Guru's Talk

(By Living Buddha Lian-Sheng, Sheng-Yen Lu)
(Translated by Cheng Yew Chung. Edited by TBN)

I often wonder:

I took up the study of land surveying in my college years. After graduation, my career as a surveying engineer spanned ten years. If I have not had my strange encounter and entered into the religious field, I would have maintained a stable working life in the surveying division until I got old and died. Perhaps this would have been my life.

Yet, upon having strange encounters with spirit and devoting myself to the study of Buddhism and Taoism, propagating the Buddha Dharma to the world, major and minor calamities have rolled continuously into my life. Like waves, they rise and fall in continuity, never once ceasing.

I have made a vow to serve and sacrifice, and strive to fulfil all good deeds. Yet I suffer much humiliation and have to put up with false accusations, learning how to tolerate them. As my enlightenment expands, calamities rain ever more. My practice of Buddhism has brought little comfort in removing misfortunes and receiving blessings. Rather, it has brought much turbulence to my life, leaving me completely worn out in my mind and body. These calamities are not minor, as they can cost me my life. I am baffled by their appearance.

My earnest efforts in cultivation, doing good deeds, and maintaining harmony among people have attracted calamities instead of blessings. How does one explain this?

Later, when I looked into my past karmic deeds and subsequently received guidance from the Golden Mother of the Jade Pond, I realized that these individuals who affected my cultivation were karmic creditors from my past lives. In other words, [even though] I may have the decree from heaven and be born of the Buddha gene to help liberate sentient beings, I must still work out my karmic debts.

I also discovered the fact that upon entering into cultivation, the more sentient beings you help liberate, the more interference from the Mara King comes your way. The Mara Deva shall assign his descendents to create obstacles and interfere with the mind of the practitioners, arising in them the vices of attachment, stubbornness, and afflictions. They shall influence the practitioners, causing them to leave the right path and enter the doorway of evil, thereby losing all sense of spirituality. They even make them destroy the proper teachings.

The Golden Mother of the Jade Pond enlightened me with two approaches to avoiding calamities:

1) Cultivate the practice of Dharma Protectors. Only through receiving protection from the Dharma Protectors can one hope to transform calamities into blessings. When Dharma Protectors stand guard alongside the practitioner, the practitioner shall avoid interference from evil spirits.

2) Keep your thoughts pure and proper, not attaching to form, not abiding in any state, staying neutral, remaining free from the ego, from defiled thoughts, from wandering, and not being fixated on any condition.

The Golden Mother of the Jade Pond says, "If the ego is unborn, calamities from Mara shall not arise. Contemplate on it."

--->回目錄