Lecturer: Master Cheng-Yan
Subject: Being Lax is Like Discarding Our Physical Life
(懈怠等同棄物命)
Time passes very quickly. In our life, do we seize the moment or do we waste time?
The amount of time we waste is the amount of life we lose. If we are lax and lazy, that is like discarding our physical life. We have already obtained this previous human form, so why do we not cherish and nurture Wisdom-life?
This is what I want to share with everyone. Truly, being born human is precious. Since we possess life, we must not treat it as waste to be discarded. Let us properly use our lives. At every moment and in every day, let us create good affinities and do good deeds. Thus we can nurture our Wisdom-life. When people understand each other better, they treat their interaction as spiritual practice. Other people provide us a training ground with positive or adverse conditions to aid our practice. When negative affinities manifest, we face adverse conditions. These adverse but helpful conditions can strength our will to practice. Don’t you often hear a Jing Si Aphorism that states, “As one foot steps forward, the other lets go.” If someone is tugging on our back leg, we use that to develop its strength. Yes, this is conditioning. If we do not condition our bodies and minds we will use up all our strength just dealing with situations. So, sometimes we need to be grateful to adverse conditions. We definitely must seize every moment and not let any go to waste. The amount of time we waste is the amount of life we lose. We end up wasting our lives when we are lax and lazy in our daily living. Have you heard people use the terms “the living dead” or “the dead who lives”? Some people are like walking corpses. Though they are alive, do they make any difference in the world through their existence? Some people are earnest. They give to benefit humanity. Then even if they no longer exist in the world, it is as if they are still with us. So, let us be people of value, and not waste our time and our lives. So everyone, please always be mindful. The text of the Water Repentance also states, “From the beginning of the year to the end, we waste each day. In early, middle and late hours of the night we do not practice chanting or meditation. Being lax and lazy, we idly lie around all day. We do not practice the Sixfold Mindfulness. We become jealous at seeing others’ success.” With this text we can understand the passage I shared previously. Look at what the repentance text states, “From the beginning to the end of the year.” If we start at the beginning of the year and go all the way until the end, that is “from the beginning to the end.” From the beginning of the year to the end, we must reflect and ask ourselves, have we “wasted each day?”
We must reflect and ask ourselves, have we “wasted each day?”
Have we led empty lives?
If we did, we must make up for it right away.
Have can we do that?
The text says, “in early, middle and late hours of the right we do not practice chanting or meditation.”
Do we do this?
We go to sleep early, but get up really late.
“In early, middle and late hours of the right.”
There are two sets of six two-hour periods, one during the day and one at right.
Starting in early night, the order is Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si.
These are the six two-hour time periods.
In these six time periods, Zi lasts from 11 pm to 1 am.
Each period lasts two hours.
Zi, Chou, Yin rus from 11 pm to 5 am.
These two-hour periods are called the early, middle and late hours of night.
In this time, do we oversleep?
Perhaps we sleep before Zi and do not wake up until after Mao or Chen.
Have we wasted these six periods of time?
As spiritual practitioners, we must focus on this time of the “early, middle and late hours of night,” from 11:30 PM all the way to 5:30AM.
Are we still sleeping?
Those of us living in the Abode are very diligent.
We get up before 4:00 am.
So, we go to bed before Zi.
The boards clap at 9 pm.
We quickly put everything away and should rest before 10:30 pm.
If we go to bed before 10:30 pm, by 4:00 am we get six full hours of sleep.
That is roughly one quarter of the day.
We sleep for one quarter of the day.
Four times six is 24.
So, don’t we sleep through one fourth of the day?
Thus, we spend one fourth of our lifetime sleeping.
Some people sleep for eight hours.
Think about it.
There times eight is 24.
They spend one third of their time sleeping.
That is frightening.
They spend so much time just lying there sleeping.
I am over 70 years old.
If I slept for one third of my life, I would have slept for 20-30years.
The thought of sleeping for 20-30 years is scary.
Everyone, we must make good use of our lives.
How do we pass the time in our lives?
When we are alive we can move around and experience external conditions.
What feelings do we get from physical forms and sensations?
What do our feelings lead us to do outside?
What are we thinking inside?
These are the Five Aggregates.
In one day, how do we experience and pass our time?
How do seeds accumulate in our consciousness, and how does that lead to karmic fruition?
We need to think long and hard about this.
Let us mindfully practice and self-reflect.
So, “in early, middle and late hours of night we do not practice chanting or meditation.”
Isn’t that being too lax?
Perhaps we are “lax and lazy”.
Besides not cherishing the early, middle and late hours of night, “we lie down all day”.
Sleep is a small death.
The body will have no sensations; it is useless.
When we lie down, we fall asleep.
A body that is breathing is asleep; a body that is not, is a corpse.
Lying in bed all day makes us corpse-like “We do not practice the Sixfold Mindfulness” The Sixfold Mindfulness is to be mindful of the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha, precepts, giving and Heaven. This is the Sixfold Mindfulness.
