The relationship between the appellations of Han’s Buddhism and that of Tibetan Buddhism must be put in the right position. The essence of this issue is that, we must revere and learn from the people who truly preach and spread Buddha-dharma; but for those who flaunt and deceive everywhere under the signboard of Buddhism, we’d better not to be interposition, to be more of a hindrance than a help, as well as to provide them the soil and conditions of breaking laws and disciplines and putting sand in the wheels of Buddhism system. This is a very important issue.

The fourth is the relationship between learning from Buddha and living. How to rightly put the relationship between learning from Buddha and living? I can say that, if you are a real disciple of Buddha, a person learning from Buddha, well then your relations with people, society and family shall be better than that of whom not learning from Buddha. If you claim that you’ve learned from Buddha, however you manage the relations with society, work and family badly, then at least you don’t learn well from Buddha. Why? Because for a person learning from Buddha, the first is to calmly treat everything, being equal to all beings. Well then, why can’t you be equal to surrounding people? You should learn and use the knowledge, method and wisdom of Buddha to harmonize own body and soul. Therefore, why can we rightly emplace own status and position? Actually a person learning from Buddha should follow the instruction of Buddha: 'The temporal world is no other than the Buddha-dharma, and the Buddha-dharma lies everywhere in the temporal world'. As disciples of Buddha, we shall act as an example and a model in society, in work unit and among family members. I can say and believe that, if you have maintained the five disciplines, the four methods of pacification and the six paramitas, any family and unit will support you; unless you are profligate in work or life, which let others look down on you. So, that is why your family relation is made a mess of.

So for people learning from Buddha, 'firstly must put yourself in the right position, then can you realize your own value'. To do that, you self ought to open up wisdom, understand the truth of the temporal world, regulate own behaviors with the thoughts and teachings of Buddha, clearly realize own heart, insight into own Buddha-nature, as well as explore our originally owned awareness and wisdom and exert into life and society. Once we live up to that, our society, surroundings, families, will be very, very harmonious. In fact the matter of a harmonious society called for now, basically also in accordance with the principle and requirement advocated by Buddhism thoughts. Turning over the sutras, we see it is the request of the Buddha that firstly we self must be good examples in doing anything.

'Firstly you must be a good person, then can you learn well from Buddha'. Demanding others with the mind of greed, anger, fame and gain, you are not a good person, even not be provided with the basic common sense of an everyman. You don’t use Buddha-dharma aiming at your own practice, whereas all day tell the arguments of Buddhism to others; some even just tell Buddhist allegories to play tricks on others. Buddhism shall not be used by you to correct and reflect others. Buddhism shall be used by you to correct your own behaviors. Buddhism is a mirror. Nowadays, having read several sutras and heard the preaching of a few rabbi, some Upasakas chat here and there, in all day just point out the mistakes of others and correct others. Well then after correcting others to be good and enlightened, their own are yet in a mess.

As a person learning from Buddha, if you don’t know applying the Buddha’s method and dharma into own life to adjust own behavior, what you’ve learned could only be a little knowledge, no matter how good you are in reading sutra, doing Buddhist service and explaining sutra. So, for we learning from Buddha, the key is what’s our motivation, i.e. the start and the desirability? Only if our start and desirability are pure and right, can our aim be achieved. There are some of whom the motivation is not pure. They came to the temple not for self-examination, not for study basing on Buddha’s method, not for self-regulation according to Buddha’s wisdom, whereas for regarding the temple as an insurance company. Once hearing of that there is a temple in which the Bodhisattva is effective, he’d like to donate some money with the desires both for getting a promotion and making a fortune, as well as getting rid of all illnesses and vexations. If catching a cold, he would like to blame the Bodhisattva for not being effective. I always say that: ‘we go to the temple to worship the Buddha is for regarding the Buddha as our teacher and the model in life, work and study. As long as we do in the light of the methods brought forward by the Buddha, will the vexations be automatically broken off.’ Where to find the vexation only if we never do bad things, do all good things and self-purify the mind? He donated ten yuan while writing down the names of five or six (of his relatives), and asking the Buddha for protecting his this and that; he indeed regarded the Buddhism temple as his insurance company, the Sakyamuni Buddha as the general manager of that company, and the monks as insurance operation men. However Buddhism never said that. If you’ve done good, then it should be effective for you to burn an incense or light a candle; if you’ve done evil, the Bodhisattvas won’t bless you. Because there exists the law of karma and retribution which must be followed even by the Buddha. It is always said that:'If you do good with an equal and honest mind, you self are just like a Buddha; if you do evil against your conscience, it is useless to burn incense to pray.'Having stolen things from others, it’s impossible of you asking for protection with burning incense. That would have comeuppance; everything in the world has its cause and effect.

