Explanations by Master Cheng-Yan
Subject: Opening the Door to Prajna with Faith and Wisdom (信解慧明 開般若門)
Date: March. 10.2019
“We must destroy all deviant views, conserve our energy and focus our spirit. Then, we will achieve Samadhi and become peaceful and stable in our cultivation of right thinking. With faith, understanding and clear wisdom, we will open the door to prajna and give rise to Dharma-joy. We must discipline our mind to become resolute.”
We must be mindful! As we learn the Buddha’s teachings, the most valuable thing we can do is to destroy deviant views. As Buddhist practitioners, the most important thing we can do is maintain an upright mind without ever deviating. I often say, “A slight deviation takes us far off course.” Whenever we deviate in the slightest, a single deviant thought leads to countless deviant thoughts, and we will go in the wrong direction. This is why unenlightened beings suffer. Our suffering comes from our deviant thinking and understanding. Our way of thinking, our faith and understanding, have veered off course, thus we have ignorance, afflictions and so on that keep us confused and unable to reach awakening. This is all because of “deviance”. “Deviant” means wrongful, aberrant. Now, as we seek to rectify our wrongful thoughts, we must “destroy all deviant views.”
I often tell everyone that we must take good care of our minds. Haven’t we spoken of this these last few days? We must “focus our mind and remain in meditation.” “Meditation” is more than just sitting there. Meditation is Samadhi. Samadhi is right mindfulness. We must discipline our minds to abide in right mindfulness. With right mindfulness, we “focus our mind and remain in meditation.” This does not mean that we spend all day long simply sitting there in meditation. This means we must be aware of our every thought and keep it from veering off course. Therefore, we must work hard. Cultivating merits and virtues is hard work. If we align our thoughts in the right direction, we will not deviate as we set out to do things. When our mind is utterly upright, we will make no mistakes in our perception of others or our actions. So, right mindfulness is very important. Everyone, we truly must practice mindful thinking. With an upright mind, we must “conserve our energy and focus our spirit.” This means we must not waste our energy. Usually, when we speak of entering Samadhi, this means maintaining right mindfulness, right mindfulness without any flaws. Here, it says that we must focus, to “conserve our energy and focus our spirit.” This is meant to remind us all that we must focus our energy and keep it from leaking away. We must work hard to focus our minds. This is what it means to “conserve our energy.” By indulging in foolish thoughts, we waste away our energy, bit by bit. We squander our spirit and our energy, letting them waste away and dissipate like this. This is how we unenlightened beings often fritter away our energy and thoughts. However, as Buddhist practitioners, we must learn how to focus our thoughts. This is how we “conserve our energy”. Our mind must always be focused; we must concentrate and be mindful. We must not allow [any thoughts] to leak away. A little while ago, I was telling everyone that we must have no leaks; we must be flawless. Yet, where does this flawlessness come from? It comes from listening, contemplating, practicing and precepts, Samadhi and wisdom. As we listen to the Dharma, we must contemplate it carefully. We cannot listen to it with a distracted mind; we must listen to it with a focused, sincere mind, with great focus and sincerity. This is a focused and sincere mind. If we listen with focus and sincerity, we will naturally take the Dharma to heart, and then we will be able to practice it. This is “listening, contemplating and practicing.”
When we are focused and sincere as we accept the Dharma, we will be able to contemplate its meaning. Having grasped its meaning, as we head in the right direction, we will be able to mindfully put it into action and advance in our spiritual cultivation. This is how we cultivate merits and virtues. We must focus the energy inside us and work hard to keep from frittering it away.
