..续本文上一页s is because ordinary people suffer from mental defilements and evil karma, so the world they make is a foul and unclean one. Buddha is replete with boundless and purified merits, having wholly-completed the blessed-rewards and perfect wisdom. Therefore, the world he creates is stately, pure and clean. This is the Buddhist Law of Causality.
Having understood this point, Buddha”s followers should in their everyday life be mindful of their mental activities. Thus every thought that arises from their mind should lead them to perform wholesome acts. They should do so themselves, as well as persuading others to do the same. Only then can we transform our world into a Pure Land (many such worlds are already in existence in all ten directions of the world system).
3. To follow the Buddha is an advancement in life
In order to understand the basic purpose of following the Buddha, we must first recognise the value of human existence that we are playing a leading role in the universe. Having recognised this value, we can determine the correct direction of the path to head towards. It is ourselves who cause the human suffering and happiness, and the commotion and tranquillity in the world. There is no external authority who govern our lives. Since we possess such a initiative power, therefore we can uplift ourselves to perform wholesome acts.
To be progressive is to perform wholesome acts step by step until we reach the summit of ultimate truth. This is the purpose of following the Buddha. It is human nature for us to look up to the good. Unless we are confronted with failures in our lives and we are losers, then we may be low in our spirits. Once we give ourselves up we might as well be the scum of the community, but there are not many people acting this way, and there are many opportunities lying ahead waiting for us to discover them and improve ourselves.
"Average" people consider that good things in life consist of a happy family with many children, good health, wealth and holding high social positions, and this is certainly true to some extent. But according to Buddhism, these are good fruits, not the good seeds. If we want to continue to enjoy the good fruits then we must not be content with what we have at the time. This is because good times will eventually come to an end. Only by accumulating good seeds (performing wholesome acts) can we maintain and progress towards a better life.
This may be compared to our actions when we see a beautiful flower. Our greed urges us to pluck it so that it becomes ours instead of taking care and cultivating it. In this way, we may have possession of the flower but we will soon lose it as it is impermanent. In addition, it is also a wrong deed.
Although some people acquire wealth and social status within reasonable means, they exploit others” benefits to their advantage. This is because they lack the understanding of the spirit of progressive life. Worse still, they do not establish the right outlook of progressive life.
Some people say, "I do not want to follow the Buddha nor attain Buddhahood. All I want to do is to be a good person". This is not a right attitude. As the ancient saying goes: "If we follow the best examples, we may end up as moderately good examples. If we follow the moderately good examples, then we may end up even below these". It is right to start following the Buddha by becoming a good person but if we are content in only trying to be good persons, then we may end up as not being such good persons after all. Therefore, to follow the Buddha is not just to be a good person, but we must set up a noble objective to strive to accomplish. And accomplish we must, if not in this time, then we should realise the objective in the future.
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