The second issue is to generate the mind of renunciation on the basis of knowing the cause and effect. To generate the mind of renunciation is to come out of the samsara of the six paths. There will be many obstacles on our way of practice if we do not have enough sambhara. So, I’d like to talk about the issue of how to generate the mind of renunciation. To achieve the aim of practice and change the status before, we must fully prepare the sambhara, merits and virtues for practice. Recently, some disciples asked me: “Why we still have so many vexations after more than ten years of practice? We were converted to you early in 1995 and learned from you for so many years, why we still have so many obstacles?” This time, a disciple came to visit me and gave me the first impression that he first of all presented me a very standard great salute, which is a long and very standard kowtow. But by careful observation I saw that he was a wreck of his self of ten years ago. Ten years ago, he was in ruddy health and high spirits; but now having a lean and hungry look, he changed beyond recognition. Why? Because his heart is disturbed. Why would the heart be disturbed? As he blindly went to pursue the wisdom, pursue the so-called conveniences, pursue the so-called theurgy and pursue the sovereign way of practice. I can confirmatively say that, without being full supplied with merits, virtues and sambhara, the more diligently you practice, the more obstacles you have. Last night when I meditated in the Manjushri Monastery, in dhyana I watched that there were several disciples, who had visited more than ten Gurus in ten years and now came back. Coming back was a good thing, which meant that they’d wakened. If you do not yet come back, even I cannot save you. Two days ago, I told some of my disciples that, in learning from Buddha, it was impractical to blindly collect the so-called wisdom without cultivate merits and virtues, hoping that something may fall from the sky for our own usage. If we do not cultivate merits and virtues, the blessed-reward for us learning from Buddha will not be enough. It is just like that you are likely to fall in the wind of mere force 1 or 2, not mentioning force 3 or 4, and force 7 or 8. People with big blessed-reward will not fall, even blown by the wind from all eight directions. I had a disciple keen on learning from Buddha. He learned a lot of methods of practice, and firstly converted to Buddhism at my place. As he was likely to get angry, he told other upasakas that: “At one time, Guru looked with smile only at others but not at me, which meant Guru was dissatisfied with me and had bias against me. Thus I won’t follow him to study.” He immediately went to find those upasakas that he knew, and dragged them away to another place to visit another Guru. I said, “That I looked at you with smile or not didn’t indicate that I was dissatisfied with which upasaka; I treated every upasaka fairly.” He went there for two or three years. In this way, the hearts of those, who originally had a peaceful mind and practiced diligently, were also disturbed. He also interested in crowing about which Guru had better kung fu and where came a living-Buddha, who would teach many mantras and read many sutras a day. Thus they came there to study for three years. Last year, that living-Buddha told him, “Bring those upasakas here; now, I’m going to teach you the best dharma, the most pivotal great dharma.” Hearing that, those disciples were too excited to sleep well the night before. In the next morning, the got up very early and waited absorbedly. The living-Buddha told them, “Attention everybody, today I’m going to transmit the best great dharma to you; you must listen carefully, that is the ‘Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum’. You must go back to recite the six characters very well. What I taught you before were just some convenient ways of dharma. You shall not rush about or around any more.” Thus, this guy was angry again: “That living-Buddha was dissatisfied with me also.” He again dragged those upasakas away to another place, saying that he heard there was an immortal one of 104 years old, so on and so forth. Why would that upasaka be this today and that tomorrow? It indicated his lack of the blessed-reward, merits and virtues. A person with enough merits and virtues is just like a heap of gold that will not be blown away by the wind from any directions. A person without enough blessed rewards, though having a little temporal luck that a job or some governmental salaries, will not have the sambhara for practice if not cultivate merits and virtues. He is just like a heap of cotton that even 10 times larger than that heap of gold, which will be easily blown away by wind. So, hearing of a place that has some jollifications, a person without the blessed-reward will just run there! But a person without sufficient sambhara, merits and virtues will not be dragged away from beginning to end, because his mind of practice is unshaken. Vexations and obstacles now appeared in your mind were caused by your karma power, and due to the lack of the blessed-reward. Well then you shall cultivate more of it. At all places of the esoteric Buddhism, all great masters, monks, living-Buddha and khenpos will firstly ask you to practice the added disciplines to prepare enough sambhara. In the past twenty years, all the disciples that had rushed about or around would come back within 10 years at most. After 10 years, the several guys just came back this time. So, I told them, to learn from Buddha must have enough sambhara, and firstly cultivate merits and virtues; otherwise, no matter how smart you are, devils will follow you to make troubles. Everybody shall clearly remember this, including monks. As we do not have enough blessed-reward, we shall firstly cultivate merits and virtues. Take the example of Samantabhadra: to indicate the way of practice, he showed himself as a cook in a temple of E’Mei Mountain for more than 20 years. Also, before coming out to preach dharma and benefit all beings, the Great Master Yin Guang worked as a cook in a temple for more than 20 years. Even myself, during the period of retreat that from 1983 to 1993, I cultivated the blessed-reward among the people, prepared sufficient merits and virtues, and went to assist in everywhere that had difficulties. I feel that my merits and virtues are not yet sufficient, and I still need to do more good to fulfill them. Therefore, to practice and achieve the way of Buddha, we shall firstly prepare enough sambhara and cultivate more blessed-rewards by doing