This World Cannot Contaminate You

You did that thing, I am unhappy, and then you get entangled in it. You love yourself too much. At that point, practice the Bodhisattva Path: giving, upholding the precepts, patience, diligence, meditative concentration, and wisdom. Follow along; wisdom comes from what went before.

Giving, upholding the precepts, diligence. Giving means giving your entire body and mind. To seek realization of the Buddha-Dharma, make a vow. Do you really want to attain enlightenment? Make a vow: “To attain enlightenment, I can give everything I have.”

I know that when your self-interest is touched, you forget that vow. That is why we need cultivation. If you made a vow and immediately fulfilled it, would you still need cultivation? Then you would not need cultivation. Cultivation is for you to keep fulfilling your own vow, because you keep running out of it, failing to remain within it, and losing your way.

I know it is hard. Everyone is attached because we cannot let go. Hard is hard, and pitiful is pitiful. But if we want to attain enlightenment, we have to come out of this quickly—quickly. Grit your teeth and be stronger; quickly free yourself from these confusions—from greed, hatred, delusion, arrogance, and doubt.

For now, when you cannot let go, shift your attention; that is one method. You cannot let go because it does not exist in the first place; it is inherently illusory. You cannot let go because you have become attached; something has gone wrong in your nervous system, and it has tightened around it. Untie that knot. Where is it tied? You have to see through it before you can let it go. If you cannot see through it, how can you let it go?

It is empty space to begin with. Can you let go of empty space? What would you put down? Emotional things are illusory to begin with. You say, “I will let go of empty space”—where would you put it? In essence, that is all it is; we are simply entangled in it.

You love someone and hope they love you; that is the simplest thing. You insist that they love you—but why should they? Is it not enough for them to love someone else? Do they have to love you? Is there not a problem here? Love if you love; what is it to anyone else?

You love someone, and then demand that they love you. Look—is this not a problem? Can you demand that? Can they be made to meet your demand? That is completely upside down. Yet everyone tirelessly acts out a television drama here every day, and acts it out quite well. Love if you love; do not worry about what others do.

Why can’t we let go? Because we are too small. Sometimes we really are very small. We worry because we think that if others do not love us, we will lose everything. We feel lonely and alone, and think we will be left by ourselves, becoming smaller and smaller.

You are the whole world, I am telling you. Your mind can bring the whole world to life; everyone’s mind is large, broad, expansive. You sit alone, and the entire universe is right here with you; you can be the center of the world and live a wonderful life. How could you get entangled in something as small as an ant? Then you say, “I cannot lose that ant. If I lose it, I suffer—suffer, suffer, suffer.” And that is how it goes.

Your mind was originally so vast, containing the entire universe. Look at this, practice gradually, broaden your vision, know who you are, and know the capacity of your mind; otherwise, we become attached.

Once attached to that one thing, it is merely small—small as an ant, a mustard seed, or a grain of rice. Your mind can become just that small; you can get stuck in a narrow corner and become as big as it. If it is that small, you become that small too. That is certain.

But we are not like that. Our lives are more wonderful; we can live more wonderfully. This wonder does not mean that going out dancing and singing is wonderful. It is your mind: no matter whether you stay in the dirtiest corner of this world, you are still happy and pure. This world cannot contaminate you.

That is called contamination: it has stained you, and their Habitual tendencies have stained you. They may like one thing today and another tomorrow. Everything about them is habitual tendency; they cannot control it. Your vexation means you have been stained by it, understand? Then you let others stain you. You sit there crying, “Go ahead, stain me, stain me”—you cannot bear not being stained. And then you tell me you want to attain enlightenment? That will not do.

Practice gradually, and everything will get better. As long as you persist, even short periods are fine. Sit in meditation every few days, or practice whenever you have time. In daily life, reflect and maintain awareness. When anger arises, say, “I should not be angry; I am cultivating now.” When jealousy arises, say, “I should not be jealous; I am cultivating now,” and set it aside. Or when someone insults you, say, “I am a Bodhisattva; I must practice patience.”

