Releasing life is to repay debts. The killing karma I have committed in this life is already immeasurable and boundless. Releasing life is to spend money and effort to redeem the lives of sentient beings to repay the countless killing debts I have accumulated.
Releasing life is compassion. Releasing life can cultivate compassion.
Releasing life is enlightenment. The Buddha nature of any sentient being is no less than mine, and there is no difference between them. Therefore, every life is equally precious. Saving a sentient being is like saving a child of Buddha, and it is even equivalent to saving a future Buddha.
Eating vegetarian food is to stop evil and no longer accumulate new killing debts; while releasing life is to promote good and repay the killing debts owed in the past.
Releasing life is to change fate. Good causes will bring good results. The future destiny is completely in our own hands. Through accumulating blessings and doing good deeds, and sincerely repenting, fate can be completely changed.
Releasing life is to resolve grievances. When will the cycle of revenge end?
Releasing life is to eliminate disasters. It avoids the death of sentient beings and also eliminates our past karma.
Releasing life is to cure diseases. Repaying the debt of killing eliminates the root cause of the disease, and the pain will naturally improve.
Releasing life is saving relatives. Every living being has been our parents, children, siblings, and relatives in the endless cycle of reincarnation. It is only because of different karma that I am fortunate to be a human being today, while he is unfortunately reduced to an animal. Releasing life is to save our relatives and friends from many lifetimes and help them regain their vitality.
Releasing life is to accumulate blessings. Saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda, and every life is equally precious. Releasing life is the greatest good deed, accumulating blessings and doing good deeds. All merits are not greater than releasing life!
Those who achieved freedom from physical disturbance were said to be in a state of aponia, while those who achieved freedom from mental disturbances were said to be in a state of ataraxia. Ataraxia, as both a mental and katastematic pleasure, is key to a person's happiness.
There was a bird named Luo Po. When it was flying in the sky, it was caught by an eagle. While struggling in the air, it said to itself: "If I had not left where my parents were, I would not have suffered today's misfortune." The eagle was very dissatisfied with what he said. The eagle asked Luo Po: "Where do your parents live?" Luo Po said: "They live in the middle of the ridge of the field." The eagle said arrogantly: "Even if I let you go back there, you can't beat me. "So the eagle put it back. Luo Po arrived at the ridge of the field and prepared to fight the eagle. The eagle was furious and swooped down from the sky. Luo Po suddenly hid under the ridge, but the eagle did not stop and crashed into the hard ridge and died. The Buddha told the above story as a metaphor: the eagle left its own realm (the sky) and went to other realms (the ridge), which led to the subsequent disaster. Luo Po was liberated because he stayed in his own realm (the ridge) and left other realms (the sky). For practitioners, the five realms of desire are not their own realms (including seeing lovely colors with the eyes and being stained by desire. The ears, nose, tongue, and body correspond to different feelings). The four mindfulnesses are the realms of practitioners themselves (viewing the body as impure, viewing feelings as suffering, viewing the mind as impermanent, and viewing the dharma as selfless). The Buddha said that practitioners should stick to their own realms and stay away from other realms. - "Saṃyukta Āgama. 617"
There is a mountain about 10 kilometers southeast of Quzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China. It is called Lanke Mountain, also known as Shishi Mountain. There is Qingxia Cave on the mountain. In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there was a woodcutter named Wang Zhi. Wang Zhi took an axe and went into the mountain to chop wood. When he passed by Qingxia Cave, he saw two boys playing Go in the cave. Wang Zhi was very curious, so he put his axe on the ground and stood beside the table to watch. The boy handed Wang Zhi dates while playing Go. Wang Zhi ate while watching. After a long time, the boy said to Wang Zhi: "You have been watching for so long, it's time for you to go home." Wang Zhi turned around to get his axe, and he found that the axe handle had rotted. When he returned home, he found that he didn't recognize anyone around him. After asking around, he found that he had been away from home for more than a hundred years. Ke means axe handle. Shishi refers to Qingxia Cave. There are several interpretations of Wang Zhi's encounter with the immortal. In the Ming Dynasty alone, Zhu Yuanzhang's seventeenth son Zhu Quan compiled a Go book based on this incident. His book, The Book of the Broken Ke, discusses the principles and methods of Go from a philosophical perspective. However, the moral of self-cultivation reflected in the story itself may be that excessive attention to certain things in the world may waste precious time.
