Lecturer: Master Zheng-Yan
Subject: Buddha is a Doctor, Dharma is Wondrous Medicine(佛如良醫 法如妙藥)
I have often said that Dharma is like water and we need to constantly wash away mental defilements. To purify our minds, we need to use Dharma. Let us constantly apply Buddha’s teachings to our minds and mindfully put them into practice. That is how we take care of our minds and ensure that our behavior and actions are not misguided and will not be defiled by ignorance and afflictions. So with reverence, pure body and mind, we sincerely respect to the Three Treasures.
Those who wish to repent must first respect the Three Treasures. Therefore, the Three Treasures are the good friends and Fields of Blessings of sentient beings.
The Three Treasures are Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Why are they called Treasures? Because they are rare and precious. Thus they are treasures. An Enlightened One a Buddha, is very rare. A person with such wisdom can observe as conditions change in and things, and recognize impermanence. So He sought to discover eternal Truth within such impermanence.
He renounced the lay life to search for and attain enlightenment. The process was very grueling but He was not afraid of hardship. Thus, this Enlightened One came into being. We call Him the Buddha. It has been over 2000 years, and there has not been another one. See how exceptional He was.
Dharma came from this Enlightened One. With His intrinsic nature, His wisdom, He perceived the Truth of the world and was able to elucidate one by one the many delusions in life. He showed us the way to eternal Truth. To recognize eternal Truth, we need to practice as the Buddha taught. This is Dharma. So Dharma is very precious.
Without Dharma diseases of the mind cannot be cured, just as patients must have medicine. Such medicine can truly cure our illnesses. That is true treasures, true Dharma treasures.
It is like matching bone marrow, the patient has a disease, which may be due to leukemia or an inexplicable gene mutation, so the patient’s body cannot properly produce blood cells. Such a patient needs matching marrow to be transplanted from another person. The rate of a match is less than one in 100,000. Just think about how difficult it is to find a match. After the match is found and the bone marrow is transplanted, the patient gets another chance at life because his body can now generate blood cells normally. That is extraordinary! This is similar to Dharma.
For us to be matched with Buddha’s Dharma and to be able to accept it as our medicine is not easy at all. That is why Dharma is called a treasure.
When we are ill, we also need a caring mother. When a child id sick, he can’t be without his mother. The mother will care for him. The mother is like a patient’s caretaker. Maternal love is so exceptional and so precious! So the Sangha is like a caretaker with maternal love. To display such love is indeed difficult!
Buddha is a kind doctor, Dharma is wondrous Medicine, Sangha are caretakers. A patient in this world cannot lack a kind doctor, medicine or caretakers.
We followed Buddha into a monastic life. There are many people like us. But how many take up the monastic vow with true resolve? We really renounce the lay life for ourselves, as an act of self-respect. Aside from following the Buddha’s path, and understanding the eternal Truth in impermanence, we must also follow in Bodhisattvas’ footsteps. Buddhas praise the ways of Bodhisattvas. To attain Buddha-hood, we cannot lack the Bodhisattva-spirit.
Without the Bodhisattva-spirit, we will remain limited in our capacity and wisdom. Then, like practitioners of the Small Vehicle seeking only self-enlightenment, we can never attain Buddha-hood. To do so, we need to awaken ourselves and awaken others. To awaken others is to benefit them. That is the path of the Great Vehicle.
If we only focus on our own enlightenment, we can only be an Arhat or a Pratyekabuddha. We must also work to awaken others and accomplish this mission amongst the people. The mission of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas is to save sentient beings. Thus, we can attain perfect enlightened practice. That is a true Buddhist practitioner.
Being in Sangha is not easy. Renouncing the lay life is already difficult, let alone following the path of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and actively saving ourselves as well as others. That is even more difficult. With so many difficulties, it is precious. Thus, Sangha is also referred to as a treasure. So, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha are called the Three Treasures.
Since they are so precious and rare in this world, let us approach them with utmost respect. This also requires self-respect. Earlier we mentioned that the Buddha is a Great Healer King, wondrous Dharma is like medicine, and Sangha is like a mother caring for a sick child. They can also be good and beneficial friends.
If we spend time with good friends, we can learn a lot of good Dharma from them. We use various methods in our daily living. To learn Buddhism, it requires certain methods. In order to lead a happy life, a life of success in this world, we must have good friends, good friends who teach and guide us. Actually, the Pure Land of Buddha & Bodhisattvas is in the Saha world. They never leave us, but are always with us. The Buddhas always navigate the Ship of Compassion to this world. If positive individuals come to guide us, and we regard them with a Buddha-mind, they are manifestations of living Buddhas.