With everything, start this way: it is a little hard at first. After some time, the wind is calm, the sky high and the clouds light—there was nothing wrong after all. There was nothing much to it; that thing was not worth getting angry about. At first, though, you feel insulted. Two months later, you think, “That was not worth getting angry about. What was I enduring? There was nothing to endure.” Gradually, you become a Bodhisattva.

On this foundation, on this Bodhisattva foundation, keep going, keep going, keep going, and you realize Buddhahood. It is that simple. Life gives you better training, so you progress faster. The Bodhisattva Path is the same; I came through it this way too.

I was the same. When jealous, I would say, “How can I be jealous?” When angry, “How can I be angry?” I talked to myself. I reflected; when practicing patience, I should practice patience. Even if everyone in the world insulted you and no one practiced patience, I should still do so.

Do not compare yourself with others. Where you place yourself is very important. You want to realize Buddhahood; that is the goal. So now you should be a Bodhisattva; that is the goal. You must accomplish this. If you cannot, then you are not one. OK, then accomplish it. Gradually, gradually, gradually, you do.

Gradually, in the end, on the first day you are still practicing patience; on the second day you think, “What was that? What was I enduring? It was nothing at all—just a joke.” It is a farce, a joke: everyone has fallen ill with greed, hatred, delusion, arrogance, and doubt. Three neurotic people are making a joke of themselves, and you take part. Why join in when you could simply watch? Then you become the protagonist.

Sometimes, when everyone is attached, they are exactly like neurotic people: they cannot make sense of things, and nothing you say gets through. One digs into their own narrow corner, another digs into theirs; each says they are right. Are they not all neurotic? That is simply how the nerves are.

Look: at that time, stand back and watch; do not take part. Once you join in, you cannot make sense of it, and everything gets tangled. Look—three neurotic people gradually recover, and the farce ends. It may be a comedy or a tragedy; that is how it is. It is nothing.

Yet in this world, life after life, we keep watching comedies and tragedies. Life after life, we watch this way. If you do not want to watch anymore, hurry up and realize Buddhahood. If you want to watch and keep watching, that is fine too.

I mainly stop watching because I am afraid I will act in it myself. I am afraid I will get addicted to acting, jump right in, and join the others. Truly, there is something wrong with all our nerves, you know. The energy channels run along the nerves; when they become entangled, there is something wrong with the nerves.

(It is all mild.)

It has become deeply ingrained. Do not be afraid. When studying and practicing the Buddha-Dharma, first of all, do not be afraid. What the Buddha said is True and Not False. Your wholesome connections, merit, and blessings are right there. You can hear the Buddha-Dharma and engage in cultivation and realization, so do not worry. There is nothing to fear. The future will get better and better—remember that. Keep moving forward.

Do not look only at the gains and losses in front of you. As long as you abide on the Buddha Path and move forward with determination, everything will get better and better. There will be wind and rain, frost, cold, and twists and turns along the way; these are normal. But your destination is the Pure Land, the happiest and most blissful ending. Because that is what you pursue, you will ultimately move toward the best.

If you do not study Buddhism, cultivate, or understand the Buddha-Dharma and the highest truth, then our final destination in this world is death and the grave. It is that simple. We will ultimately head toward death.

The resentments and affections of this life never end; the television drama continues until I am dying before it finishes—a television series a hundred years long. You watch television dramas too. Every day, dramas play on television and outside television; are they not all the same? Have you not watched enough? There is acting inside and outside, and everyone acts out their own part. All people hope only to act their lives a little more wonderfully.

The most wonderful thing is cultivating and realizing the Buddha-Dharma. Then your ending will certainly be a comedy. If you do not cultivate, the ending will certainly be a tragedy, I am telling you. It will not be a good thing; it will be miserable. And there are birth, aging, sickness, and death as well.

Do not worry. Do not be afraid of losing things; everything you lose is something you were meant to lose. Something new will come after what you lose. Some of it you cannot see, and some you can. Do not worry about these things on the road of cultivation.