A few days ago, I talked about our “spirit”. The purest mode of thought, the essence of our mind and energy, is our spirit. [People have various conceptions of] the spirit. [Our spirit] is how we keep our mind in meditation and remain in a state of right mindfulness. So, we must be mindful to remember these words. Then, we will be able to “achieve Samadhi and become peaceful and stable.” Only then will be able to calm our mind, becoming peaceful and stable so that we will not be easily distracted. So, our mind and spirit must be calm and focused. This is “right thinking.” As for this right thinking, as everyone knows, I refer to meditation as “right thinking.” We just spoke of “meditation.” To focus our minds and destroy deviant views, we must align ourselves to right mindfulness. Meditation is Samadhi. Samadhi is meditation; they are different words, but they mean the same thing. If we go too deep in explaining meditation and make it overly abstruse, people will waste energy trying to understand it, and this will actually cause problems. But if we [explain it] the right way, it becomes easy to understand. If we can be mindful, we can [employ] very simple [explanations] to understand right mindfulness and meditation. How do we do this? What words can we use to explain it clearly in terms of our everyday life? How can we learn to focus our mind and spirit? With these methods, we should be able to understand. With the ability to concentrate, we become peaceful and stable. We know how to destroy deviant views. We know how to conserve our energy and focus our spirit by focusing the mind. This is how we achieve Samadhi. This is how we are able to calm our minds. This is power. This is the power of concentration; with concentration, we have power. A calm mind is a powerful thing. This all comes from “right thinking.” Earlier, we discussed how we must “destroy deviant views, conserve our energy and focus our spirit.” This is all part of “achieving Samadhi and becoming peaceful and stable” in right thinking. This all comes down to our mind and way to thinking.
We often wonder how we should engage in spiritual practice. In fact, so long as we have clear understanding, spiritual practice is quite simple. Where does right thinking come from? It comes from faith and understanding. In this part [of the sutra], the Chapter on Distinguishing Merits and Virtues, great importance is placed on faith and understanding. No matter how long we have practiced the first five paramitas, we must also have faith and understanding, right faith and understanding, to be able to experience prajna. Without prajna, we are like boats unable to reach the shore. No matter how long we steer this boat, if our bearing is off, how will we ever make it to shore? [This] can only be done with prajna.
So, the first five paramitas are meant to help us, but most important of all is the power of our direction. For this, we must apply our wisdom. Wisdom comes from faith and understanding. People typically practice giving, precepts, patience and diligence. Anyone can practice these things. But when it comes to being able to practice wisdom and demonstrate wisdom, if we fail to uphold right faith and understanding in our practice of the Five Paramitas, we will easily become lost [in the pursuit of] merit and virtue. This is a shallow kind of merit and virtue. We will only think, “I give just so I can attain merits and virtues.” Yes, we will have merits and virtues, the merits and virtues of heavenly beings. We will avoid losing our human form and enjoy heavenly blessings, but the goal of our spiritual cultivation is not merely to enjoy blessings. What we must cultivate is wisdom. Thus, wisdom is very important.
We must be replete in both wisdom and blessings. So, we need faith and understanding. With faith and understanding, we gain proper blessings and wisdom. Without faith and understanding, we can only cultivate blessings, not wisdom. Thus, faith and understanding are very important. We must have faith and understanding to be able to “open the door prajna,” to open the door to wisdom. In the doors to our mind, we have yet to open the door that leads to the pure Buddha-nature. We have yet to open the door to our pure, intrinsic Tathagata-nature because we still have afflictions. We carry our affections with us as we engage in spiritual practice. The goal of spiritual practice is to eliminate afflictions. Thus, in order to eliminate our afflictions we must destroy all deviant views. Whether we are on our first step or have already traveled very far, we must remember to maintain our original aspirations. We must also cultivate this aspiration to approach the door to liberation. This door will truly lead us to liberation; this door is “the door to prajna.”When we open the door to prajna, the doors to our nature of True Suchness and to our wisdom will also open, and we will “give rise to Dharma-joy.” As soon as we open the door to our wisdom, at that moment, we will truly become peaceful and at ease. Then, we will truly be filled with Dharma-joy. This also requires us to “discipline our mind to become resolute.” We must mindfully seek to realize this resolute will to practice.
As we cultivate world-transcending practices, we come to love and take joy in the Great Dharma. Then, as we nourish the seeds of the path, we give rise to joy in our hearts. This is called Dharma-joy.
So, as we engage in spiritual cultivation, we are cultivating world-transcending practices. We must not only pursue worldly blessings; no, what we must seek, what we must cultivate are world-transcending practices. Otherwise, we will just keep walking in place in this world, and all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will still be a long way away from being able to move on from [this world]. The Buddha’s goal in transforming sentient beings is for us to attain liberation. He hopes that each of us will truly be able to liberate ourselves from the form and desire [realms]. We must completely rid ourselves of the form and formless realms and the desire realm. This is liberation from the Three Realms. In the Three Realms, it is important to cultivate ourselves to eliminate desire and craving. Only by eliminating desire and craving will we be able to broaden our minds. Once we have broadened our minds and liberated ourselves from desirous thoughts, we must try even harder to eliminate afflictions. Once we have eliminated our afflictions, we must still go on to eliminate our delusions. We must completely eliminate our delusions, all of our afflictions, desirous thoughts and every single one of our faults, however, small, before we can reach “great perfect mirror wisdom”. By doing this work, on level after another, we are “turning consciousness into wisdom”. We must elevate our wisdom level by level and step by step until we reach “great perfect mirror wisdom”. We cannot stop at “universal equality wisdom”. We must also reach “great perfect mirror wisdom”.
I have been telling everyone for a while now that I hope we will always remain fearless in the face of difficulties. Over and over again, [I have voiced] my hopes that everyone will be able to clearly understand the Dharma and put it to use in our lives. As long as we live, we must use every kind of tool available to us in this world. only in this world do we have the opportunity to practice giving. Only in this world are we able to uphold precepts and practice diligence. Because the people of this world constantly transmigrate through cyclic existence, we must earnestly accept and uphold the precepts. We must “refrain from all evil and practice all that is good”. We must diligently do what is good, upholding the precepts while eliminating all evil. We must be in the human world to get the opportunity to do any of this. Therefore, we must work hard to be mindful. To uphold the precepts and practice diligence, we must be patient. We must have the patience to keep diligently advancing, to keep putting in the effort to learn right views and understanding and figure out how to calm our minds. These five [paramitas] are impossible to achieve without going among people.
By telling everyone to focus on prajna, to focus on wisdom, I am not saying that we should abandon the practice of giving, precepts, patience and diligence. I am not telling you to abandon these practices. These practices are very important. We must embody them all. When it comes to the first five paramitas, they must be [actualized] in the world. With wisdom, [the sixth], we will know they way to open the door to liberation, allowing us to approach the True Suchness of the Buddha, our pure, undefiled awakened nature. To do this, we must we be very mindful. “As we cultivate world-transcending practices”, faith and understanding are very important. With faith and understanding, we will naturally “come to love and take joy in the Great Dharma”. We will approach the Dharma with great love and joy. We must listen earnestly to the Dharma so that we can take the Dharma to heart and put it to use in our daily lives. By understanding all matters and uniting them with the principles, our love and joy will grow greater and greater. The greater our love for the Dharma becomes, the closer we will approach it. “We come to love and take joy in the Great Dharma”. The Great Vehicle Dharma is inseparable from people, so, within the Great Dharma, we can “nourish the seeds of the path”. This way, our seeds of wisdom will keep on growing. When we “give rise to joy in our hearts”, this is “Dharma-joy”.
We often say we are “overflowing with Dharma-joy”. With Dharma-joy, we come to “love and take joy in the Great Dharma”. Once we “love and take joy in the Great Dharma”, naturally, our seeds of the path will grow endlessly, and our heart will become more and more joyful. This is Dharma-joy. Human life is full of suffering, so how can we feel constant joy? If we have the Dharma, we will always be very joyful, we will always be very joyful, and no hardship in the world will ever disturb us; the joy in our hearts will never be disrupted. Therefore, we must advance diligently.
