..續本文上一頁an”t find a school that only practices Vajrayana without Mahayana. Similarly, regarding Chinese Buddhism simply as Exoteric Buddhism is also incorrect. As we see, in the morning and evening chanting liturgy of Chinese monasteries, there are Suramgama Dharani, Dharani of The Most Compassionate One, Rebirth-To-Pure-Land Dharani and so on. All of these are esoteric mantras, and in Buddhism there is no other stuff more esoteric than them.

　　Some may think, “In Esoteric Buddhism, empowerment is a prerequisite to read certain dharma books, while in Exoteric Buddhism, it”s not necessary.” In fact, this thought comes from a smattering knowledge of Buddhism. In Exoteric Buddhism, some precepts for monks are also kept secret from normal people. So keeping secret is not unique in Esoteric Buddhism.

　　In addition, it is not appropriate to assume all Tibetan monks with red robes belong to “Lama school”. “Lama” really means guru, and not every Tibetan practitioner can be guru. Similarly, it is not appropriate to call all Chinese monks “He Shang”, since not every monk is qualified with “He Shang”, which is a honorific title for monks with good practices and great virtues. Therefore, different titles represent different meanings. Maybe due to historical reasons, these special appellations are often improperly used in many cases.

　　Yesterday in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I saw there are many Buddhist terminologies in their master and doctoral thesis. So I just reminded them that, “When writing Buddhist papers in future, you”d better keep less self-approbation, and a couple of books are not enough to make you a Buddhist expert.” As many scholars with certain titles often presume that, they have studied Buddhism well enough through reading a few Buddhist books, and then start to run off at their mouths criticizing Buddhism. This is ridiculous.

　　Yesterday when a person talked about tathagatagarbha, he believed it is just the heart of Tathagatas, a very strange idea. Later during lunchtime, someone directly told him, “you”d better not make comments this way! From an expert”s point of view, tathagatagarbha is not as simple as you explained.” Nevertheless, he still insisted that he was correct, and the Buddha was exactly taught in this way. As you can see, nowadays many people prefer to understand Buddhism in their own ways, then spread their ideas all over the world and bring very bad influence on Buddhism. Therefore, as a Buddhist, each of us has the responsibility to protect and propagate the noble dharma.

　　Meanwhile, we should be aware of the impermanence of life. We have met such distinguished dharma in this life. It is not spontaneously coming to us, but due to the huge merits we collected through many past lives. Therefore, with such good causes and conditions, we should not waste our life or delay our dharma practice. Some may think, “I”m only 30 years old, and I”ll start my practice at 60.” This is a very absurd plan, since we never know which comes first, death or tomorrow

　　 Nobody can guarantee one won”t die tomorrow. Thus we should keep impermanence in our mind to remind us to practice as soon as possible, instead of wasting our lives any longer.

　　It is true that we are so fortunate to have the chance of learning so many dharma teachings such as impermanence, no-self, great compassion, Bodhichitta and so on. Many people around us are collecting bad karma every day and may never have a chance to hear dharma in their life. We should cherish this precious life and diligently learn and practice dharma. By keeping doing this, we can eventually understand the Buddha”s teaching that “All forms are impermanent; all impermanence are suffering; all sufferings have no self.” Furthermore, it will not be difficult for us to realize emptiness.

　　In a…

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