Wisdom and direct realisation: Wisdom represents a person’s intelligence and energy, and direct realisation lies in how your wisdom and virtuous capabilities confirm the energy of your Buddhist practice. The greater a person’s wisdom, the closer they are to the Bodhisattva. Those who can find solutions and maintain a positive mindset, achieving their goals successfully, embody true wisdom, and thus, the Bodhisattva is with them. Conversely, if a person harbours misguided thoughts, consistently devising harmful ideas, they resemble a demon. As wisdom expands in energy, becoming more profound and ultimate, one reaches the pinnacle of awakening, perfect enlightenment. But how does one know if they’ve become awakened? It occurs when you’ve comprehended a particular matter, thinking correctly and gaining clarity in right mindfulness – this is the essence of awakening, a concept from Buddhist teachings. Yet, understanding one aspect does not equate to comprehending everything.
Buddhist scriptures state, “All sages and saints are distinguished by the Unconditioned Dharma.” This Unconditioned Dharma implies a state of non-action, no knowledge and non-existence. This absence of thought and action, a state of emptiness, differentiates Bodhisattvas from ordinary people. While a Bodhisattva in the human world may seem inactive, their spiritual state has transcended the Human Realm. Their apparent non-action is, in fact, the handling of worldly affairs with wisdom. Once these matters are resolved, it’s as though nothing has been done, yet this very inaction epitomises the Bodhisattva’s spiritual state. The distinction of the Unconditioned Dharma is what sets apart ordinary people from Bodhisattvas.
Each person’s conscience serves as their most impartial judge, as it is inherently fair. While you can deceive others, deceiving your own conscience is impossible. You might assert to others, “I didn’t do it, I didn’t say it, I have nothing of the sort,” but can you genuinely fool your own conscience? Thus, when someone does wrong, various expressions can give them away. Remember, one’s conscience is the fairest judge. Awareness and awakening should come from within: feel, learn, and comprehend on your own. To determine whether your actions are right, first connect with the Buddha within your heart, then attain self-awareness and awakening.
To achieve genuine happiness, one must learn to let go of themselves and their afflictions. True joy is found only when you genuinely release these burdens. Seeking mental liberation involves detaching from worldly entanglements. Freedom of the mind is unattainable if it’s ensnared by material concerns, emotions, fame, fortune, or other negative influences, including attachments to children. To truly break free and let go, one must face reality. In practising Buddhism, we confront reality to transcend it. If you don’t face reality, you can’t transcend it. For example, if your child treats you poorly, you must confront this harsh reality and rise above it. Don’t take it personally; see it as a karmic debt from a past life. It’s not that they are bad, but rather a consequence of your previous actions. Ask yourself, “why didn’t I do more good deeds in a past life? Why didn’t I guide and awaken more people as Master Lu has been doing?” Thinking this way helps you to let go, to free yourself from afflictions and find true spiritual happiness.
When a person strives for something while expecting a reward, they often face failure. When you pursue something, you should be aware of the cost involved and the high likelihood of failure. The second fundamental point of learning Buddhism that I just mentioned, “Focus solely on cultivation rather than on the rewards,” teaches you not to chase things that come with a price. One must realise that pursuing things with a price often leads to chasing illusions, which are unattainable. Pursuing things that come with a price is folly.
There are two types of self-awareness: authentic self-awareness and false self-awareness. If I simply explain this to you, it might feel abstract and hard to grasp, so let me illustrate with an example to help you understand what self-awareness means. Suppose I visit a library or a bookstore and find a book I really like, but I don’t have money to buy it. Should I take it? Then I remember an old saying: “Stealing a book is not considered theft.” This makes me think: “Right, taking this book isn’t really stealing since the ancients said so.” This is an example of false self-awareness controlling you, making you believe you have a justification for taking the book. Even if you come up with a thousand reasons for a wrong action, the goal is to make your wrongdoing seem like a falsehood. It’s like presenting something false as if it were true. Consider another example, albeit a bit crude: imagine going to a restaurant and ordering fish that has been sitting for days and begun to smell. Clearly, it’s spoiled, but the chef fries it in oil and covers it with a heavy sauce before serving it to you. When you eat it, it remains spoiled, isn’t it?
False self-awareness leads to artificial actions, driven by the human desire for face or pride. To strip away this false sense of pride is to remove this false self-awareness. Practising Buddhism involves eradicating all these falsehoods within us. Why do we recite the Eighty-Eight Buddhas Great Repentance? It’s to rigorously dig out the evil roots within us, ensuring no new wicked sprouts emerge. If we refuse to uproot these evil seeds, even if preserved for a while, they will eventually grow into poisonous weeds. The essence of practising Buddhism is to correct our faults and thoroughly uproot these evils within us. This false self-awareness, the concern for pride, is all emptiness; it’s crucial to resolutely correct this.
In Buddhist practice, the first step is to completely let go of the ego, to be without the ‘I’, because the presence of a false self-awareness inevitably breeds vanity. Due to our perceptions and delusions, influenced by what we see and hear, we are misled by these illusions every day, constantly making mistakes and living in error, thereby endlessly breeding countless afflictions. If we avoid wrongdoings, we won’t have these afflictions and can maintain peace and tranquillity every moment.
Remember this saying: A useful person knows when not to act. A highly capable person often exercises restraint in many situations, opting to listen and learn rather than acting on everything impulsively. They might know they can do something but choose humility over action, always reserving a bit of restraint. On the other hand, a person who thinks they are indispensable often overreaches – they would claim “I can do anything, I give you my word.” But when the time comes, they fall short. Consider some businesspeople who make grand promises, only to end up in debt and abscond. Promises are easy to make but hard to keep; therefore, in Buddhist practice, one should not make promises lightly.
Reflect on how many bad habits you have, how many wrongdoings you’ve committed. Do you feel ashamed? You must earnestly cultivate your mind and rectify the ignorance and habits clouding it. To be helped and saved by me, you must first be a good person. If you are not virtuous, even if you pray to the Bodhisattva for salvation, the Bodhisattva may not be able to help you.
You must earnestly cultivate your mind, actively creating conditions that facilitate this. Let all your virtuous capability, morality and wisdom come forth to spread the Dharma and benefit others. Otherwise, you would be failing not just Guan Yin Bodhisattva and me, but also your own conscience.