20180119念純同行菩薩道Walking the Bodhisattva Path with a Pure Heart
Everyone, living without peace brings about suffering, whether it comes from disharmony or imbalance. Imbalance in nature leads to natural disasters; disharmony in people’s mind brings manmade disasters. So, we should have harmony in our heart and inspire love and purity in everyone. We should rather give with love at all times than trouble ourselves with afflictions and ignorance.
Therefore, we must pull everyone’s strength together with unity, harmony, and mutual love to contribute to the world. Upon enlightenment, the Buddha said that everyone has innate Buddha nature and the world is full of suffering. With the enlightened nature, we can attain Buddhahood, but one must walk the Bodhisattva Path to attain it.
The Buddha tells us that everyone has an innate Buddha nature, and can attain Buddhahood. But,(with what mindset) should we walk the Bodhisattva Path? Conscientiously? Casually? Half-heartedly? Or sporadically? It depends on how we walk this path. Most importantly, we want to cultivate with a pure heart.
We have to walk the Bodhisattva Path with the Dharma, sharing it with others, and spreading the Dharma, we need to practice the Dharma as well. We should eliminate our afflictions as much as possible. Don’t bring with us interpersonal issues, disputes, personal emotions, or resentments.
It is like when we do recycling, we sort the material, and we need PET to make threads. If it is blended with PP or PE, even a little bit of it, the tiny grain of impurity will break the thread, so the thread will not be long.
By the same principle, in walking the Bodhisattva Path, it’s best “to be like PET”, as it can create a continuous thread that is long can be woven into fabrics. What this means is we should not bring with us unwholesome thoughts, interpersonal issues, or disputes. We need to transform our consciousnesses into wisdoms.
Interpersonal issues and disputes arise from knowledge. When we think, “Do you think I know nothing? I know what you are saying”, these thoughts arise from knowledge. Such kind of cleverness and quick wit only brings us afflictions. We need to develop wisdom and keep our heart pure. To do this, we need to transform our consciousnesses into wisdoms.
Therefore, we need to transform our first five consciousnesses into the wisdom of fulfillment of deed. The five consciousnesses cognize what the eyes see, what the ears hear, what the nose smells, what our body feels, etc. That’s what the first five consciousnesses do. We use our wisdom to turn the consciousnesses of the five sense organs into the wisdom of fulfillment of deed.
Everything we see, we discern them with our wisdom. (We can see what’s going on and decide to do what is right.) For people who are suffering, we should go and help them. How do we provide help? The wisdom of fulfillment of deed helps us complete the tasks of helping people with our understanding of the situation. When something is right,(we do it). That is carrying out the wisdom of fulfillment of deed, by transforming our first five consciousnesses.
We should also transform our sixth consciousnesses, which is our mind. Our six consciousnesses give rise to our thoughts. We should transform sixth consciousnesses into the wisdom of wondrous observation. We should analyze (the situation) and not give rise to unwholesome thoughts. We should not bring affliction interpersonal issues, and disputes with us into our group of volunteers.
Now that we have learned the Dharma, we should guard our mind against afflictions and get rid of them. Having gotten rid of them, why would we bring afflictions into our lives or even into our group of volunteers? We shouldn’t do that. So, we need to develop the wisdom of wondrous observation. We need to pay attention to our thoughts that’s how we transform our sixth consciousness. We should be mindful of our thoughts and transform our sixth consciousness into the wisdom of wondrous observation.
We should also transform our seventh consciousness, which is our mind and self-consciousness. We should turn our seventh consciousness into the wisdom of impartiality. We should regard everyone equally. Even if we had held grudge against someone, now we let go of the grudge and treat everyone equally. This is the wisdom of impartiality.
We should transform our seventh consciousness, which is how we think, into the wisdom of impartiality. Everyone is a potential Buddha and deserves our respect. Everyone may become a Buddha in the future. Don’t create interpersonal issues like blending PP (with PET). I hope everyone can be mindful of this.
We should also transform our eighth consciousness into the wisdom like a great, clear, round mirror. Our heart should be like a clean mirror. Avoid gossiping or holding grudge against others. Not only should we avoid holding grudge ourselves, we should also avoid passing on gossips. We should not stir up ill feelings.
All in all, we need to cultivate ourselves on the Bodhisattva Path. When one’s heart is pure, cultivating is easy. When our heart isn’t pure, it is hard to attain Buddhahood. Like having PP(in PET, the thread is broken); or having a stroke, (the blood cannot get through.) Our journey on the Bodhisattva Path will be interrupted.
So, this is my expectation for everyone. The attendees of this ceremony are all Tzu Chi volunteers. (No matter which room you are in at this Jing Si Hall right now,) all of you are Tzu Chi volunteers, and I want to speak frankly to you. What I said is how one truly walks the Bodhisattva Path and serves as a bodhisattva. Please be mindful in this.
We need to work together in unity and harmony and join our efforts together to give Great Love to the World. There are a lot of sufferings in this world, so living bodhisattvas reach out and help those in suffering. Whenever we give of ourselves, we form good affinities and create blessings. That’s how one walks the Bodhisattva Path. After the ceremony today, we have more volunteers.
However, I hope to see commissioners working more diligently. We need to pass on the light, so we can light up the world. Emulate the Buddha’s heart and carry out my mission are something that must be passed on. Emulating the Buddha’s heart is having great compassion in our hear . Carrying out my mission is to act with a heart of bodhisattva.
Everyone must work together in unity and harmony and encourage one another. Do you understand? (Yes.) Being certified is not the end of your training, it’s just the beginning of your Bodhisattva Path, so be diligent in cultivating your wisdom and blessings.
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