Lecturer: Master Zheng-Yan
Subject: Create a Pure Land with Compassion and Wisdom (纏綿感情眾生迷)
How long will we live? How much karma do we have? How long can we remain peaceful and at ease? Everything has to do with time. What we do with the time in our lives truly requires careful planning. If we are not mindful, the amount of time we spend in ignorance and affliction is very frightening.
If we can plan our lives well, then in this lifetime, we will have a lot of time to feel peaceful and free. Therefore, we must be very mindful. As I said earlier, “we need to earnestly seize Assisting Conditions.” We must take advantage of good opportunities and quickly focus on repentance.
“Today, we utilize this mind of goodness. We plead and repent.”
That is what I said yesterday. Since we know that the Law of Karma never lets up, we must cautiously safeguard our minds. Therefore, we must cherish and utilize the Assisting Conditions. We need to plead and repent.
We disciples, from Beginningless Time until today, have faced retribution in the Six Realms. With this consciousness, the mind is constantly filled with foolishness and delusions.
“We disciples.” We are all Buddhists and call ourselves the Buddha’s disciples. “From Beginningless Time until today, we have faced retribution in the Six Realms. With this consciousness the mind is constantly filled with foolishness and delusions.”
Fellow practitioners, these verses indicate that since we understand the previous principles, now we need to know about Beginningless Time. It is an incalculable amount of time of cycles of births and deaths. We have lived an immeasurable number of lives since Beginningless Time. We “have faced retribution in the Six Realms.” In the cycles of birth and death, we may have been born in Heaven.
If we create a lot of blessings through the 10 Good Deeds, we can be reborn in Heaven. Heaven is filled with bliss. However, heavenly blessings will be exhausted. Once we deplete them, we fall back into the Human Realm. As aforementioned, the Three Lower Realms, Hell, Hungry Ghost & Animal, are full of suffering. Once the suffering ends, we will be reborn in the Human Realm again. Where we end up depends on our deeds.
If we practice the10 Good Deeds, we will ascend to Heaven. The opposite of the 10 Good Deeds is the 10 Evil Deeds. Those with heavy negative karma will fall into Hell, Hungry Ghost, or Animal Realms. Whether we end up in Heaven or Hell depends on what we do in the Human Realm. Only in the Human Realm can we practice. We often read in the Sutras that Buddha said, “Buddhahood cannot be attained in Heaven; it is attained in the Human Realm.” In this realm suffering and joy are intermixed.
In the Human Realm, we can see people who seem to be living in heaven on earth. Once we visited the family of a lay practitioner. His home was extremely opulent. From the outside it looked extravagant. Once we entered the house, we could see how affluent and rich he was. In the bathroom alone, the amount that was spent on the tub, sinks, and faucets, etc., could have allowed many families to comfortably clothe and feed themselves. Just the amount spent on one bathroom could support so many families.
In our morning Volunteer Assembly, I mentioned that in Indonesia, there are people living by the railroad tracks. Some even live between different sets of track. Their homes are illegally-built shacks and are all very run-down. The people there live less than one meter away from the tracks. We saw a woman who came out to do laundry and used a bucket to fetch water. When the train passed by, it was only inches away from her bucket. It looked extremely dangerous. Those living by the tracks are in Jakarta, a big metropolitan area. So many trains run in and out of the city. A train passes by every two to three minutes. Look at those shacks, densely packed together, patched up. The shacks are so run-down that they are like a piece of clothing constantly being repaired. These people are constantly brushing by the trains.
We saw that some of the people have broken their arms, perhaps due to an accident with a passing train. We also heard that many people have been killed by an oncoming train in a moment of inattention. Each shack is only 100 to 150 sq ft. Two or three families rented each shack. Some families slept in it during the day, other families slept in it at night. The shacks were very small, shabby, dirty and had a foul odor. The biggest shack was about 150 sq ft. Two or three families shared a place. They had lived there for decades.
We see that in the homes of wealthy families, the bathroom alone is 250 to 300 sq ft and holds a sauna. If we compare these two places, don’t we see Heaven and Hell in the world? So what we strive to do is help those who are materially wealthy recognize and cherish their blessings, and seize every chance to create more blessing by helping those who are suffering, like those living in poor conditions with three families to a small shack. We hoped those families could quickly leave those dangerous conditions, and that these people and those living in shacks along the Angke River could have a place where they can lead a stable life with peace of mind.
