IS IT POSSIBLE TO ELIMINATE KARMIC OBSTACLES FROM THE EIGHTH CONSCIOUSNESS?
Caller: When reciting the Eighty-Eight Buddhas Great Repentance (LIFO) and praying to Bodhisattva to prioritise the elimination of karmic obstacles in our eighth consciousness, would it make it easier for us to eliminate karmic obstacles related to our bad habits and at the same time prevent us from committing new karma?
Master Jun Hong Lu: To eliminate karmic obstacles from your eighth consciousness takes more than just paying lip service. Just because you pray to Bodhisattvas doesn’t mean that they will be eliminated, because Bodhisattvas will not alter the law of cause and effect. As these are the consequences of the seeds that you have sown in your eighth consciousness, the retribution is bound to take place.
That said, when we talk about Bodhisattva helping us eliminate our karmic obstacles, it basically means Bodhisattva is helping us eliminate those karmic obstacles that have come into being, and emanated from the unwholesome deeds committed.
You can’t eliminate those in your eighth consciousness. When karmic obstacles that have yet to be stored in your eighth consciousness become lesser and lesser with the condition that no new karma is committed, only then those in your eighth consciousness can slowly be eradicated.
To give a simple example, you write something in a notebook, and then you keep erasing the word. It can’t be entirely erased as some of the marks will remain. If you leave it alone, do you think the mark will slowly fade away?
Even the paper will slowly turn yellow till you cannot tell the colour anymore. Don’t you think the mark has been eliminated? This is how it is when it comes to eliminating the karma in your eighth consciousness.
Source: Wenda20130726 33:33, Master Jun Hong Lu’s call-in radio program
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