Beings are made drunk by the three poisons and they know not when they’ll wake up

Today while chanting the praise, I thought about the Elderly Benefactor of Orphans and the Solitary.  If he had not offered the World Honored One the Garden of the Benefactor of Orphans and the Solitary as an adorned and pure place for speaking the dharma, and if the World Honored One had only spoken the dharma in the eighteen realms of the heaven above, then we livings in the human realm would not have been able to encounter the dharma.  Therefore we have to be very grateful to the Elderly Benefactor of Orphans and the Solitary.

I always rejoice that we are born as human beings, are replete with five flawless sense organs, have good roots, live in China, and are well-versed in Chinese so as to be able to study the Buddhist sutras.  On top of that, we encountered a bright eye good and wise adviser and we have such a superb Way Place.  By far, we have come by everything good and wholesome. Now, are we going to turn, redress, and rectify our thought processes?  Are we going to make true and proper vows so that the vows can sprout, take root, and materialize into potential for realizing Bodhi? These are the things each of us has to do.

It’s not easy to be a human. It is very difficult to be a human successfully.  Not knowing Buddhadharma, our thoughts and actions are an admixture of good and evil, with the evil outnumbering the good. For those of us who are studying Buddhadharma, do we know what constitutes every single thought that arises in our mind?  In the span of a day, what do we have more – good thoughts or evil thoughts?  I’m afraid we don’t even have the time to think about them or to discern those thoughts.  The production and cessation of every single thought correspond to one cycle of birth and death.  Can we trust our own thoughts?   I believe the continuous cycle of birth and death in our waves of thoughts did not come from others.  We wrote the scripts. Now we are acting out the script we had written, under our own direction.  Therefore it’s very difficult to be a human.  We don’t know how to be a human.

If we know how to be a human, it will be easy for us to learn Buddhadharma.  In the Way Place of proper dharma, if we cannot truly commit to the practice of proper dharma, then the Way Place will be of no use to us, just as if it is non-existent. Why? The problem is not with the dharma; the problem is with our own mind. Even if we had encountered a bright eye good and wise adviser, it will be useless because we do not listen to his teachings, i.e., to turn against our greed, anger, and delusion; to obey our sila, samadhi, and wisdom; to expunge our greed, anger, and delusion; to cultivate our sila, samadhi, and wisdom.  Unfortunately, these are not what we do.

So is it easy to be a human?  It is easy to be a muddled one riding the karmic waves and undergoing retributions.   However, to go against the current and be a bright and righteous person is difficult.

The Venerable Master said, “Beings are made drunk by the three poisons and they know not when they’ll wake up”  How can an inebriated person awaken from his drunken stupor?  The Venerable Master, toiling tirelessly establishing Way Places, said, “The more Way Places of dharma, the more living beings will be benefited.”   Even with a hectic schedule, the Venerable Master committed to come to Los Angeles once a month regardless. No matter how exhausted he is, the Venerable Master would speak dharma and bequeath the dharma to us. Those of us who are disciples of the Venerable Master, whether during the Venerable Master’s time or after his nirvana, have to retrospect and ask ourselves, what have we done to repay the Venerable Master’s kindness?  Are we battling with our conscience over our own thoughts and actions?

Reflecting on how the Elderly Benefactor of Orphans and the Solitary, so genuinely and sincerely made such magnificent offering to the World Honored One so that the World Honored One could speak dharma to cross over and transform us living beings in the Saha world, I feel extremely moved. Amitofo.