Miscellaneous Discourses on the Dharma (Part II)
Chapter 13: Miscellaneous Talks
1. What Kind of Person Is a Qualified Buddhist Disciple
In school, a qualified student is certainly a "three-good student" with all-round development in virtue, intelligence, and physical fitness. In Buddhism, a good disciple of the Buddha should be one with all-round development in precepts, meditative concentration (samādhi), and wisdom, one who possesses the six perfections in full, a practitioner in whom ability and mental disposition are perfectly combined. A person with both virtue and talent is a very rare and precious talent, extremely scarce. If someone has only a certain ability but an unwholesome and unyielding mental disposition, such a person cannot be entrusted with important responsibilities. If the mental disposition is wholesome but ability is insufficient, one can still make do with them and cultivate them. But if both ability and mental disposition are lacking, they absolutely must not be used.
Mental disposition is manifested in non-self. Before eradicating the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa), some people have a heavy sense of self, while others have a light one. Those with a light sense of self can, of course, more easily eradicate the view of self and realize the fruits of the path than those with a heavy sense of self. Those who always want to control others are people with a heavy sense of self; those unwilling to be managed, unwilling to obey leadership, are also people with a heavy sense of self—their mental disposition is not harmonious, and it is all the self-mind at work. People with a light sense of self are relatively easygoing and amiable, holding an indifferent attitude toward certain people and matters, not caring much about their own position and power. The ones who cause the most problems in a group are precisely these people with a heavy sense of self. If there is no strong leader, the group will fall into chaos.
A Buddhist group will certainly have Dharma-protecting deities safeguarding it. The Dharma-protecting deities know each person's mental disposition thoroughly—what kind of disposition this person has, what purpose they harbor, what role they can play—the Dharma-protecting deities know it all clearly. Therefore, what role a person should play in the group will be managed by the Dharma-protecting deities. Some people have heavy selfish motives and will have a destructive effect on the group; the Dharma-protecting deities will find ways to remove and isolate them.
2. Why Does Time Seem to Pass at Different Speeds
When you are focused on one thing with no attention on anything else, you will feel that time passes quickly; if the mind is scattered, with worries and expectations, you will feel that time passes slowly. Feelings change according to the state of mind, and thus are unreal and unreliable dharmas. When in pain, one also feels time passes slowly, because one hopes the pain will end quickly—there is expectation, which is related to time, so one feels time passes slowly. When happy, one feels time passes quickly, because the mind is focused on the happy matter; concentration is also the mind resting on the matter at hand, and time passes unnoticed.
When in pain, one hopes time will pass quickly—this is hoping to stop the suffering. When happy, one hopes time will not pass—this is hoping to enjoy the pleasant feelings longer. A practitioner hopes time will pass more slowly, so as to do more meaningful things, such as cultivating oneself and advancing one's path of practice. In meditative concentration (samādhi), time can come to a standstill—there is no time, how comfortable it is. But the people and affairs outside of concentration still need attending to, so one can only emerge from concentration. If you want to reduce painful feelings, recite the Buddha's name, recite mantras, and recite sutras more, and time will pass quickly. Think more about the suffering of sentient beings, and your own suffering will be overlooked, and time will pass quickly.
3. What Is the Ultimate Meaning of Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels?
In the sutras of Shakyamuni Buddha's jātaka stories, several sutras record the footsteps and trajectory of Shakyamuni Buddha's practice life after life, introducing his birth and family circumstances in each life, as well as his fellow practitioners on the path of cultivation and his disciples. What impressed me most deeply is that several sutras introduce that Shakyamuni Buddha and Amitābha Buddha and many other Buddhas were close relatives and blood brothers across many lifetimes, or cultivated the path in the same Buddha-land, helping, supporting, and protecting one another. There are also accounts that Shakyamuni Buddha was together with the Ten Great Disciples of this present life for many lifetimes, in a master-disciple relationship, with names that were similar or identical. It also introduces the karmic affinity between Shakyamuni Buddha's wife of this life and Shakyamuni Buddha's past lives, and the karmic affinity between Shakyamuni Buddha's mother and Shakyamuni Buddha's past and future lives.
What do these story plots illustrate? They illustrate the affinities among the Buddhas, the affinities between the Buddha and his disciples, and the affinities between the Buddha and his family relatives. When people form wholesome affinities with one another, there is cohesion, which draws these people together. And having an extremely powerful affinity, an extremely powerful group to rely on—being together with this powerful group life after life—birth and death then have a refuge, and the heart has a master.
