A Dharma Talk on the Zhongyuan Festival

Today is the Zhongyuan Festival, the festival of ghosts and spirits. When we burn paper money for the beings of the netherworld, after they receive it, they will take it to spend—buying some daily necessities, or repaying debts, or exchanging courtesies, and so on. Is the outer object-aspect (nimitta) of ghosts consistent with that of humans? We burn the paper money so that its outer object-aspect is destroyed, yet an outer object-aspect appears in the netherworld—so what kind of object-aspect does this paper money constitute for the beings of the netherworld? What is the difference between it and the object-aspect we humans perceive? How is the outer object-aspect transformed?

I once burned a hand-written Great Compassion Mantra and Buddhist sutras for the beings of the nether realm, and then they appeared in my dream, joyfully holding the sutras in their hands and studying them, even wearing glasses. I have also performed contemplative visualization for beings of the ghost realm, and dreams showed that their health had improved, their spirits had become joyful, and their state of mind had become open and bright.

The mental thoughts of a person are inconceivable; a single thought can indeed change many dharma-marks, and in the end can even change the trichiliocosm (three thousand great thousand worlds). Such a thought requires superb meditative concentration and wisdom—that is, meditative absorption (samādhi). The true fire of samādhi burns throughout the great thousand worlds, making the great thousand worlds flourish. The sentient beings of one great thousand world share common karma, and the environments they inhabit are roughly the same, so their outer object-aspects are more or less alike. The more common karma there is, the closer they are to one another, and the more consistent their outer object-aspects are. But because their individual karma differs, the inner object-aspects each of them contacts differ, and their enjoyments differ.