Discussing Education on Teachers' Day

Ignorance permeates every corner of the world, every aspect, and pervades all mundane phenomena. Naturally, it also permeates the education sector. Education devoid of ignorance is the education of the Buddha. Education with very little ignorance is the education of the Bodhisattvas. Next in order is the education of the Pratyekabuddhas and Arhats. The education of ordinary beings is, of course, filled with ignorance, aimed solely at achieving worldly goals, unaware that all worldly phenomena are illusory, false, and empty. Therefore, worldly education invariably points towards the existence of phenomena, unable to touch upon emptiness at all. Among worldly people, are the learned doctors and postdoctoral scholars more likely to attain liberation, or are those with deep virtuous roots but illiterate more likely? History has already provided the answer. Education enables countless people to adapt to social life, but the more adapted they become, the harder it is to realize emptiness and the harder it is to attain liberation. Those who attain liberation are inwardly incompatible with society, though they may feign compliance outwardly. Historically, nearly all the great patriarchs and masters did not spend many years learning worldly culture; most renounced the world early to cultivate the Way. Even those who could not renounce immediately kept their minds on the Way while living in the household, and when conditions matured, they still renounced to cultivate the Way.

Buddhism originated in India. Why is this? Because at that time, everyone in India sought liberation; there were many non-Buddhist ascetics who had renounced the world, yet, failing to find the right method, remained temporarily unliberated. Seeing that the conditions for beings to attain liberation had ripened, the Buddha manifested the eight aspects of a Buddha's life, came to Western India, and planted the seed of Buddhahood. In this present age, although there are so many people studying Buddhism, the Dharma is widely disseminated, faith in and study of Buddhism have become common, and the number of highly learned individuals has gradually increased, why does the Buddha not come to liberate them? Because nowadays, there are scarcely any who truly seek liberation, who truly seek the emptiness of mind; most are attached to existence. They may appear to have good spiritual capacity, but in essence, they do not.

The more the Dharma proliferates, the more heterodox teachings seize the opportunity to infiltrate. Beings cannot distinguish between the true and the false, and those who mistake the false for the true are not few. Behind the apparent prosperity of Buddhism lies decline; the more prosperous it seems, the shallower its roots become. The nourishment flows to the surface, causing the roots to wither increasingly. Only a gentle, steady stream flows long and continuously. So it is with Buddhism; only through slow, stable development can it endure long. Only then will beings truly benefit, and only then will genuine talents flow into Buddhism, those with deep karmic connections, those with mature virtuous roots, who become the pillars of Buddhism. When fish and dragons are mixed together, the vast majority are merely fish, yet they complacently believe themselves to be dragons—a grave misunderstanding. They should leap over the Dragon Gate like carp, yet they merely swim across, remaining fish in bone and flesh, without a trace of the dragon.