July 6, 2003

In this modern twenty-first century, everyone's pace is very fast.  It is best that we can deal with things in a fast and effective way.  However Buddhism taught us that we should be clam, poised and patient when we deal with most things.  For some matters, a little patience can lead to very good results.  Similar with the practice, you cannot be hurried.  If you hurry with your practice, you will make many mistakes.

It is a real strength if you can endure when people treat you badly, take advantages of you or insult you in the public.  If you succeed in endurance, you could obtain merit.  In many daily events, people lose control of their emotion and as a result lost a lot of merits all because of the inadequacy of their endurance.

We know that anyone can purchase a gun in America very easily.  You can buy a gun in WAL-MART just within five minute drive as long as you have a clean police record.  In every election, some prominent politicians make great argument on whether people should carry gun or not?  We should think about it: Why do we need to carry gun?  I believe that 99% of the people who support the need to carry gun would say they support it because they want to protect themselves.  However many tragedies occur simply because it is so easy to get hold of a gun.  For example, if a student who does not want to follow a teacher's guidance or has a fight with his classmates, he would bring his father's or mother's gun next day to school and shot randomly, not caring how many people get killed.  This student would say that his teacher didn't treat him well, and his classmates bullied him.  He had to kill these people to protect himself.  What is protection?  In the point of view of sentient beings, I don't want to lose something that I have, or I don't want others to take advantages of me.  These are the reasons why sentient beings want to protect themselves.  On the other hand, in the point of view of Bodhisattvas, the true meaning of self-protection is to protect your interests without harming others.  We lack sufficient wisdom.  Just take the case of this student.  He no longer has a normal life after he killed so many people.  He had to stay in the jail and lost his freedom because of the killing.  When he gets out of the jail, he will have already lost the most precious time of his life.  His life is totally different.  Therefore, to practice patience is the most important thing to us.

This Saha world is where Saints and ordinary beings dwell together.  The Saints are the people who have practiced for all their lives.  The ordinary beings are average men and women who have not practiced enough and misbehave most of the time.  For people with such extreme differences to live together, they will sooner or later go crazy if they do not keep up the practices.  This is the reason why we should practice patience and apply it in our daily lives.  I believe that before each couple get marry, the man always appreciates his girlfriend's beauty and the woman always appreciates her boyfriend's good-looking.  They get married because they appreciated each other.  Why then do most couples only perceive other other's weaknesses but not their strengths after they get marry?  If you want to practice the complete patience you should combine the compassion with wisdom.  Each one of us has different attainment and wisdom in previous lives.  If somebody has different opinion on many things and argues with you, it does not mean that he or she wants to reject or trouble you.  It is because this person does not have sufficient wisdom to understand things to the same degree as you do.  And this is why we should apply compassion to those ignorant sentient beings.  If you do not have any compassion you would always look outward to ask others to satisfy your demands.  When you attain the compassion of Bodhisattvas, you will give others necessary time and space to grow.  After Sakyamuni attained Boddhahood, he still led his disciples to accept alms food from givers every morning even though he no longer needed any alms food from any donors to support his physical body.  Buddha still dwells in the world with all the sentient beings.  The reason why we can accept the doctrine taught by the Buddha is because Buddha has good relationship with sentient beings.

The Buddhaksetra chapter of the Vimalakirti Sutra says: "Patience is the Pure Land of Bodhisattvas.  By practicing patience one can obtain thirty-two forms of adornment."  When someone gets angry, his or her face looks so scary and ugly that nobody dare to look at him or her.  When someone is not angry his or her face looks kind and peaceful.  We could tell what we had done in our past lives just by looking at the retribution that we receive in the present life.  If you had practiced patience in previous lives then your future forms will be dignified and very beautiful.  All sentient beings would wish to be born in your Pure Land and to become a member of your Pure Land.

