At this moment, when both the cause and condition are all ready and everybody’s full of joy in the dharma, I would like to speak on two issues: the first is how to learn from Buddha at the current time and situation? The second is the developing direction of Buddhism in the future.

Due to the ten years’ convulsion, Buddhism stopped its spreading in China on the whole. By this time 26 years have passed since it began to slowly recover in the 1980s. During the 26 years, temples were rebuilt one after another, religious places were reopened step by step, monks and nuns gradually increased, as well as that more and more people believed in Buddhism and learned from Buddha. However, I’m not optimistic on the issues of learning from Buddha and practice. Why? Because in the 26 years of recovering, developing and spreading, Buddhism from one extremeness went to another. Why I said that? As before the Great Culture Revolution, when temples were not be destroyed and monks were not be repatriated, the Buddhism activities and beliefs in temples were basically inclined to be normal. However, after the Great Culture Revolution, to cater for the need of innovation and opening and international situations, the catchword that “tourism act on the arena of religion” was brought forward thus the vogue of building temples were arisen everywhere. The issue of practice basically stays at a kind of formalization and is apt to Buddhism activities, especially behaving in that, some government departments evaluate the excellence or badness of a religious place by its number of pilgrims and ability of earning money, which furthers the industrialization of Buddhism that turns the spreading of Buddhism culture into an industry. The aim of industrialization is to achieve the high increase of economic income. To my way of thinking, that taking the increase of believer’s numbers as a partition boundary is a terribly abnormal phenomenon. This issue indicates certain social phenomena.

While within our Buddhism, the situation is further more pessimistic. The primary factor is that our Buddhism itself, especially the makings of monks are generally low; besides within Buddhism the beliefs, propagandas and developments of each sect are inconsistent, so our Buddhism is forced to face the severe challenge from extraneous phenomena and other religion. All of us may bethink of that, if according to those phenomena I just mentioned of, Buddhism is basically deviating its tenet and orbit.

Because the dogmatas of Buddhism existed for more than 2000 years tell us, the fundamentality of Buddhism is asking people to get out from bewilderments and pains. However, for many people nowadays learning from Buddha, the more they learned, the more besotted they were; intending to get rid of pains, yet they became more and more painful. Why? Because they did not make clear of the aim of learning from Buddha, did not earnestly expatiate and practise in light of the fundamental tenet and original aim of Buddhism; instead, they blindly went to extremes and many people became thickheads of praying to Buddha.

Sichuan can be counted as a province in which Buddhism is prosperous. It is a big province of Buddhism having more than 60,000 monks and more than 5,000,000 believers. But among them how many truly understand Buddhism and practise according to the dharma of Buddhism? Under my serious observation, that proportion is about 1%, which may be less. Even estimating with 1%, that is, among those 5,000,000 learners only 50,000 people really learn from Buddha, well then our Buddhism career would be promising in the future. Why I said this? Let’s all think of that, in people’s consciousness, are the monks and Buddha sculptures in our temples really contributing as the mentors to enlighten our life wisdom? No! What have them contributed to? Most believers think that, learning from Buddha is mainly by the means of donating some money in Buddhism temples, praying for good fortunes, releasing souls from purgatory and giving alms when encountering disasters, difficulties, vexations and pains. Mistaking the Buddha for only a savior, they deviate the fundamental tenet of Buddhism. I specially emphasized on that issue in my last lesson at the Yuntai Mountain. Buddhism itself, that is, when the Sakyamuni Buddha’s preaching, there was no such kind of ceremonies at all. After the Buddha’s nirvana, Buddhism spread into China, being already mixed with something of Hinduism, Brahmanism and Zoroastrianism that were prevalent in India at that time. After its spreading into China, Buddhism have its temple built totally as Chinese palace to adapt itself to the time and condition of China, because the Chinese belief itself has this character that, in the mind of Chinese the emperor’s authority is topmost. So, after the Buddhism’s spreading into China, the Chinese people thought that, the Buddhism hierarch Sakyamuni was a prince before leaving home, so temples of Buddhism also must be like palaces. However, the Buddhism temples in Thailand are not as resplendent and magnificent as palaces. Both Yunnan’s Theravada and the Zen sect have put forward the opinion long before, that it is unnecessarily to build many Buddha sculptures and the main hall in temple but only to built the preaching hall. Buddhism itself is a method of educating people and exploiting wisdom; however, Buddhism would be in a logjam if not building great halls and Buddha sculptures, without which people think their beliefs are not guaranteed. In the mind of Chinese people, emperors are sovereign so Buddhism shall also deserve the most exalted and highest status of emperors. That is why all Chinese temples are as magnificent as royal palaces. Besides, people generate these consciousnesses in society, and also have such pursuits and desires in the mental area. The basic theory of Buddhism is talking about the relationship between cause and result and samsara of the six paths; to spread Buddhism in Chinese by satisfying people’s desires, in all ages the founders and most virtuous added some theories of Chinese Taoism and some ceremonies of Indian Hinduism, Brahmanism and Zoroastrianism into Buddhism. So were formed in China the Buddhism form and spirit that have Chinese characteristics. For example, in Buddhism activities the releasing souls from purgatory is a Chinese characteristic; and so are the praying for good fortunes of the almsgiver, etc. For instance, last night at the GuangDe Temple in Suining, before we instructing big rules for monks, we broke the precedent by firstly instructing rules for ghostdom, because the GuangDe Temple haven’t instructed rules for monks for over 50 years. Do you know what are rules for ghostdom? That is to firstly instruct rules for ghosts to arrange them well; in people’s mind, as long as the ghosts do not come to make troubles, the place of Buddhism teaching would be clear and quiet. Such series of Buddhism activities all cater for people’s ideological need. Being affected by these various kinds of forms and basing on that theory, nowadays followers of Buddha generated miscomprehension on the basic common senses of Buddhism. Such misguidance indeed brought some negative impacts.

