were able to give it as an offering to this Bhikshu, who is in fact a Pratyekabuddha. They will reap limitlessly great blessings in the future.”

The king of the country was in Shakyamuni Buddha’s Dharma assembly at the time. When he heard that there were people in his own country so poor that they had no clothes to wear and no food to eat, while in his palace he himself ate so well and dressed so elegantly, he felt ashamed to face his citizens. In his shame, the king sent people to that poor household bearing rice, flour, and lots of food and clothes. The couple immediately received a reward for giving up their pair of pants. They had given their one pair of pants, and now they got everything they wanted. Later on, they went to see the Buddha. The Buddha spoke Dharma for them, and as soon as he did, the two of them immediately reached the first stage of Arhatship.

Therefore it is difficult to give when one is poor. If you can give when you are in difficulty, that is really a true mind of giving. And if, when giving, the more difficult it is, the more you are able to do it, then the more value it has. For example, you can’t stand to be scolded. However, if people scold you and you can endure it, then you have virtuous conduct.

Or, if you can’t stand being hit, but when somebody hits you, you bear it and look at it like this: “Oh, this is my Good and Wise Advisor who has come to help me eradicate my offenses and leave the sea of suffering. This is a rare Good and Wise Advisor!” No matter what kind of state arises, you should recognize it clearly. People who criticize you are truly your Good and Wise Advisors. It shouldn’t be that when people praise you, you’re like a child who gets some candy and becomes overjoyed; but when you get slandered, it tastes as bitter as bile. That’s not the way it should be.

The Buddha named twenty kinds of difficulties. Actually, in human existence there are many more than that. To be able to easily resolve difficulties when they come shows a true understanding of the Buddhadharma.

It is difficult to study the Way when one has wealth and status. “Wealth” means you are rich; “status” means you have power and influence. If someone is rich and honored, then of course his life is pleasant. It certainly isn’t as difficult as it was for the couple that I just spoke of who owned nothing but a pair of pants. A wealthy person will have clothes to wear and money to spend; he will also have eminent relatives and renowned friends. Right then, if you were to tell him to cultivate and work hard, to leave the home-life and study the Way, he would find it difficult to do. Why? Because he has everything he wants and he’s happy with what he has; he’s very carefree. So it’s not easy to convince him to cultivate.

It is difficult to encounter the Buddhist sutras. All of you should not think that it’s easy to get to hear lectures on the sutras or to read the sutras. It’s not easy at all.
The unsurpassed, subtle, wonderful Dharma,
Is difficult to encounter in millions of eons.
Now that I can see and hear it, accept and uphold it,
I vow to understand the Tathagata‘s true and actual meaning.

It is difficult to be patient with lust and desire. Lust and desire refer to the emotional love and desire between men and women. That kind of love and desire is not easy to bear, because ordinary people feel it is biologically natural for men and women to get married. It is not easy to endure the feelings of love and desire, to have the strength of patience to not be turned by emotional states. You may be patient once and patient twice; then you can’t be patient anymore, and so you are turned upside down. 

It is difficult to see fine things and not seek them. Everybody who sees something fine wants to own it and feels greed for it. To see something good and not be greedy for it is quite difficult.

It is difficult to be insulted and not become angry. For instance, someone may suddenly hit you, scold you, or insult you for no reason whatsoever. If he maltreats you and puts you down, it is truly difficult not to get angry, to remain calm as if nothing happened. If you can do that, then you’re someone who has already walked the road to its end. You pass.

It is difficult to have power and not abuse it. An example of a powerful person is a government official who decides he’d like to kill someone and goes ahead and does it. He uses his authority to oppress people. He uses his power to execute people even when they are innocent. If he has this kind of power, and he casually kills people, that’s an abuse of power. If he has power yet still respects people, and therefore he doesn’t casually kill or oppress them, then he is not abusing power. That’s not easy. Nevertheless, if he can avoid abusing his power, that is the very best.

It is difficult to come in contact with things and have no thought of them. No matter what you encounter, you just go ahead and deal with it without a second thought. When something comes up, you don’t get worried. You handle it as the situation requires. When the matter is over and done with, you remain calm. That is to say, “When something happens, you respond. When it is over, you are calm.” That’s called having no thought: you don’t have any attachment or any false thinking.