Why we nowadays people learning from Buddha have so many vexations? Why can’t we focus on and keep progressing in the dharma? Why can’t we persist in the way? These accounts that, for each of us, the karma power of previous lives is different; our obstacles are many while the blessed rewards are few. For you to generate the mind of renunciation and the mind for Bodhi, a precondition is needed that you must have the blessed reward; so you must cultivate for the blessed rewards. If you don’t cultivate for it, you will not have it; then even if you have generated the mind of renunciation, you would yet be disturbed. Because your blessed rewards are not enough, there would be obstacles and devils to disturb you. So, in his practicing Guru Neng Hai signed with regret and wrote the book ‘Eulogy for Sambhara’, which is very good even till now. To attain the Buddha-hood one must have Sambhara. When you come to the temporal thinking of the pains and vexations of all beings, you should generate the mind to return all your merits and virtues to them. Everything we do, we do for all beings, not only for ourselves. Learning from Buddha should not only for self. It is the thought of Hinayana. The thought of Mahayana is to return all our merits and virtues to all beings, including the enemies. In this way, will the obstacles of all our previous lives be naturally eliminated, the blessed rewards be naturally accumulated, and the sambhara be naturally enough supplied.

We go to the temple and into the society to spread Buddhism, donating and do other good things, such are surely one aspect of accumulating the blessed rewards. However, the best cultivation for the blessed rewards, and the biggest merit and virtue, is to generate the mind for Bodhi. As soon as we just begin to start the idea of generating the Bodhi-mind, infinitude merits and virtues are fully supplied. If you generate the thought that you do only for yourself, for your own good and prosperous, then no matter how hard you work all day, your merits and virtues are slim. The hinge is the point of start, that the stand and motivation must be pure right, and the direction of learning and practicing must be clear. If the direction is not clear, the motivation is not pure and the power of wish is not strong, while just learning a few arguments of Buddhism, such is not a person learning from Buddha, but a person studying Buddhism. A person studying Buddhism is to study Buddhism as a kind of knowledge, which is no good for him; yet he has to drift with the karmas and obstacles.

For we people learning from Buddha, to understand the relationship between Buddhism and living is for properly treating the life, living and work. We shall apply the Buddha’s dharma, teaching and tenet into our living and work, Instead of rashly commenting on the dharma and tenet of Buddhism. Now, some people would easily talk about convenience and expedience. The Buddha said: ‘whatever is created by causal conditions, and the nature of karma is empty.’ You talked about ‘according to situation’ and ‘convenience and expedience’, well, can you do according to situation? You can’t even control yourself, what else situations can you follow? You are still within the status that when the evil comes, you go with the evil. Therefore, in doing things, thinking about problems, treating social phenomena and treating yourself, if you haven’t achieved the right view of empty-nature, haven’t generated the mind of mercy, and haven’t been fully supplied with the base, well then all your ‘convenience and expedience’ are flames, wild talks and lies. As before you attaining the right view of empty-nature, you still cognize issues with your own consciousness and views, like wearing blinkers, what you see is not the true nature or original feature, but a feint.

For we learning from Buddha, the first is to correct own behaviors, the second is to rightly cognize the relationship between the Buddha-dharma and the living, the third is to have our merits, virtues and sambhara fully provided; we shall focus on one dharma, keep progressing in it, and go deep into it. At present, there are many people learning from Buddha who’d like to call on this rabbi today and that rabbi tomorrow, totally a lot of rabbis. I’m afraid the number of rabbi you’ve called on may not exceed that I’ve done. In more than thirty years, I’ve called on many masters, however, all the way I insist in only following one fundamental guru. You know Sudhana visited 53 teachers, but he just consulted them not giving up the fundamental one. That is to say, under any circumstances, you shall hold firmly the fundamentality and the primary aim, then can you make some achievements.

I have a disciple from Taiwan called Mr. Huang, who can recite more than a thousand mantras, can translate Tibetan into Chinese, and can translate Chinese into Tibetan. He recited more than a thousand mantras until getting facial paralysis. Later, after meeting me in the White Tower Temple, he recovered within one week by reciting only one Buddha-name and one mantra. So, we shall be undivided in learning from Buddha. Yesterday, a disciple asked me, ‘Guru, which dharma should I learn? Is it good or not to recite a few more mantras?’ as he is a doctor, I thus said, ‘it’s just like you to cure a patient, only if you find the sticking point of the patient and prescribe rightly, as well as the patient take medicine following your prescription, he’ll be fine. Don’t you need to study the doctors of all ages and review all the prescriptions, then would you to prescribe and cure the patient?’ The same to learn from Buddha. There are so-called 84,000 dharmas, which are prescribed for different vexations and pains of all beings. Only if you can grasp one of them that is suitable for you and go deep into it, you can reach the aim. One dharma is digested, and then ten thousand dharmas would be out of question. It’s not counted for numbers of dharmas, mantras and Buddha-names. Just focus on one. So, we people learning from Buddha must have this correct view and idea. Don’t be a booby in learning from Buddha, which is not good.

We shall rightly cognize the relationship between the Buddha-dharma and the living, adjust ourselves to the right position and realize our own values. What are our values? Our value are to use the Buddha-dharma we’ve learned to open up our wisdom, apply it into our lives and the society, make contribution for the human being, fulfill our wishes, break off vexations and pains in this life, attain the Buddha-hood, lead a life of following the truth, and realize the catchword advocated by Buddhism: ‘open up wisdom and awake to life.’ We shall return what we’ve learned to the society for it’s harmony, for the world peace and for the joy and freedom of people, so are achieved of our own joy and freedom.