The Lotus Sutra says: "If there are sentient beings who have a lot of lust, they can be freed from lust by constantly reciting and respecting Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva; if there are sentient beings who have a lot of anger, they can be freed from anger by constantly reciting and respecting Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva; if there are sentient beings who are ignorant, they can be freed from ignorance by constantly reciting and respecting Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva." In the Dharma Ending Age, greed, anger, and ignorance are rampant. Being born in the Dharma Ending Age, this fate itself shows that the karma is heavy. Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva has a great affinity with the Saha world. The Bodhisattva has deep compassion and great vows. If you constantly recite and respect Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva in your heart, you will feel the response as you wish.
A wise person understands his own destiny and would rather die than do anything improper. He also does good deeds according to the Dharma. In this way, he can realize the truth of liberation from the world.
There is a place called Huxiang where people are tough and it is not easy to talk. In today's words, people there "can't chat well". A boy from Huxiang came to see Confucius, and Confucius received him. Confucius's disciples were very surprised, because everyone knew that Confucius paid attention to etiquette and would not like the naughty children in the barbaric land. But Confucius said: "I praise his progress, not his faults. What's wrong with that? He came to see me with a clean heart and a spirit of pursuit of progress, so I don't need to pursue the good or bad of his past behavior." Mr. Qian Mu interpreted "In this chapter, Confucius did not ask the boy from Huxiang about his past, nor did he speculate about his future. He only taught him based on his current desire to see him, which shows the greatness of the educational spirit of Confucius. "For any change for the good, Confucius would affirm and praise it in a realistic way.
Buddhism is something you must learn, Buddhist scriptures are something you must read, and good deeds are something you must do. Doing good deeds spreads virtue, helps the souls escape suffering, and transcends life and death.
If you accumulate wealth, you will lose yourself; if you covet wealth, you will ignore the meaning of life.
When you accumulate wealth, you lose yourself. When you covet wealth, you lose sight of the meaning of life. -Ananda's Questions to the Buddha on Good and Bad Omens
There were two scholars who went to take the provincial examination together. One of them was stupid and the other was cunning. The stupid scholar knew that he had little knowledge, so he worshipped Guanyin Bodhisattva day and night and prayed for the examination questions. The cunning scholar secretly sneered at the stupid scholar. The cunning scholar prepared seven questions by himself, burned incense sticks on paper to leave traces, making people think that they were written by gods and Buddhas, and then secretly put the paper in the incense burner. The next morning, the stupid scholar found the paper and was very happy. He tried his best to figure out the ideas of the questions. When the day of the examination came, the seven questions were exactly the same as the questions on the paper. The stupid scholar got the first place. The cunning scholar's test paper was burned by the coal used to light the examination room and posted outside the venue. This is the ingenuity of nature. Stupid people don't always suffer.
Counting breaths. "Breath" refers to the interval between the exhalation and the next inhalation during the breathing process. Counting breaths means silently counting the number of "breaths" in your mind. By counting "breaths", you can focus your mind on this one thing, thereby achieving the effect of eliminating delusions.
The second level of counting breaths is following the breath. When counting to a certain extent, the dragon holds the pearl in the sea and ignores the swimming fish. "Don't forget, don't help". Don't forget, don't help. Follow the "breath" to experience the mind.
The third level is to stop breathing. That is, stop breathing. The reason why people breathe is because they have delusions. When the delusions stop, breathing can stop. Stopping breath is based on the right mind.
After that, there are observation breath, transforming breath, and purification breath. All need to be practiced step by step.
The observation of in and out breath is recorded in many Buddhist scriptures. Taoism has introduced and promoted it. But the method of observing in and out breath in Buddhism is to stop the delusions and achieve right concentration. Its root lies in the practice of no wish and no fabrication.