20230524契佛本懷明自性Cleaning Our Inner Mirror
From the footage, we see the village of the shepherd girl. Buddhists should know this story of the Buddha: There once was a shepherd girl; she saw an ascetic cultivator who was malnourished, starved, and was about to faint. The shepherd girl fed the cultivator a bowl of milk which restored the strength of the cultivator.
The cultivator continued to cultivate, and his state of mind was peaceful; suddenly, he neered a new state. This state was rather simple: there was a star in the night sky, and the cultivator's sight met up with the light of the star, thus, (he attained enlightenment). He understood the truths of the universe. He now knew everything, every thought, and his heart was wide open.
He aspired to awaken others as he himself was awakened, hoping that his enlightenment was perfect and wished to share this perfect enlightement with all living beings. With birth, aging, illness, and death come afflictions and ignorance which entagle our mind nonstop, such entanglement covers up the awaken nature that is in each and every one of us.
Humans have always had this awaken nature, but we also have afflictions, ignorance, selfishness, and a kind of love that has to do with greed and desires. Layer upon layer, they are stacked up heavily on top of each other. And our nature that is pure and untainted is at the bottom of these multiple layers of ignorance.
The Buddha was able to breakthrough the many layers of ignorance and afflictions; he had purified all the things that polluted his heart. After he was able to destory and eliminate them, his spirituality was like a round mirror. This mirror was clean and round. Hence, "the wisdom of a great, perfect round mirror."
The mirror is entirely clear and polished; it no longer has any spot of smudge, and it's always spotlessly clean to reflect and shine on the world, making it easy to see and understand. When one sees and understands all the principles in the universe, this is enlightenment. The Buddha has gained access to his wisdom of the great, perfect round mirror.
This wisdom of the great, perfect round mirror is not something unique to the Buddha; it is something all of us have. Have I gained access to mine? No, I have not. I also have a great, perfect round mirror, but it is still covered in dust; there are tiny specks and smudges on top of my great round mirror. It is still in the process of being wiped cleaned.
I'm still working hard on cleaning this inner mirror of mine. I need to make use of circumstances to clean up my inner mirror. What method do I use? I need to keep talking about the Buddha's teachings. To talk about the Dharma, I need to clean up my inner mirror first. When I'm about to give a Dharma talk, just like when I was walking to here, I was cleaning my inner mirror so that I may realize the wisdom of the Buddhist texts that I read.
Sages in the past who had realized the Buddha's Dharma wrote down their understanding of the Dharma. So now, I'm relying on the ancient sages' realization and understanding of the Dharma and taking them to heart. It's just that, now, I make use of their text to motivate my heart. My heart then has to connect the Dharma to what's going on in this world now.
The world we're in now has a lot of suffering. This is caused by people's ignorance (and their ignorant deeds, which they create one after another,) and lead to the suffering in the world now. People have desires, and they fight for what they want. People's desires are boundless. Their mind will harbor more and more evil thoughts. People then kill and destroy one another.
So, we need to quickly self-reflect and awaken. Let us pray with a heart of sincerity. to truly eliminate and prevent disasters, people need to nurture love. Only love in people's hearts can bring harmony to this world.
We see people taking part in the Buddha Day Ceremony. Our wisdom comes from the teachings of the Buddha. His teachings encompass the universe. All living and material things in this world follow laws and undergo changes. Formation, continuation, deterioration, and annihilation are part of physical laws. Living this in the universe follow the laws of physiology. Our body is part of physiology. (Everything follows laws.) Our body undergoes birth, aging, illness, and death.
Mother nature, and its mountain, river, and land, also undergo changes, and follow physical laws just like other material things. In the universe, there are laws that give rise to life. We are to ponder on them. Now that we know about these laws, we need to follow them. People in the past said that those who follow nature's laws survive; those who go against the laws die. Such are the laws. We are to be mindful in understanding this.
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