A stable life requires a place that is safe, has good sanitation, ventilation & lighting. Aren’t such conditions found in our Great Love House? These are place where people can settle down, where those of us who are blessed, our volunteers, the living Bodhisattvas, can further attend to their needs. We helped them stabilize their lives. By enabling them to settle down physically, their minds were naturally at peace.
Then we went a step further and fulfilled their educational needs. Once their lives were stable, their children could receive a good education. We can see that the village provides for them in life and death, taking care of their health and daily needs. They have truly been through Heaven and Hell. We have rescued them from Hell on Earth and relocated them to Heaven.
However, can these heavenly living conditions last forever? All material things will eventually break down. After a few decades, if those living there do not change their minds and karma, then no matter how clean or wonderful the environment is now, it will still become dirty. The buildings will age and deteriorate. This will happen after a few decades. So, what is most important now is saving minds. I was most happy to hear one resident say, “There is no need to be afraid. Confidently accept this gift. Though Tzu Chi is a Buddhist organization, they will not try to sway our religious beliefs. They are all good people who have come to help us and give us much love. We should follow their footsteps. If they teach us how to care for others, we should quickly follow their example.” The spirit of volunteerism has already been rooted in their minds. Their wisdom is sprouting. This is our greatest wish. If we inspire everyone in the Great Love Village, then every household and every individual will be a seed of goodness. If we can help them develop the mindset of Bodhisattva and instill in them the idea of creating blessings, then I believe we will see more heavens on Earth.
Every thought is a seed. If we all have the mind of a Bodhisattva, we can use love, compassion and wisdom to transform this defiled world into a Pure Land.
In the Human Realm, we can find all Six Realms, whether Heaven, Hell, Hungry Ghost, or Animal realm. If we practice the 10 Good Deeds, we will be blessed and born in Heaven, or if we are reborn in the Human Realm, we will experience more joy than suffering.
In this world, there are many who are very happy. If we tell them about the suffering in life, they ask, “Where is the pain? I think being human is great.” These are the people I worry about more. Even Heavenly blessing can be depleted, let alone the blessings of this world. The blessings here will be exhausted eventually. We often hear various volunteers talk about their prosperous lifestyle in the past. But when they reached middle-age or old-age, changes to their careers led to changes in their lifestyle. There were also changes to their family and to their health. They either became poor, homeless, suffered illnesses, or lost their loved ones. Many families have experienced this. There is a well-known Chinese saying, “Wealth does not last beyond 3 generations.” Worldly wealth will not last forever, but people mistake it for something permanent. Life is very impermanent, yet people delude themselves and think that a pleasure-filled life will last. Such people are capable of helping others, yet seeing people living and drowning in difficulties, they are unwilling to lend a helping hand. This is very regrettable.
Thus, we wish to spread the seeds of love, to purify people’s minds so that the wealthy can become loving and live a spiritually rich life. They can be rich in love as well as material goods. Only when we are wealthy physically can spiritually are we truly blessed.
If we have both material and spiritual wealth, we give with a heart of gratitude, and open our hearts to help others. This is the most blessed life.
We are fortunate in this big Tzu Chi family to have people who are the rich among the rich. Look at our volunteers in Indonesia. We could not do so much without these people who are rich in material wealth, strength and love. Their social status, ability, and influence allow them to reach the president. They are often guests of the president. So, they can reach the president, as well as normal citizens. These entrepreneurs are willing to give back. So I am truly grateful that there are so many “rich among the rich” in our family, in our organization, who enable us to do what we wish to do.
We can quickly help those who are suffering. If we can do this, we will always be blessed. Whether we are born in Heaven or Human Realms, if we have more blessings than suffering, we must take advantage of that. Even Heaven is impermanent, how much more so in the Human Realm! So, in this impermanent world, we must seize our opportunities and utilize these good Assisting Conditions. Whether are in the Human Realm, Heaven, or any of the Six Realms, we must cherish these karmic conditions. So everyone, please always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV 靜思晨語 法譬如水)
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