Lecturer: Master Zheng-Yan
Subject: Practicing the Dharma in Body and Mind (身心不離法)
By the second, by the minute, time passes. This time today is different from the same time yesterday. That moment has gone. Our lives are like this. With the passing of each day, our life is shorter by a day. If we are not diligent, impermanence will consume our lives.
So, we must remain calm and focused on the Dharma. Doing so, we are diligently practicing the Dharma in body and mind. When the body and mind follow the Dharma, that is called diligence.
The Four Elements are like poisonous snakes. The Five Skandhas are like vicious thieves. The Six Entrances are like an empty village, and superficial love is disguised as something good.
Yesterday we spoke of the Four Elements and Five Skandhas. We should remember that the Four Elements need to be in harmony. If one of them is out of balance, the body weakens, and we become ill. Everyone knows that being ill is the greatest torment. So we want to keep the body and mind healthy. In a healthy body the Four Elements are in harmony. To attain a healthy mind, one needs to know that “the Five Skandhas are like vicious thieves.”
When our Six Roots come into contact with the Six Dusts, feelings of greed, love, and dislike arise. Some people love bird [watching]. They are willing to go to very remote areas to watch them in their native habitats, even though much time is wasted in travel. Every morning here at the Abode, we hear birds chirping and insects humming. Listening to them, we sense the beauty of this environment. We can hear the birds singing. Earlier, we heard insects humming. And before the chirping and humming, we heard the sound of the earth breathing. Everything depends on how peaceful our minds are. If we are peaceful, we will be able to peacefully experience the external environment. In that moment of contact, what is the feeling produced?
Every day, around this time, I sit down, and it is this time of day that I am most at ease. I am aware that I am breathing. I know how my breath merges with space. I clearly hear the birds chirping outside. I am aware, inside and out. One can experience the beauty of nature by listening to the sound created by the birds singing and insects humming together. The sound is beautiful; the rhythm is uplifting. It brings people joy and peace. So, having a mind that is tranquil and calm allows us to experience a state of beauty. Then we will not have to travel far away to enjoy the birds. Some people catch birds and lock them in cages so that they can look at them every day. This is wrong. Because of this attachment, the bird has lost its freedom.
If one loves a bird, one should give it space, a natural environment with the open ocean and sky. Allow it the freedom to choose where to live. This is genuine love. When we respect other people’s boundaries, we practice unconditional love. Then, we do not interfere with others or interfere with the environment. Thus, our minds will be open and free, with no attachments, no worries. In this way we will not be disturbed by the Aggregate of Form, and our thinking will not go astray. From “form” and “sensation”, “perception” arises. One thinks, “I love birds,” and because of that craving, one takes “action”. Once the Five Skandhas, or Five Aggregates, are set in motion, they create all kinds of karma. The resulting karmic seeds are lodged in our Storehouse Consciousness, causing us to lose control, life after life, and make negative karmic connections.
If we form bad relationships in this life, those seeds will be stored in our minds and also in the mind of the other person. Once these bad relationships are created, their seeds plant themselves in our Storehouse Consciousness and in that of others. So in the next life, we will be entangled again. When negative karmic conditions come together, the cycle of hatred and retaliation continues. So if we do not create bad relationships, there will be no bad karmic seeds. Consciousness, through the Aggregate of Action, causes us to form many bad relationships. This goes on life after life, with no end in sight.
Next is “Six Entrances are like an empty village”. The Six Entrances are form, sound, smell, taste, touch and thought.
External objects come into contact with the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. External objects perceived through the Six Sense Organs are taken in by the consciousness. Everything we hear and see is taken in. External objects enter the mind and arouse feelings of attachment through the Six Entrances. In reality, they are like “an empty village”. It works like a mirror. If the mirror is clear, it reflects mountains as mountains, trees as trees, cats as cats, and dogs as dogs. It reflects objects as they are. Take hearing, for example, when we hear the sound of a cat, the image of a cat appears in our mind. Looking outside, I see that the day is braking; the trees become clearer. My eyes perceive these objects. Then through my sense Roots, they enter my consciousness.