It is difficult not to slight those who have not yet studied. Those who have already left the home-life should know about this above all. You cannot slight people who have not yet studied the Buddhadharma. If you do slight them, that’s called slighting those who have not yet studied. If you encounter someone who doesn’t understand the Buddhadharma, you should use various kinds of expedient means to teach and transform him. You cannot look down on him and be impolite. In Buddhism, there is a list of four things that you cannot ignore. The Buddha often discussed them.
1. Even if a fire is small, you can’t ignore it. You can’t be careless and casual. You have to pay close attention to it, because if you don’t, it’s likely to burn up everything.
2. Even if a dragon is small, you can’t ignore it. This is because a dragon can change from small to large, since it has spiritual penetrations and transformations.
3. Even if a prince is young, you can’t ignore him. The prince is the son of a king, and even though he is young now, he will become the king in the future.
4. Even though a Shramana may be young [in the Buddhadharma], you can’t neglect him, because in the future he will become a Buddha. It’s easy to slight those who have not yet studied the Buddhadharma, but you should not do so.

The Buddha said, “By purifying your mind and preserving your resolve, you can understand the ultimate Way.” The Buddha said, “You should make your thoughts pure and guard your resolve. Firmly keep your resolve. Whatever vows you have made, you should uphold them. You can’t make vows and then forget them after only a few days. You can’t withdraw them after a short while. That’s not permissible. That’s not preserving your resolve. If you can purify your thoughts, if you can get rid of the darkness in your mind–all the false thoughts, greed, hatred, and stupidity–and if you can preserve your resolve, you will come naturally to understand the true Way, the highest Way.” What is it like? Now I will give you an analogy.

So too, if you cut off desire and do not seek, you then can know past lives. If you can cut off your thoughts of desire and reach the level of not seeking for anything, then you can attain the penetration of knowing past lives. When people cultivate the Way, they certainly should not indulge in any scattered thinking or false thoughts. If you can do away with false and scattered thoughts, then no matter what Dharma-door you cultivate, you will quickly succeed with it. If you have false and scattered thoughts, as well as greed, hatred, and stupidity filling up your belly, then you certainly aren’t going to obtain a response, no matter what Dharma-door you cultivate.

When we study and cultivate the Buddhadharma, we should first cut off desire and cast out love. You should sever thoughts of desire and reach the level of seeking nothing. If you seek for anything, just that seeking is suffering. No matter what you seek, if you cannot obtain it, you will experience the suffering of not getting what you want. Everyone should pay attention to this. When we cultivate, what is it that we cultivate? We cultivate to get rid of false thoughts and thoughts of desire. That isrealskill. If you cleanse yourself of jealousy, obstructions, greed, hatred, and stupidity, then you can obtain the penetration of knowing past lives. 第十三章是说人怎么样能得知宿命，佛告诉我们怎么样得宿命呢？就要会道，会道就是明白道。

“Greatness” is realizing and certifying to genuine principles. This is the foremost greatness.

The Buddha said, “To practice the Way and uphold the truth is goodness.” If you can cultivate the genuine Buddhadharma, that’s the best thing to do. Don’t follow cult practices and religions that lead outside the mind. What is the genuine Buddhadharma? It is not being selfish; it is being open and public-spirited; it is letting go of your views that discriminate between self and others. We shouldn’t have an ego. We should not be selfish or seek for self-benefit. In every move we make we should cultivate the Bodhisattva Way and benefit living beings.

However much we understand, we should teach others to understand that much. When we obtain benefit, we should let others obtain that benefit. To be unselfish and seek no personal advantages is the greatest goodness. To practice the Way and uphold the truth means to uphold true principles and not to uphold empty and unreal dharmas. In cultivating, we must understand true principles. If we don’t understand true principles, then we are not upholding the truth. Upholding the truth is the best thing.

This fifteenth section tells us that the strength of patience is the greatest strength. It can end all defilement and enable one to have far-reaching understanding.

When the mind’s defilements are gone completely, when you extinguish the selfishness, profit-seeking, greed, hatred, stupidity, and related defiled and desirous thoughts from your mind, so that it is pure and untainted, then you become pure to the point that your mind doesn’t have any faults, filth, or defilements. There’s only a pure mind, and that is the utmost brilliance. If you can get rid of the darkness in your mind, that is the greatest brilliance; it is the supreme wisdom.

That which is not clear and pure is love and desire. Desire obstructs us so that we are not able to understand our mind and see our nature. Desire keeps us from seeing the Way, and therefore from realizing the fruition of the Way. One who realizes the first fruition is at the position of the Way of Seeing, which also means  seeing the Way.

The Buddha said, “People who cherish love and desire do not see the Way.” To explain this Dharma to Westerners is difficult, because no matter what Westerners talk about, it always concerns love and desire. This is especially true of followers of certain religions who say, “God loves me, and I love God.” They love God, just as men and women love one another. In fact, some nuns even say that they marry God. They simply have no understanding of the Way. What people harbor in their minds is love and desire. Everything they do involves love and desire. If you cultivate the Way, but do not understand it, then on the one hand you cultivate, but on the other hand you lose your cultivation. You’re advised not to hold onto any love and desire, but your love and desire keep on increasing!