The Three Jewels are the life-saving straw. Only by grasping this life-saving straw tightly can sentient beings save their own lives. Apart from the Three Jewels, sentient beings have nothing to rely on; nothing can be depended upon. On the road of birth and death, crying to heaven brings no answer, crying to earth brings no response—alone, one bears one's own karmic power. Form affinities with all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and be together with the Buddhas life after life, never apart from the Buddha.
In the Lotus Sutra (Saddharma-puṇḍarīka Sūtra), the Buddha gave predictions to his disciples that they would become Buddhas. These disciples cultivated together and formed affinities; the paths they walked were roughly the same, their levels of cultivation were also approximately the same, and when they became Buddhas, they did so in sequential order. Such is the importance of affinity. Those with wisdom must seize the affinity with the Three Jewels, seize the affinity with a superior group, and use this affinity to establish their refuge life after life, carrying themselves ever upward.
A good team is extremely important. A team is affinity. Without affinity, there is nothing to talk about—what is there to discuss with those who are unrelated? Like the nearly two hundred thousand people who died in the current lung-disease epidemic: they had no affinity with the Three Jewels, died alone, and were reborn in solitude, with nothing to rely on, nothing to depend on, drifting aimlessly, miserable and desolate, wandering through the six realms with no end in sight. Is this not tragic? Therefore, taking refuge in the Three Jewels is extremely important. The Three Jewels are not only the refuge of sentient beings' lives, but also the vessel carrying sentient beings to liberation. Only under the great tree of the Three Jewels can one enjoy the shade, and the mind attain tranquility and nirvāṇa.
4. Your Mind Is Not to Be Believed
Bacon said: only by seeing with one's own eyes can one make a judgment. Descartes said: only through rational analysis can one make a judgment. Hume said: neither seeing with one's own eyes nor rational analysis can serve as a basis for judgment. Kant said: by combining seeing with one's own eyes and rational analysis, one can make a judgment.
The Buddha said: only by knowing that what is seen with one's own eyes is illusion, and knowing that rational analysis is conceptual proliferation (prapañca), can one possibly make a meaningful judgment. Since beginningless kalpas, sentient beings have seen countless people, affairs, objects, and principles with their own eyes—which of these perceptions has been correct? If the perceptions were correct, there would be no more afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, and no more suffering of birth-and-death saṃsāra. How many people possess the ability of rational analysis? If rational analysis were correct and without error, how could there still be the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion and the suffering of birth-and-death saṃsāra? The Buddha said: Take heed not to believe your mind; your mind is not to be believed. Only upon attaining the fruit of arhatship can you believe your own mind. And even having attained arhatship, there is still so much ignorance that one still cannot completely believe one's own mind.
Countless people trust their own mind, yet that mind of theirs is one way today and another way tomorrow, constantly changing its mind, and by the time of death has not done many things right—is that mind reliable? Extremely unreliable, yet one is self-confident right up to death. Most people who study Buddhism see one thing as good today, study it for a few days and then reject it; after a while they see another thing as good, study it for a few more days, and then reject it again—until they are seventy or eighty years old and still have not found a dharma gate they are satisfied with, yet they remain very self-confident. If you are truly self-confident, once you affirm something, do not negate it again, do not change it again. If by fifty or sixty you still cannot settle on a path and method of cultivation, is there any hope left for this lifetime?
5. On Education, for Teachers' Day
Ignorance permeates every corner of the world, permeates every aspect of the mundane realm, permeates all conditioned dharmas of the mundane world. Of course, it also permeates the education industry. Education without ignorance is the Buddha's education; education with very little ignorance is the Bodhisattvas' education; next comes the education of Pratyekabuddhas and Arhats. The education of ordinary beings is of course full of ignorance—it educates only for the accomplishment of worldly dharmas, not knowing that all worldly dharmas are illusory and false, all empty. Therefore, worldly education all points to the existence of dharmas in the world and cannot touch upon emptiness even a little.
