20140110以法淨心圓智德 Taking the Dharma to Heart and Sharing It with Others
Here in Taichung, I see how orderly Tzu Chi volunteers are a s a group. Everyone is neatly dressed in uniform and very orderly in everything they do. Seeing how orderly you are, I further hope that your hearts can be in unity as well. With unity, we can bring about a sense of dignity around here. Unity also shows our pious sincerity within.
So, to display such orderliness and unity, we must take good care of our hearts and minds. This Jing Si Hall here is very spacious. It is a good place for us to reflect and cultivate our hearts and minds. We need to cultivate a calm and still mind. For that to be possible, our minds must be very peaceful. The Buddha could attain enlightenment because his mind was in utter serenity.
His mind was very tranquil, peaceful and still. In his mind, there were no distractions unwholesome thoughts, afflictions and delusion. The Buddha’s mind was free of all these impurities. Coming to the world, he had one mission. What was that?
To deliver all living beings. This was the one and only cause that the Buddha came to this world for. The first teaching the Buddha gave was on the truths of suffering. People suffer because they can’t get rid of their afflictions and ignorance. Some may have learned the Dharma, but they are not able to take it to heart.
In that case, how can they use the Dharma to help others? So, they suffer. They suffer because they can’t use the Dharma to help themselves or others. Just think. There are more and more people in the world. If everyone doesn’t learn the Dharma and help one another with the Dharma, with everyone’s bad habitual tendencies, ignorance and illusions, we will suffer endlessly due to the afflictions in our minds.
On top of that, due to our ignorance and unwillingness to work together with others, our hearts will never become one with the Buddha’s because we can’t understand the Buddha’s heart. The Buddha understood our hearts, but we don’t understand his as we don’t really know him. I often encourage you to take the Buddha’s heart as your own.
However, because we’re unenlightened, our hearts are still far away from the Buddha’s and what stands in between are our afflictions, which have caused us to create negative karma and suffer. That’s why we’ve been kept so far away from the Buddha. So, I want to tell you that you must get rid of your afflictions as soon as they arise.
Having joined Tzu Chi, we should walk the Bodhisattva Path with a heart of loving-kindness compassion, joy and equanimity. This is very important when we give of ourselves to serve others. When we die, we take nothing with us but our karma.
We take with us not our material wealth, but the karma we’ve created. If we cannot eliminate our afflictions, we won’t be able to open our hearts. Then, how can we serve as bodhisattvas? We can never be a bodhisattva. We will only focus on cultivating ourselves and won’t be able to benefit others.
Everyone is born good and has a kind heart. Although this is good, I worry that you only want to do good but can’t eliminate your afflictions or take the Dharma to heart. In that case, your mind will always be filled with afflictions and ignorance. Although you’re doing good, you give rise to afflictions all the time and can’t accommodate others or support them in their cultivation.
It is a great pity. Recently, I’ve been very concerned if everyone has taken the Dharma to heart. Only when you do will I be at ease. You’ve done a lot for Tzu Chi, so my heart aches as I see how you’ve let the Dharma pass you by. Although you’re giving, you’re still filled with afflictions, which will follow you to your next lives.
Life is indeed very short, so we should seize time to learn the Dharma. Since we’ve encountered the Dharma, we should take it to heart and use it to benefit ourselves and others. When we use the Dharma ourselves and share it with others, more people will learn and benefit.
Then, there’ll be less negative karma in the world as more people have changed for the better. Everyone, Taichung is a very good place to share wholesome teachings with people and inspire them to do good. Whit more people being inspired to do good, disasters in the world will be mitigated I hope that in many generations to come, when we come back in our future lives, the Earth will still be very beautiful.
This depends on whether we can protect the Earth now, and all this has to start with our hearts. So, we need to take good care of our hearts and minds and cherish and make use of this Jing Si Hall to inspire love in more people I hope that we can share the Dharma with more people so they can practice it in life.
To do that, we must learn the Dharma first and take it to heart. If we don’t take the Dharma to heart, we can’t use it ourselves, let alone share it with others. In that case, how can we call ourselves bodhisattvas? This Jing Si Hall here is very dignified. But if you don’t learn the Dharma, even such a dignified place is useless.
So, I hope that you can make good use of this place to purify people’s hearts and minds. Can you do that? Yes. My best wishes to you all. Thank you for your mindful dedication with love. Thank you.
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