In the previous sutra passage, [the Buddha] says, “Furthermore, they advance diligence forever firm in their resolve and mindfulness.
When we learn how to take joy in the Great Dharma, we will be firm in our resolve and mindfulness, always advancing diligently. Thus, He says, “Throughout countless millions of kalpas, they are single-minded and never grow lax. Also, throughout countless kalpas, they abide in free and empty places. They engage in sitting and walking meditation. Except when asleep, they constantly discipline their minds”.
As long as we can attain Dharma-joy, naturally, our minds will never rest or grow lax. Again, He talks about [practicing] throughout many long kalpas. This may lead us to think, “Spiritual cultivation takes so long! Won’t it become tiresome?” No way! It is very interesting. Just look at how Bodhisattvas are “forever firm in their resolve and mindfulness”. Naturally, throughout countless kalpas, they will be “single-minded and never grow lax”. This is because they have attained Dharma-joy. So, over yet another long period of time, they continue to abide in free and empty places. The world is disordered and chaotic, yet the minds of Bodhisattvas remain at ease, free of troubles and afflictions. Even among people, the still say, “I am so relaxed”. They may be busy, but their minds are at ease. Despite being in this turbulent world of temptations, their minds remain free. This is the mindset of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. They have the Dharma in their hearts, so they will always have joy and abide in “free and empty places”. “They engage in sitting and walking meditation. Except when asleep they constantly discipline their mind”. They always maintain right mindfulness. Actually, even as they sleep and dream, they engage in spiritual cultivation. Everyone should remember this. Don’t the Four Practices of Bringing peace and Joy teach us this? Even while sleeping or dreaming, they still engage in spiritual cultivation, practice walking meditation, listen to the Dharma and teach the Dharma, giving rise to joy as they abide in free and empty places. Even the turbulent world of temptations, in the eyes of a spiritual practitioner, is a very peaceful environment. A pure heart will always stay pure and a clear mind will always stay clear. What is the meaning of ignorance? Spiritual practitioners do not have an ignorant mindset. If they still have ignorance within them, it means they have not cultivated themselves enough. Thus, they must continue to advance diligently.
In the next sutra passage, [the Buddha] says, “Due to these causes and conditions, they are able to give rise to all stages of Samadhi. Throughout 80 trillion kalpas, they abide in peace, minds undisturbed”. With the blessing of this single-mindedness, they vow to seek the unsurpassed path, I will attain the wisdom of all Dharma and exhaust the limits of all stages of Samadhi.
We must remember this and work hard to be mindful. We must mindfully seek to comprehend this “single-mindedness”. With the blessing of this single-mindedness, with this state of mind, we must [remain] mindful. In our daily [recitation], we often prostrate to the Lotus Sutra. The text we use in our prostrations comes from the Lotus Repentance Practice, the first part of which comes before we enter into repentance; this is when we usually recite it. Don’t we always recite this passage while we pay our respects to the Lotus Sutra?
In the Lotus Repentance Practice, it says: We single-mindedly prostrate to all the ever-abiding Buddhas. Throughout the ten directions. We single-mindedly prostrate to the ever-abiding Dharma throughout the ten directions. We single-mindedly prostrate to the entire ever-abiding. Sangha throughout the ten directions. We single-mindedly prostrate to all the ever-abiding Buddhas throughout the ten directions .
