What Aspiration Constitutes a Right Aspiration?

Yesterday a student of the Dharma, in a burst of great compassion, made a wish before a large audience: wishing that all sentient beings throughout the great thousand worlds could have their wishes fulfilled... Is this wish good, and what would the result be? If one's personal cultivation is high, then all wishes come true—whatever the mind intends is accomplished, and the moment a thought arises it is realized. But if this person wishes that evil people fulfill their evil wishes, and that afflicted people fulfill their greed, hatred, and delusion, this is aiding the tyrant in his tyranny, and the wish becomes a wish of foolishness. I too have suffered from the illness of foolishness—rotten compassion—and even now I have not completely corrected it. Small compassion appears wholesome, and everyone delights in it, but in reality it is foolishness, it is evil. Great compassion, ultimate compassion, appears on the surface to be heartless, and ordinary people dislike it, but in reality it is true wisdom.

He Qianxing: The aspiration behind this wish is quite good but not perfect, which shows insufficient wisdom. A perfect wish should be: "May all wholesome dharmas that are practiced come to fulfillment; may all unwholesome dharmas that are intended utterly fail to succeed." But each person's karma must be resolved by that person. For all the sentient beings whom he blessed, their wishes cannot be fulfilled; karma and karmic power will still operate according to the rules. For the person who made this aspiration, it counts as issuing an imperfect compassionate mind. The magnitude and level of the energy of a compassionate mind depends on whether the person making the vow does so with a sincere mind or on a momentary impulse, and whether it is sincere or momentary depends on whether it issues from the manas or from the mind consciousness. If it issues sincerely from the manas, it is extremely helpful for advancing one's own path of cultivation, and the root of bodhi grows. If it is a momentary impulse of the mind consciousness, then it is a case of manifest activities perfuming seeds, which intensively perfumes and cultivates the manas in a positive direction.

If one's personal cultivation is high, many Dharma-protecting deities will gather around one, and their level will also be relatively high. Although the level of the Dharma-protecting deities is high, their wisdom is uneven, so situations may arise where, due to insufficient wisdom, they help people fulfill their wishes. Furthermore, if one's personal cultivation is high and one's power of merit is great, and the manas has a strong ability to gather the mind at one point, then the manas can use powerful meditative concentration (samādhi) to transmit the wish to the tathāgatagarbha, and with the blessing of one's own power of merit, the tathāgatagarbha can transcend karma and transform and create the facts. Because the power of vows is stronger than the power of karma, the wish can be fulfilled. But for ordinary practitioners this is very difficult, as they possess neither of these two conditions.

Jiren Tianxiang: As for ordinary people's wishes, most are greed, hatred, and delusion—delusive thoughts and wandering thoughts. The more one craves, the more one craves; the deeper one sinks, the deeper one sinks. Sentient beings become ever more entangled with one another, and afflictions grow ever heavier. Only by making pure and great vows can there be hope of extinguishing the fire of desire; this is also the excellent medicine for solving all problems. If one cannot achieve this, one should still make many wholesome wishes, think more of others, and even make many wishes to benefit sentient beings. If everyone did so, then afflictions would be transformed into a land of bliss!

A practitioner transmits the true Dharma to the world and, as the teacher of the world's wisdom-life, is therefore honored with the title Dharma Master. Viewed from the standpoint of a Dharma Master, one naturally cannot be a spineless nice guy—even a heart of iron and stone is possible—always taking the students' learning as the priority. Only when sentient beings have achieved success in their studies can they understand the compassionate realm of their master. The wise can only be lonely, just like the sun in the sky that shines on and on, having only silent, wordless love, not caring whether anyone likes it or not.

Changzhu: The wishes of sentient beings include pure wishes (also called bodhi aspirations), and also impure wishes containing all kinds of greed, hatred, delusion, and inverted delusions. When we wish that sentient beings' wishes be fulfilled, this wish absolutely must not include the latter, otherwise it is aiding the tyrant in his tyranny, and this retribution is very serious. Spreading the Dharma and benefiting beings does not rely on learning, financial resources, ability, influence, or power, but on a pure aspiration and vast power of vows. Without vast power of vows and a pure aspiration, there is no way to liberate sentient beings. The broader the power of vows, the broader the mind's capacity; the greater the power of vows, the greater the power of the mind. The broader the mind's capacity, the more widely embracing and harmonious the spreading of the Dharma and delivering of beings becomes; the greater the power of the mind, the greater the power to attract and gather beings in spreading the Dharma. All Buddhas have general vows and specific vows; the Four Great Vows are the general vows, and all bodhisattvas, at the time of their initial arising of bodhicitta, must make these vows.