Date: January 15th, 2010
Lecturer: Master Zheng-Yan
Subject: Walking the Bodhisattva Path Toward Awakening(覺悟的道路)
(The performing of Lai wan-mei’s story at Year-end Blessing Ceremony in Changhua)
“Before I joined Tzu Chi, I was superstitious.
I like to go to temples to pray for protection and burn paper money.
It’s fortunate that I joined Tzu Chi and had the chance to listen to Master’s teachings.
Master says that the seventh month of Chinese calendar is an auspicious month.
I was very moved.
It dispelled my superstitions and I stopped burning paper money, etc.
Our volunteer, Wanmei, is a very pious Buddhist.
Yet, her belief used to be superstitious.
She just placed her faith in the Buddha but didn’t know what Buddhism was about.
So, she only knew to believe and worship the Buddha for protection which is no different than common folk belief.
She didn’t know that.
Buddhism had a set teachings about life and conduct.
She believed that if she worshipped Buddha, she would receive protection. This is basically a folk belief people have.
But a true Buddhist should know how Buddhism came about and why do we believe and have respect for the Buddha.
Why are we learning the Buddha’s teachings?
How can it help us in our life?
This is something we need to understand.
Everyone knows that the Buddha was born a prince.
His father doted on him and provided him everything he could ever need.
As a prince living in the royal palace, he had all the pleasures one could asked for.
Yet, from a young age, he often puzzled at the disparities in the world.
For example, why were people divided into castes and treated unequally?
He also couldn’t understand why there was birth, aging, illness, death, and all sorts of suffering in life.
So, he decided to give up his life as a prince to seek for the Truth.
He spent 11 years searching for this Truth and then, he sat under a bodhi tree and quieted his mind.
He eliminated all of his impure desires.
His heart and mind became free of all afflictions and impurities…very pure and clean.
Because of this, he was able to finally penetrate the Truth.
Just look at the six realms of rebirth.
The six realms include the heaven, human, and asura realms as well as the realms of hell, hungry ghosts, and animals.
Some may say: “where are these six realms? I don’t see them.”
But actually, we can find these six realms around us.
Here on earth, there are people of the heaven realms?
They are people who are very wealthy and lead a very blessed life.
Why are the especially blessed?
There’s a saying that for people with blessings, even if their coin fell into a pond, it’d float but for people without blessings, even a paper bill would sink in the water.
That’s to say that for people with blessings, they’d make money no matter what they did due to the karma they created in past lives.
In their past lives, they had created blessings, so in this life, they’d succeed at whatever they did.
But on the same planet, there are people who are very poor.
They’re so poor they don’t even have food to eat.
They are like beings of the hungry ghost realm.
Some are not just poor but also ill and live in very unsanitary conditions which are like a hell, just like the Hell of Excrement and urine.
Some live in a place suffering from natural disaster, human conflict, as well as an epidemic.
That is really like a hell on Earth.
The asura realm…an asura is a being that gets angry very easily.
This is the characteristic of an asura.
Everyone, are you ever like this?
The next time we lose our temper, we should quickly think: “Wait, am I being an asura now?”
An asura is a being that has blessings but has not cultivated virtue.
Because they have blessings, they have high status and wealth as well as fame or good reputation.
But they haven’t cultivated themselves so they have a volatile temperament and lose their temper easily.
Such is an asura.
Although we say that we can’t see these realms, they are actually here in our world.
So, how do we make the best of our life?
What kind of life we lead all comes out of our mind.
All in all, our world contains all six realms.
In the human realm, we can see and experience both suffering and happiness.
If we choose the heaven realm, we might lose ourselves in pleasure.
We wouldn’t know the misery of the poor and we wouldn’t know the need.
That’s why the Buddha says that one cannot attain Buddhahood in the heaven realm, nor can one cultivate in hell.
Therefore, the Buddha came to the world to teach us the most important lesson of walking the Bodhisattvas Path.
The most important thing is to inspire people’s love and guide them to walk the Bodhisattva Path.
The Bodhisattva Path is also called the Bodhi path.
Bodhi means awakening.
Therefore, we need to get rid of our superstitions.
The volunteer Wanmei whom we just saw is no longer superstitions.
She has dedicated herself to Tzu Chi’s work and walks the Bodhisattva Path to serve all beings.
See, to help me aid people in need, she became a Tzu Chi commissioner to help collect donations.
She also put in great effort for the construction of Tzu Chi hospital in Hualien.
When I called upon people to do recycling, she actively took part in it.
She has devoted herself and to help protect our environment.
All the people who were onstage just now had all been inspired by Wanmei to participate in Tzu Chi’s work.
Most important, she is very brave in dealing with her illnesses.
When I asked her about her health, she told me not to worry for her.
She said she will continue to devote herself and serve others.
Such is her awakening.
As we live each day, our life diminishes day by day.
For me, as time passes, I am aware I have less time left in the world.
This is the law of nature…birth, aging, illness, and death.
When we understand this, we won’t be afraid of death.
Instead, we’d make the best use of our time to do something meaningful with our life.
The recycling volunteer Chien-Chih Chen said, “Living in this world, I’d like to do some good deeds so that I can make some meaningful contributions to the world, such as Tzu Chi’s recycling work to protect the environment.
It will benefit our future generations.
So, I’ve made up my mind to dedicate myself to Tzu Chi’s recycling work until my last breath.”
We have no control over how long we live but we can broaden and deepen the value of our lives.
So, we can broaden our scope in life so that it has greater value and deeper impact.
This is something that we can control and decide.
(Source: Da Ai TV 人間菩提)
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