Episode 62 – Train with Kindness to Penetrate Buddha-wisdom
>> The blessed causes, good conditions and the virtue of deep and broad wisdom all originate from having diligently practiced and deeply planted the roots of wisdom in previous lifetimes. Thus, one will be protected by beneficial friends and fulfill all conditions. Inwardly cultivate pure actions to fuel spiritual practice. Outwardly practice helping sentient beings to develop wisdom-life.
>> “They trained themselves with loving-kindness and were able to enter the Buddha’s wisdom. They penetrated great wisdom and arrived at the other shore.”
>> Those who trained themselves with loving-kindness are Bodhisattvas who attained a state of no rebirth. For the sake of sentient beings in the Saha World, they forego the state of no rebirth and manifest in the Six Realms.
>> Bodhisattvas treat the Three Realms as their home, those in the four forms of birth as their children. By transforming sentient beings, they penetrate Buddha-wisdom, unlike Small Vehicle practitioners who see the Three Realms as a prison and those reborn in four forms of birth as hated thieves.
>> Those who train themselves with loving-kindness will manifest a form to practice in this world. They practice inwardly to attain realizations, speak outwardly to benefit others and use great loving-kindness and compassion as their foundation.
>> Therefore, we must cultivate ourselves with loving-kindness. With great loving-kindness and compassion, we can give teachings at any time and place, and according to any capability.
>> We must penetrate conditions to understand the principles of how things manifested so we can resolve difficulties without retreating.
The blessed causes, good conditions and the virtue of deep and broad wisdom all originate from having diligently practiced and deeply planted the roots of wisdom in previous lifetimes. Thus, one will be protected by beneficial friends and fulfill all conditions. Inwardly cultivate pure actions to fuel spiritual practice
We must consider the mindsets we have as we interact with others in our daily practice. The way we treat each other creates affinities. Blessed affinities come from respecting, loving and benefiting one another. These are also called blessed conditions, which benefit [us]. Are there other benefits to spiritual practice? Yes! It can help us attain our roots of goodness and perfect our spiritual cultivation. These are all benefits.
In a group of spiritual practitioners or a monastic community, we must help each other succeed. When we help others perfect their practice so that they can reap its benefits, they will also assist us in our spiritual practice. Helping each other create blessings is part of our path of spiritual practice.
[Creating] blessings requires conditions. Everything is related to conditions. Blessed causes lead to good conditions. If we have blessed causes and good conditions, then as we engage in spiritual practice, our wisdom will grow. As our wisdom deepens and broadens, it gives rise to virtue. Inwardly, we can humble ourselves. We all have different habitual tendencies. We face and deal with so many different kinds of people. If we do not work hard on cultivating our minds, our mindsets may easily be influenced by the different habitual tendencies around us. So, we must diligently cultivate our minds. Humbling ourselves is a merit, and requires great effort. This is internal practice, so what about the external? When we interact with others, if we can harmoniously deal with people and matters, then we are in harmony with the principles. If we can do this, everything we do in this world will go smoothly. This is a virtue. Our virtue can help us be accommodating when we are dealing with people. Thus [we say], “the virtuous attain.” With virtue, we can attain good relationships. This is called virtue. So, to have good relationships, we must diligently cultivate our minds to create good causes and affinities with others. Then our wisdom can deepen and broaden, and our virtue can manifest.
This all originates from diligently practicing and deeply planting the roots of wisdom. This is not just about this lifetime. For many kalpas, we have been developing these tendencies and maintaining these practices. When we strive to be like noble beings, we adopt their mindsets so that we never stop learning and practicing. Then we can take the Dharma into our hearts. Naturally, we will be born with this way of seeing and feeling. And naturally, our habitual tendencies will be completely purified.
Therefore, we Buddhist practitioners must begin [practicing] now. We cannot say, “This is very good, but it is not the right time yet. I will wait until….” We just keep waiting, but we do not know if we have enough time to wait. In this life, we cannot wait. Indeed, we did not wait in previous lifetimes. In a previous lifetime, at some unknown point in the past, we met the noble beings and sages and began practicing this path. So, we were born with these blessings and affinities. Even the way we live and our perspectives on matters from childhood until adulthood are influenced by what happened in the past. For a very long time, we have been developing habitual tendencies.