As long as you settle your mind on the road of cultivation, whether you are a layperson taking your children to and from school or doing something else, say, “I am a disciple of the Buddha. I am cultivating, and engaging in cultivation and realization.” Whenever you are aware of your own greed, hatred, delusion, arrogance, and doubt, you are a Bodhisattva, wherever you are.

Being a Bodhisattva is harder at first because you have to restrain your desires. You have not seen through things and still cling to appearances, so you have to restrain yourself. In the end, you discover that the things you suppressed were illusory. You will see this. At that point they disappear, and you become pure and happy. Then you are not far from attaining Fruition and understanding your Buddha-nature.

This entire process—practicing patience, upholding the precepts, giving—is a process of letting go of the self. All your suffering comes from having a “you” here. In your subconscious, you believe there is an “I,” an “I” here. Then: I suffer, I arise and cease, I am in samsara, I live and die; I am exhausted in body and mind.

This “I” is a false mark. The entire Bodhisattva Path, the Six Perfections, everything, is here to break through this “I” of yours. Once this “I” is broken through, who is there to live and die? Who is there to be in samsara? Who is there to be exhausted in body and mind? Who is tired? Who is fat? Who is thin? Who is anything at all? Who is well? Who is sick? Nothing remains.

When you awaken to this, you are not far from the Buddha, not far from seeing the nature that is “originally Buddha” in you. This is perfect and unsurpassed awakening. When you advance into the Fruition of perfect and unsurpassed awakening, you achieve sovereign mastery. Great sovereign mastery.

What kind of state is great sovereign mastery? It is what you imagine now. You say, “What about the things I imagine in my desires?” They are tiny. Your wishes are all as small as this cup of water.

If you attain true Fruition, your Dharma power and everything you possess—even what a Buddha possesses—you cannot imagine. You have only those wishes, after all. Human wishes are very small. In this life, sitting here, you think as hard as you can: do we not merely want a little fame, profit, emotion, and desire? We simply want one thing or another.

What do those things you want amount to? It is like someone who has seen the greatest, most exquisite treasure in the universe—someone who has seen and touched all its treasures—and you tell them, “I have a glass marble. It is so beautiful.” Your whole desire is to obtain this glass marble in this life. This is human desire: the greatest human wish is to obtain a glass marble. You cannot imagine what a Buddha possesses.

So realize Buddhahood first. Once you become a Buddha, you have everything—everything. Make up your mind; the main thing is your mind. Resolve to realize Buddhahood, and you will overcome many difficulties. If you have not established this goal, one little thing will make you run after it, and one little thing will scatter your mind.

Most importantly, it is because we do not understand Buddha-nature well; you do not understand the Buddha well. You cannot imagine what a Buddha is. The Buddha’s realization, wisdom, Dharma power, and everything the Buddha manifests—you really cannot imagine them.

That satisfaction within him, all the things he possesses that you cannot imagine, are right there with him. He possesses everything; everything is his. Because he is complete by nature, he has never attained anything, so there is neither gain nor loss. Because he is emptiness, he is the Tathagata.

(Is upholding the precepts in our daily lives—upholding the precepts of killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and false speech?)

In the Mahayana Path, the main thing is to take gathering in your mind as the precept. I have not been explaining the precepts to you; in the Mahayana Path, this means gathering in your own mind. But at the beginning, observing the Five Precepts is enough: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, and alcohol.

Not killing means removing your killing mind. Do you know what that means? Removing your anger. If you have anger, you have a killing mind, understand? When you are angry—for example, when your husband likes another woman—of course not; I am joking.

You become angry, and then jealousy arises. When that anger arises, when you are attached, you wish that woman would get sick and die. You think this way sometimes; you wish you could take a knife and kill her.

Eating vegetarian food or abstaining from meat does not mean you no longer have that killing mind; it can arise in an instant. So, when there is anger and jealousy, your killing mind will not disappear. Once it arises, you have broken the precept against killing.

Eating vegetarian food, meaning only that you do not kill animals, is not yet the Mahayana Path. That is the Lesser Vehicle. In the Mahayana Path, everything is spoken of in terms of the mind’s appearances; everything is your mind, and everything is discussed around the nature of mind.