So the Buddha said, “You Shramanas should cast aside love and desire.” “Shramanas” includes all of us Bhikshus and Bhikshunis of the present age. We should all give up love and desire. This does not mean that men should say, “I hate women. When I see a woman, I get angry and send her away.” That’s not the way we should handle desire. How should it be? We should see as if not seeing, and hear as if we hadn’t heard. There’s no reason to despise them. We simply don’t let our minds become swayed by them. To cast aside love and desire means to give them away. It’s just like giving money to people; once you’ve given it, you don’t have it anymore. To whom should you give your love and desire? Give it back to your father and mother. When the stains of love and desire disappear–if the impure, turbid filth of love and desire are gone–then you will be able to see the Way.Thiscultivation can lead you to see the Way and to realize the fruition of the Way.

Section  17 Light Dispels Darkness 明来暗谢
The Buddha said, “Those who see the Way are like someone holding a torch who enters a dark room, dispelling the darkness so that only light remains. When you study the Way and see the truth, ignorance vanishes and light remains forever.” 佛言。夫见道者。譬如持炬。入冥室中。其冥即灭。而明独存。学道见谛。无明即灭。而明常存矣。

The Buddha said, “Those who see the Way are like someone holding a torch who enters a dark room, dispelling the darkness so that only light remains.” A person who sees the Way is like someone who takes up a torch and goes into a dark room, immediately banishing the darkness so that only the light remains. The darkness is gone because he holds a torch. The torch represents our wisdom. This means that if we have wisdom, we can break through ignorance, which is represented by the dark room. If we have wisdom, the dark room will become bright.

When you study the Way and see the truth, ignorance vanishes and light remains forever. Someone who studies the Way and can see the actual truth will immediately vanquish ignorance, and wisdom will remain forever.

The eighteenth section explains the relationship between the existence and non-existence of mindfulness and cultivation.

The Buddha said, “My Dharma is the mindfulness that is both mindfulness and non-mindfulness.” The Buddha said, “My Dharma is not being mindful that you are mindful; and even the thought of that ‘not being mindful’ is not there. Therefore my Dharma is called a mindfulness that is mindfulness, and yet not mindfulness. It is the practice that is both practice and non-practice. In my Dharma, practice also is the Way of effortlessness.’ In cultivating, you don’t want to have any attachments. It should be the same as not cultivating. Even the shadow of ‘no cultivating’ should not remain.”

It is words that are words and non-words. Don’t be attached to words and language. Further, even your intention not to be attached to words and language should be done away with. And it is cultivation that is cultivation and non-cultivation. It is the Way of effortlessness, cultivating and yet not cultivating, certifying and yet not certifying. There isn’t any thought of cultivating the Way. That means that you don’t have any attachments; all attachments are seen as empty. Even the emptiness is emptied out.

Those who understand are near to it. To understand something means to be clear about it. If you understand this doctrine, you are near to the Way. Those who are confused are far away, indeed. But if you fail to understand and are confused about the principle, then you will be far from the Way. What is the Way ultimately like? I’ll tell you: It is not accessible by the path of language. You want to speak about it, but you can’t represent it in words. You want to think about it, but you can’t formulate the thought. You simply cannot speak of its wonder.

It is said that the path of words and language is cut off, and the place of the mind’s workings ceases to be. What the mind wants to think about is gone, and absolutely everything is empty. It is not hindered by physical objects. Physical matter is itself the basic substance of True Suchness. If you are able to realize this state, then you will see that the mountains, the rivers, the earth, and all the myriad things are just the basic substance of True Suchness, and you will not be hindered by physical objects.

If you are off by a hairsbreadth, if you are off by just a fraction of an inch, just a tiny bit, in the way you cultivate, you will lose it in an instant. You immediately lose it and won’t be able to find it. You should break through your attachments, and then you will be able to attain this state.

第十八章说明了念、修行和有无这种的关系。

　　‘佛言，吾法念无念念’：佛说，我这个佛法，在念上就是要没有一个念，连没有念的这个念，都没有的，所以叫念无念念。‘行无行行’：在我这法里头，修行也是用的无功用道，修行也不要有执著，要和没有修行是一样的，连那没有修行的那个行字，都不要存在的。

　　‘言无言言’：言就是所说的这个语言，也不要执著这语言，把没有执著语言的那种意思、那种念，也都没有了。‘修无修修’：修的时候也是修的无功用道，修而无修，证而无证。就是修道，也没有一个修道那个修的思想，这些都要没有的，这就是没有一切执著，把一切执著都空了，连那个空都要空了它。

