Next, I will elucidate the process of clearing karmic obstructions. Due to karmic deeds enacted through our confused six sense bases, humans inevitably face rebirth. The karmic obstructions I refer to are those that have already seeped into your consciousness. For instance, wrongdoings tend to be remembered and not easily forgotten. If you’ve been wronged, you won’t forget, just as you won’t forget if you’ve wronged others. These actions have entered your consciousness, and the negative karma that you’ve generated in your subconscious propels you into cycle of rebirth. There is only one inherent attribute not subject to reincarnation: your Buddha nature. If you wish to avoid rebirth, you need to gradually detach the troublesome senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and thought from your consciousness. No matter what transpires in the world, you should act as if you didn’t see, hear, talk about, or physically respond to it and as if it left no imprint on your consciousness. This paves the path to liberation from suffering.
While the concept may be easy to explain, achieving this detachment is a challenge. Here’s an analogy: consider your Buddha nature as gold mined from the earth. When this gold is unearthed, it’s enveloped by impurities like rocks and sand. To make the gold shine, you must first wash away these impurities. Similarly, you need to cleanse your past misdeeds, akin to gold panning, to let your inherent nature, your Buddha nature, emerge.
I instruct you to employ your inherent Buddha nature to address everyday issues. Examples of this include reciting Buddhist scriptures or reciting Little Houses (a Buddhist practice). When you recite scriptures, aren’t you doing so with a Buddha’s heart? Doesn’t the outcome of the recitation glow like gold? After offering the Little Houses, haven’t you cleared your karmic obstacles? Isn’t your inherent nature becoming increasingly pure? You must cleanse your heart of its defilements and remove them to escape the cycle of rebirth. How to escape? Avoid generating more karma in the future. For past actions, employ the methods I’ve suggested for soul repair – reciting scriptures and practising repentance. Once your soul is repaired, your heart will become pristine, achieving the emptiness of nature. With this emptiness, your surroundings will also become void. Imagine then, the potential to traverse the Realms of Form and Formless. But currently, you’re still surrounded by numerous defilements. Your gold – your soul – remains impure, thus, purifying your soul is imperative.
What does it mean to “let go”? What are the things you find challenging to release? There are several dimensions to letting go. One is mental, and the other is behavioural. Your capacity to mentally let go depends on several factors. For example, worrying about your child can mentally tether you, always concerned about their day at school or potential issues. Reflect on the many factors preventing you from letting go. Merely talking about “letting go” doesn’t translate to actual release. Your ability to let go relies on your self-realisation. Without understanding, how can you achieve this realisation? It’s through understanding the truth that you gain enlightenment. If you’re not familiar with fundamental Buddhist practices, such as reciting sutras, how can you attain enlightenment? It’s crucial to understand which sutras guide your growth in this life and which ones lead to enlightenment. Avoid confusion and ensure you don’t recite unsuitable ones.
Confirming your Buddha nature fundamentally involves liberating yourself from the turmoil within the emptiness of your nature. This emptiness is spiritual and transcendent, surpassing human concerns, which means that you are devoid of thoughts or worries, experiencing an emptiness free from attachment. But why does turmoil exist within this emptiness? Every fleeting thought, idea, worry, or fear that surfaces when your mind is not entirely empty creates turmoil within the emptiness, leaving stains on your Buddhist practice. Consider a spotless piece of glass symbolising the emptiness of nature. Each ink dot, representing a stray thought, a verbal act, an attachment, or the pain of unfulfilled desires, soils the glass. Every dot signifies the turmoil within this emptiness. Do you comprehend my analogy?
Upon achieving enlightenment and the Path of Realisation, you are no longer bound by the cycle of rebirth. If you succeed in cleaning this piece of glass, you escape reincarnation. How can this cleansing be achieved? I have now shared with you this invaluable Dharma door (Buddhist practice) illustrating how to cleanse these stains and clear the karmic obstacles. This method is also accessible to those who encounter this teaching online. This signals that the authentic Buddha-dharma has begun its descent into our world. Numerous Dharma doors from the past have been opened to the world, however, they were practised according to the conditions of their time, dictated by factors of heaven, earth, and humanity. Now, everything is transforming. Considering the current era, our pace of saving and awakening people should accelerate; we can’t solely depend on past practices. For instance, in the face of a severe illness, we no longer gradually nurse the body back to health with herbal medicine as in the past. Instead, we opt for immediate surgical intervention. The most potent remedies emerge only in crucial times, such as the advent of computers, which didn’t exist in the past. If computers, telephones, and mobile phones had existed then, they could have eased many hardships. Those venerable sages in ancient times wouldn’t have had to endure such trials and tribulations to enlighten sentient beings, by the mandate of Heaven, with their religious teachings according to their culture and location. From another perspective, although these religious sects bear different names, their core principles align.
Remember, enlightenment involves transforming your past. If you don’t live in truth, you’ll find yourself creating karma in a state of confusion, uttering and performing misguided actions in a haze, committing offences due to a lack of a balanced mindset, and so forth. As a result, you will likely fall into the cycle of rebirth in the six realms of existence, unable to escape from the ocean of suffering.
Therefore, it’s imperative to guard your inherent Buddha nature according to the precepts; apply the Dharma suited to each person’s capacity and disposition; return to calmness in harmony with your true mind; act in agreement with the truth of emptiness; recognise that everything comes into existence according to conditions; avoid deviation by adhering to right faith and right mindfulness; gain wisdom through your enlightenment in Buddhism; achieve enlightenment following the principle of karmic fruition; control thoughts as they arise; and attain emptiness based on purity. I have summarised these principles as the ‘Ten Causes Dharma’, and I hope that disciples will awaken to their truth.