The world of Tzu Chi (Vol.109)

TZU CHI 109 45 THREE WAYS TO THE PURE LAND I will not enter Nirvana until every living being is enlightened In the Surangama Sutra , there is a paean byAnanda praising Sakyamuni Buddha: As long as even one being has not yet become a Buddha, I will never enter Nirvana. Great Hero with great courage and strength, great kindness and compassion, please further search out and dispel my subtlest delusions, cause me to quickly attain the supreme enlightenment, and sit in places for spiritual cultivation in worlds of the ten directions. This paean provides us with great inspiration and the best course of spiritual practice. Buddhist practitioners must learn to develop the Buddha’s great courage and great strength, great kindness and great compassion—“As long as even one being has not yet become a Buddha, I will never enter Nirvana.” The purpose of our spiritual cultivation should not be to speedily attain Buddhahood, but to save and deliver all sentient beings from their suffering. To do so, we need to extensively form good relationships; people will trust us to relieve them from their physical or spiritual suffering only when they feel an affinity towards us. Therefore, we have to remind ourselves to eliminate our afflictions so that we have minds capable of loving and accommodating each and every sentient being. Eliminate afflictions and form good affinities When we interact with other people, we cannot avoid feeling friendlier, or getting along better, with some people more than with others. Conversely, sometimes a person may make some off-hand remark without meaning anything by it, but we analyse it to death and create afflictions for ourselves. This is the behaviour of unenlightened beings: creating afflictions rather than eliminating them. We learn the Buddha’s Way to both eliminate our own afflictions and dissolve other people’s displeasure or hostility towards us. Afflictions always arise for a reason, “Without wind there are no waves.” Why do some people dislike us? We must think about it and find the reason behind it. We should try to bring happiness to people and resolve any misunderstanding or hostility towards us. Relationships between people are very important. We should reduce other people’s dislike for us and extensively form good karmic affinities with them. This way, when the time is ripe, we will be able to attain awakening ourselves and also spread the Dharma to guide others to freedom from ignorance. Nevertheless, if we do not eliminate our own afflictions first, we will not develop great courage and strength, nor will we be able to exercise great loving-kindness and compassion. In this university of the universe, we have to earnestly examine our own minds, locate our afflictions and then eliminate them. We often talk about “giving up to gain”. What are we giving up? We must give up our afflictions. Only when we cast away our afflictions will we gain wisdom, courage and strength, and be able to apply our loving-kindness and compassion to helping people. With great loving-kindness and compassion, we