The ever-abiding Buddhas pervade the Dharma-realm of the universe. Our right thinking pervades all directions. Thus, with right thinking, there is no place without Right Dharma, nor any place that is not a spiritual training ground, nor any place where Buddha does not exist. In every place, there are ever-abiding Buddhas, the ever-abiding Dharma and the ever-abiding Sangha. So, we often say that every moment is the perfect moment, and every place is the perfect place. People often say, “Let’s wait for the right day.” They must wait for the perfect day to do anything. If they want to build a house, they need to find the perfect place and direction. Does it have to be this way? Over the past few decades, we have never waited for “the perfect time” to do a project, we just started it whenever we could. We never wait for the perfect time or perfect day. Every moment is the perfect moment. We do not wait to find the perfect place. Every place is the perfect place. This is the meaning behind “all the ever-abiding Buddhas throughout the ten directions”. The Buddha is perfect enlightenment, and we will find this in every direction. As long as we find a place that looks decent to us, then it is satisfactory, it is the right place. This is the right place. As I am sitting here speaking, which direction do you sit in? Of course, this is the way things should be; this is the direction. This way, you can see and hear and concentrate. This demonstrates matters as well as principles. This is the way it should be. These are matters as well as principles It all works in the same way.
“We single-mindedly prostrate to all the ever-abiding Buddhas throughout the ten directions”. The Buddha is everywhere.
In the latter part of the Lotus Sutra, Never-Slighting Bodhisattva [appears]. You have not heard this part yet, but you are very familiar with Never-Slighting Bodhisattva. Since he treated everyone as a Buddha, he prostrated [to people] no matter the place. By the same principle, everything is Dharma
Everything we see, every tangible object, is imbued with its own principles. The principles are the Dharma, thus [the Dharma] reaches everywhere. So, we must pay our respects to the Dharma throughout the ten directions, which is also the ever-abiding Dharma
It has existed since time immemorial.
We also pay our respects to the ever-abiding Sangha. The Sangha represents propriety. They become monastics and carry on the Buddha’s teachings, continuing to pass them down. The Sangha are representatives of the Buddha-Dharma and the path to awakening. They also represent the Buddha and the Dharma. They lead us all toward the Buddha-Dharma. The Sangha must act to lead us. They take up the Tathagata’s family business and, as spiritual practitioners, they bring the principles together. They are also role models. Therefore, we must work hard to be mindful, making offerings every day with single-mindedness, with single-minded reverence. If we revere the Dharma, the Dharma is here. If we revere the Buddha, the Buddha is here. If we revere the Sangha, the Snagha is here The Three Treasures are ever-lasting, and we are all endowed with them. We might as well be prostrating to ourselves. We have no other intentions; we are single-minded.
In the sutra passage, [the Buddha] said, “Due to these causes and conditions, they are able to give rise to all Stages of Samadhi”.
Due to these causes and conditions, they are able to give rise to all stages of Samadhi: Due to these various wholesome causes and conditions, they always abide in free and empty places to discipline their minds and calmly contemplate all wholesome cause and conditions. Thus, they can give rise to the power of Samadhi.
In our hearts, we always give rise to feelings of reverence as we continue to read this sutra. So, we must have faith and understanding; we must put [the Dharma] into practice and open the doors of wisdom. This is our direction. Therefore, with our various causes and conditions if we want to engage in our spiritual practice, we cannot depart from the first five paramitas, giving, pprecepts, patience, diligence and Samadhi. These five paramitas, are the causes and conditions of our spiritual practice as well. The causes and conditions of spiritual practice require us to practice in this direction and become replete in the Five Paramitas. We must do more than practice giving, precepts patience and diligence, we also need Samadhi. Samadhi is more than just sitting in meditation, as we have just said. We must work hard to “destroy all deviant views, for if we have deviant views, it is very dangerous just to sit there with them.” We still need to be mindful! So, “Due to these various wholesome causes and conditions…” We must make use of our various and we cannot lack these previously-mentioned virtues. “They always abide in free and empty places.” Unless it is necessary, we should do what we can to avoid going to noisy, crowded places. We must discipline our minds whenever we get the chance. We must devote ourselves to doing what we should. When we need to discipline our minds, we must earnestly focus our thoughts, so we must abide in “free and empty place”. Because our efforts have yet to bring us to the state of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, when we enter noisy, crowded places to go among people and gather with them in bustling places, our minds will never be at peace. We need our minds to be at peace. When we ought to get busy, we must go about our tasks with joy. When we are done with being busy, we must calm our minds. This is also a “free and empty place”. Although we are among people, every place is an “free and empty place” to us where we can relax. Our minds must be at ease; we must do what we can to seek out such a state. We must “discipline our minds and calmly contemplate all wholesome causes and conditions”.
Most importantly, that “free and empty place” is not a room or place that we escape to, or any other means of escape. Is that a free and empty place? No! This place must be in our own mind. We must “discipline our minds and calmly contemplate”. Calm contemplation is meditation. Calm contemplation is right thinking. Calm contemplation is right mindfulness. Within our own mind, we must focus our thoughts and contemplate with right thinking, trying our best to keep from getting distracted. With “these wholesome causes and conditions, we must earnestly engage in right thinking and contemplation. How can we [practice] giving? Once we give, what should be on our minds? Should we greedily dispute over our merits? No! We must put all our greed and disputes aside and give them up entirely. We should try to do these things well, and practice giving to benefit others. Once we do this, our mind will be clear and at ease, without hindrances. These are truly wholesome causes and conditions. With wholesome causes and conditions, we will be free of hindrances, and we will benefit others without hindrances. Simply put, that is what they are. When we give without expectations, [we will say], “Oh, I feel so grateful!”
Gratitude is joy. Unconditional giving is unhindered giving. “I am so grateful!” This is Dharma-joy! This is all a very simple principle, which is to be clear and relaxed. This is the meaning of “free and empty places”. Our minds are very much at ease. What is done is done, and we have no worries about it. Everything becomes very natural. We gain a grateful mindset free of hindrances, and we will be full of joy and very relaxed. “Thus, they can give rise to the power of Samadhi.” If we can accomplish this, we will naturally give rise to Samadhi. When we give without attachments, with gratitude in our heats, free of worries, only joy in the mind and nothing else, this is Samadhi. This starts with giving, precepts and patience; from them, we attain diligence. With diligence, we understand the Dharma and become free of worries, and we will be full of gratitude and Dharma-joy. In this state, our minds will naturally become very stable. This is right Samadhi. This is Dharma-joy. This is so simple that anyone should be able to do it without difficulty. In that state, we give rise to wisdom. Of course, this takes a long time. A short period of time is not [enough]. So, “Throughout 80 trillion kalpas, they abide in peace, minds undisturbed”.
Throughout 80 trillion kalpas, they abide in peace, minds undisturbed: In their eighth consciousness, their minds abide in peace and stability.
We just discussed how once we give without expectations, we will feel joy; this is Dharma-joy. We must do this for a long period of time. “Throughout 80 trillion kalpas, they abide in peace, minds undisturbed. They abide calmly in their eighth consciousness, peaceful and stable. Regarding all the things we have accomplished, like I have told you all recently, we must “transform consciousness into wisdom”; as I explained then, we must transform the first five, sixth and seventh consciousnesses up to the eighth consciousness. When we reach the eighth consciousness, the seeds of all our actions that return to our eight consciousness will all be seeds of goodness.
As we just said, when they are all seeds of goodness, we can abide in peace and stability within our eighth consciousness. When every seed in our eight consciousness is pure, we can start to open the door of wisdom and will have no trouble uniting with the Buddha. We also have a ninth consciousness. We will have no trouble opening this door, either. So, “With the blessing of this single-mindedness, they vow to seek the unsurpassed path”.
With the blessing of this single-mindedness, they vow to seek the unsurpassed path: With this single-mindedness, they cultivate the great Vehicle and practice the Five Paramitas and more, creating blseeings. They vow to seek the Tathagata’s unsurpassed path.
