These extreme cases of cultivating patience under provocation are not about telling us to be indulgent towards evil deeds, nor about that if someone wants to kill us, we shall not move and let him kill us, since Buddhas says that this world is but a dream. We still need to report to the police immediately. Even though we are not afraid of death, we’d better not let those people commit an unredeemable crime to prevent them from falling into hell. There is some truth in saying that Shakyamuni Buddha has already been an Immortal at that time, and his practice of patience is almost complete, but we are not able to enter Samadhi in such an extreme case, and neither can we develop compassion when experiencing such acute pains and terror. However, abusive language does not injure us, but can we not be angry or resentful when being spit abuse at? Even if we don’t get angry, can we not be sad or disappointed? The feeling of sadness indicates we have already felt being hurt. Granted that we are neither angry nor sad, we still define that the person is mouthing curses. Even if we don’t care about being cursed, can we still live in peace and joy in a barrage of cursing? If we cannot, we still have thoughts of harm and being harmed.
It is easy for a kind-hearted person not to conceive thoughts of harming others, for such a person always lives with benevolent thoughts. It is quite difficult for us to have no thoughts of harm and being harmed when witnessing extreme cases of mutual harm among sentient beings. We have all learned <The Diamond Sutra>, and the Buddha says that all conditioned dharmas are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows. Many people may bear with small grievances and injuries, but in the face of the extreme cases of evildoing in this world, even if the pain is not inflicted upon us, we still cannot regard it as an illusion, watching it as if in a dream. The reason is that these atrocities have gone beyond our tolerance. We need to break free from five serious hindrances of desire, anger, ignorance, arrogance, and doubt, and get rid of killing, stealing and adultery, and be aware that even the concept of “getting rid of” itself is a void, before we can attain right Samadhi and the power of fearlessness, with which we can be unaffected by those extreme cases of human beings’ hurting each other, and even go so far as to realize the truth of the void in such cases. Samadhi and the power of fearlessness can help us easily wipe out the traces of being deeply affected by these cases. No matter how cruel sentient beings’ evildoings are, they remain nominal and insignificant to practitioners. For example, everyone has read the Chinese Classic—Journey to the West, supernatural powers in the novel, was tied to the beheading platform by the Heavenly Soldiers and Generals and once his head was cut off, another grew out. He played a death game, so decapitation can hardly be called an evil as far as he is concerned.
The Second Patriarch of Chinese Zen Buddhism who suffered decapitation compares”chopping off head” to “chopping the spring breeze”, whose level of attainment has been quite beyond our understanding and appraisal. In ancient times, many accomplished monks of outstanding merits and virtues regarded harm inflicted upon them as ignorance instead of evils of sentient beings. They had all attained the realm in which they played with the supernatural power and were fully aware of immateriality of all phenomena. We, as ordinary people, are so vulnerable and powerless. When we encounter evils in the world, we get inevitably hurt and scared. There is a huge store of memories about harming and being harmed in our hearts. Some evils we experienced personally: some evils we see with our own eyes that other beings have experienced. Even our definition and cognition of what evil is, for example, the mere recognition of the existence of hatred, jealousy and various evil deeds to cause each other pain in this world, already make us ill at ease. Even though we live in peace under the sunshine, this recognition and definition already deprive us of our self-possession and our ease. Even though we are so averse to harming and being harmed, we are unwilling to make an effort to get rid of our habits of jealousy, resentment, and complaint. Many vulnerable sentient beings’ ignorance and their habituated behavior of killing, stealing and adultery lead to the overall atrocious aura field. In this chaotic entanglement, one refuses to forgive himself as well as others. We often see that due to a substantial divergence of opinion within different religious sects or different religions, people of an inclination towards goodness may engage in the bloodiest wars in human history. Some of them commit crimes of violence on the excuse of defending truth.
According to the supreme truth of Buddhism, sentient beings have Buddha nature and they are the manifestation of the nature of the void. However, sentient beings deviate from the original light and the original enlightenment, and perform infinite deeds of good karma and bad karma due to their habits and desires accrued birth after birth. If we cannot wake up and fully attain Buddha nature, the information about what we have done in the past will linger on without extinction in time and space. In a sense, we carry with us our good karma and bad karma of innumerable lifetimes, wandering in time and space endlessly. For innumerable kalpas, we keep reincarnating in the Three Realms and Six Paths. Our own beings birth after birth, the information of which have been stored in the time and space, are no different from infinite sentient beings. We have totally forgot what we have done in each life, whether we have assumed the form of a human being or an animal, but our all habits and karma accumulated accompany us in time and space. We are like Jesus in Christianity, who carries the sins of countless beings. The difference lies in that Jesus carries the sins of all beings due to his willpower, whereas we carry karma of our own beings in the chain of transmigrations. We have assumed different life forms, but can we forgive “these sentient beings” that make us bear the consequences of our past sins? With compassion, we cannot even forgive ourselves, let alone those who inflicted harms on us. Even if we want to forgive, we are not able to wipe out the traces and information in our hearts if we do not practice and attain the Way. How deplorable would it be if we want to forgive but we are not able to do it? Sometimes it is easy for us to say we forgive, but in reality, it requires a prolonged pains-taking cultivation to wipe out all the traces of being harmed and to remain unaffected by the occurrence of all events in the future and undisturbed by our thoughts, and no longer to call to mind the idea of “harming and being harmed”.
