Master Jun Hong Lu’s
Daily Words of Wisdom
3 April 2021
(An Excerpt)
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE UNITY OF KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE
Master Jun Hong Lu: Buddhist practitioners should place emphasis on nurturing their morality and innate attainment. There must be a unity of knowledge and practice. If you only talk about theories, without putting them into practice, you will never be ‘one’ with the Buddha. Just like a person who claims that he can cook. He can go on and on with all the culinary theories. However, if he has never cooked a single dish before, he can never be considered a good cook.
Knowledge is like a map;
Practice is like scaling a mountain.
A good teacher is akin to a mountain guide.
Only with a correct path and a mountain guide to lead the way, you steer clear of all the traps on the route. When all is said and done, you make it to the summit, to finally get a glimpse of the true essence of the Buddha’s teachings.
Learning Buddhism without a teacher is like consulting a doctor but not taking their prescriptions.
Spiritual cultivation for your own gains is selfishness.
Misinterpretation of Buddhism leads you nowhere.
Buddhist practice is a process where you realise the truth through cultivation and gain understanding of the principles by transforming them into action.
How much do you know about the teachings? How much have you learned through putting these theories into practice?
This is the kind of responsibility you hold towards your own life, the life of others and the path that leads to liberation.
You need to understand the severity of your own karmic hindrances. Only when you are equipped with this knowledge are you able to understand the karmic hindrances of sentient beings, help them in the elimination so that they will rediscover their wisdom.
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