Education enables countless people to continually adapt to social life, but the more they adapt, the harder it is for the mind to be empty, the harder it is to attain liberation, because secular education guides sentient beings to continually crave and continually grasp (upādāna). Those who are liberated no longer crave and grasp at worldly dharmas; inwardly they are out of step with society, though outwardly they have no choice but to go through the motions. Among all the patriarchs and great virtuous ones in history, hardly anyone spent many years studying worldly culture; most left home early to cultivate the path. Even those who could not immediately leave home had their bodies at home but their hearts on the path, and when the conditions ripened, they still left home to cultivate the Way.
Buddhism originated in India—why? Because at that time in India, everyone wanted liberation, and there were very many non-Buddhist practitioners who had left home to cultivate the path; but because they had not obtained the true Dharma, they could not yet attain liberation. Only when the Buddha saw that the conditions for sentient beings' liberation had ripened did he manifest the eight marks of becoming a Buddha, coming to western India and leaving behind the seed of Buddhism. But in this era, with so many people studying Buddhism, the Dharma spreading widely, believing in and studying Buddhism becoming a common trend, and people of great learning gradually increasing—why does the Buddha not come to deliver them? Because nowadays there are hardly any people who truly want liberation, who truly want the mind to be empty; they are all attached to worldly existence. They may look like they have good spiritual faculties (indriya), but in reality they do not.
The more the Buddha-dharma proliferates indiscriminately, the more false dharmas will sneak in. Sentient beings cannot distinguish true from false, and those who take the false as true are by no means few. Behind the flourishing of the Buddha-dharma lies withering—the more it flourishes, the shallower the roots; the nutrients all run to the surface, and the roots will wither more and more. Only a thin but steady stream flows long and unceasing. Buddhism is the same: only by developing slowly and steadily will it endure, and only then will sentient beings truly benefit. Those who flow into Buddhism will then be true talents, those with deep affinities, those whose wholesome roots have ripened, the pillars of Buddhism. When fish and dragons are mixed together, the vast majority are fish, yet they smugly assume they are dragons—a great misapprehension. Clearly they should be carp leaping over the Dragon Gate, but instead they merely swam across, still with the body and bones of a fish, without a trace of the dragon.
6. The Fallen Angels
In the beginning, the earth was vast and empty, without people
Angels descended and greedily ate the richness of the earth
Their bodies grew heavy, unable to fly, their wings broken
Thus humankind came to be on earth, becoming the ancestors
So my ancestors were fallen angels
And I am no angel
I am purebred humanity
The descendants of fallen angels
Having passed through life after life of saṃsāra
Long ago I lost the title of angel
And even more, the angel's noble countenance and supernatural powers
Therefore I too am fallen
Why did the angels fall?
Only because they greedily ate the flavors of the earth
From then on they lived and multiplied on the earth
At first their bodies were light as clouds, their minds free of desire, pure
Later, greed and desire gradually stained them, transforming into the two sexes, male and female
Thus there came to be the propagation of descendants
Generation after generation: tribes, clans, families, nations
Thus there were clan chiefs and kings and nobles governing the tribes and nations
Human customs gradually became fixed
Plowing fields, weaving cloth, marriage and betrothal, wealth, sensuality, fame, food, sleep
Desire and defilement blazing fiercely, craving nothing more than the things of the human world
Trapped in a prison—when shall we be angels again?
7. How Should Buddhists Practice Dedication of Merit
If you can persist in dedicating merit (pariṇāma) every day, then dedicate it like this: With all the wholesome roots and merit I have gained from studying and practicing the Buddha-dharma today, I dedicate it all to my fathers, mothers, teachers, and elders of life after life; to all sentient beings throughout the kalpas whom I have deliberately killed, accidentally killed, wrongly killed, harmed, eaten, or with whom I have formed grudges; to the successive generations of ancestors and relatives of my father's (surname) family line; and to the successive generations of ancestors and relatives of my mother's (surname) family line—wishing that they may eliminate the karmic obstructions of past lives, that their wholesome roots, merit, and wisdom may all increase, that they may soon form a karmic bond with the Buddha and soon encounter the Buddha-dharma; and that, through the blessings of all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, they may soon escape the evil destinies, be reborn in wholesome destinies, or return to the human world to study and practice the Mahāyāna Buddha-dharma together with me. May they soon enter the Buddhist gate to cultivate, soon realize bodhi, leave suffering and attain bliss, and achieve great liberation.
