眾生無邊誓願度
煩惱無盡誓願斷
法門無量誓願學
佛道無上誓願成

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Dharma Teachings

15 May 2018    Tuesday     2nd Teach Total 493

The Causes of Karmic Retribution

Why does our world experience the alternation of seasons, with winters being too cold, summers too hot, sometimes enduring incessant rain, and other times continuous snow and ice?

This is the result of the evil karma accumulated by sentient beings. The evil deeds committed in past lives are stored within each being's Tathagatagarbha. When the conditions ripen, the Tathagatagarbha outputs the seeds of this evil karma, and the retribution for sentient beings manifests. The living environment is the retributive environment, which exists dependent upon the five aggregates of sentient beings. The body of the five aggregates is the retributive body, the actual subject that undergoes suffering. These retributions are all manifested by the Tathagatagarbha. The source of these unsatisfactory living conditions is the Tathagatagarbha itself. It is the Tathagatagarbha that outputs the seeds of the four great elements and the six elements, forming the suffering five aggregates and the adverse environment, thereby transforming our world to manifest various hardships like heat and cold.

If we were to confront the Tathagatagarbha and demand an account, the Tathagatagarbha would say, "Go and confront the mental faculty (manas). I merely accommodate; I do not act as the sovereign ruler. I do not actively intend to manifest all this suffering retribution." If we then question the mental faculty, the deluded mental faculty cannot articulate the reason. It must then quickly instruct the conscious mind (manovijñāna) to analyze the situation. The conscious mind must then use the principles of cause and effect found within the Buddhadharma to contemplate, analyze, and verify, and then report back to the mental faculty. Once the mental faculty understands, it will instruct the body, speech, and mind to act cautiously and refrain from creating further karma.

Henceforth, no matter what unsatisfactory events we encounter, we should trace them back to the Tathagatagarbha, for their source lies there; it is the Tathagatagarbha that produces them. However, we should not wrongly accuse it. Following the clues back, we ultimately arrive at the mental faculty itself. The conscious mind also bears a certain degree of responsibility. These two—the mental faculty and the conscious mind—are the principal offenders, the primary objects requiring education and transformation. Our practice aims precisely to educate and transform the conscious mind and the mental faculty. Once they are transformed, the world will become beautiful, perfect, and pure.

——Master Sheng-Ru's Teachings
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