20240214 行道人間意清澄Embodying the Buddha's Way and Living a Life of Value
By pooling everyone's donations together, we carry out international relief missions. So, we must value each coin highly. I've been reminding you all not to underestimate a small amount of money, but to keep saving up to help those in need.
Time is tick-tocking away and coins make clinking sounds when pooled together. We may not hear such sounds every day, but we keep practicing love and hear our coins drop to our coin banks. In a time of extreme quiet, we can hear the breath of Nature.
A day starts with morning, the time when it is the quietest. The sky is still dark, but is brightening up bit by bit. This is what happens in our everyday living. The serenity of the morning and the barely imperceptible sound of Nature are available to us every day.
That is the time of day when we feel most peaceful and at ease. If you chant the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings, you'll see Cultivate a pure and tranquil mind and make vows that are as vast as the endless void. These few words remind us of the time when our hearts are sincere and pure, being one with Mother Nature and the universe.
At that time, our hearts are vast like the universe. I often say, broaden our hearts to embrace everything in the endless void. In truth, we can all attain this state of mind and embrace the endless void. The endless void refers to the macrocosm. The universe with the celestial bodies is called the endless void.
Our hearts can be broader than the endless void, the universe, and embrace it. We should cultivate a heart that is broad like that. This is the state of the Buddha. The Buddha understands all the true principles of the universe, including those about the three things--material objects, our body, and our mind.
Our body goes through birth, aging, illness, and death. Is death the end? No. Our next life will begin as we'll be reborn. Having undergone birth, aging, illness and death, we'll once again go through this cycle. In truth, what matters most is the time between birth and death. That is our lifespan.
We can create much value when we're alive. However, if driven by ignorance, we'll create bad karma through our actions. We should understand how or body is impure and how our feelings bring us suffering. Some people live in suffering every day. Nothing brings them joy or satisfaction. They wonder if they can get what they want and if they can get it smoothly.
This is why they're full of afflictions. Can you see well enough? Recently, I often ask my visitors who they are. And when they tell me their names, I say, you haven't come back for a long time. I can't recognize you. That's because our appearance undergoes changes continuously.
Our Abode was small when built over 50 years ago, but it's large now. Doesn't it exemplify how everything undergoes changes? Our appearance changes. So does the environment. Time passes by unceasingly. Decades later, the Abode will become old and the surroundings might become different. So, nothing remains unchanged.
This is what the Buddha taught us. Everything is always changing. From infancy to old age, can we ever truly see our appearance? We can't, for it's always changing, too. Take a tree for example. When did it come into being? Whatever it looks like, it grows from a seed.
If we cut a seed open, we can see no tree inside. Then, what's inside? There's what we now call genes. The seed is composed of genes. What about us humans? We're composed of genes, too. We develop from embryos while trees, grass, and vegetables grow from seeds. Different plants have different seeds. We should all understand that everything in the world has its origin and takes time to develop into what it is now.
Everyone, I truly hope you can take my words as seeds. When you understand a teaching of mine, it becomes a seed. Every teaching I expound can be a seed in the field of your mind. All my words carry true principles, so you should listen to me attentively.
In the past, I often talked about what had happened around the world. Now, I'm also speaking about the world, yet I'me not sharing world events, but the origins of things in the world. It takes people to expound and pass on true principles. So, everyone, please be very mindful.
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