According to Buddhism, all plagues, wars, natural disasters, and man-made calamities in this world are related to the karma in common of all sentient beings. In order to eat meat, we fry and grill, roast and steam animals every day. We all know that animals have emotions and can feel pain, but as humans, we create countless animal purgatories in the human world. For the sake of convenience, we breed and reproduce animals on a large scale. Only by sharing the common karma with us, can animals be born in the same time and space with us, so that we can see each other. More and more animals suffer both physically and mentally as if in a living hell while they are still alive on this planet. The time and space we live in is filled with agonized pains, blood and tears, resentment and hatred of animals. Will they forgive us? It is beyond their capability to speak out “I forgive” after they have experienced pains and terrors of skinning, pulling apart, eviscerating for innumerable times. They ask for justice, for the punishment of hell for those who give them severe pains. The only way out is to let sentient beings see the truth of life and the universe, so that they can let go of their experiences of many lives and obtain liberation from hatred. The West Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss comes from equal merits-giving and guidance of Buddhas, a hopeful place where sentient beings in extreme horrible conditions can see promise amid pains. Together, let’s pray that all sentient beings who are willing to migrate to the Pure Land, no matter which realms or paths they belong to, be they Devas, Humans, asuras, animals, ghosts, or the hell-beings, will successfully get reborn in the Pure Land with the guidance and deliverance of Amitabha Buddha, so that all sentient beings will be completely liberated from the vicious circle of harming and being harmed in infinite lifetimes. May all beings from now on not suffer reincarnations!
In the scripture, Bhiksu Dharmakara practiced endurance under provocations until he possessed the power of endurance, with which He was never disheartened by myriad tribulations and readily forgave those who let him suffer. He permitted no thoughts of greed, anger, or harm to arise in his mind. The Power of Endurance alone is not enough for us to treat all pains as dreams, illusions, bubbles and shadows, but it can make us brave and courageous. In order not to have perceptions of greed, anger or harm, shall attain the state in which they play with the supernatural power and are fully aware that all phenomena are fundamentally void. Only by the attainment of the level and the perfection of one’s merits, Bodhisattvas can effortlessly erase the traces of the harm they have suffered on the Bodhisattva Path, the mutual harm among sentient beings, and the traces of suffering in the three evil paths from their hearts. Only then can they repay the ignorance, anger, and foolishness of sentient beings with great virtue.
Bhiksu Dharmakara has accomplished his practice. His wisdom, endurance and fearlessness are hindrance-free. He has successfully fulfilled his vow that there should be no three evil paths in His Land. He forms the land for all sentient beings to enjoy endless bliss without terror and sufferings. It is said in the scripture that with few desires and much contentment, Bhiksu Dharmakara is free from the mind of falsehood and sycophancy and he speaks loving words with a kind face and considerately asks the questions for those who hesitate to ask to render them help. He reveres the Three Jewels and serves his teachers and elders to benefit all and makes energetic progress boldly, never feeling weary in fulfilling his great vows. He seeks only the pure dharmas in worlds in the ten directions to benefit sentient beings. He adorns himself and the world with meritorious actions of all. Keeping far away from bad karma, such as, abusive speech, which can harm self, others, and both, he trained in good karma, such as, speaking virtuous Words to benefit self, others, and both. Bhiksu Dharmakara’s daily deeds are not extraordinary, and many people can also do them. Though these deeds seemingly are not so lofty and magnificent as we expect, they are just what an upright and ordinary Bodhisattva shall keep on doing. People may think that in order to form a world for sentient beings, one shall accomplish many earthshaking meritorious deeds, such as saving a planet. Shakyamuni Buddha states in a descriptive paragraph that Bhiksu Dharmakara is so ordinary a person. This reminds me of the story of Bai Juyi, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty in China, who paid a visit to Master Bird’s Nest of Zen Buddhism and asked “What is the general idea of Buddhism?” The Zen master said, “not to do evils, to do only good.” Bai Juyi smiled and said, “Even a three-year-old child knows what the master says.” The Master Bird’s Nest answered “although a three-year-old child knows it, an eighty-year-old man is not able to do it.” Absolutely! Bai Juyi, who expected to hear some extremely mysterious and abstruse theories, fell silent, bowed and retreated. Indeed, after understanding the Buddha’s views and insight, Bodhisattvas may spend countless years in doing only good not evil, and daily good deeds “mean” is neither substance or existence, nor void or non-existence, a reality which is a mean between the two extremes of materialism and nihilism.) What can truly benefit sentient beings may be some seemingly unimportant small acts of kindness, which shall be performed continuously, as stated in the Ten Great Action Vows of Bodhisattva Samantabhadra, for countless kalpas, without changing their original intention or getting tired in the long process of achieving the goal.