The Lesser Vehicle is merely formal. “Today I did not take a knife and cut him to death, so I have not broken the precept against killing.” In the Mahayana Path, the moment a thought arises and moves, you have broken a precept. The moment your killing mind moves, you have already broken it.

Stealing: if the stealing mind has not died, you have broken a precept. You want to possess everything in the world and want everyone in the world to like you; this is stealing. When you want to possess, that is the stealing mind. You want everything to be yours—is that not stealing? When everything is yours, the desire to possess is present; that is the stealing mind. This is the Mahayana Path.

Sexual misconduct concerns impure intentions of every kind. It includes sexual desire and lust. The main issue is the nature of mind. Sexual misconduct is sexual activity driven by impure intentions; you can put it that way.

But in what way is the intention impure? Where is your intention when you engage in sexual activity? It is merely playing a part. Do you understand this person? At the very least, two people in the human realm should understand each other before engaging in sexual activity.

Many people do not understand each other; now they go to bed first and understand each other later. Is that not so? The intention is impure—the thought is not upright; it is slanted. You see a woman and focus on her appearance—her legs exposed, her arms exposed, whatever. You cling to appearances, desire arises, and then you do things with her. The moment this mind moves, you have already broken the precept against sexual misconduct; sexual desire has arisen. If your mind does not move, then it has not.

You cling to physical appearances—some handsome man, some beautiful woman. When you cling to appearances, you have already broken a precept. Your sexual activity is not based on understanding or love; you are not a married couple, and there is no proper basis. All this is sexual misconduct.

Sexual misconduct does not mean only prostitution. It means your intention and mind are not upright. Your mind is satisfying your six sense faculties; you cling to sensory stimulation and have sex or do things for someone’s power, money, or good looks. You have no shared understanding. In the Mahayana Path, all this is sexual misconduct. Many women seek to attach themselves to rich men, and so on; this too is a form of sexual misconduct.

There is nothing extraordinary about this sexual misconduct; it is also like ordinary sexual activity. The main point is that when you do these things for fame and profit or for stimulation of your desires, you become stained over time.

There is nothing especially wrong with it, and it is not that the person is terribly evil; the nature of our mind becomes stained. Gradually, we no longer understand love. Many sentient beings today understand it less and less, do not cherish affection, and do not understand the happiness of marriage, so they often divorce.

They do not understand the warmth of marriage and family, cannot see that warmth, and do not understand the happiness of marriage. They do not cherish the person they love or this moment. This is what the mind of sexual desire does. Our mind is stained; we become stained in emotion. We no longer understand these things, so we cannot feel them; we become numb. Our eyes are forever deluded by appearances.

False speech. Do not speak false words; do not want to deceive others. Having a self makes false speech difficult to avoid. When you have a self, you speak falsely to protect it. We do not want others to know certain things deep in our minds. Put simply, do not lie or deceive others. This is easier to understand.

Alcohol is easy to understand too: everyone knows not to drink. The alcohol precept is a protective precept, meaning that a small amount is allowed. Sometimes the Buddha taught this because people in the Sangha drank, and he feared it would disturb their meditative concentration. The Buddha emphasized concentration, and alcohol easily excites you, like chives and similar things; it can lead to sexual disorder.

But in the later understanding of the alcohol precept, you may drink appropriately. If it is good for the body and circulation of energy and blood, drink a suitable amount, as long as you do not become sexually disordered. It can be treated as a protective precept.

If you break the first four precepts, these are fundamental, and you become heavily stained. Breaking the alcohol precept leaves a lighter stain. Breaking the first four precepts leaves a heavier stain. If we are not careful, we become deeply stained, and liberation becomes difficult for the nature of our mind.

Actually, the Buddha established these precepts because after killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and false speech stain us, it is we ourselves—not anyone else—who suffer; life after life in samsara, these things torment you.