If you cannot persist in dedicating merit every day, then at minimum dedicate it once a week; once a month is a bit long a gap, in which case you must dedicate all the merit of your practice accumulated over the whole month. If it is a general dedication, then dedicate all the merit and virtue accumulated from studying Buddhism and all the wholesome deeds done in this present life, and also dedicate the merit accumulated from studying the Buddha-dharma in past lives. If you are dedicating merit to a specific person, you should add that person's name and dedicate the merit to them. For those who have already passed away, dedicate the merit so that they may soon escape the three evil destinies, be reborn in wholesome destinies, and have the affinity to encounter the Buddha-dharma and diligently study and practice it. For those still living, dedicate the merit wishing that their wholesome roots, merit, and wisdom may increase, and dedicate according to the person's legitimate and harmless needs.
8. How to Offer Food to Sentient Beings
During New Year and festivals, you can offer food to your deceased karmic creditors and family relatives, letting them also have a joyful New Year, and also preventing them from becoming envious and making you ill. In ordinary times, you can also offer food on a regular schedule. After eating a meal, the rice grains left at the bottom of the bowl—seven grains of rice are enough—plus a bit of vegetable soup and vegetable leaves are sufficient for the offering. The mantras recited for food offerings can all be found in the morning and evening liturgy books.
When offering food, rice or crumbs of steamed bread will do; a small pinch is enough, and then everything depends on the power of visualization. If the visualization is done well and the blessing power of the mantra is strong, the food and drink become extremely abundant—the more abundant, the more sentient beings benefit, the greater the wholesome affinities formed, and the greater the future merit. A small finger-sized portion of rice with a bit of vegetable soup will do, or seven grains of rice are enough. Just this much, and the rest all depends on visualization.
Place the pinched-together rice crumbs on a platform outside the house; a balcony also works. Then recite the mantra aloud, and the ghosts and spirits will come to receive the food. The mantra is as follows: "You assembly of ghosts and spirits, I now make this offering to you; may this food pervade the ten directions, shared by all ghosts and spirits" (once). "Oṃ, muli-liṅ, svāhā" (seven times). While reciting, visualize: visualize that the food and drink being offered possess complete form, aroma, and flavor, pervading the Sahā world, pervading all the great mountains, pervading the foot of the mountains, pervading the riverbanks, pervading the shores of the four great seas, and all places below Mount Sumeru. The larger the area you can visualize, the better; the more the food and drink can transform into, the better—this way more sentient beings are rescued. After reciting the mantra seven times, snap your fingers three times, and the food offering is complete.
You can also offer rice-water to sentient beings. The first rinse water after washing dishes after a meal—rice water mixed with vegetable water—can also be offered to ghosts and spirits. Recite the mantra seven times, add visualization, and all ghosts and spirits can eat and drink their fill. Pour the dish-washing water onto a platform, as long as it is not around peach trees or pomegranate trees. The mantra is as follows: "With this dish-washing water, like the flavor of heavenly nectar, I offer it to all ghosts and spirits, may all attain fullness and satisfaction." Then visualize the dish-washing water, like the nectar of heaven, pervading the Sahā world, the high mountains, the seashores, and all open spaces, while reciting the mantra seven times: "Oṃ, mo-xiu-la-xi, svāhā," and at the same time pouring out the dish-washing water, pouring it out in seven portions.
People whose bodies are too weak are easily bullied by ghosts. If the visualization is not done well and the ghosts and spirits cannot eat, they will give rise to hatred and retaliate, making your body uncomfortable for a couple of days. If you are afraid, do not offer food; practice for a while, and once your power of visualization is strong, you may then offer food.
Our fathers, mothers, and family relatives from beginningless kalpa upon beginningless kalpa are beyond counting in number. The vast majority of them are in the three evil destinies, mainly in the ghost destiny, all suffering, without food and drink, without clothing and necessities. We eat so well every day yet still waste; saving up just a fingertip's worth of food and drink is enough to fill their bellies. For the sake of those vast multitudes of suffering sentient beings, give away the food and drink wasted every day—this benefits both oneself and sentient beings, and is also an act of filial devotion and repayment to the fathers, mothers, teachers, and elders of past lives.
We ourselves now have hope of liberation, but there are still so many sentient beings without the opportunity for liberation. We should frequently dedicate the merit of the Buddha-dharma and wholesome dharmas we cultivate to them, increasing their merit, so that they will have the opportunity to escape the sea of suffering, study and practice the Buddha-dharma, gradually walk out of saṃsāra, and attain liberation.
