20141203轉迷成悟求進步 Bringing Forth Our Innate Wisdom
Look at our Da Ai Dramas. The dramas are plays, but they are real-life stories. Because of these stories, we’re able to produce dramas. The Chinese character for “drama” is composed of two words and one of them means “weapons”. That says much about how much effort it takes to produce a drama of someone’s life story. Life is really like a battle.
That’s why it takes great courage to live in this world. I’ve been hoping our Da Ai TV to produce Dramas of truth, goodness and beauty.
I said “truth” because the dramas we make are all real-life stories of our volunteers. In their lives, they have done good and bad. Life is like a tug of war between good and evil. At some point in life, they had gone astray and led a deluded life. But eventually, they awakened and reformed. Our dramas are based on these true stories. I often tell our volunteers that revealing their wayward past helps them to reform.
They might have done wrong, but they’ve awakened from their mistakes if they can share with everyone their stories about how wayward they used to be and how they have changed and are even doing good to help others, their stories can inspire many people. They might be evil and ignorant, but now they’ve changed. This is truly not an easy feat. In fact, everyone has the same innate wisdom to begin with.
However, life after life, we’ve developed and accumulated many unwholesome habitual tendencies, which have led to our ignorance and afflictions. With our ignorance and afflictions continuing to build up, we carry them with us life after life and give rise to more and more desires. Throughout our life we have many desires and attachments.
Because of that our innate wisdom is gradually covered up. What’s left is our knowledge. Knowledge is what we’ve learned and understood and nothing more than that. It’s different from wisdom. When our wisdom is covered up, all we have left is knowledge. In learning the Buddha’s way, all we hope is to turn knowledge into wisdom. So, we need to contemplate on how to bring forth our true wisdom. Take for example one of our lay cultivators.
He lives in Hawaii for three months and stays at the Abode for three months. He is in charge of translating our TV program “Wisdom at dawn”. Every time I walk by him, he’ll seize the chance to ask me questions. When I passed by him the other day, he stood up and said: “Master, may I ask you something?” I said: “Yes.” He then said that he didn’t understand what I mean by “grass, wood, metals, and stones all have life”. He didn’t know how to translate that. I said to him, “Things all have life. Grass, wood, metals, and stones are things in this world.
They exist in line with the law of Nature. Take plants for example. Nature has four seasons. And as the four seasons rotate, plants will adjust accordingly. In different seasons, different plants will grow. This is the life of things.” He said: “I see.” He thought about it and said he understood. He then asked, “What about metals and stones?” I told him that the principle of life is truly wondrous.
Nowadays, many high-tech products contain minerals and metals. Some technologies even involve the application of the application of extremely small things that we can’t even see with our eyes. Take for example the chips in computers or cell phones. They are so tiny, but they can contain so much data, allowing us to watch videos, read books online, etc.
All these data are stored in that tiny chip, which is made with the minerals people mine from the land. So, can we say they don’t have life? See how much they’ve benefited people. With their knowledge people discover and mine for them for the sake of making profits, thus destroying our environment.
When they found how these minerals can be used, without wisdom, they didn’t think of preserving our resources, but only used their knowledge to acquire them, bringing harm to our environment. This is how people’s desires can lead to destruction. Everything in the world is composed of the Four Elements of Earth, Water, Fire and Air. The human body is also the same. That’s why I often refer to the human body as a tiny universe. Everyone is made up with the Four Elements.
Despite that, everyone has different habitual tendencies. Our habitual tendencies from as a result of the influences from the environment we are exposed to. So, the environment we grow up in will decide the habitual tendencies we develop. Within the Four Elements, there are many principles at work. These principles are very subtle, but they explain how life is formed and why we bring our karma and habitual tendencies with us life after life.
These principles are so subtle. We can’t see or touch them, but thy contain so many laws, on which the operation of everything in the world is based such as how people have conflicts how they bring harm to the environment, etc. For example, when people crave for natural resources, due to these subtle principles at work, they mine for them and damage the environment. There are many examples like this.
But it’s not impossible for people to become as loving and compassionate as the Buddha. As long as we believe in the Buddha’s teachings and know that what he teaches is all true, we’ll bring forth our love and strong will to support everyone around us.
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