Among the three karmas of body, speech, and mind, the karma of mind is the heaviest.
From a Buddhist perspective, among the three karmas, the karma of mind is the heaviest. The seventh volume of "Mahayana Yizhang" teaches: "Among these three, the body is light, the speech is heavy, and the mind is the heaviest."
Any killing, stealing, and adultery that has occurred in the mind is a violation of the precepts. If there is conscious killing, stealing, and adultery, but no killing, stealing, or adultery is done, it is also a sin. Any lies in the mind are also lies, regardless of whether they are spoken. In a sense, the filth of consciousness is the heaviest filth compared to the filth of behavior and language.
Therefore, the key to keeping the precepts is to purify the mind. If the mind is pure, the behavior is pure, and the language is pure. If the mind is not pure, the behavior and language cannot remain naturally pure.
From a modern legal perspective, the sins of body and speech must bear legal consequences. For example, the body can constitute a variety of crimes, and the same is true for the speech. Only the karma of mind basically does not constitute a crime. Therefore, controlling the mind, as the most important link in not creating karma, is always a self-cultivation.
In the summer of the Wuwu year of the Qianlong reign, Xian County was repairing the city wall. Hundreds of laborers tore down the broken bricks from the old city wall and threw them under the city. Hundreds of laborers under the city carried bricks in bamboo baskets. The meal was ready, and everyone gathered together to eat. While eating, laborer Xin Wu told others, "Just now when I was carrying bricks, I suddenly heard a loud voice in my ear: 'If you kill someone, you must pay your life, and if you owe a debt, you must pay the money. Do you know?' I looked back and there was nothing. It was really strange."
After eating, they continued to work. Bricks from the old city wall fell like hail, and one brick just hit Xin Wu, and he died of a brain fracture at the time. Everyone screamed in confusion, and they didn't even know who hit him. The government couldn't find out, so they sentenced the laborer to pay 10,000 coins to buy a coffin to bury Xin Wu. Everyone then knew that Xin Wu owed the life of the person who hit him in his previous life, and the laborer owed Xin Wu money in his previous life. The cause and effect were intertwined, and they finally made up for each other. If the ghosts and gods hadn't told them in advance, everyone would have thought it was a coincidence!
Farmer Chen Si, guarding the melon field on a summer night. Seeing several figures under an old willow tree not far away, he suspected that they were stealing melons, so he pretended to sleep and eavesdropped on their conversation. He only heard one of them say, "I wonder if Chen Si is asleep?" Another person said, "Chen Si will be the same as us in a few days. Why should we be afraid of him? Yesterday I went to the Earth God Temple to be on duty and saw the edict from the City God." Another person said, "Don't you know? Chen Si has extended his life." Everyone asked, "What's the reason?" The answer was, "A certain family lost two thousand coins, and the maid was whipped hundreds of times but did not admit it. The maid's father said angrily, 'It's better not to have such a daughter. If she really stole the money, I will beat her to death.' The maid said, 'If I don't admit it, I will die. If I admit it, I will still die!' The maid cried to the sky. Chen Si's mother felt sorry for the maid, so she secretly pawned her clothes and got two thousand coins. She returned them to her master and said, "I am a foolish old woman. I took the money for the sake of profit. I thought that the master had a lot of money and might not be able to calculate the loss of money. I didn't expect to implicate this maid, and I feel really ashamed. I haven't spent the money yet, and I risked my life to turn myself in, so as to avoid a grudge in the next life. I have no face to stay here, so I ask to resign. 'The maid was thus pardoned. The earth god praised Chen Si's mother for preferring to slander herself to save others, and reported it to the city god, who reported it to Dongyue. Dongyue checked the underworld records and found that this old woman must have lost her son in old age and died of cold and hunger. Because of this merit, he sentenced Chen Si to lend his life in the next life to this life, so that his adoptive mother could see him to the end. You were on duty yesterday, so you didn't know about this. "Chen Si was angry because his mother was expelled for stealing money, and only then did he understand. Nine years later, his mother died. Chen Si died of natural causes just after the funeral.
Qi Da was a big thief in Xian County, Hebei Province. He once robbed with others. A thief saw the beauty of the woman who was robbed and wanted to rape her, threatening with a knife. The woman refused. Qi Da was looking out from the roof, and heard the woman's cry. He jumped down from the roof, entered the house with a knife and said, "Whoever dares to rape a woman, I will die with him!" Qi Da was ready to fight, his eyes like a hungry tiger. At the critical moment, the woman was spared. Later, all the thieves were caught and killed, but Qi Da could not be caught. The thieves said that when the officers and soldiers came to arrest him, Qi Da was lying under the manger. The soldiers said that they had searched many times and did not see anyone. They only saw a bunch of old bamboos under the manger, about ten poles, covered with dust and filth, as if it had been abandoned for many years.
--Ji Xiaolan
When a bird lands on a tree, the branches hold it up and the leaves provide shade for it. When the bird flies away, the tree does not catch it but lets it fly away. The branches are still branches and the shade is still shade. This is like the Dharma. When you are willing to listen, it is by your side. When you are not willing to listen, it does not try to stop you. It is also like the non-attachment mentioned in the Dharma. When you are here, it is cause and condition. When you are not here, it is also cause and condition. Therefore, the relationship between trees and birds is a harmonious relationship. If we use the relationship between trees and birds to deal with other relationships, many things will have different results.
"This exists because that exists, this does not exist because that does not exist" "Like a ring with no end"
The edge of the world - the world of experience constructed by senses and consciousness is our actual world.
Once, the Buddha traveled to Savatthi, the capital of Kosala, and lived in the Jetavana Grove on the southern outskirts of the city. One morning before dawn, a celestial being named "Red Horse" came to the Jetavana Grove and wanted to visit the Buddha. The celestial being Red Horse showed a wonderful appearance, and his body also emitted a soft light, illuminating the entire Jetavana Grove.
The celestial being Red Horse first bowed and asked the Buddha, and then asked the Buddha a question: "World-honored One! Can we cross the boundary of this world and go to another place where there is no birth, no aging, and no death?"
"It is impossible to cross the boundary of this world and reach a state where there is no birth, no aging, and no death." The Buddha answered clearly.
After hearing the Buddha's answer, the Red Horse Celestial Being was very impressed and said, "It's amazing, World-honored One! Why do I find it amazing? Because I recall that in my past life, I was a heretic immortal (cultivator) named Red Horse. At that time, the Red Horse heretic immortal had mastered the supernatural power of flying quickly. How fast? Just like a skilled archer shooting the arrow, in the short time when his arrow passes through the shadow of a tree, the Red Horse heretic immortal can cross the West Sea from the East Sea.
At that time, the Red Horse heretic immortal thought: With my supernatural power, I should be able to fly to the edge of this world. Not only did he think about it, but he actually put it into action. Except for eating, a little sleep time, and urinating and defecating, he kept showing his supernatural power every day and flew quickly to the edge of this world. He flew for more than a hundred years, but still could not reach the edge of this world and died on the way. It's really rare! The Buddha gave such an clear answer. ”
The Buddha then told the celestial being Red Horse: “Now, I will use our seven-foot body to tell you what the world is, how the world is formed, how it ceases, and the method of cessation.
Red Horse, What is the world? The world is the collection of the five categories of defilement (the five aggregates of feeling) . Which five categories? They are material, emotional, thinking, imaginative, volitional, and discerning.
What is the fundamental factor in the formation of the world? It is attachment; including all forms of love for the self and what one thinks one has, both in the present and in the future.
What is the cessation of the world? The cessation of the world is the cessation of all forms of attachment, abandonment, extinction, disinterest, and cessation.
What is the method of cessation of the world? It is the Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.
Red Horse, One should know the truth of the suffering of the world and eliminate all the suffering of the world; one should know the true root of the formation of the world and eliminate it; one should know the extinction of the world and realize it; one should know the way to the extinction of the world and practice the way to the extinction of the world. Red Horse, If one can do this, one has truly crossed the edge of the world and passed through the attachment of the world. "
This story is taken from the Miscellaneous Āgama Sutra. The place of no birth, no aging, and no death mentioned by the Red Horse Celestial Being actually refers to the state of Nirvana. The reason why the Red Horse Celestial Being asked such a question to the Buddha at the beginning shows that he thought there was another real place of Nirvana, different from this world of birth, aging, sickness and death. This is a wrong concept. How can there be a world of Nirvana outside this world of birth, aging, sickness and death! So the Buddha would clearly deny it.
Nagarjuna Bodhisattva said in the "Nirvana Chapter" of the "Madhyamaka Shastra": "The reality of Nirvana and the boundary with the world, such two boundaries, are not the slightest difference."
The scope of Nirvana and the world is the same, both are our five aggregates of body and mind. We should also interpret the previous verse of this verse from this perspective: "Nirvana and the world, there is no difference, the world and Nirvana, there is no difference." That is, the saying "afflictions are Bodhi" should also be understood from this perspective.
The world of dependent origination, where "this exists because that exists, and this does not exist because that does not exist", cannot find a beginning or an end, and of course there is no boundary to be found. Even the Red Horse Immortal, who had great supernatural powers, only wasted a hundred years of his life and died of exhaustion on the way. How could he reach the edge of the world?
Not only can the physical universe not find an edge, but even the cycle of life and death cannot find a beginning. Therefore, the sutras all describe it as "beginningless", saying: "Living beings have been born and died since the beginning, covered by ignorance, with love tied around their necks. They have been revolving in the cycle of life and death for a long time, not knowing the origin of suffering." (Sutra 937 of the Miscellaneous Āgamas, etc.) The "Madhyamaka-karika" also says in the "Viewing the Origin Chapter": "What the great sage said is that the origin is unattainable. Life and death have no beginning, and no end either."
How big is the universe? This is an untenable question; a joke without an answer! The focus of Buddhism is the suffering of life and the complete solution to suffering. The Buddha has always focused on this focus to teach. As far as the suffering life is concerned, the scope of the world is our five aggregates of body and mind. The world that is meaningful to us is not too big. The experiential world constructed by sense organs and consciousness is our actual world.
What is right concentration? It means to keep the mind undisturbed, firm, controlled, still, in samadhi, and with one mind. -Saṃyukta Āgama