In reality, a person with a good conscience doesn’t need to practise forbearance. Why? Because someone with a good conscience has nothing to endure. If you haven’t harmed anyone, would you feel upset when someone scolds you? In fact, the need to “forbear and be diligent” suggests there’s already something wrong. You might be enduring because you’ve done something wrong. “He’s scolding me—fine, I’ll grit my teeth and bear it.” Sure, you might have many reasons to justify yourself, but somewhere along the line, you still made a mistake.
If your heart is true and pure, there’s no need to endure. If I’ve genuinely treated you well and you insult me, I might think, “What’s wrong with this person? I was sincerely kind to him… never mind, just let it go.” There’s no need for forced forbearance—you’re not swallowing resentment. So what does it mean to “endure”? Imagine a couple fighting furiously. The woman has the louder voice, and the man, unable to win the argument, backs down and says, “I’ll just endure it.” If he had the upper hand, would he still be so “forbearing”? That’s not a true sense of forbearance.
What I like to do is dig deep—to uncover people’s faults at the root. Only by doing that can your mind truly become clean. If your heart isn’t that pure, how can you possibly expand it to be as vast as the universe? If your mind is full of dark, blotchy stains, can you truly make your heart that boundless? Just because someone doesn’t say anything out loud, does that mean their mind is clean? When listening to a Dharma talk, you must understand the principles behind it.
Cut off afflictions entirely. That’s what it means—to eliminate your afflictions completely. If even the slightest trace of affliction remains, your spiritual cultivation is not yet complete. If something happens at home or elsewhere and you feel unhappy, it shows that afflictions are still present in your heart. But if you are completely clean inside, you won’t see those things as problems. When something arises at home, you’ll simply say, “Ah, karma has ripened again. Since the effect has come, how should I work to transform it?”
Karma follows you like a shadow—you’ll never be entirely free from challenges. “Oh, Master, another issue’s popped up!” You might as well tie me to your waist! In reality, afflictions—like your mind—neither increase nor decrease. The mind is inherently equal and unmoving. My mind hasn’t grown, nor has it diminished. It’s still the same mind, still genuinely sincere towards you. That’s what compassion is.
Only with a mind rooted in equanimity can you truly embrace better things. If you hold ill will towards someone, you can’t empathise with them. If you don’t believe they’re good at heart, how could you truly listen to what they have to say? In many marriages, the wife may clearly be right, but the husband refuses to listen. Eventually, they both come to see me—I give them a talking-to, and both of them end up listening to me. Why? Because long-standing discord creates bias. When your mind lacks equanimity, you won’t be able to accept others’ views. But if you see others as your equals, you’ll be able to accept their opinions. People who are always saying others are confused are often confused themselves. Those who constantly criticise others aren’t usually much better off. And those who accuse others of being mentally unstable are often the ones with real problems themselves. Cultivating the mind is about understanding the truth.
Let the mind remain non-arising. This means your mind does not generate any thoughts, and your karmic causes and conditions are extinguished. If your mind has never produced a single thought, where would karmic causes and conditions even come from? How are karmic causes and conditions formed? How does cause and effect arise? It’s all created by your own mind. If you say, “I hate him,” then you’ve created a karmic cause. When that person starts hating you in return, that’s the karmic result. Or say I really enjoy eating sweets—I’ve planted that cause, and when I develop high blood sugar, that’s the result. But if your mind doesn’t give rise to thoughts, how could there be any cause and effect at all?
Human life is just a phenomenon. Once karmic causes and conditions are extinguished, there is no more cause and effect. It’s all created by the mind. So what is the truth of cause and effect? What is the truth of the cycle of rebirth—samsara? Why can people be reborn as animals after death? Why can they fall into the Hell Realms?
Many people swear at others and say they’ll end up in the Eighteenth Level of Hell. Let me tell you—those punishments are real and terrifying. Imagine a knife sawing open someone’s skull, hands being chopped off, or people being thrown down a mountain of blades. The pain feels exactly the same as it would in the human world, but the soul does not die. After a short while, it wakes up again. Down there, how quickly one regains consciousness depends on the timing. After fainting, they usually wake within an hour or so. Don’t assume that just because no one sees you doing wrong, you’ll get away with it. Don’t think that doing bad things has no karmic consequences. That’s why the best way to understand cause and effect is simple: don’t do bad things.