‘会者近尔’：你若会得，会得就是明白了，你若明白这个道理的话，就与道相近了。近尔，就是相近了，不会远了。‘迷者远乎’：你要是不明白，你迷昧这个道理，就离道很远了。那么道究竟是什么样子？我告诉你们，这是‘言语道断’：说也说不出来，想也想不到，言语道断，说不出来这个妙处，所谓‘言语道断，心行处灭’，心所要想的也没有了，一切一切都空了。‘非物所拘’：不被物所拘住了，因为物也是真如的本体。这时候你若能会得这种的境界，所有的山河大地、森罗万象，都是真如的本体，所以就不为物所拘了。‘差之毫厘’：这修行方法你若差了一丝、一毫、一厘那么多，就‘失之须臾’：在很快、很短的时间内就丢了，就找不著了。所以要自己把这种执著破了，就能得到这种境界。

In the nineteenth section, the Buddha teaches us the principle that everything is made from the mind alone. We must cast aside what is false and keep what is true. Heaven covers us from above, and the earth supports us from below. Seen from the point of view of ordinary people, heaven and earth are eternal and indestructible. But, in fact, they are not eternal and indestructible. They also undergo the superseding of the old by the new. They are not permanent.

The Buddha said, “Contemplate heaven and earth, and be mindful of their impermanence.” When you look at heaven and earth, you see that sometimes they are hot and sometimes cold. When the cold comes, the warmth goes. There is the cycle of spring, summer, fall, and winter. On the earth the mountains and rivers are involved in constant transition and do not stay fixed. They are dharmas that are created and destroyed. They are not the uncreated, undestroyed dharmas of the mind. They are impermanent. Therefore, the Buddha said to be mindful of their impermanence.

Contemplate the world, and be mindful of its impermanence. The world changes; it is not static. [In Chinese, the two characters for the concept “world” imply the ideas of time and place.] Both time and place are subject to creation and destruction. Neither is permanent and indestructible. So the text says, “be mindful of its impermanence.”

Contemplate the efficacious, enlightened nature: it is the Bodhi nature. You contemplate your own bright, enlightened spiritual nature: it is just the Bodhi-nature. With this awareness, one quickly attains the Way. If you can investigate in this way and gain an understanding, if you can know it as it is, then you will immediately obtain the Way. Because you understand this principle, you will obtain the Way. But if you fail to understand this principle, you will not obtain the Way.

第十九章是佛教人观‘一切唯心造’这种道理，要把虚妄的去了，存这实在的。天覆著我们，在上边；地载著我们，在下边，对凡夫来讲，这都是常住的、不坏的。可是这并不是常住不坏的，它也是有这种新陈代谢，它不是常的。‘如是知识’：你能像这样子去研究，这样子来认识，这样地知道它，‘得道疾矣’：你很快就会得道了。因为你明白这理了，你就会得这个道；你不明理，所以就不得道。

Section  20 Realize that the Self Is Truly Empty 推我本空
The Buddha said, “You should be mindful of the four elements within the body. Though each has a name, none of them is the self. Since they are not the self, they are like an illusion.” 佛言：当念身中四大，各自有名，都无我者。我既都无，其如幻耳。

The twentieth section instructs people to contemplate the human body in terms of the four elements, in order to realize that the body is like an illusion, like a transformation. It is false, and unreal.

The Buddha said, “You should be mindful of the four elements within the body.” We should consider the four elements within our bodies. Our bodies are a combination of these four: earth, water, fire, and air. The solid parts of the body are from the element earth. The moist parts are of the element water; warmth comes from the element fire; and breathing and movement are manifestations of the air element.

From head to foot, every part of the body has its own name. Now, where would you say the self can be found? Which place is called the “self”? There isn’t any place called the self. Since there is no place called self, then why do you want to be attached to the self? Why do you want to look upon the self as so important? The entire body contains nothing called the self.

Since they are not the self, they are like an illusion. There is no self, and so the body is like an illusion, like a transformation. There isn’t anything real about it. The one who contemplates and that which is contemplated are both empty and false. Both are illusory, and mere transformations. If you can understand that they are like an illusion, like a transformation, you can understand the doctrine of the contemplation of emptiness, falseness, and the Middle Way. When you understand this principle, you will know that the body is empty, false, and unreal.

第二十章指示人用这四大来观身，知道这身体如幻如化，是虚妄不实的。‘佛言’：所以佛说，‘当念身中四大’：我们人应该想一想，想我们身中这四大，我们这个身体是四大和合 而成的，四大就是地、水、火、风。我们身中这坚硬的，就属于地大；这湿润的，就是水大；温暖的，这属于火大；出入呼吸和这动的，是属于风大。

to be continued …….

Dedicate Merits:

May the precious bodhicitta 
That has not yet arisen, arise and grow,
And may that which has already arisen not diminish,
But increase more and more.

回向偈：
愿以此功德，庄严佛净土。 
上报四重恩，下济三涂苦。 
若有见闻者，悉发菩提心。 
尽此一报身，同生极乐国。