Chapter 1. The differences between believing in Buddhism, learning Buddhism and cultivating Buddhism
Now let’s start our afternoon conference.
Since many among us just began to enter the door of Buddhism, to learn Buddhist Dharma, and others have been cultivating for a few decades. Thus, there is a big discrepancy between your experiences of cultivation. Therefore, before I talk about cultivating and realizing Buddhism, let’s simply talk about what is learning Buddhism? And the differences between various cultivation methods of Buddhism.
Believing in Buddhism
Presently, for some lay Buddhists in our society, believing in Buddhism only means to burn incense in temples, or chant Buddha’s names or mantras, or learn the Three refuges and Five precepts. Some temples will somehow explain a little bit. Some temples will only give a certificate for having taken refuge in their places. The Three refuges and Five precepts mean to take refuge in Buddha, in Dharma, and in Samgha. Refrain from taking what is not given. Refrain from sexual misconducts. Refrain from wrong speech. Refrain from intoxication. A person who obtains the certification will be called a Buddhist householder. He will identify to the temple and Samgha that he took refuge in. Taking refuge means relying on and staying. It means that if we rely on and have faith in Buddha, Dharma, and Samgha, we will be liberated.
However, many ordinary lay Buddhists who already took refuge have very little understanding of Buddhist Dharma. There are also some other lay Buddhists who haven’t taken refuge, who will feel very joyful in their heart by only seeing images of Buddha, or hearing Buddhist music. Thus, they will bow down. If there are teachers of dharma, they will come to listen. All of the above are generally called believers. They have little understanding of the principle of Buddhist Dharma. Therefore, they have a general idea: asking Buddha and Bodhisattvas to bless themselves, to be safe, healthy, happy, and have a prosperous career and be wealthy. Occasionally, they will eat vegetarian foods, be volunteers in monasteries, donate some money to help building temples and offering to do some charity work. These are common Buddhist believers, whom we see the most often.
Learning Buddhism
But “learning Buddhism” is one step further. This means that apart from believing in Buddha, some people need to know what Buddha spoke about. They are not very satisfied by only burning incense and bowing down in front of Buddha, so they start to read some Buddhist classics. Such people also believe in cause and effect, reincarnation and karmic retribution. Some will occasionally eat vegetarian foods and meditate to calm down their heart. But they only believe what Buddha taught, and reflect and practice very little on their mind and nature. They believe in the existence of Buddhas and Bodhisattva, cause and effect, reincarnation and karmic retribution, but for them, there is nothing to be fearful. They think that: “because I believe in Buddha, I will never fall into hell.” They believe that if they donate some money or material goods to the monasteries, Buddhas and Bodhisattva will bless them, lessen their bad karmic retribution, from heavy to light and from light to clear. Many of them are free and at ease. They say that if we have Buddha in our heart, it will be enough. Sometimes, they don’t even bother to perform the rituals of taking refuge. Actually, “Buddha is in my heart,” is only a verbal sentence. Since they don’t focus much on improving their mind and own nature, thus, at the moment that their own benefit is affected, and the actual seven emotions and six desires arise, the Buddha in the heart disappears. There is only “self.” They will only occasionally read some Buddhist classics, believe in cause and effect, reincarnation, karmic retribution and so on. This is a second type of believers in Buddha.
Cultivating Buddhism
A third type cultivates Buddhism. These people again advance one more step in believing in Buddha. Because of their deeper understanding of Buddhism, they are not satisfied on only “thinking.” Instead, they want to become a Buddha who has realized the Path with his body and mind, and be completely liberated from reincarnation. This is called cultivating Buddhism: wanting to become Buddha oneself. However, becoming a Buddha is a process of taming and letting go ourselves. Along the path, at every moment, we must be mindful of how much our karmic habits and desires have been reduced. Also we must widely accumulate merits, make good relations and connections, stop unwholesome deeds and generate wholesome deeds, because cultivating Buddhism requires this.
However, many of us who try to do good deeds don’t necessarily stop unwholesome deeds. Some do wholesome deeds but don’t stop unwholesome deeds. However, cultivating Buddhism requires us to stop the unwholesome deeds, as well as promoting wholesome deeds at the same time. Since during the cultivation process, when the negative karmic retribution matures, it will make your cultivation and realization become very difficult, and will damage your body and mind. If your body and mind get damaged, you won’t have the time and energy to cultivate. Or sometimes due to the negative retribution, you will have feelings of resentment and aversion towards Buddhism and your teacher who tries to help you, and be apart from them. Instead, you will prefer to join people who do the same unwholesome deeds as you, and join people who strongly cling on unwholesome thoughts. Even during the time of Shakyamuni Buddha, his disciples left him when their negative karmic retribution matured. They couldn’t listen to the right Dharma. They left Buddha to seek out other teachers of heresy, and missed Buddha’s forty-nine years of turning the dharma wheel. If we wish to be again in a period when a Buddha will be born, we don’t know for how many thousands of years of reincarnation we need to wait. This really becomes a great regret life after life.
Now, we briefly talked about the differences between believing in Buddhism, learning Buddhism and cultivating Buddhism. This was only a brief overview.
To be continued…