Steady Progress——67

Author: Fafu

Translator : Lotus

13. It is difficult to protect my oral karma. The main reason is that I don’t have a deep understanding of the dangers of oral karma, and the bad habit I have developed since I was a child is that I can say whatever I want, talk nonsense, and have never been trained in how to speak well. Especially after leading everyone to study, if I remain in this state, a large number of people will be harmed. Knowing the seriousness of this problem, my mentor taught me earnestly whenever he had the opportunity: “Study hard, speak according to the classics, and keep the original flavor. Study and train before you think twice, that is, think before you do it, or even think about it repeatedly. Let’s talk after confirming.” I have restrained a lot now, and I dare not say anything if I am not sure.

14. My mentor has always hoped that we can all be true disciples of the Buddha, mercy，compassion, joy and giving, free from afflictions, pure and kind! But it is not easy for me who has a lot of afflictions and bad habits. My heart will resist and feel uncomfortable, Afflictions will arise, and I will feel uncomfortable again and again, and I will be easily confused. I felt very ashamed and humiliated, and I asked my mentor, “What should I do in this state, good or bad, the heart is the root, how can I control my mind?”

Although I often have this kind of troubled state, I have asked similar questions countless times, and even I am tired of myself, but every time my mentor will patiently, skillfully and wisely explain my doubts: “It’s good to be enlightened. Suffering and troubles are emerging. Now that you know these things, you need to know that these afflictions can only destroy your own goodness. You don’t need to feel or follow them. It’s enough to follow kind，compassion, joy and giving. Other people’s bad things, The one who needs us to accompany him is accomplishing our Buddhist path, so we should be grateful.” The mentor’s words have a special blessing power, which can refresh my mind and body immediately, and I have a strong mind to follow the teachings.

I have always been ambitious, thinking that it would be easy to sow the Dharma into the hearts of sentient beings, but then I found out that I was wrong. Because what all living beings love is eating, drinking and having fun, not the Dharma. I found that it is easy to read the scriptures and recite the words, but it is still difficult to truly arouse the heart to uphold each sentence of the Dharma. Especially for sentient beings like me who were born in the end of the dharma and have no cause to be separated from the Buddhadharma, it is very difficult to truly accept and uphold any sentence of the Buddhadharma.

I am grateful to my mentor, time and time again, when I am confronted with afflictions and obstacles, he not only helps me get rid of the affliction fever and establish the right view, but also allows me to plant the cause of accepting and upholding the Dharma with all my heart, what a rare and wonderful thing. Because this means that in the future, when the karma and fate are in harmony, I can naturally receive and uphold the Buddhadharma. Especially when I find it more and more difficult for me to do anything good, and I don’t have any good causes or conditions, how grateful I am to my mentor for his compassionate companionship. In order for me to plant the good causes of each time, he often encourages me and even praises the good vows I made, so that I can happily plant every good cause. He is so busy, but for every good wish I send, he will reply every time, at least the picture of “shaking hands”.

The mentor is so inconceivable that he has already sowed the seeds of Dharma liberation for us quietly. It is just whether we have realized it during the process of being “assimilated” by the mentor.