Is the Buddha always in our minds? Is Dharma always in our actions? Do we always respect each other? Do we respect the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha? In our spiritual training ground, are we always mindful of the precepts and rules?
Are we mindful of giving? Giving is generosity Are we mindful of the Heavens? Have our minds departed from these six thoughts? If our minds depart from them, then we do not follow this practice. Then we are truly leading empty lives.
It is as if we are throwing away this life .Our Wisdom-life will not go grow at all. As time passes, our life grows shorter. Then how are we different from a living corpse? “Idly lying around all day” is not very different from being a living corpse.
More importantly, we are still creating afflictions and bad karma. We keep creating karma .As soon as we open our eyes, our minds are filled with afflictions and we start creating affinities. This is very problematic. We accumulate karma. What does it mean to accumulate karma?
“We get jealous at others’ success”. Has this happened to you? When others succeed, we are unhappy. We always want others to respect us. Other people are working very hard, but we do not show concern for them,we take issue with their work.
“Why didn’t you go through me?” “Why didn’t you report me before you did this?” Or in middle of the process we ask, “Why didn’t you respect me?” If we do this are not understanding of how hard they have been working.
Can we be like this? No, we cannot. So, let us be very diligent in our practice. How can we use our time to allow our bodies and minds to understand more truths? Afterwards, we can counsel others. To counsel others, we use our bodies to set an example.
We must emit the fragrance of virtue. Do not constantly take issue with others. Instead of taking issue over petty things, we need to take advantage of the time we have. In all the time that has passed what have we harvested from our lives?
What have we done? So everyone, please remember to not waste each day from the beginning of the year to the end. We should always be vigilant and keep our minds on the Sixfold Mindfulness. We must keep our minds on the path.
When we see others do good deeds, we should rejoice and praise them .These are also merits and virtues. Can we allow jealousy to arise? No. So, we need to always take good care of ourselves. Not only should you care about others, you should also care for yourself.
We must remember to care. We are spiritual practitioners.
If we do not take care of our hearts ,we waste the prime years of our lives.
Next the text says ,
“When our hearts are cruel ,”
“We are extremely afflicted “
“We cause strong evil winds to fan the flames of transgressions “
“if this fire constantly blazes without stopping ,it can lead to something terrible”
We have a hard time opening our hearts.
We do not praise goodness, and allow our minds to remain tied up ,so“our hearts become cruel”.
This is even worse than jealousy.
We will always think of ways to ruin beneficial things and good deeds.
Not only do we not encourage others ,we criticize and belittle them.
We even speak very hurtful words.
This is wrong.
With this minddet we destroy our Wisdom –life.
And break other’s will to practice.
Tangible destruction is destroying material goods ,hurting or killing others intangible destruction occurs in our minds.
We damage our Wisdom –life and cut off other’s roots of spiritual cultivation.
This happens because “our hearts are cruel”.
Of course we spiritual practitioners will not damage external objects our hurt others.
But we have to be careful not to damage other’s will to cultivate or harm our own Wisdom –life.
Let us always reflect on ourselves.
Do not fill your minds with afflictions.
“Extremely afflicted “means filled with afflictions.
If we internalize everything that happens to us ,then afflictions arise due to ignorance.
So ignorance constantly.
Enter our minds through external conditions.
Thus we “cause strong evil winds “to build up.
Such “strong evil winds “are scary.
They are “balck winds “.
They are the winds of ignorance.
These evil winds wreak havoc.
They are a huge threat to our Wisdom –life, our Bodhi-forest.
They “fan the flames of transgressions “.
There is already a bit of ignorance in our minds.
If the strong winds of evil also blow ,the results are disastrous.
So it “constantly blazes “.
When the flames of ignorance keep burning ,If we think about it ,not only will our Bodhi-forest be burnt to a crisp even the seeds will be destroyed.
When “it constantly blazes without stopping ,”even the slightest goodness of our Threefold Karma will be burned away completely”.
What is the Threefold Karma this is referring to ?
That of body , speech and mind .
The body can do good deeds.
The mouth can say good words.
The mind can think good thoughts.
If we can use these well , we can do great good.
If we cannot , we will burned by these fires.
So , let us be careful and use our body , speech and mind very well.
Everyone , when we learn Buddhism ,we make full use of time so it belongs to us.
Everything builds up over time.
We should not continue letting time slip away.
If we do not use it well , we are wasting it.
The amount of time we waste is the amount of life we lose.
If we lose our lives ,coming to this world is a waste.
Humaa form is rare to obtain ,and Dharma rare to hear.
Not only have we done both ,we have entered this spiritual training ground.
If we cannot focus on our practice here then our Wisdom –life will not grow at all.
If we cannot nurture our Wisdom –life here.
If we waste our lives and
Accumulate afflictions and bad karma ,wouldn’t that be a pity ?
Everyone , we must uphold the standards of Buddhist practitioners.
In a spiritual training ground ,we must use this form that is so rare to obtain.
So everyone ,please always be mindful.