As China had comparatively many religious sects before, after Buddhism’s spreading into China, firstly emerged the Tantric sect, afterwards the Zen sect and Pure-land sect. Now the Pure-land sect has the greatest number of believers; especially after Rabbi Jing Kong’s tapes and books have been widely spreading into China, everybody think that the Pure-land sect is the most convenient way to learn from Buddha. Talking of this issue, tonight I would like to correct this tendency of thought. I think, as we only have several decades of energy in one life, it’s very unpractical for nowadays learners to all daily involve in pursuing the most supreme, the best, the simplest and the most convenient way of practice, always wishing to find a short cut or something falling from the sky. Of course by the method of repeating the Buddha’s name, one can indeed cast out and calmed down the disordered mind; and if do it earnestly and really with the whole heart, one can indeed go to the Pure-land after death; because the Amitabha Buddha made the wish that we can go to the western Pure-land as long as we earnestly repeat his name. However, how many people are repeating the Buddha’s name wholeheartedly? Everybody pleases, have a serious thought that is there anyone surrounding you including yourself can reach the state that the five skandhas are all void, and intently repeat the Buddha’s name despite any disturbance? In my opinion, you haven’t achieved that for even 5 minutes. What can you do if not going to the Pure-land in this life? What can you do if generating the mind of greed and hate when dying? Then isn’t it vain that you’ve repeated the Buddha’s name for your whole life? But, as long as you have returned your merits and virtues to all beings, you should get the good reward for men and deva. Whether or not each time of your repeating the Buddha’s name is for mental concentration? Once the meditative mind arrive, you’ll cognize, awaken to and understand the inside true nature and open up the wisdom. The wisdom will be opened up as soon as we practice meditation and enter into dhyana-samadhi. However, I’d remind you that, even if having reached the four dhyana heavens and opened your wisdom, without the power of fixity, you would feel too late to fall back when seeing your evil karmas in all past lives. So, in our practice we shall not blindly pursue the Pure-land sect or the Zen sect. Well then, I just mentioned of the Pure-land sect and Zen sect, did I mean both of the two practices are not good and only the Tantric sect is the best? The Buddha predicted that the Tantric Buddhism would be particularly precious in the decline period of true dharma, but the Tantric sect doesn’t depreciate the Zen sect and the Pure-land sect. Because, the Tantric Buddhism is the combining distillate of the Tantric sect and exoteric sects. The Buddha Amitabha made 48 great wishes and the Buddha Sakyamuni also talked about the Western Most Joyful World two thousand yeas ago, when everybody started to repeat the name of Amitabha very earnestly. If saying that we will all go the Pure Land by repeating the name of Amitabha, why we are still so far away from it up to now? What on earth are the things about, that we see, we feel inside and happening beside us? Are they all corresponding to the Buddha? Just as the great master Yin Guang said: “repeating the Buddha’s name for 3 days, the Buddha is very close to you; however repeating the Buddha’s name for 3 years, the Buddha is far away from you.” Without rightly generating the mind and making great wishes at the start of practicing, the vexations, evil karmas and problems will come out after a period of repeating the Buddha’s name. Some said, “I’ve repeated the Buddha’s name for quite a long time, why I’d still catch a cold, still have inflammation around my shoulders, and my family is yet not well-off?” Some others said, “I’ve been repeating the Buddha’s name for several decades, why my grandson was not admitted to the university?” The aim of repeating the Buddha’s name and your own wishes are two different things. Many people think that there should be a reward for even once repeating the Buddha’s name, something in this life, something of this or that kind of fruit. However, haven’t you ever imagined how many evil karmas committed in all your past lives? What I mean is that, for nowadays people, both of that repeating the Buddha’s name and practicing of meditation are good methods of learning and practicing. But, if not settling down your disordered mind, with which to repeat the Buddha’s name, your heart will be more and more disordered. Because you are still carrying about a sort of pursuing, and a kind of greed, your motivation of repeating the Buddha’s name is not pure. Many people’s aims of repeating the Buddha’s name are ambiguity; such people do exist who’d repeat Amitabha’s name one more time with the wish to win money when gambling with others tonight. You just look at those pilgrims went to the Manjushri Monastery of Chengdu to burn incense. On the first day of Chinese new year, they would go to burn the tall incenses, each stick of which costs several tens of Yuan or even several hundreds of Yuan in some places. Would they be well-off this year after burning incenses? I think not always. Yes, you’ve burned the incense, but the key is for what you do it, what’s your motivation and aim of burning incenses? Your method and expedient can only be one aspect; the fundamentality and hinge of your burning incenses lies in what’s your motivation and start point? This is very crucial.