Recognizing What Accord with the Dharma And What Doesn’t (Issue 297)

I would like to share a public record with you. Twenty some years ago a group of dharma friends from Malaysia came to visit the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. Upon arrival, they expressed the wish to take refuge with the Triple Jewel and did so along with receiving the five precepts in a ceremonial held at the Buddha Hall. Afterwards someone suggested heading to the abbot’s quarters at Building K to bow respect to the Venerable Master. The group joyfully made their way to pay their respect to the Venerable Master. Surprisingly, as soon as the Venerable Master opened the door, he commanded, “All of you, kneel down. I will be transmitting the bodhisattva precepts to all of you today.” Some people were thinking, “I don’t think I want to take the bodhisattva precepts. I’m leaving.” The differentiation of the single thought of the mind starts to manifest itself from this point on. Those who did not want to receive the precepts got up and left. Others who were indecisive, not knowing what to do, eventually followed the ones who knelt down. After everyone knelt down, the Venerable Master took a plastic saucer (like the saucer we use to place incense and flower when making offering to the buddhas in the beginning of the repentance ceremony) and spoke, “First, not killing living beings, a upasaka precept, can you uphold it?” Then the Venerable Master held up the saucer like a makeshift gavel and slammed it down the table. Everyone answered in unison, “Yes I can uphold it!” “Second, not stealing, is also a upasaka precept, can you uphold it?’ so on and so forth. Eventually, everyone received the transmission of Bodhisattva precepts from the Venerable in a peculiar manner.

During lunchtime after the transmission of the bodhisattva precepts, the Venerable Master said, “Oh, today a few hundred people, two to three hundred of them, came to request the transmission of the bodhisattva precepts.” The dozen or so in the group who stayed and received the precepts looked confused and mumbled, “Two, three hundred people? I don’t think so. There was only about a dozen of us there.” Unbeknown to them, the Venerable Master drew upon the presence of the few living beings from the human realm and utilized them as the influential assembly in order to facilitate the transmission of the bodhisattva precepts to the multitude of formless, invisible, suffering beings.

In the ten dharma realms, the world we live in depends on the action carried out by the single thought of the mind. Every single world is the destination shaped within our own mind. In no way can it be given or granted to us by anyone else. Why do we harbor resentment? Why do we foster jealousy? Why do we give rise to anger and afflictions? These are all unnecessary.