The truth of karma and the cycle of rebirth is this: it’s all created by your mind. Why does karma keep cycling through rebirth? Because your mind keeps generating good and bad intentions. That’s what sets karma in motion. If your mind focuses on kindness and you’re performing meritorious deeds, your karma moves upward—you ascend to Heaven. But if your mind is engaging in negative thoughts and harmful actions, then the karmic result manifests, and you descend into the lower realms. So your mind has the power to rise to Heaven or fall into the Underworld. The mind is incredibly important. That’s why, once a person’s conscience is corrupted, they’re beyond saving. On top of that, you mustn’t let your thoughts wander recklessly. You can’t just allow delusions to arise at any moment. If you’re constantly imagining things you can’t realistically achieve, that’s called delusion. If you’re thinking about something achievable today, that’s a right thought; if you’re thinking about something unrealistic, that’s a deluded thought. Why don’t I ever tell you to go and buy lottery tickets? Because you’re not going to win the jackpot! The moment delusion arises, greed follows. Then trouble sets in. Your thinking becomes muddled, delusions pile up, attachments form, afflictions increase—and eventually, you can’t see anything clearly. At that point, you’ll do anything for money—and in that state, you completely lose sight of right thoughts.
“The mind is free of deluded thoughts; the nature is inherently empty.” Because my mind is free of deluded thoughts, it originally holds no thoughts at all.
“Ignorance prevents liberation.” If you remain confused and unclear—if you don’t understand these principles—then that’s ignorance. And if you cannot attain liberation, that becomes the greatest danger in the cycle of rebirth. Why do people fall into the cycle of rebirth? Because their minds are constantly filled with unwholesome thoughts. And why do some ascend to Heaven? Because their minds are constantly focused on helping others. That’s why your thoughts matter so much.
“When one is clear about their own actions, liberation comes naturally.” This means you must understand the things you do—then you’ll naturally be liberated. In daily life, many people have no idea what they’ve done. They don’t even know whether their actions are right or wrong. For example, when the boss comes and asks, “Did you do this?” they respond, “Oh… I can’t remember.” Do you really believe you’re aware of everything you do each day? Do you even realise the impact of the things you say? Words come out of your mouth, and you no longer take responsibility for them.
Remember: before you speak or act, let the thought pass through your mind first. If it doesn’t pass that internal check, don’t let it come out. Impure things must be filtered. Good words are fine, but if you overdo it, people may think you’re being insincere. When we say someone is good or bad, we’re referring to the state of their heart.
“All phenomena arise from the mind. If the mind gives rise to nothing, then phenomena (dharma) do not arise, and even names do not exist.” Everything in life stems from the thoughts of the heart. If you don’t entertain those thoughts, no phenomena arise—it’s as if even your name does not exist. This is what’s called forgetting the self. To cultivate the mind and practise the Buddha’s teachings, you must forget the self. If the notion of “self” disappears, then tell me—what remains?
Giving with attachment yields far less merit and virtue than giving without attachment. If you announce in front of a crowd, “I’m giving this to you,” the Buddha-dharma teaches that when you give from a position of superiority, your heart is already off track—you’ve lost the merit and virtue. That’s not true giving; that’s charity born of pity, treating the recipient like a beggar. True giving means letting go of your name—even forgetting who you are while giving. When you give selflessly, show compassion selflessly, and make effort without a trace of “me,” that’s when real merit and virtue arise. If you always put yourself front and centre, thinking, “I’m amazing; nothing happens without me,” your merit and virtue will be greatly reduced.
Cause and effect is something you create and something you bear. Whatever you’re experiencing today—good or bad—is the result of your own actions. Don’t blame others. If you’re walking around today with a sour face, being unpleasant to everyone—that’s because you created that cause. If you’re happy today, it’s because you planted a positive cause. If things are going smoothly, it’s due to the good causes you created in the past. If you buy a gift for your wife and she treats you with great warmth in return—isn’t that cause and effect? In this world, say you eat something you shouldn’t at lunch, and by evening your stomach feels uncomfortable. Isn’t that just the result of the cause you created earlier in the day?
