Thursday, July 1, 2010

Final Project - Xiaodan Jin

The state of the Avatamsaka exhausts empty space and pervades the Dharma Realm. Its vastness encompasses the limitless and boundless, precisely in accord with the Venerable Master’s final words: “I came from empty space, and to empty space I will return.”

Where is the state of the Avatamsaka of the Venerable Master from? Definitely from his cultivation for many, many lives. However, I think his great vows and his vigorous endurance or patience are two important factors.


The definition of patience from the Venerable Master is:

Patience means: "If people scold me, I can bear it. If they hit me, I can
take it. No matter how badly they treat me, I can endure it."
http://www.dharmabliss.org/essay.htm


What is Endurance or Patience Skill?


I always tell them: to suffer scolding is skill, to suffer beating is skill, not trying to get a bargain is skill, and enduring losses is skill. However, nobody knows how to use this kind of skill. You cannot show that you have this skill because as soon as you reveal it, it's not skill. As for enduring beating and scolding, this doesn't mean that the more my Master scolds me, the better. It doesn't mean that I should endure it shamelessly, not caring whether or not he scolds. If that were the case, then his scolding would just make me thick-skinned, and it wouldn't worry me. If you can endure being scolded by those below you, that counts as true endurance. But if you stubbornly endure scolding from those above you, that is not forbearance. You all are my left-home disciples, and it is natural for me to scold you and beat you. To endure that isn't really endurance. It's only enduring something you have no way not to endure. For example, if you can endure being rebuked or hit by someone below you; that really counts. We have to speak the truth here; we can't just be all mixed-up and say, "The more I can endure my Master's scolding, the better." The more you endure it, the worse you become. The more you forbear, the more you'll fall into the hells, because you have no shame and no remorse! And I'll tell you another thing: those people who left the home-life and subsequently returned to the lay-life will definitely fall into the hells. There is no compromise at all. So don't think that returning to lay-life is a good thing. In that situation, being alive is more painful than dying. Anyone who has returned to lay-life now regrets it.



(Vajra Bodhi Sea, April 1993)


Throughout his life, the Master emphasized "not losing one's temper" and "cultivating forbearance,"

You can eradicate disasters only if you don't get afflicted. You can lengthen life only if you don't lose your temper.If a person never loses his temper, all his karmic obstacles can be cancelled.


The Master also composed two very interesting mantras:

Patience! Patience! Gotta have patience! Don't get angry, suo po he.

If you never get mad, You can escape all illnesses.

A wonderful cure-all medicine?;
Set up on a high shelf and forgotten!
Suo po he.

Patience is the most important. It serves to tell you to endure situations which you don't wish to endure. For instance, I may not want to undergo a scolding, but still there are those people who scold me and so in every case I should delight in it. Or perhaps I don't want to undergo a beating, but still, there are those people who beat me, and so I should just delight even more in that. Or perhaps I don't want to be killed by someone. One's life is considered very valuable. But nonetheless there are those who want to kill me. [And so one should think], "This is an opportunity for me to completely escape the karmic obstacles of this entire lifetime. Such a person is my genuine and proper good and wise friend." So, each of you! In studying the Buddha Dharma one must turn things upside down as he studies. In cultivating the Way one must also turn things upside down as he cultivates. How is it that one turns things upside down? It's just that whatever thing you don't want, it's just that very thing which you must come to want. However, as for those things which you don't want, it's not that you are supposed to pass them on to others.


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