Contributed by the Buddhas’ Practice Incorporated, Australia
Mentor: Bennie Spirit
Editor: Yinyue(Ivy)
With gratitude to Google AI Gemini
With gratitude to Gemini NotebookLM
Draft Date: August 18, 2026
Location: BPI Meditation Center
Attendees at the Dharma assembly: Bennie, Ivy, Ellie, Grace, Enid, Dawn
When you attain mastery and unhinderedness in the Dharma, the arising of afflictions (*kleśas*) brings you no fault; in fact, there is even merit.
What does it mean to be unhindered in the Dharma? It means you precisely and meticulously know what kinds of disasters are caused by greed (*rāga*), anger (*dveṣa*), ignorance (*moha*), arrogance (*māna*), and doubt (*vicikitsā*), and exactly how they destroy all of your good deeds and virtuous roots (*kuśala-mūla*). Knowing this precisely and meticulously is considered “knowing things as they truly are” (*yathābhūta-jñāna*), but this is merely “realization/verification” (證, *abhisamaya*), not yet “attainment” (得, *prāpti*).
What, then, is considered attainment? Take a doctor’s prescription, for example. Many medicines possess toxic properties and can have a destructive effect on the body. Consider broad-spectrum antibiotics—they can help you eliminate inflammation in the body. However, if a healthy person constantly takes antibiotics, what is the result? All the beneficial bacteria in the body are annihilated. Since these beneficial bacteria provide eighty to ninety percent of the essential materials the body needs, without them, how long could you survive in such a state? This is why a doctor cannot prescribe medicine indiscriminately. Some medicines can cure diseases, but if applied inappropriately, the resulting consequences are more severe than the disease itself. For a doctor, being able to precisely prescribe the right medicine for the corresponding illness embodies the principle of being unhindered in the Dharma.
Using this example, reflect further: Greed, anger, ignorance, arrogance, and doubt are harmful and of no benefit to people. How can one give rise to these afflictions and transform them into something that is beneficial and harmless to oneself and to all sentient beings (*sattvas*)? If you can apply them freely and unhindered, that is considered “attainment.” Combined with the aforementioned “realization,” the two together are called “realization and attainment” (*adhigama*). That is to say, you have truly realized what afflictions ultimately are, and you can precisely utilize these afflictions to create outcomes that are beneficial to both yourself and others.
Suppose you gain personal benefit through someone else’s situation, and you awaken to the destructive effects of greed. That is merely one single point among countless forms of greed. The destructive power of greed is four-dimensional and multi-faceted. You have only seen a single point, and even the one-dimensionality of that single point has not been fully articulated.
No matter what flavor of greed you indulge in, it causes absolute harm to your body. You must theoretically and practically verify exactly what this harm is and how it harms you—this is the “realization” emphasized in Buddhism.
Once we have completely verified this ourselves, we then guide sentient beings to verify it—theoretically, practically, and through their own profound personal experience. Then, regarding greed, you have reached the state of realization.
As for “attainment”: Suppose you want a certain type of sentient being to awaken by watching you rapidly destroy your own body. You clearly know the pain generated during the process of destruction, the pain of the final result, and even the pain at the moment of death. You express this truthfully and exactly as it is (*yathābhūtam*), allowing sentient beings to genuinely see it and feel it, thereby triggering their awakening. If you can do this, you are considered unhindered in the Dharma.
In the *Avataṃsaka Sūtra* (Flower Ornament Scripture), during Sudhana’s visits to the fifty-three spiritual friends (*kalyāṇamitra*), there is a spiritual friend who constantly engages in exactly this kind of practice.
When true Bodhisattvas wish to benefit sentient beings, they must display things exactly as they are. This is also one of the Buddha’s abilities: to open, demonstrate, and reveal.