The karma of the body, speech, and mind—whether wholesome or unwholesome—comes from you. Everything you do with your body, say with your mouth, and think with your mind generates karma, whether good or bad. If your body engages in harmful acts, your mouth speaks harsh words, and your mind is filled with unwholesome thoughts, then you are actively creating karmic force. Karmic force can be either wholesome or unwholesome. Some people have asked me, “Master, what’s the difference between negative karmic force and karmic force?” Negative karmic force refers to something bad that has already taken shape—it carries a strongly negative connotation. Karma, however, includes collective karma, wholesome karma, and unwholesome karma. When wholesome or unwholesome thoughts arise from your heart, you are generating karmic force. That karmic energy becomes the cause of your continued rebirth in the Six Realms—and you’ll return in the next life to repay it. Because your body, speech, and mind have already generated the karmic forces that bind you to the Six Realms, you will have to come back again to bear the consequences. And this, too, is something you created yourself.
The reason we speak of cause and effect across three lifetimes—past, present, and future—is because we remain entangled in the Twelve Links of Conditioned Origination (dvādaśāṅgapratītyasamutpāda). I’ve already taught you about the Twelve Links of Conditioned Origination. Remember—because human beings have not broken free from these twelve links, they continue to revolve within them, again and again, without escape.
We must eliminate delusion and realise the truth. This means removing confusion in order to verify what is real. You need to let go of things you don’t understand and affirm what is true. “Cultivating the mind” is a truly priceless treasure—something beyond any measure of value. As long as you are cultivating your mind, you’ve found something beyond price. Those who don’t cultivate the mind miss out on this treasure. If your heart is a treasure trove, and you treat it as such, it can hold countless good things. That means you have everything you need and owe nothing to anyone—you are free from karmic debts. It’s like having a warehouse filled with treasures. If your heart is full of goodness and you’ve done many wholesome deeds, would you still be in debt to others? And then—you can use it freely. When you’re short of resources, you can draw from your inner treasure. It’s like how, when spiritual disturbances arise, people quickly burn a Little House—because they’ve been regularly accumulating merit and virtue, they have something to offer.
Everyone can accumulate merit and virtue. There may be differences in quantity, but in terms of quality, it comes down to the relationship between quantity and quality. On a qualitative level, it’s the same. Let me ask you: is your merit and virtue greater than mine? Or is mine greater than yours? The truth is, merit and virtue are the same—if they genuinely arise from the heart. Here’s an example: if both of us are full from eating, doesn’t that mean the result is the same? The only difference is that if you’re bigger, you might eat five bowls, while I eat two. The principle is the same.
If someone’s mind is clouded by delusion and they fail to act with conscience, then even if they reincarnate a thousand times, they will make the same mistakes a thousand times. In other words, if you don’t use your heart to sincerely cultivate and practise Buddhism, you will remain trapped in the endless cycle of rebirth. Why do we say “a thousand times”? Because if you never take your past mistakes seriously, even if you’re reborn a thousand times, you’ll still fail to understand—and your life will fail a thousand times over.
Did you find today’s teaching insightful? That’s because I’m digging deep for you. That’s the power of Buddhism in plain language—it helps you understand your mind and realise your true nature. Once you hear it, you can apply it straight away. You’ll tell yourself, “I must not let random thoughts arise. I must not do bad things.” As soon as a wrong thought surfaces, you catch it: “No, I can’t allow this thought to exist.” And the moment you eliminate it—wonderful! Nothing happens. But the worst thing is to follow that bad thought and indulge it, letting it drag you deeper and deeper into darkness. There’s a Chinese saying: “drilling into the tip of an ox’s horn.” Can you actually drill into an ox’s horn? Wouldn’t it hurt? The deeper you go, the darker and narrower it becomes. So remember—don’t get stuck in tunnel vision. Whatever it is, let it go. Sleep on it, and it will pass. In this human world, life hangs on a single breath. What could possibly be more important than your own life?