Contributed by the Buddhas’ Practice Incorporated, Australia
Mentor: Bennie Spirit
Editor: Yinyue(Ivy)
With gratitude to Google AI Gemini
With gratitude to NotebookLM
Draft Date: Aug 12, 2026
Location: BPI Meditation Center
Attendees at the Dharma assembly: Bennie, Ivy, Ellie, Grace, Enid, Dawn, Wujing, Aima
Nothing Worth Cherishing
When thoroughly investigated, the physical body is merely a material world—a material world in which various forms of sentient life dwell—and it is by no means a good thing. What is truly a good thing? Only bliss without suffering is a good thing. Look at your body; it is not bliss. If you do not eat what it requires, suffering arises; if you do not wear what it requires, suffering arises; if you do too much work and become exhausted, suffering arises. Leaving aside all other sufferings of sickness, even under normal conditions, you cannot escape suffering. Even if you grant it excessive amounts of what it considers pleasure, look and see if it remains pleasure in the end. When it needs food, if you eat continuously without stopping for three hours, how much pleasure do you still have? If wearing clothes is good, put on ten layers of clothing; how much peace and comfort remain? If work is tiring and uncomfortable, so you lie in bed unable to move or turn over—try lying there for ten days and see if it is bliss.
For example, when people save money, the more money they have, the more secure and comfortable they feel; there is no such thing as experiencing suffering simply because one has too much money. We must realize whether what the body requires is real. If it were real, the more one had, the more bliss one would experience; yet the result of testing it shows that the more one has, the greater the suffering.
Therefore, have you truly understood what your body actually is? Observe it repeatedly and study it: Is it ultimately your asset or your liability? An asset brings you wealth. A liability is something you must pay back; it diminishes your assets. Only that which increases your assets is essential. Your body does not increase your assets; thus, it is merely a liability. You must continuously feed it, just like a bank loan where interest is constantly deducted until your principal capital is entirely depleted. The body operates the exact same way; in the end, it depletes all the principal of your merit (*puṇya*).
Hence, if a person truly understands and recognizes the body, they will clearly and distinctly know what kind of entity this body actually is. What truly enables you to obtain benefit is not this body. Do you begin to gain real benefit when you make the body unhappy or uncomfortable? For instance, when an athlete undergoes intense physical training, the body is uncomfortable; but when that discomfort and unhappiness reach their absolute limit, their achievements begin to shine brilliantly. The lowest tier of laboring masses, who work desperately all day, end up with slightly more money and a slightly better life than others. Even scientists, who continuously conduct research in laboratories, must exert extreme diligence in body and mind; though their bodies and minds are uncomfortable, their undertakings succeed.
Therefore, whether in business, agriculture, collective endeavors, or sports, it is all the same: when the body and mind undergo discomfort, you achieve success. No one ever achieves anything by sitting there comfortably doing nothing. Comfort is a liability; the more comfortable you are, the more merit (*puṇya*) you consume, and the more interest you must repay, until the interest on your loan consumes all your capital. Just like when people eat food and find it delicious: it forces all the organs in your entire body to work desperately, subjecting them to severe wear, tear, and decline. Within the same lifespan, you will surely live shorter.
Every single drop of the Buddhadharma is verifiable. Not only is it verifiable, but it also requires that you must verify it. And by verifying it all the way through, you achieve ultimate realization. If you say, “I already know it, there is no need to verify it,” then you will remain forever stagnant, continuing to wear down, consume, and decay all the organs of your body. You have not felt it; if you felt it, you would not engage in self-mutilation, self-harm, and self-destruction. Fortunately, the body still possesses many restorative functions; some organs are repairable, while others are non-repairable. If your depletion exceeds its restoration, you are still destroying yourself. For those non-restorable organs, every bit of damage you inflict is permanent damage that can never be repaired.
In summary, these things ought to be known: What kind of entity is this body after all?
Foul Leather Bag (*Pūti-kāya*)
Even if you wear the robes of the great immortals, you remain nothing more than a foul leather bag. Even if you cover yourself in silks and satins, you are ultimately just a toilet, a mobile latrine. What kind of entity is a human being after all? Everything stated above is factual. We should not mistakenly believe that the body is inherently good, nor should we mistakenly believe that it is inherently bad. Do not define it as good or bad, and do not attach labels to it. See it as it truly is (*yathā-bhūtam*), and know it as it truly is (*yathā-bhūta-ñāṇa*).
Furthermore, you ought to know even deeper that this body of yours is itself your karmic retribution body (*vipāka-kāya*), your direct retribution (*śūnyatā/svabhāva-vipāka*), chosen by yourself. Because during initial conception, no one dragged you, begged you, or invited you. It was you yourself who insisted on participating in another family’s life, and so you ran into their household. The body produced by that family turned out to be this exact body. Therefore, whether it is your own karmic retribution or your own choice, it belongs to you. Whether you like to bear it or not, you must bear it. Whether you like to take responsibility or not, you must take responsibility.