There was a story of Sariputra practicing patience. Sariputra was an ascetic who had practiced in many lives.  For his practice of the patience of the Six Paramitas (or Six Perfections), he vowed that he would not generate any hatred or thoughts towards any sentient beings no matter what they might do to him.  A Deva (Heavenly God), who had perceived the vow of Sariputra, decided to test him.  The Deva transformed himself into a young man crying sadly by the side of the road.  When Sariputra saw this young man, he asked him why he cried so sadly and whether there was anything that he could do to help him?  The young man told him that he was crying so sadly because his mother was sick. The doctors they had visited all said that his mother's illness was very difficult to cure because his mother's eyes were unable to see.  The doctor said if someone is willing to take out his or her eye as medicine to his mother, his mother's eyes would be cured.  After Sariputra heard what the young man told him, he was very happy because this was a chance for him to practice the vow that he had made.  Therefore he was willing to do it.  Sariputra immediately took out his right eye with a knife and gave it to the young man to take home to his mother to eat.  The young man looked at that right eye, smelled it and then threw it on the ground.  He said - why did you react so fast, the doctor said my mother needs a left eye not the right eye.  For the sake of practicing patience, Sariputra didn't mind that he had taken out the wrong eye.  So he poked out his left eye immediately with the knife and handed it to that young man.  The young man grab the left eye, smelled it and then said - your left eye is too stinky, it doesn't smell good at all, I don't want it.  Sariputra could not take it any more.  He said to that young man - I had already poked out both of my eyes for practicing the vow that I had made but still you think my eyes are stinky.  It is so difficult for me to practice patience.  I don't want to practice it any more.  Because of this, Sariputra lost his vow totally.  That young man, transforming back to the Deva, said - it was all because of you I had came down from the Heaven to see you.  I had heard you sing with too many good melodies that you wanted to practice this and that and you wanted to practice patience for the sake of all sentient beings.  So I came all the way down from the Heaven to test your patience.  But it turned out your practice were too good to be true.  Sariputra was very ashamed of himself after he heard what the Deva said.  Even though Sariputra was willing enough to poke out both of his eyes to save the sentient beings, he still did not pass the test, not to mention the ordinary beings that could not even take an insult from others sometimes.  This story reminds us that we need supreme determination to practice patience.  Patience is not easy to practice because you could not contemplate patience just by discussing it.  Sometimes, it is very difficult for us to apply patience in our daily life even if we have contemplated it already.

One day, a young pregnant woman walked into the middle of the disciples who were listening to the teaching of the Buddha.  She pointed her finger at Buddha and said: you are an irresponsible person, you made me pregnant but still sit here preaching and pretending nothing had happened.  Hearing what this woman had said, some of Buddha's disciples, who did not have good meditation, began to whisper to each other and generate some doubts in their mind - If a monk had sexual misconduct with someone else then he had broken a great precept of the Buddhism.  Meanwhile, the Buddha calmly sat on the stage and did not say anything.  This woman was sent by non-Buddhism cults to vilify Buddha, because Buddhism was very popular in India at that time and the followers had grown more and more.  The non-Buddhism cults could not stand the fact so they sent this woman to vilify Buddha.  A Dharma Protector (Heavenly God) transformed himself into a mouse.  The mouse climbed up to that woman's belly where a bowl was tied to it with a rope.  The bowl felt to the ground after the mouse had bitten off the rope.  Everybody saw it very clearly.  Some things are best dealt with by silence.  "Silence is the gold", according to a Chinese proverb, is a good demonstration of practicing patience.

The patience of Dharma without arising is the ultimate truth that we are talking here.  Therefore, relying on the pure land of the patience of Dharma we should apply no arising to deliver sentient beings.  This is the reason why the following stanza is the supreme self-nature and also the supreme practice for us in practicing patience:

"The pure land of the patience of Dharma, which no arising delivers sentient beings.  The nature is unmovable with no Dharma and no arising."

I hope that everybody will concentrate on practicing patience after going back home.