When you have a peaceful mind, everything in the world will be peaceful.
The Pipa Parable
There was a king who had never heard the sound of a pipa. When he heard the pipa for the first time, he was fascinated by the beautiful sound. He asked his minister: "What is this beautiful sound?"
The minister replied: "Your Majesty! This is the sound of a pipa."
The king said: "Bring this beautiful sound here!"
The minister brought the pipa that had just been played and reported to the king: "Your Majesty! That beautiful sound was played by this instrument called a pipa."
The king said: "What do I want this instrument for? I want the beautiful sound just now!"
The minister replied: "Your Majesty! The beautiful sound just now was created by the handle, groove, strings, and skin of this instrument, as well as the person who can play it. The beautiful sound you heard just now has disappeared and cannot be brought to you. '
The king sighed: 'Alas! Such a false thing can make people fascinated, what is there to keep, take it out and chop it into pieces!'
The minister obeyed the order, took the pipa out and chopped it into pieces.
In this way, when a person has the ability to observe the various coarse and fine levels of color, feeling, thought, action, and consciousness, he knows that they are all born from the combination of causes and conditions, and are impermanent. Moreover, when he can correctly subdue the desire, greed, anger, hatred, ignorance, and attachment that arise in his mind when he sees with his eyes, hears with his ears, smells with his nose, tastes with his tongue, touches with his body, and thinks and knows, then the "I", "my possessions", and "I am" that he used to think of will all cease and be extinguished.
Pure and impure.
View the pure as impure. Every time King Udayana went to his harem, he felt that he was obsessed with women. So he asked the Buddha's disciple, Venerable Bindravaratna, how to overcome this desire. Venerable Bindravaratna replied: A person, no matter how perfect he or she looks, from the soles of the feet to the hair, from the inside to the outside, every part of the body is full of blood, flesh, mucus, excrement and other disgusting and impure things, and no part is clean and beautiful. What the Venerable said is the specific content of "practicing the view of impurity". When a person sees a so-called "pure" thing, he can visualize its "impurity" and can observe the truth.
View the impure as pure. After Master Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch, just realized the Dharma, he lived in a hunter's team for fifteen years to avoid being hunted by bad guys. For fifteen years, Master Huineng only ate the vegetables on the side of the pot for every meal, and the pot was cooked with the meat of animals hunted by hunters. In the eyes of many people, meat is considered impure by the monks. And the Sixth Patriarch was also tainted with impurity when he ate the food in the meat pot. But if we think of the Sixth Patriarch's Zen saying about "the wind moves, the flag moves, and or heart moves", we may understand that although the food in the meat pot is polluted by meat, if the heart has no feeling for the taste of meat, there is no impurity. Just as the scripture says, "If the heart is pure, the country is pure."
Pure and impure. They are all appearances. Attachment is impure, and no thought is pure.
What is an inappropriate state? It is the five desires: when one sees with the eyes, hears with the ears, smells with the nose, tastes with the tongue, touches with the body, and thinks about something and feels it is lovely, happy, or sticky, then it is an inappropriate and dangerous state.
Birth, growth, change, and extinction. All things are only for a moment.
Don't reminisce about the past, don't rejoice in the future, because the past has passed and the future has not yet come. For everything in the present, you should also think like this: all of this is impermanent and unreliable, and a wise person should be aware of this. As long as you follow the practice of such sages, who will still worry about the coming of death? But if you don't practice like this, suffering will occur. Make efforts like this, day and night without slacking off, this is what everyone should often say "A single Excellent Night". The above is the vernacular expression of "A single Excellent Night". The main content of "A single Excellent Night" is simply: "Don't reminisce about the past, don't rejoice in the future, don't be stained by the present". At first glance, it seems to teach people to forget the past and don't think about the future that hasn't happened yet, just live in the present well, but it's not the case. On the contrary, reviewing the past and planning for the future should not be a problem. Living in the present but not letting go of attachment is nothing to praise. Therefore, the focus should be "non-attachment", whether in the past, present, or future. Someone once said: "Do more when you are young and middle-aged, so that you can leave some good memories when you are old." The teachings of "A single Excellent Night" are completely different from this view.
