What Kind of Guide Are You Following as You Move Forward?

You know, after Shakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment, as a Buddha, his Dharma power is boundless; he can give you everything. If you are a Buddha disciple, it is like having a father; this father is very wealthy, extremely wealthy. Whatever you want, through his Dharma power and spiritual powers, he can make it happen. Requests are never in vain.

Do you know why he does not give it? Because he is afraid you will cling to appearances and become attached, because his purpose is for you to attain enlightenment. So he lets you see these difficulties, lets you see the many, many appearances you distinguish, and then become liberated from them, because ultimately you are to attain enlightenment. If you want money, he gives you money; if you want fame, he gives you fame; if you want gain, he gives you gain; whatever you want, he gives you. He uses his spiritual powers to give you everything, dropping it from the sky—how could your attachment be broken?

You say: “I believe in Buddha. I believe more and more in Buddha. Guanyin Bodhisattva, how about a hundred million?” With a bang, it drops from the sky. “Oh, I believe in you. I certainly believe in you. I will believe in you for life after life.” But you can never let go of your attachment to money, understand? If you cannot let go, you will never become a Buddha.

That day, Chiyu said: “Teacher, you cultivate. Once you have cultivated well, take us with you.” I thought it was a good idea, a very good idea, but I often have to go to hell. Will you come? Everyone wants to be taken to a good place: once we have played enough in this world, “Teacher, where are you going?” “To the Land of Ultimate Bliss.” “I’ll go there with you and play some more.” Then whatever you want, you have; whatever you want, you have, and he just keeps playing and playing. Will you attain enlightenment or not? Following all along, do you attain enlightenment or not? Just following and playing.

These desires can actually be completely satisfied, you know? But as you follow along, ultimately you are meant to attain enlightenment; you are not meant to follow along and play endlessly, understand? So to attain enlightenment, you must break through attachment. To break through your attachment, nothing can be given to you, because giving it to you would be spoiling you; the moment I give it to you, off you go to play a video game. Understand?

If you are given money, you commit all five: greed, hatred, delusion, arrogance, and doubt. Buy a designer brand, buy a handbag, and you commit all five: greed, hatred, delusion, arrogance, and doubt. Then give you fame and profit, give you emotion and desire, and you become incredibly possessive. “I love this person. No, I cannot be even a step away from them. How could they leave me? How could they not love me?” Then you fasten that person to your belt. So nothing can be given, and you have to lack everything, and gradually you say: “Oh, let it go.” That is how it is—quite painful. Cultivate.

Only by letting you feel suffering will you arouse the resolve to cultivate. If you follow the Bodhisattva and enjoy yourself every day, you will not cultivate. Whatever you want, the Bodhisattva gives you. The Bodhisattva has attained enlightenment anyway; it is no great matter to give you a little—he can conjure it for you, bringing it forth from empty space. Emptiness and existence are nondual, are they not? But will you cultivate or not? You definitely will not.

If we put here a delicious delicacy brought from another world, everyone would eat that delicacy first, and after eating it… “Teacher, do not teach the Dharma; let us fill up on this first, then talk.” Everything is like this.

So do not blame the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, saying that our world is poor. It is because we are too attached; because you are to attain enlightenment, our world has manifested this poverty and suffering. Your nature of mind is attached too tightly; you cannot come out and cannot return. So this world is the way it is. When you return, this world is actually quite good. Return—return to your source.

As long as you make the effort—even if in the end you say you did not complete your cultivation, that you worked very hard and still did not complete it—you can be taken to another world to cultivate. If you simply make no effort, that kind cannot be taken. Not that you cannot be taken along; in every case, if you do not have that resolve yourself, if you truly make no effort, you cannot keep up either; you will definitely fall behind, you know? You keep following, following, following, and lose the trail.

Because you cling to appearances, you know, and because the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are everywhere. Truly, Guanyin Bodhisattva may be wandering around in all the Six Paths of Rebirth. You only want to go to good places; you will not go to bad places. He says: “I am going down to hell tomorrow. Who is coming?” Everyone will surely say: “It is a little cold, a little uncomfortable.” Is that not so? Who would want to go to hell to liberate sentient beings? And once you go to hell, it is even more painful than here. Who would want to go?

But you are quite capable too. At least you have come to the human world again; you did not go to hell, but came to the human realm. It is quite difficult; now you are all completely bewildered, and it is quite difficult. Brother Long often calls out: “Who kicked me down? Who kicked me down?” He is often very resentful, as though he had once stayed in a very happy place, saying: “Who kicked me down from behind?” Later he gradually turned his anger toward me, saying that I was the one who kicked him. I said I did not kick you—I died laughing. Whenever things get difficult, he says: “Who kicked me down?”

Truly, the Dharma Realm is so vast, so vast—so broad. In cultivation, one day you will see: it is not about seeing some appearance or radiating light; it is not these things. Your mind’s capacity will be immense, truly. Nothing will rub its way into your heart like a grain of sand and remain there, making you confused, making you lost, or making you very uncomfortable. Nothing.

(This process will be very long, won’t it?)

It will not be long either. Because I am the worst, it took me more than ten years. You are all smarter than I am, so I think three to five years will be enough. I started out from the worst foundation and worked my way out, because the environment was bad then and I began cultivating early. No one understood then, and I was a woman, so there was more pressure—slander, pressure. At that time no one studied Buddhism; they had no idea what studying Buddhism was, and thought you had fallen into demonic states, and so on.

The path I walked was the most difficult; if I could come through it, it will be too easy for you. And I believe I came through it, so it will be easy for you—and you do not need to walk that path at all. So when you ask certain questions, why do I say: “Do not cling to this appearance”? It is not that those things are not problems in Buddhism, on the path of cultivating and realizing the Buddha-Dharma.