Everyone is currently using afflictions to self-harm and self-destruct. Once you have clearly understood the specific methods of how this works, you can even deliberately use afflictions to self-harm and self-destruct as a demonstration, allowing sentient beings to awaken to the Tathāgata’s wisdom and enter the realm of all Buddhas. This is exactly the purpose of the Buddha’s “opening, demonstrating, awakening, and entering” (開示悟入) as expounded in the *Lotus Sūtra* (*Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra*)—the goal is to make sentient beings understand.
“Opening and demonstrating” means you must genuinely act it out. For example, when you learn to drive, your driving instructor demonstrates every single movement and tells you why it must be done that way. Therefore, opening and demonstrating is what the Buddha wishes to express; the purpose is for sentient beings to understand and to enter the path. Having the ability to open, demonstrate, awaken, and enter is called being unhindered in the Dharma.
In the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss (*Sukhāvatī*), the Buddha manifests everything. Even the trees, birds, and lotus flowers act as giant screens. They will teach you exactly what stage you are at, where to step, how high to lift your foot, and how much force to use. That is an absolute, ultimate specialized school with highly specialized instruction. By contrast, the teaching method of our Fundamental Teacher (Śākyamuni Buddha in this world) is expounding the Dharma. He enables you to hear it, and through hearing, you can comprehend all the details. You simply need to execute it perfectly.
First, you must clearly, plainly, precisely, and meticulously understand what the disasters of anger are. At the very least, it destroys your beautiful mind, causing your inner world to suffer, and causing your physical body to suffer. This suffering is not a singular manifestation; your entire body expresses it. This is because, in a state of suffering, your endocrine system works frantically, releasing hormones (such as adrenaline) that spread this pain to every corner of your entire body. It makes you feel pain in a material, physical form, not just on a mental level. The suffering borne by our entire body and mind originates directly from this anger.
If you investigate anger, you will discover that a self-existent anger does not actually exist, because anger itself is rootless. It arises simply because you do not obtain what you greed for—such as failing to grasp onto life, failing to grasp benefits, failing to grasp good food and drink, and so on. It is because your greed was unfulfilled that it transformed into anger; anger does not have a root of its own.
The root of greed, too, cannot be found. If you trace it back to its source, you will find that any single point of greed is nothing but the definitions and labels you have established since childhood. You perceive things as good or bad, right or wrong, true or false; but all phenomena (*dharmas*) in themselves lack these definitions and labels. There is no inherent good, bad, right, wrong, true, or false. Within this profound “non-existence” (emptiness / *śūnyatā*), you have established “existence” (*bhāva*).
This fabricated “existence” then forms your greed, which further extends into anger, arrogance, and doubt. By holding these things in your mind, you weave a net of karma (*karma-jāla*). You are actively and diligently weaving a net of painful karma, shrouding yourself in suffering.
If you establish your reality based on wrong views (*mithyā-dṛṣṭi*), there is only suffering. If you establish it based on right views (*samyag-dṛṣṭi*), there is only peace and joy.
What is Right View? It means you must see things exactly as they are (*yathābhūta-darśana*). What it is, is simply what it is. Do not add any colored concepts to it; that is, do not mix in even a single drop of anything extra.
When you have Right View, you will have Right Knowledge, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, and thus the complete curriculum of the Noble Eightfold Path (*Ārya-aṣṭāṅgika-mārga*).
But how is Right View established? This is a crucial point. The methods to establish “seeing things as they truly are” are: (1) Develop your own inherent abilities, so you can see all things as they are. (2) If your inherent abilities are not yet developed, you must constantly rely on the Buddha’s teachings (the Dharma), because the Buddha understands it all; he has clearly articulated exactly what all of this ultimately is and how it functions.
If our memory of the teachings is incomplete, unclear, frequently confused, or often forgotten, you will have no way to manifest this Right View. Unable to manifest Right View, you can only perpetuate your inherent wrong views to create suffering and obstacles. You will remain forever shrouded by your painful net of karma, unable to liberate yourself for all eternity.
If you wish for a good outcome, then go and change.
ENDING
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