A Brahmin asked the Buddha on behalf of the public:
"Master Gautama! We all hope to live a happy life at home with many children and grandchildren, fine sandalwood on our faces, flowers on our heads, spices on our bodies, and abundant gold, silver and treasures. Moreover, we hope to be reborn in a better world after death. Master Gautama! Please teach us how to achieve these wishes."
The Buddha replied:
"Laymen! I will teach you a self-understanding method of extending oneself to others.
What is the self-understanding method of extending oneself to others? Disciples who study the holy way should think like this: I want to live, I don't want to die, I look forward to happiness, and reject the pain of imperfection, so I don't like to be killed. I don't like to be killed myself, and similarly, other sentient beings don't like to be killed. In this way, how can I kill sentient beings? After making such a thought and decision, I require myself to refrain from killing, and I can also persuade others to refrain from killing and praise them for refraining from killing. In this way, their physical behavior can be purified in the three aspects of refraining from killing, persuading others to refrain from killing, and praising them for refraining from killing.
By the same token, I don't like being stolen or robbed, I don't like others to commit adultery with my wife, and I don't like to be cheated, I don't like my relatives and friends to be provoked and alienated from me, I don't like others to curse me with foul language, I don't like others to speak frivolously to me, so I ask myself and others not to steal or rob, not to commit adultery, not to cheat, not to sow discord, not to curse, not to speak frivolously, and I also praise these behaviors. In this way, the body and language behavior can be purified in these three aspects.
These seven kinds of restraints on one's body and language are the precepts leading to the holy path. If you can do this, and also achieve a firm and unbreakable pure faith in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, it is the four imperishable achievements of the holy disciples. Those who have achieved the four imperishables can confidently say: I have attained the first stage of stream-entry, and will no longer be reborn in hell, animals, hungry ghosts, and other evil places. I will definitely seek liberation. At most, I will be reborn and die seven times in the human world and the heavens, and then I will reach the end of suffering and attain liberation. "
If someone asks you:
"What did your teacher say about Buddhism? How did he teach you?"
Then you should answer:
"The master taught us to subdue lust!"
If they ask further:
"Where can lust be subdued?"
You should answer:
"The master said that lust should be subdued from the five aggregates of form, feeling, perception, volition and consciousness."
If they ask:
"What is wrong with lust? Why should we subdue it from the five aggregates?"
You should answer:
"If we do have lust, desire, love, thirst and thoughts in the five aggregates, once the five aggregates change, people will suffer from sorrow, sadness, annoyance, suffering and sadness. Because we see that lust has such problems, we should subdue lust from the five aggregates."
If they ask:
"What is the benefit of leaving lust? Is it worth subduing it from the five aggregates?" '
You should answer: 'If you are free from greed, desire, love, thirst and thoughts in the five aggregates, once the five aggregates change, it will not cause sorrow, sadness, annoyance, suffering and sadness. This is the benefit of being free from greed and desire. '
This is what Venerable Sariputra said. Starting from form, feeling, thought, action and consciousness, you should be free from greed and desire, calm your mind, control your desires and subdue your desires. In fact, this is the true meaning of Buddhism. The existence of the world and your and my cognition all come from the entanglement of the five aggregates. It is taken from the "Saṃyukta Āgama No. 108".
Since time immemorial, sentient beings have followed the sights and sounds of the world, and have been wandering around following thoughts. They have never realized their own pure and eternal nature, and have not followed their own eternal and wonderful nature. Instead, they have only followed the arising and perish of the sense organs and dusts. From then on, life after life, they have been wandering around in the cycle of birth and death, following the six sense organs and the impure laws. If we abandon arising and perish, and only abide in the true and eternal, as soon as the eternal light appears, the sense organs, dusts, and consciousness will immediately disappear. Thoughts are the dusts that consciousness clings to, and consciousness and emotion are the dirt that thought depends on. When both are far away, the Dharma Eye will be clear and bright. How can we not achieve the supreme awareness?