..续本文上一页 Buddha-Mind reflects all concepts freely without being contaminated by them. They go forth freely just as they are, separated from all hindrances and annoyances of knowledge, and all the phenomena of composition and conformity.
4) The fourth significance is an affirmation of Compassionate helpfulness, for being free from all limitations of selfness, it draws all alike into its all-embracing purity and unity and peacefulness, illumining their minds with equal brightness so that all sentient beings have an equal right to Enlightenment in this very lifetime; an equal opportunity to practice this ultimate principle of Kindness; and equal certainty that ultimately all sentient beings will attain Enlightenment, mature in their root of merits and realize their awakening to Buddha-Mind.
Your daily activities of your mind is an outer activity bringing about changes and increased complexity and confusion in your daily life.
But the inner activity of "polishing your mirror-like mind" through our Zen training here today enables you to calm the mind, which brings about harmony, simplicity, peace, health, truth and unity.
Because of the THREE POISONS: ANGER, GRASPING and DELUSION, your very being is contaminated. Therefore you cannot know true Enlightenment. If there should be no rising of these three poison, your Buddha-Mind would naturally appear upon its own accord and you would manifest Wisdom, Compassion and Enlightenment.
It is like placing perfectly fresh clean clothes into a chest with perfumed herbs. The clothes have no odor of themselves. But after awhile, the clothing becomes contaminated with the scent of the perfumed herbs.
It is the very same with your true Buddha-Mind! Your precious gem-like nature is glazed over by the contaminations of the Three Poison and that of Karma-consciousness and the false sense of the phenomenal world by means of your lower Manas, or six senses.
Your Mind gives rise to three kinds of conceptions which are in close mutuality and are inseparable from all discrimination.
1) The first is the conception of activity, called KAMMA.
2) The second is the conception of an "actor", called Ego-self.
3) The third is the conception of the "world of action", called the phenomenal world around you.
We create "Kamma", born of our "thoughts, speech and actions". So, it becomes vitally important for us to constantly be mindful of our "thoughts, speech and actions". We must learn to recognize the fact that "cause and effect" are one, not two separate things.
When your realization of "cause and effect" is felt not only intellectually, but with your whole being, you become liberated to the fact that there is no way to avoid taking responsibility for your life- and for the life of others.
You can no longer make excuses like, "she made me angry!", and the like,because you know that in reality, there is no "anger", to become angry with. And armed with this new reality induced by Zen awakening, you empower yourself to do something about not only "anger", but all aspects of your life!
This newly found empowerment- and responsibility- encompasses the whole universe, because it is based on the realization that we are not separate from the universe. What happens to the Ten Thousand Things- likewise happens to you. What is happening in Somalia, the Mid-east, downtown L.A., the Ozone layer, etc., is also related to this "cause and effect" of your very own being.
This one aspect of Zen awakening- experienced with your very being- is what Buddhism is all about. It”s what the Precepts are all about.
Dogen Zenji, the founder of our Soto Zen tradition says it this way:
"To study the way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to remove barriers between self and others. To remo…
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