On the way of learning from Buddha, some unlawful maladies do sometimes appear. How can we eliminate the maladies during learning from Buddha? Above all we need rightly emplace our position in learning from Buddha. Firstly, we need know the relationship between Buddhism dharma and actual practice. We shall at least have a basic understanding of the temple, sutra, joss and ceremony.

Buddhism temples are commonly assorted into four types: the first is the belief type, the second is the worship type , the third is the ceremony type and the fourth is the teaching type . We assort all our Chinese temples into those four types.

The so-called belief type is such temple that symbolizes Buddhism while without concrete matters , in which there is no material Buddhism activities and contents, being set up only as an image and a symbol for people to believe in, burn incense and make obeisance to Buddha. It has no periodic temple fairs and characteristic Buddhism activities, at most has a few pilgrims with folk belief to do obeisance to Buddha. Such temple of the Belief type usually is deemed as a place of visit and burning incense only.

The second is the worship type, which is prevalent in our country. Such temple is a place of spiritual bailment that has material contents of pilgrimage, has the ability of holding big temple fairs, as well as provide the believers with burning incense, making wishes, praying for safety, luck, blessings, longevity and health.

The third is the temple of ceremony type, which mainly is a place of doing various Buddhism activities and ceremonies to fulfill the wishes of all beings. Such temple is famous for doing Buddhism activities such as praying for good fortunes of the almsgiver, releasing souls from purgatory and give alms, including the ceremony for all beings died in water or over land, etc. Being famous for doing Buddhism activities, such temple is usually called as a place of Buddhism activities or a temple of ceremony type

The forth is the temple of teaching type. Embodying the true spirit of Buddhism, it is a Buddhism holy land of which the primary aim is to cultivate all beings with the Buddha-dharma, bring up monks or nuns with ability, preach the sutras and dharma, spread and carry forward Buddhism.

As the real disciples of Buddha, we need cognize the characters and forms of the four above-said sorts of temples to choose a place for our practicing. After having made clear of the characters of Buddhism temples, we also need make clear of what shall we learn about?

Since the nirvana of Buddha Sakyamuni, in its spread over two thousand years Buddhism has been collected into volumes for many times. The Buddha's words have been collected, emended and passed down to now as the Tripitaka, which is the most perfect education to all beings of the nine realms of subjection to the passion. All its contents is explaining about the truth of the universe and life. What is the life? The life is we self, while the universe is the condition of our environment.

For our people learning from Buddha, even if using up the whole life's energy, it's unlikely to learn all the Tripitaka, which contains more than 12 parts and 3,800 volumes of sutras. And that in all ages few people can accomplish that.

In the past, our hierarchs translated the sutras based on classification, instead of translating all sutras at one time by one person. So, you are unlikely to study the whole Tripitaka including 12 parts and 3,800 volumes of sutras even with your lifetime energy. As for which sutra is good and suitable for our practicing, I think all the sutras are good and each one has its own elaborate reason to explain the truth of the universe and life.