The world of Tzu Chi March 2020(Vol.120)

2020 • 03 50 harma T he third inverted view is the “view of self”. In this world, the most unclean and evil thing is this temporary union of the four elements that we call our body. Yet, we unenlightened beings take this body as a permanent self, when in fact, “Human life ends as soon as we stop breathing.” Many troubles and transgressions occur because of our self and our attachment to this self. I once read a news report about a married couple who became mixed up with the mafia and opened a gambling house. One day, they were leaving with a great sum of money and were murdered; their corpses were discovered only two or three months later. Due to their wish to benefit themselves and their greed for ill-gotten gains, these two murder victims had opened a gambling house to deceive people. As for the murderers, they too acted to benefit themselves due to greed for usurious profits. Thus, the murderers remorselessly killed the couple. These kinds of things happen because unenlightened beings have an inverted attachment to the self. In learning the Buddha’s teachings, we should make good use of our bodies to serve sentient beings, only then can we truly attain a pure self. The fourth inverted view is that of “purity”. When we enter a hospital, we realize that the worst odours are emitted from the human body. Nonetheless, ordinary people always “take the impure as pure”, and this gives rise to the Five Desires, the cravings for wealth, sensual pleasure, fame, food and sleep. Those who crave wealth consider wealth as pure, those who crave sensual pleasure consider sensual pleasure as pure, etc. They do not realize that the five desires are in fact the causes of impurity. Thus, these are the inverted views of ordinary people. As Buddhist practitioners, we must learn to have the correct way of thinking. We must not think of the fight for fame and profits as joy; must not regard this body, a temporary union of the four elements, as our self; and must not mistake the impure for pure. In this way, we will not be affected by the five desires and give rise to inverted views. In short, only by clearly understanding the true principles and thoroughly comprehending life can we obtain true joy and purity. Non-attachment to existence and emptiness is the Middle Way Two Vehicle practitioners have “the Four Inverted Views”. These consist of clinging to “impermanence, non-joy, non-self, and impurity”. Knowing that nothing in the world is permanent, they become attached to the idea of everything as “empty”. Therefore, they have no desires at all, and seek only to be liberated from birth and death. In this way, they have no way to understand the Four Virtues of the Buddha. CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION