20180413轉識成智護眾生 Transforming Consciousnesses into Wisdoms to Care for All Living Beings
In Buddha’s time, being a bodhisattva and walking the Bodhisattva Path is an ideal. Right now in this world, Tzu Chi volunteers are serving as living bodhisattvas. We give of ourselves with love to help people including strangers. We take initiative to help people in need. Thought we are ordinary beings, we can still row a boat despite being seriously ill.
In the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings, one can deliver oneself as well as others to the other shore. Despite we are ordinary beings, we can still deliver others to the other shore, because we have learned the Dharma first and we have understood the Dharma. Although we still have afflictions, we need to share the Dharma with others.
The Dharma is like a boat, a mean for us to deliver people to the other shore. We need to be mindful in doing this. We need to be truly mindful in giving of ourselves to help those in suffering.
By transforming our consciousnesses into wisdoms, we turn our knowledge and experience of working with people into the wisdom of bodhisattvas. This is how we transform our consciousness into wisdoms. We often talk about the five sense organs, five sense objects, and five consciousnesses. In these, our eyes correspond to material objects we see. Therefore, we can discern objects. This is how the sense organs correspond to their respective sense objects.
We use our ear to hear. As I am talking now, everyone uses their ears to listen. I’m use my tongue and my mouth to talk now, and people use their ears to listen. This is how the sense organs, sense objects, and con
Each of these five sense organs has its own consciousness. There are the five sense organs, the five sense objects, and the five consciousnesses. We can discern things because of these consciousnesses. With these consciousnesses, ordinary beings discern things they encounter. “Oh, I love this. I don’t want that.”
The things we like start to pile up. They became trash after not being used for a long time. Some buy things for momentary enjoyment. They only like things when they are new and they throw away old ones. This causes our current problems to consumption and waste. We’ve exhausted our resources and produced waste.
With our consciousness, we pursuit new things for our own enjoyment and cause a lot of problems. Now that we understand this, we know to cherish material goods. With globe warming, the way to lower the Earth’s temperature is to curb our desires. How do we do that? By using our wisdom to help living beings in suffering, we turn waste into useful things and help people with them.
Consumers use their consciousnesses; wise people use their wisdom to recycle and prolong the life of material goods to help all living beings with their love. This is turning the five consciousnesses into the wisdom of fulfillment of deed. Everyone in our society is influenced by the five sense organs, the five sense objects, and the five consciousnesses. As such, they give rise to a lot of desires, which comes from the consciousnesses.
The six consciousnesses follow the five sense organs and the five sense objects, and then give rise to desires. When we see something we like, we will do whatever we can to get it, fuss over it, and then create karma because of it. All these are the doings of the sixth consciousness. Karma comes from the doings of the sixth consciousness. We should transform our sixth consciousness into the wisdom of wondrous observation.
We would then think deeply and understand that this kind of pleasure is temporary. Take our carving for meat for example. For 3 seconds of enjoyment, we eat animals. If we use our wisdom, we can think differently and protect the lives of all living beings on this Earth. So, to truly help all living beings, we need to give with love by using wisdom. Fulfilling our desires only brings temporary satisfaction.
If we learn to think deeply, we can develop the wisdom of wondrous observation. This is transforming our sixth consciousness into the wisdom of wondrous observation. We can transform the seventh consciousness into the wisdom of impartiality. All living beings are equal. How do we have the heart to eat them?
All lives are equal. We should respect all lives with love. One of the upcoming chapters in the Lotus Sutra is “The Never-Slighting Bodhisattva”. He never slights people because they will attain Buddhahood one day. That’s because all living beings have Buddha nature. All living beings have the potential to become Buddha.
The eight consciousness stores all the karma that we have created. So, as the saying goes, “When we pass away, we take nothing but our karma with us.” All the good and bad karma we have created is stored in our eighth consciousness. When we pass away and our consciousness leaves our bodies, what may become of us is what we need to learn and contemplate.
So, I keep saying that we need not to be afraid of death, as long as we take good care of our heart and mind, keep forming good affinities with all beings, serve amongst people, and remember our initial aspirations of serving as a bodhisattva. We must see and use the Dharma when serving others. The Dharma is for us to learn and see, and become awaken from. The Buddha came to this world to share his wisdom with people.
The Buddha taught us his wisdom, and we should truly accept his teachings, and gain insights from them. We need to learn to tap into the Buddha’s teachings. The Buddha had showed us his wisdom, so we need to take in and become awakened. We need to be mindful. No matter how old we are, we should make the best use of our life and continue to serve.
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