So, in this lifetime, we must seize the moment and no longer wait to diligently practice or deeply plant the roots of goodness. If we can do this over a very long period of time, naturally we will “be protected by beneficial friends and fulfill all conditions.” This is essential to walk the Bodhisattva-path. For a very long time, we must have cultivated blessings and roots of goodness in order to attain many blessed conditions and be protected by beneficial friends. Then we will have a lot of help in walking the Bodhisattva-path. We cannot do this without good friends, without benefactors to help us with the Dharma. So, these benefactors in our lives help us complete our spiritual missions. They are helpful friends. Only in this way can we fulfill all conditions. This is how we mutually benefit and help each other.
“We inwardly cultivate pure actions to fuel spiritual practice.” We must constantly heighten our vigilance. We must accept and uphold [the teachings] so that we can engage in pure practice. These pure actions are the fuel for our spiritual practice. We need to diligently cultivate them. Didn’t I say earlier that we must diligently cultivate our minds? That is how we inwardly cultivate pure actions and do not allow our hearts to be defiled. This fuels our spiritual practice; we also have to outwardly practice helping sentient beings. The Bodhisattva-path must be outwardly practiced. Although we go among others and say we are helping them, the reality is we are developing our own wisdom-life. Our wisdom-life and fuel for spiritual practice are all attained among people. This is what we must understand. As the following verse from the Lotus Sutra states,
“They trained themselves with loving-kindness and were able to enter the Buddha’s wisdom. They penetrated great wisdom and arrived at the other shore.”
Now, we can better understand this part of the sutra. Earlier I said that we all must plant seeds of good causes and blessed conditions when we interact with others. As we practice the Bodhisattva-path, we must cultivate loving-kindness. This sense of loving-kindness is very important.
Hence, “Bodhisattvas have attained a state of no rebirth.” By cultivating pure actions, Bodhisattvas have attained a state of no rebirth and entered the state of Mahaparinirvana. Their hearts are tranquil and still, there is no arising and no ceasing. This is the ultimate state of Bodhisattvas. But because Bodhisattvas are compassionate, though they have attained the state of no rebirth, they cannot bear to let the myriad sentient beings in the Saha World suffer. So, they return to this world out of compassion to help and transform sentient beings. They do not need to return to this world; they are in a state of no arising and no ceasing. But for the sake of sentient beings, they returned on the ship of compassion to manifest in this world. Because they have forgone the state of no rebirth, they continue to manifest in this world, in one of the Six Realms according to their affinities.
We all know the Six Realms, the heaven, human, hell, hungry ghost, animal and asura realms. In the Six Realms they will transform living beings wherever they are. They are born into the Six Realms to save and transform sentient beings.
Those who trained themselves with loving-kindness are Bodhisattvas who attained a state of no rebirth. For the sake of sentient beings in the Saha World, they forego the state of no rebirth and manifest in the Six Realms.
So, “Bodhisattvas treat the Three Realms as their home.” They traverse the form realm. the formless realm, desire realm and so on.
From the Lotus Sutra, we know the Three Realms are like a burning house. The Buddha told us that we must view the Three Realms as a burning house. A burning house is dangerous and causes much hardship; it makes people feel very distressed. Everyone who engages in spiritual practice hopes to transcend the Three Realms. But Bodhisattvas vow to return to the Saha World, willingly make their homes in this unstable world and treat this group of stubborn sentient beings like their own children.
We often hear that parents never grow tired of or abandon their children. No matter how bad the children are, their parents still willingly do so much for them. They may suffer tremendously, but they still willingly help their children. That is the heart of a Bodhisattva. That is why I often say, “a parent’s heart is the heart of a Bodhisattva.” Bodhisattvas treat [all who undergo] “the four forms of birth” as their children. The four forms of birth are womb-, egg-, moisture- and transformation-born. Bodhisattvas refer to all sentient beings as children. Besides human beings, they treat all living beings as their own children and cherish and love them so much.
Indeed, “by transforming sentient beings, they enter the Buddha’s wisdom.” This is similar to how I often say, “Give without expectations and be grateful to sentient beings for helping us perfect our spiritual cultivation.” Indeed, Bodhisattvas feel a sense of gratitude. Though they return to the Saha World, they have absolutely no grievances. They feel no resentment about the stubbornness of sentient beings in the Saha World. They even have this feeling that it is through transforming sentient beings, that they themselves are being trained. This is how they can further advance. So, “they train themselves with kindness and enter the Buddha’s wisdom.” We must train our bodies and hearts with loving-kindness and compassion. Our bodies must physically go among people, and our hearts must withstand challenges from the stubborn sentient beings of this world. This is how we perfect our wisdom.