more concrete things. When I preached at the White Tower Temple, I said that: some people would like to read this sutra today and that sutra tomorrow. If you read sutras really for benefiting all beings, well then, even one sentence of one sutra will be enough. Some people read sutras everyday, at the same time fantasize that something useful may suddenly fall from the sky, or Buddha may appear to touch the head. That cannot equal the merits and virtues of Liu Jixin (a cook of the White Tower Temple) by cooking one meal for all the monks of the temple. After eating the meal cooked by Liu Jixin, people of the temple can set their hearts at rest to practice, so his merits and virtues are great. If our upasakas generate the mind to wash cloths for monks and make them happy, that merits and virtues will be great, and greater than your affectedly reading sutras for a whole day. So, we practicers shall not learn something by rote. The key is to fulfill enough sambhara by generating the mind; that is very important, as you cannot practice well without enough sambhara. For example, some of my disciples went to Zhejiang to learn the “heart in heart”. I can say that, you couldn’t learn and practice it well without enough sambhara, even if the teachers have taught you. You have to be equipped with sufficient sambhara for the practice. Because to practice the “heart in heart” must practice the diamond meditation, which takes 2 hours of practice with 6 mudras and 1 mantra as one lesson, and in each lesson requires absolute concentration; it is impossible to achieve the heart’s essential unless completing 600 lessons. What I teach you is the practicing method of Talismanic Wheel Avalokiteshvara, by which you can attain the heart’s essential if you valiantly progress with breakthroughs as well as earnest wish and practice. That is absolutely true. Before I also taught the “heart in heart”; after 1985, I improved it as the “Diamond Dharma of Talismanic Wheel”, by which one can generate unimaginable power to perfect the dharma-nature and get the heart’s essential, merging with the power of wishes of my own, all Buddha and Bodhisattva, as well as everybody. So, it was said by Tang hierarchs that for all beings in the Period of Decline, practicing the dharma of Talismanic Wheel is the easiest method to achieve the Buddha-hood, the timely fittest and most suitable, as well as the best way to solve problems and suit present karma. So, when practicing everybody must remember that after having generated the mind to learn from Buddha, known Buddhism and learned the dharma, the first thing is to prepare enough sambhara for practice by cultivating more merits and virtues. How to cultivate the greatest merits and virtues? That is to advise people to do good things and advise people to learn from Buddha. That disciple I just mentioned blocked many people’s wisdom life. So, I wept several times when thinking of that. Why? Because he would suffer the punishment of the diamond hell for his criminal karma of that one thing only, and could never be saved even Buddha Sakyamuni alive. Why I cried for him? Because the most serious crime is to block the wisdom life of others, and the greatest merits and virtues is to advise others to do good things and learn from Buddha. You shall not unsettle the confidence of others even if you self corrupt. So, that is a very tragic thing.

The third issue is that, only by generating the mind for Bodhi can we eliminate the evil karmas of all past lives. We made numerous karmas in past lives, of which some are good and some are evil. The embodiment of the most outstanding good karma is that we got the human body this life. Getting the human body is the concrete embodiment of our good karmas of all previous lives. Hearing of the Buddha-dharma is also the concrete embodiment of the good karmas of past lives. However, there are much more evil karmas of past lives to be solved; those evil karmas produced by our body, mouth and mind cannot be solved by merely reciting mantras, reading sutras or presenting long-kowtows. How can they be solved? That is another issue I’m going to talk about, that is to generate the mind for Bodhi. Only depending on generating some benevolence is not enough; if we do not generate the mind for Bodhi, we can never totally eliminate the evil karmas of all previous lives. Why? Because our evil karmas of all previous lives are quite serious, it is utterly inadequate to solve them simply by our own strengths, several kinds of methods, or generating a little benevolence. Yet why can we solve them by generating the mind for Bodhi? Because the effect of generating the mind for Bodhi is to use all your merits and virtues to free all beings from pains instead of only for your own need. Then, the greater you generate the mind, the more beings are benefited. We shall look upon all beings as our own parents and treating all beings as us self, which was called by the Buddha as “great pity for no cause, great mercy for consubstantiality”. Once you have generated such mind for Bodhi, the responses of those, who have benefited from your kind wishes, merits and virtues, will be enough to eliminate your evil karmas of past lives. It doesn’t work that to solve all evil karmas of past lives simply by own strength. What I said is exact true, as I couldn’t tell even half a lie. In the issue of generating the mind for Bodhi, we shall clarify another issue. What’s it? Many of us are quite confused and unclear in the issues of generating the mind for Bodhi, practice and doing good things.

The fourth issue is the difference between practice and doing good things. How to distinguish them? Doing good things is a method of cultivating merits and virtues, yet practice is the behavior to perfect one’s own wisdom. Those two concepts are different. If just doing good things, we will only get a few blessed-reward for men and devas. How about practice? Practice of Buddhist conduct includes doing good things. We shall not only correct own behaviors, but also stop doing all bad things and do all good things. So, practice includes doing good things, and very perfectly solves the problem of our own wisdom lives. Therefore, we shall correctly understand the concepts of practice and doing good things. Being not confused, we shall be free from puzzles. Doing some good things cannot be counted as practice; it’s only one aspect of practice. This is a common question for all of us when talking about practice. So, only after clarifying the concepts of practice and doing good things, can we correctly understand the generation of Bodhi mind.