These are the Six Entrances at work. Another example is when we taste things. The saltiness and the sweetness are external, and enter through the sense organ of the tongue. We then make the judgment that something is “too salty” or “not sweet enough”. As the consciousness perceives things, sensations are formed. So we call these the Six Entrances. In fact, these Six Entrances will disappear when the conditions are no longer present. They will cease to exist. We should know then that these objects are impermanent and transitory. They are empty in nature, yet we cling to them as if they exist. Because our craving for them remains, we continue to grasp and pursue these objects. Because of craving, we deceive ourselves into thinking that these objects are good and wholesome.
Consider the love between a man and a woman. While courting, they feel intense affection for one another. They vow that they will never change. They swear that till the day they die, they will continue to love each other. But in a short time, soon after marriage, they begin to change. As time passes, conditions change. The past has passed; the present is now. The past was a time of new love, a budding romance between a man and a woman. But now married, they must work hard for the family, go out for business dinners, and so on. Everyone has his or her excuses. Is this indeed true love? Does romantic love truly last forever? Will it stand the test of time and never change?
Remember, I sad that our physical bodies and our lives are constantly changing. During infancy, our physical form was that of an infant. We were all once babies, living in tiny bodies. Gradually we grew up. We became children, teenagers, young adults, middle-aged, and then elderly. Each stage has a different name. Because appearances constantly change, our bodies cannot remain young and healthy forever. We cannot look young or keep our love vibrant and fresh forever. How long does “forever” last?
The truth is that life is impermanent. Even the so-called love of a lifetime will change. So “Superficial love disguised as good” is merely the “deceitful illusion of love”. Love is illusory. Therefore, we should see through the illusion and clearly understand the nature of reality. If we are clear about the principles and know right from wrong, we will not crave things that do not belong to us. This is the illusion we should see through. When we do not understand this, we are subject to craving and infatuation. We must not be like that.
Craving and infatuation are illusory, arising from conditions. When the conditions are gone, things change. If one can see through appearances, understand the truth, and differentiate right from wrong, desires and attachments will not arise.
We often hear people say, “I find people very disappointing. I treat cats, dogs, birds and other animals better than I treat people.” Thus, these people have a lot of pets. Is this right or wrong? Earlier I said that animals need their own environments. Letting them live freely is true love.
I also want to tell you a story. I read about in the Merit Times. It is an amazing story and proves that all beings in the Six Realms are sensitive and have deep feelings. This story is about a cat, who really had a sixth sense. It was able to find its owner who moved far away. The story happened in France. The owner of this cat was about to move from the south to the north. The cat got along well with the family and everyone in the family loved it very much. However, the owner was relocating, and left the cat with a friend who lived in the neighborhood. He said “please take care of this cat. It is for you to keep.”
The neighbor also loved this cat very much, and treated it very nicely. The owner then moved to the north, about eight hundred kilometers away. But this cat missed its previous owners, so one say it ran away. The cat left to look for its owner. How was the cat able to travel 800 km, and find its original owners? After 13 months, the cat showed up in front of its owner’s new house. The cat was discovered by the owner’s daughter. When the cat saw the daughter, it snuggled up against her leg, just as it used to in the south. When the cat did this, it meant it wanted to be held and petted.
When this story got out and the media broke the news, a veterinarian commented that both cats and dogs have a sixth sense when they form close relationships with their owners. Sometimes, if their owners are in danger, even before the owners realize it, the cat or dog will already sense it. I remember during the earthquake in September 1999, there were stories like this. For example, a dog kept barking, even before the earthquake had struck. It barked again and again, until its owner woke up and wondered what was going on. Shortly thereafter, the earthquake struck. The owner hurried out just before the entire before the entire house collapsed. This is a story of a dog saving its owner with its ability to foresee the disaster. Animals in the Animal Realm, dogs, cats, pigs, even cows, all have a sixth sense.
Everyone, reincarnation within the Six Realms does exist, and it is beyond our control. This is because every action we take is stored in our Eight Consciousness. It is beyond our control to decide where we go in our next life. We must realize that reincarnation does exist. Do not be tempted by illusory things to create negative karma because of cravings. So everyone, please always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV 靜思晨語 法譬如水)
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