They uphold this single-minded mindset, but what is this mindset? It is the Great Vehicle mindset. Within the Great Vehicle, we practice the Five Paramitas. Everyone knows about the Great Vehicle, and we all understand the Five Paramitas. We must apply the Great Vehicle. The Five Paramitas are called the Five Perfections. They all create blessings in the human world, benefiting sentient beings without hindrances. When we attain that gratitude, we will be overflowing with Dharma-joy. These are all blessings. “They vow to seek the Tathagata’s unsurpassed path”. We must do more than just seek earthly blessings. Our vow is to reach the Tathagata’s unsurpassed path. This is our direction, the direction we all take in spiritual practice.
The sutra passage goes on to say, “I will attain the wisdom of all Dharma and exhaust the limits of all stages of Samadhi”. This means that we will attain the wisdom of seeing everything as empty. “…exhaust the limits of all stages of Samadhi.”
These Five Paramitas are the first five paramitas, including giving, precepts and so on. Through these, we attain the wisdom of seeing everything as empty. There are limits to seeking Samadhi. There are limits [to this knowledge of emptiness]. To do good deeds without developing attachments, we must also earnestly cultivate ourselves and practice diligence and patience. However, this Samadhi still has its limits. This means that it is not limitless; it has its limits. Since it has its limits, it must be finite. We have yet to attain infinite merits and virtues. This all depends on the mind. When we open the door to our mind and open the door to prajna, we will see our Buddha-nature equal to the Buddha’s and awaken to the principles of all things in the world, becoming one with the universe. At that moment, we will have no limits. However, if we have merely practiced the Five Paramitas, we have yet to reach [this state]. If we seek to reach the same state as the Buddha, His unsurpassed path, we must keep working hard, for there is still another door to open.
Continuing on, in the next sutra passage, [the Buddha] says, “These people, throughout hundreds, thousands, millions and billions of kalpas, engage in all these meritorious practices as described earlier.
These people” refers to spiritual practitioners who have already practiced for a very long time. They have practiced in the past, so, in this lifetime, they are able to encounter the Buddha-Dharma and have the causes and conditions to be among such a group of Bodhisattvas and practice all kinds of good deeds in this world as Living Bodhisattvas. These people could be you all, myself, all of us. We all had blessings in the past; we are like these people. We have all practiced throughout “long kalpas.” We have [practiced] like this for a long time. So, there are many people like this.
These people, throughout hundreds, thousands, millions and billions of kalpas, engage in all these meritorious practices as described earlier: These people, throughout long kalpas, carry out these numerous meritorious practices, such as the previously-mentioned merits and virtues of the Five Paramitas.
The more time passes, as we form affinities, the more the things we do keep accumulating. Over a long time, we can do many things. Over a short time, we cannot accomplish much. We often say, “It is too late! I don’t have time for this.” We mean that there is still so much that we have not done yet, and it is too late to do any of it. Yet, the longer we spend headed in the right direction, the more we can accomplish. So, we must “carry out these numerous meritorious practices.” This is because we have spent such a long time practicing these things in the past, “such as the previously-mentioned merits and virtues of the Five Paramitas. This should be clear from reading this passage. We must seize the time we have. When we take our time to do something, we will be able to accomplish it. In this way, our practice will take us far throughout space and time. Therefore, we must be mindful. We have already finished [our discussion] of the previous passage. We must find a way to practice the Five Paramitas, to truly practice and cultivate them so that we move toward the Dharma of the path. So, we must not abandon the Five Paramitas. However, we cannot forget that there is a door that we still need to open. This is the door to prajna. Before we open the door to prajna, we must diligently advance in our practice of the Five Paramitas. However, we must always remember that we have yet to open the door to wisdom. We still do not understand the Dharma of wisdom. We have yet to truly experience it. So, we still have a long road full of hard work ahead of us. We must always seize the moment and always be mindful!
(Source: Da Ai TV – Wisdom at Dawn program – Explanation by Master Chen-Yen)
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