The Rolling Red Dust Is Your Body and Mind

There is really no appearance to cling to. In your realm, there are many appearances; as long as you do not regard the appearance in that realm as more exalted than sitting here drinking tea amid the red dust, that is enough. Do not make distinctions about it.

For example, many Bodhisattvas, while cultivating and realizing meditative concentration, also carry out various works to save sentient beings. Although those works take place in light, in meditative concentration they can do anything and possess spiritual powers. Once they emerge from meditative concentration, their state of mind is no different from sitting here eating, drinking, using the toilet, and sleeping. They do not regard that realm as especially exalted, because that too is a realm, and this is a realm. It is ordinary mind.

No matter how glorious a thing you do, if your state of mind is ordinary, then you are not clinging to appearances. Do not think you are extraordinary; do not think that realm is especially exalted. That too is not clinging to appearances. You can still do everything. If you do not cling to appearances, does that mean you do nothing?

If you have the ability, you can save sentient beings while in meditative concentration. What about sentient beings in the Six Paths of Rebirth? Since you can see them, save them. Once you have saved sentient beings in one of those paths, do not think your merit is so great; do not think it is some big deal: “Others cannot do it, but I can,” and so on. If you think that way, you are clinging to appearances on a grand scale. Your saving is empty; your rescuing is empty. In the end, all sentient beings are Buddhas. No one is asking you to save them—honestly, it is all for your own fulfillment, for your own need to attain enlightenment.

If some Bodhisattvas were to come again, I think their greatness lies in the very moment they come: they know what it will be like to come, yet they come anyway. If they lose themselves in this red dust, then everything they do to save sentient beings is for their own return to themselves; they are seeking fulfillment. So no sentient being is asking you to save them. Sentient beings realized Buddhahood long ago—every one of them.

Is Zhuhai not part of the red dust? The rolling red dust is right here with us; you are clinging to appearances. If they have not awakened, how can that affect you? This incomplete mind of yours—you have not seen, within sentient beings’ defilement and purity, what is perfect and empty in them.

Whether they are defiled or pure, their perfectly complete Buddha-nature is manifest there. If you see this, wash the dirty and air the clean—do not cling to appearances; all of this is fine, isn’t it? What is wrong with it? If your clothes are dirty and you wash them, do you hate those clothes? Do you think those dirty clothes interfere with your cultivation? They do not even think they are dirty. Besides, saving sentient beings is according to conditions; if sentient beings have an affinity with you, you naturally save them; if there is no affinity…

What is wrong with eating, drinking, using the toilet, and sleeping? People say every day: “I want to wear a designer brand, buy a luxury car, and live in a villa—what is wrong with that?” That is ordinary human nature. What are you clinging to appearances for? Do you think those people are vulgar? How lofty do you think we are? Even if we had been something else in past lives, even if the Buddha returned, this is still a body, and it still has to eat, drink, use the toilet, and sleep. If you say, “I do not do the things they talk about,” then you are already clinging to appearances.

And besides, the rolling red dust is not a place; you are looking at things according to the outer appearances of this world. Actually, the rolling red dust is about the human mind. If your mind is still surging and unsettled, then whether you are cultivating the Buddha-Dharma or eating, drinking, using the toilet, sleeping, and pursuing wealth and status, your mind is the red dust.

How is your mind? Within the self, when facing wealth and status, in cultivation—if you have the appearance of sentient beings or the appearance of a Buddha, you want to struggle from an ordinary person into a Buddha; is that not a kind of desire? It is only that, for sentient beings, this kind of desire makes awakening comparatively easier. It is still red dust. We are the red dust; the red dust is the body and mind of each one of us. That is all—the red dust.

No matter how high your state of thought is, no matter how far beyond the ordinary you are, you are a woman. Completely ordinary—everyone is. You are a man; you are a woman. You have not even broken through the view of the body, nor the appearance of male and female. No matter how lofty your thoughts are, however holy you think you are, whoever you think you are—that is something in your head; however noble you think your soul is, that is what you seek. The realm of your conception may differ, but you are a girl. This world has only two kinds: men and women. That is all, before attaining enlightenment.

What remains are differences in the various stray thoughts in the head, differences in attachment, and differences in mental realms. One kind is man, one kind is woman—nothing else is different; they can only be divided into these two categories. If extraterrestrials came to classify us, they would see that we all look more or less alike: two eyes, one nose, two ears, one mouth. They would divide us into two categories, one man and one woman; that is how they would classify us.

Then, men and women have this in common: they are all thinking wildly. They differ too, in that they like different clothes. What do you think we are? They do not divide you into Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and sentient beings; that is not how they classify us. On this Earth there is one kind of man and one kind of woman. That is still only their own view. They think men and women look more or less alike too; they cannot tell men and women apart: two eyes, one nose, one mouth. There is a slight biological difference, but clothed they all look alike, more or less. We think we are so great.

They say: two kinds of insects, one female insect and one male insect, still hairless. Their textbooks introduce us like this, I am telling you. Then we smugly say, “Look how good I am, how beautiful. Better than that person on the street.” They have categorized you; no matter how you run, you cannot escape the circle of womanhood.

As long as you live on Earth, you are a woman. Even the Buddha is a woman, you know—still classified among women. One look at your physiology tells them whether you belong among women or among men. It is no use; that is how it is.

So being human is something to be proud of—what is the big deal? Just be a woman or a man. That is all you can be. What are you like? Light comes from your head; they say a woman has light coming from her head. The light is not as bright as an electric lamp; its brightness is such-and-such, and they even have a measurement for it. Then they say it is a little brighter than the light of a firefly. They compare it physiologically. How do you think you emit light?

So our life is very insignificant. You struggle with your own body as though it were something impressive, and you yourself think so… Really, it is a very small thing. Altogether, it is just like someone my height—only 1.6 meters, this short; every day, one, half a section, really. If you are taller than I am, jump out and look: it is truly tiny, unbelievably so; really so… really nothing.

All day you want to dress up—dress up, dress up; he does not want to dress up, truly does not want anything done to him. They never asked for it; you are the one who thinks that look is attractive, painting things onto them and then draping a bit of burlap over them—one garment, another garment. They never asked you to; I do not know what you think you are doing.

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.