When we are lost and confused, if we have good friends whose speech clears up our confusion, we should treat their words as the Buddha’s words. Good Dharma helps resolve our confusions so we can be free of afflictions and ignorance. This is Buddha-dharma.
The Three Treasures can be doctor who treat us, medicine that cure us, and people who accompany us through life’s difficulties. They are also called “Fields of Blessing”. The Three Treasures are our Fields of Blessing. We need all three fields of them to be called the Fields of Blessing.
The three are: the Fields of Reverence, the Fields of Gratitude, and the Fields of Compassion.
Those who are compassionate for the suffering and are respectful toward Buddha, Sangha and parents will attain blessings and virtues. They are like farmers who cultivate the fields, and thus reap the harvests. The three are know as Fields of Blessings.
Reverence is about respect. Only with respect in our minds, can we be respectful to the Dharma. If we do not have respect, there is no reverence in our minds. With reverence in our minds, we will be motivated from within, then, we can physically put the practice into action.
In doing so, we can walk the path of life without going astray and achieve liberation in this lifetime. Because we have this body, we can hear Buddha-dharma. In this lifetime, we can accumulate many seeds of Dharma and use them in the future. So we must respect and revere Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. This is called the Fields of Reverence. We must revere the Three Treasures to show the depths of our respect, then, Dharma can enter our minds. These are seeds. When they are sown in the field of the mind, they are seeds of wisdom. With Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha in our minds, we already have the seeds of wisdom.
Next is the Fields of Gratitude. Parents are our Fields of Gratitude. We should strive to be filial to parents. Their grace is tremendous and difficult repay. Even after the Buddha attained enlightenment, when He saw a pile of white bones, He not only honored His parents in this lifetime, but His parents in countless past lives. When He saw that pile of bones, He felt a deep gratitude and bowed to it reverence. The Sutra of Profound Gratitude toward Parents depicts how we can repay our parents’ kindness. It is truly difficult to repay them. No matter how we try, it is not enough.
A passage from that Sutra spoke of how, when parents are too old to walk on their own, children should carry them on their back. But how can we carry both parents? Father on the left shoulder, mother on the right. Even if the skin on our shoulder is torn, even if we are bleeding and our bone is exposed, we still work hard to treat them well. Is this enough to repay them? No, not enough.
Buddha is the most supreme of all Fields of Blessing. Within the Three Realms, Parents are the unsurpassed Fields of Blessings.-Sutra of Most Skillful Ways to Repay Buddha.
In Luodong, Taiwan, there is a mother-son pair of recycling volunteers. They are very adorable. The son is already in his 60s, the mother is in her 80s. They live together and rely on each other. The son is very filial to his mother. They only have a modest income. The son has cataracts, so he cannot see clearly. But he still makes his mother happy by taking her to do recycling every day.
Every morning, he lets his mother sit on the tricycle while he pushes it. Where are they going? Out to sort recycling. Some would ask her, “Grandma, you come to work every day on a tricycle with your son. Isn’t it tiring? And you sort recycling, too. Doesn’t it wear you out?” The grandma said, “Not at all. Our tricycle is a Taiwanese Mercedes Benz. My son says if I sat in a real Mercedes, no one would pay me any attention. But when I on this tricycle, everyone can see me. My son also said that the trash can is a raffle box. He says sometimes he even finds a radio in the trash can, he found a radio, and cleaned and fixed it I really enjoy listening to that radio.”
See, this is the Fields of Gratitude. This man is his 60a and he still keeps his mother company. He feels freer this way than with a wife. This is Repayment of Grace. So parents represent the Fields of Gratitude.
Fields of Compassion is found among the suffering. We cannot bear to see others suffer so we devote ourselves to helping them. Look at Tzu Chi volunteers. Aren’t they constantly assisting the suffering? They seek to provide what others lack and need. This is the Fields of compassion.
Tzu Chi volunteers all cultivate this field. They devotedly contribute to society and give to the suffering. But we need to reflect on whether we have done enough to cultivate this field.
Have we cultivated the Field of Reverence? On the surface, it appears we have. Do we keep the Three Treasures in our minds and respect Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha? If we do so, are filial to parents, and give to others with love, these 3 fields unite to become the Great Field of Blessings.
Everyone, take good care of the mind so we can plant good seeds in the field of the mind and cultivate it well. So please always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV 靜思晨語 法譬如水)
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