For example, if you repeatedly fail to pay attention to sexual desire and do not live uprightly with right mindfulness, you will have no love. You will have only possessiveness and will not experience love. Even if the Seven Fairies descended from heaven and you married one, you would not be happy.

You cannot feel love, understand? When you face someone, you cannot feel the warm love inside you. You only want to possess them: “They are mine; you are not allowed to be close to anyone else.”

But when you see them, there is no love in your heart. When you see this person, your heart does not blossom from within; you are not filled with love and warmth. Love is beautiful, but you have not blossomed, you have no beauty. You only say, “Where did you go today? Did you go on a date with that woman?”

Where is your love? It is hatred—anger and hatred. When you look at your husband, you are angry; that is not love. When has that husband ever stood before you and filled your heart with warmth, gratitude, and the whole world, so you thought, “You are my kindred spirit. I have finally found you”?

Children do not understand their first love; it is simple attraction: “I see that you are good, and you see that I am good.” But we do not understand it now either. What do you understand? One day, when you stand before your beloved, your heart is full of gratitude and warmth; your heart blossoms within. Wow! How beautiful this life is. Then you understand a little. At that point, it is no longer sexual misconduct. Even if told to be improper, you could not be; your mind is upright.

Who among us now sees their husband or wife like this? They are indifferent. After ten years of marriage, they are too lazy even to look at each other: “Go wherever you want. Perhaps you have disappeared without a trace. Where were you? Tell me clearly—where were you last night?” Right? Is that how it is? That is how it is.

When you look at that face, there is nothing but anger, jealousy, and intense possessiveness: “If you dare run off again, I will break your legs.” Where is the love? It is simply two enemies meeting by chance. “I met you in this life to keep you under control.” It is like enemies meeting face to face. Where is the love?

So of course, after a long time, everyone falls apart. You control him, he controls you; after enough time, will you not beat each other into a pot of mush? Even if you do not fight, you will wage a cold war. If there is no cold war, you will ultimately divorce. That is the final outcome.

You cannot love because you cannot feel those things deep within. Deep within. Everyone is married, and there is nothing wrong with saying this. Even during lovemaking or sexual activity, you do not feel that your body, speech, and mind have become one with the other person. In other words, you do not love the other person completely.

You have no gratitude; there is nothing inside, just emptiness—only personality and the stimulation of desire. This becomes mechanical motion. Actually, all this is sexual misconduct. We are simply not so evil in our minds, so it seems to be proper sexual conduct. What is proper sexual conduct? What is sexual misconduct? When your mind, the nature of your mind, and your thoughts are not upright, that is sexual misconduct.

But this world is truly helpless. We have not done anything wrong; everyone is like this. Why are we like this? We have lost our way. We are like wanderers, like children wandering outside all day long.

We are poor; we cannot bear to throw anything away, so we even pick up a broken pot and take it home. We are poor, wandering, and wanting to possess. We do not know any of it: our precious pearl was sewn right here all along.

We do not know that we possess the wish-fulfilling Mani jewel, that we are the richest in the world, the richest in the universe. We do not know. Every day we carry a jewel while wandering over the world. After finally grabbing a little straw, would we not claim it as our own? Is that not so?

Because of deprivation and losing our way, we do not know what or who we are. You do not know that you were originally a prince, a crown prince; you do not know that you are a Buddha. All the treasures of the kingdom are yours, but you cannot return to the crown prince’s position. So you feel bitter, suffer, wander, face hunger and cold, live in poverty, and reach the end of your life that way.

Then you forget that your treasure has been there all along, unused your entire life. So you must realize Buddhahood and take out that treasure to spend it a little.

(Sometimes killing is hard to avoid—for example, when you invite someone to dinner and they insist on eating live animals.)

Do not talk about those things yet. First get rid of anger and jealousy. I guarantee it will be fine; you can continue eating. That is the key point.

If we kill a little fish, we can perform Salvation for it. But if you give in to anger and jealousy and become stained, it is very difficult to save you. Animals—chickens, fish, and such—are reborn as these things because human beings eat them. The weak are the prey of the strong; if you do not eat them, big fish eat little fish. It is the food chain. Even if you release one, someone else will catch it and eat it anyway.

