  |
|
Vietnamese|English With
a Single Thought of Ignorance, One
fall into the Cycle of Rebirth Ven.
Master Hsuan Hua People
in the world all live a befuddled life. They never have a lucid
moment. They don’t try to break away from the suffering of the cycle
of rebirth. Since time without beginning, they’ve been dragged by
their ignorance into the six paths of rebirth, where they undergo
birth, death, and rebirth, revolving on the wheel that never stops
turning. Life is like a play. In this play, they might play the role
of a king who enjoys honor and wealth. In another play, they might
play the part of a beggar who suffers great hardship. When they are
playing a king, they don’t know the misery of being a beggar. As a
beggar, they don’t realize the pleasure of being a king. In the
twinkling of an eye, the sorrows and joys of partings and reunions
which seemed so real become no more than a
spring dream. How much have our karmic hindrances increased? We
don’t know. How much virtue have we fostered? We don’t know. That
no knowing is ignorance. Ignorance is the root of
birth and death. If we didn’t have ignorance, we wouldn’t suffer
in the six paths of rebirth. The purpose of cultivating is to destroy
ignorance and to turn consciousness into wisdom. We want to turn the alaya
consciousness into the Great Perfect Mirror wisdom. Humans have
human ignorance, and animals have the ignorance of animals. Hungry
ghosts and hell-beings have their own ignorance as well. Living beings
are trying to find a way out of ignorance (out of the Three Realms),
but the more they search the more muddled they get. They can’t find
an escape route. They
are trapped in the cycle of rebirth. Why? Because their false mind is
causing mischief and they don’t use their true mind (wisdom) to find
the way out. Ignorance is simply the lack of wisdom. When people have
no wisdom, everything they do is upside-down. They take what’s true
to be false, what’s right to be wrong. They clearly know that
something is wrong, yet they insist on
doing it. They always take the wrong road because they are covered up
by ignorance. Having
gone astray, they never find the right path. Those who study Buddhism
have to destroy ignorance
and unveil the Dharma-nature. Due to their ignorance, they like to do
stupid things. With deviant knowledge and views, their selfishness
acts up and they are not public-spirited. Thus they fall lower and
lower in every life, until they fall into the animal realm, where they
become creatures with very little consciousness, such as ants or
mosquitoes. Yet they are still as insatiably greed as ever, and do all
kinds of stupid things. Take a look! All the animals have their own
natures. Basically all living beings have the Buddha-nature, but not
in completion. Since their natures have been split up and their
spirits have scattered, they are stupid and cling tightly to their
ignorance. Even though people are the most efficacious of all
creatures and are possessed of wisdom, all they do is commit bad
karma. Why? Because their ignorance is in control, obscuring
the light of their wisdom. Thus they use their false mind in doing
things. There’s a verse
which goes: Three
dots like a cluster of stars, A
hook like the crescent moon: Furred
creatures come from it; The
Buddha comes from it too. The
verse describes the mind. What follows is a brief explanation: Three
dots like a cluster of stars. The three dots on the upper part of
the Chinese character for “mind” resemble stars lined up in the
sky. A hook like the crescent moon. The curved hook on the
bottom part of the character looks
like the new, cresent-shaped moon on the third or fourth night of the
lunar month. Furred
creatures come from it. Animals
with fur and horns are created from the mind. If you act like a dog,
you will receive the retribution of becoming a dog. If you do what
cats do, you’ll have the retribution of being a cat. The same goes
for horses, oxen, sheep, chickens, ducks, and geese. The Buddha
comes from it too. When one becomes a Buddha or a Patriarch,
it’s also because
of the mind. As it’s said, “Everything’s made from the mind.”
Whether you suffer in the hells or enjoy heavenly bliss, it all comes
from a single thought of your mind. If you have a good thought,
auspicious spirits come to protect you. If you give rise to a bad
thought, evil spirits follow you. The ancients said, “Once you trip
and fall, you’ll regret it for a thousand ages.” You could also
say, “If you err in a single thought, you’ll regret it for a
thousand ages.” The difference between
good and evil lies in a single thought. Good thoughts take you
upwards, while bad thoughts
send you down. The mind is like a mote of dust floating in the air. It
is suddenly in
the heavens, suddenly in the hells, suddenly in the animal realm,
suddenly among hungry ghosts,
constantly creating karma and undergoing the retribution, undergoing
retribution and creating karma in an endless cycle. When will one
realize that “the sea of suffering is boundless, a turn of the head
is the other shore? When you realize that the vast sea of karma has no
boundaries, quickly turn around and you’ll reach the shore. This is
what the study of Buddhadharma is all about. There’s no other clever
or ingenious way. To put it simply, it’s just about getting rid of
habits and faults, and purging selfishness and self-benefit from our
mind. If we can also refrain from contending, being greedy, and
seeking, then we’ve grasped the essence of Buddhadharma.
We listen to the Dharma everyday, but we have to understand the
essentials of the Dharma. What’s the key point of the Dharma? It’s
to refrain from contending, being greedy, seeking,
being selfish, pursuing personal advantage, and lying. We should use
these six guidelines as a standard to evaluate our daily conduct. If
we don’t meet the standard, we should correct ourselves right away.
When we have eliminated all our faults, and have only merit and
virtue, we can be considered Buddhists. These are the six great
principles of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. I hope everyone can
follow them. I wish everyone can become enlightened and attain
Buddhahood.
|