I am your guide, not someone else. Your guide has already gone beyond those things, so you do not need to care about those obstacles. What kind of guide you follow as you move forward makes a difference.

In the end, there are no sentient beings to liberate, and there is nothing else; everything is a game, because some things for you are being reviewed, because many of you have already been through them. It is just that now there is some getting lost, some attachment—just a little muddled. Once you are called awake and become clear—once you are OK—that is all there is to it. Teaching the Dharma and liberating sentient beings is just this simple thing—waking more people up. So it is not that difficult. How could it be that difficult?

So I keep telling you: in your thoughts, do not think that attaining enlightenment is a very difficult thing; do not let those thoughts in, because you need to know who you are and who I am. We are all Buddhas; this is the fundamental view. But most importantly, some things truly are not that difficult. What you realize tomorrow, what you come to realize after you walk through it—it is not that you are a Buddha or that you are a Bodhisattva; these names and appearances truly have no meaning.

You only think that you are more awake than he is, that you live more wakefully than he does. That is all. Just this point is enough to wake you. Because he knows what dream you are having, and in the dream you are having, you became attached and stubbornly refuse to wake up; so he keeps calling you. Right there, he keeps calling you, keeps touching you, keeps bumping you. Sometimes, if you really will not wake up, then he makes you hurt so that you can wake up. That pain is not me making you hurt; it is that thing that makes you hurt, makes you suffer so unbearably that you wake up. It is that simple.

If the pain point is not touched, the deepest attachment cannot be released; it cannot be liberated. When you suffer until you would rather be dead, OK, you wake up. It is that simple. This is how every person has one point of deepest attachment. For example, some people are attached to money; they really love money, like a miser—they really love money. Then one day, perhaps, they go gambling and go bankrupt overnight. Overnight, they have nothing. That pain may suddenly make them disheartened; they have nothing left. They may commit suicide, or they may awaken. This is how a person suddenly wakes up.

Some people are caught up in emotion and desire. They suddenly fall for someone and become extremely attached—attached and attached, until the attachment reaches its peak. When the pain becomes worse than death, they suddenly awaken. That is how it is; that is how everything is. So at that time we give thanks. Once you awaken, you give thanks to that person, give thanks to that money; when the money is gone, you give thanks to that event.

Because after you awaken, you will discover that everything—all of it—is here with you. It is not that you possess it; everything is here. Whole and undamaged, neither increased nor decreased, neither defiled nor pure.

Ultimately we have no choice; let me say it again: no choice. In this life, your hearts are on the Way. In other words, nothing else can attract you; do not think that anything can hold your hearts. Even if you go to the ends of the earth, your heart is still on the Buddha Way. You no longer have any room to choose, so each of you make up your mind, one by one.

Wherever you go tomorrow, that is where you are; whether tomorrow you go up to heaven, down into the earth, or to hell, your heart is still set on cultivating Buddhahood. You are to attain realization, because this is your vow-power from life after life. It has nothing to do with the teacher, and nothing to do with anyone else; it is what your own body and mind desire. The thing you most long for is this thing. Everything else is glitter, just things turning around in your mind.

You are to attain enlightenment in this lifetime. “Forget it, next lifetime.” Do not think so much. Anyway, this life is only a few decades; grit your teeth and get through it—how hard can it be? Cast away every obstacle, cast away every obstacle in your nature of mind, and return to Buddha; this is cultivation and realization—cultivation.

Because now everyone is no longer very superstitious, nor are you in a situation where you understand nothing. You are already in cultivation and realization; cultivation and realization mean that you yourself are to become a Buddha, returning to your Buddha-nature. That is all. Break through every appearance; whatever appearance you cling to, break that appearance. Cannot bear to let go? Whatever you cannot bear to let go of, let go of that.

In the past, Buddha’s disciples followed people in leaving emotion and desire behind. You know, those disciples left home, cultivated the Way, and practiced dhuta austerities. Their resolve was very powerful—their resolve. We are stained now, and it is emotionally very hard to let go. I say to everyone here: for attaining enlightenment, who will leave home? You can consider it. Then the person leaves home, but the heart does not; always ready to return to lay life, is that not so?

This is a game—in other words, idle talk. The path you are walking now is already the highest; you have already reached the highest place, so you must break through these things. There is no leaving the world or entering the world, no lay life or monastic life. You no longer need to follow the Lesser Vehicle; do not deliberately cling to these things. But in the red dust of the world, you will become stained again.

You are all quite capable, truly quite capable, to be stained and still sit here cultivating. Once stained, your hearts all feel quite awful. Sitting here, I watch everyone struggling with themselves… because some attachments in the energy channels are very hard: for some people, it is like a knife stabbing into the heart; for others, it is like a rod or a steel bar holding them rigid, and they struggle against themselves, struggle and struggle. Some seem to be nothing at all, but the sourness, sweetness, bitterness, and spiciness—who knows?

Because of attachment to appearances, he has to taste all the sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy things of the human world. In his heart he seems indifferent, attached to nothing, but every day he watches the sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy things of the human world. Because he clings to appearances, he suffers—suffers. Can you break through appearances? Can you stop making distinctions? He suffers greatly; he does not cling in his heart, he can be indifferent, but he still suffers all the same.

You must attain liberation; you must break through every appearance, come out of attachment—liberation. Nothing can hold you fast; this world has nothing that can stick to you. It is only your attachment: in fact, nothing can stick to you. Nothing can stick to you; your mind is complete—you have only tied yourself up. There is nothing you cannot handle—you have tied yourself up.

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.