Our ultimate Salvation is to free them from the animal realm: do not let them be fish again, life after life, fried and roasted. That is what we are about. How can we save them? First, you must realize Buddhahood before you can save them. This is the foundation. If you are angry and jealous, how can you realize Buddhahood? If you cannot realize Buddhahood, how can you save them?

Do you think that buying a fish and releasing it by the water truly saves it? You can save it for a moment, but not life after life. Tomorrow it will be caught again. That is not compassion.

True compassion is freeing it from samsara. Do you have this power? You say, “I vow to enable all sentient beings to be freed from samsara”—this is Great Loving-Kindness and Great Compassion. To make this vow, you must first attain enlightenment yourself; otherwise, how can you save all the sentient beings connected with you, life after life? If you yourself are still in samsara, how can you save them?

That is merely a kind impulse. Normal people have this kindness: seeing someone, they cannot bear to watch them be killed or see weak lives die. That is not compassion. If you truly want to save that fish, first throw away your jealousy and anger.

When you are jealous, say, “For the sake of all the fish in that sea, I will first stop being angry and jealous, because I want to save them.” This is compassion. Once you attain enlightenment, they can be saved; no problem.

As long as you make the aspiration, they can be saved—you can save them. You have countless ways to guide them. You can go up to heaven or down into the earth to guide them; life after life, follow them wherever they go. Whichever realm they enter, you enter that realm to guide them. This is Great Loving-Kindness and Great Compassion.

So if you want to save them, if you truly cannot bear to watch sentient beings circle in samsara, cannot bear to see that chicken fried, if you truly cannot bear it, attain enlightenment. Let go of your desires and attachment. Let go of your self. Practice the Bodhisattva Path; let go of everything you crave. Can you not let go? Then your compassion is false.

At the beginning of cultivation, things of the self—greed, hatred, delusion, arrogance, and doubt, and wealth, form, fame, food, and sleep—are obstacles on the path. If you cannot let go, you cannot attain enlightenment.

At first, it is simply a matter of enduring. It is like sitting meditation, like enduring pain in your legs: you simply endure. If you cannot bear it, you must let go. Some things you cannot bear; stay within your capacity to bear them. This is always within your capacity.

At first, you may endure for 40 minutes: “My legs hurt unbearably,” and you let go. That is your capacity. If you cannot bear it, find another method. This is true of everything. At first you may withstand a level-one typhoon; gradually, three or five hours will be no problem.

At first, let go of a little anger and jealousy. Someone insults you, and you do not say a word: let them insult you, let them insult whoever they want. Gradually, beginning with the people around you, you stop being jealous or angry, and you stop comparing.

You compare—what is jealousy? You are jealous because you think others are better than you. Because you do not understand your own beauty, you become jealous. Such a person lives with great difficulty. Being jealous of others is painful, you know? They never know what is good about themselves. So they are always the worst and think everyone else is better; that is why they are jealous. These are mistakes we women are especially prone to make.

You are so excellent; you are a Buddha. Who could be better than you? If your husband says he has something to do and is going out, say, “Go, go, go—go have fun with them. I am a Buddha. Could she be better than you? Impossible.” I am joking. So you cannot abide because you do not believe you are the best.

Even if he leaves, he does not understand how good I am. He clings to appearances; he does not understand—he truly does not understand. If your husband clings to appearances, his eyes look only at physical form, staring at the one who has run off. “Go on, go on; what a nuisance.” Does that not disturb your purity? Having him beside you is harassment, pure and simple. You are not living over there.

So practice gradually, little by little. Your capacity becomes stronger and stronger. Wealth, form, fame, food, sleep, and so many aspects of the self become fewer and fewer. You no longer suffer. It is a little hard at first; practice. Practicing the Bodhisattva Path is a little hard at first. Gradually, suffering ends.

Note: This text was prepared from a teaching video by Yang Ning. If it differs from the video, the video takes precedence. Watch the video.