Bodhisattvas are “unlike Small Vehicle practitioners who see the Three Realms as their prison.” Small Vehicle practitioners, [unlike] Bodhisattvas, refer to Hearers. They have no interest in helping beings because they no longer seek affinities with people. They focus on their own enlightenment and see the Three Realms as a prison. They dare not get close [to others]; they stay very far away. Because they seek liberation, they fear drawing near to the Three Realms. They see “those in the four forms of birth as hated thieves.” Because sentient beings seem like hated thieves, they dare not seek affinities with them. Don’t we often hear people say, “I no longer dare seek good or bad affinities” or. “I no longer dare pay heed to worldly matters”? If we feel this way, we see those reborn in the four forms of birth as hated thieves and dare not become entangled with them. This is what Small Vehicle practitioners are like.
Bodhisattvas treat the Three Realms as their home, those in the four forms of birth as their children. By transforming sentient beings, they penetrate Buddha-wisdom, unlike Small Vehicle practitioners who see the Three Realms as a prison and those reborn in four forms of birth as hated thieves.
Next it mentions “those who train their bodies with loving-kindness.” This means that through their manifested forms in this world, they engage in spiritual practice. Bodhisattvas manifest human form to engage in spiritual practice in this world. Though they are interacting with people, they practice internally to attain realizations. By observing various kinds of people and the principles of all things in the world, they understand the principles of life. Through this human condition, they train their bodies. When they deal with [problematic] matters or difficult environments, they use them as a chance to train themselves. So, “Through their manifested forms in this world they engage in spiritual practice.” They manifest a form in these conditions to engage in spiritual practice. This is how they attain realizations, by gathering these conditions in their hearts.
“[They] speak externally to benefit others and use great loving-kindness and compassion as their foundation.” They take these external states into their hearts and thoroughly understand those external conditions so that they can then expound [their understanding] as teachings to others. This enables sentient beings to change their mindsets, transforming unwholesome thoughts into good deeds. The Bodhisattvas’ wisdom [allows them] to enter the world of sentient beings to to comprehend sentient beings’ habitual tendencies. After gaining insights into habitual tendencies, they use those principles to transform the minds of sentient beings. This is how Bodhisattvas turn the Dharma-wheel. This is their foundation.
Those who train themselves with loving-kindness will manifest a form to practice in this world. They practice inwardly to attain realizations, speak outwardly to benefit others and use great loving-kindness and compassion as their foundation.
To attain the state of a Bodhisattva, we must plant various roots of virtue.
Therefore, we must cultivate ourselves with loving-kindness. With great loving-kindness and compassion, we can give teachings at any time and place, and according to any capability.
So, internal cultivation and external practice use great loving-kindness and compassion as their foundation. This means that with great loving-kindness and compassion, we can expound the Dharma at any time, place and to those of any capability. For certain capabilities, we use certain methods. In certain places, we speak of certain states. This requires us to exercise wisdom.
We must penetrate conditions to understand the principles of how things manifested so we can resolve difficulties without retreating.
To be like Bodhisattvas, we must penetrate the conditions of others. Then based on the time, place and the event that occurred, we can help them resolve those difficulties. For example, wherever there are disasters, we have to use certain methods suitable for that environment to provide relief. Undeterred by difficulties, we bravely progress forward. This is one way Bodhisattvas “cultivate [themselves] with loving-kindness to enter the Buddha’s wisdom.” All this makes us very grateful that the state of Truth is also never-retreating. It is said, “We enter the Buddha’s state of all-encompassing wisdom without retreating. Entering great wisdom means realizing emptiness of self and of Dharma, without retreating.”
This is what a Bodhisattva does. As long as we cultivate faith, steadfastness, honesty and integrity in our minds and practice loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity toward others, we can attain the Buddha’s state. A heart [like this] has no attachments, but sincerely and diligently helps others. This is what Buddhist practitioners must maintain. Only with good causes and conditions can we fulfill our spiritual mission in this world.
Fellow Bodhisattvas, we spiritual practitioners must make Bodhisattva-aspirations. We must enter the Buddha’s wisdom to be able to understand all Dharma and attain great wisdom. Everyone, please always be mindful.