Many people say, “I just won’t take responsibility; what can you do about it?” There is no such thing as not taking responsibility. Try it: when the body feels hungry, if you refuse to take responsibility and do not eat, is that possible? People are accustomed to wearing clothes and cannot go out without them; if today you refuse to take responsibility and go out unclothed, you cannot. No one can be free from responsibility. You might say, “I won’t take on these responsibilities; working is too exhausting, so I won’t work.” Are you truly escaping responsibility? Because if you do not work, you have no food, and without food, you cannot survive—you are still bearing the burden. In order to keep yourself alive, you must go to work. Even if you say, “I won’t work, I’ll just go beg for food,” you still have to go, and you are still taking responsibility.
Therefore, no matter how you try to escape, it is useless; you must always be responsible for everything regarding yourself. Whether your path is smooth or filled with obstacles, you yourself are responsible, regardless of what karma you create. If you act according to the natural laws, your path will be smooth and unobstructed; if you act according to false conceptualizations (*vikalpa*), your path will be filled with heavy obstacles. If you do not believe it, you can conduct the experiment repeatedly; the Buddhist tradition highly appreciates the results of such testing. You can take any single principle and test it out. Thus, there is no need to evade reality; one should look directly at reality and face it courageously. Only through courageous effort can one succeed (*vīrya*); otherwise, you will remain a perpetual loser and a perpetual disgrace.
Calculations and Scheming
Scheming over everything—calculating over eating, drinking, and entertainment; parents, children, brothers, and sisters scheming against one another over who got more and who got less; treating external relatives and friends the same way; treating all colleagues the same way—as if scheming guarantees not suffering a loss, while not scheming means suffering a loss. For the sake of one’s own century-long interests, one must scheme, thinking, “Otherwise, when I get old and useless later in life, no one will help me; why should I care about your life or death? I must tightly bind you to myself for my own benefit.” But can a person truly bind everything? You know how to scheme, but do others not know how to scheme?
Therefore, if you only scheme without safeguarding the interests of others, you will ultimately end up lonely and destitute. Consider this: Murong Fu in *The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils* was the most adept at scheming, yet his final result was ending up completely lonely and destitute. Madame Ma was the most adept at scheming, even calculating against Qiao Feng in an attempt to bind him, yet she met a gruesome death. These are all the outcomes of scheming. Because their scheming was of the highest degree, their ends were extremely tragic.
Using these examples, examine yourself: If you meet someone who is extremely calculating toward you, who constantly tries to bind you without considering your interests, how would you feel and react? Sentient beings are all in such a state; how should we respond? People gather with their own kind, and objects cluster by category. Unless you are a manifestation of a great Bodhisattva willing to dive into karmic pits that are not your own to convert and liberate sentient beings (*sattva-paripāka*), everyone is composed of people with such heavy afflictions (*kleśa*) who indulge in scheming.
How to subdue afflictions (*kleśa-saṃvara*) and distance oneself from false conceptualizations (*vikalpa*) and clingings (*grāha*) is the fundamental key. Know that all scheming is nothing but your false conceptualization and clinging. It is precisely because of false conceptualization and clinging that you are stubbornly deluded and submerged in the ocean of suffering (*duḥkha-sāgara*) for immeasurable eons (*asaṃkhyeya-kalpa*).
If you wish to escape the ocean of suffering and reach the other shore (*pāramitā*), it is very simple: The ocean of suffering is boundless; turning back is the shore. How do you turn back? “Turn the hearing inward to hear the self-nature, and the Way is realized as Supreme Enlightenment” (*pratyag-śrotra / anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi*). Simply allow the inherent Tathāgata wisdom and virtuous characteristics (*tathāgata-jñāna-guṇa-saṃpanna*) within you to manifest one by one. Where to go and what to follow—make your own choice; it is an important choice.
If you do not transform yourself, you will forever encounter such people. Whatever you see, think about it: this is discovered by you following your own karma (*sva-karma-sarvabhūta*). Like attracts like, brought forth by collective karma (*saṃbhūta-karma/saṃghāta-karma*). If you do not change yourself, you will forever encounter such people.
Method of Transformation
How do we change now? “Constantly accord with sentient beings” (asaṃskṛta-anuvartana / anukūla-sattva) is a crucial vow in the Practices and Vows of Samantabhadra (Samantabhadra-caryā-praṇidhāna). Do not think about how to change sentient beings, because he is just what he is. Expecting a fool to study his way to a master’s degree is absolute nonsense. If you insist on forcing him to bring honor to his ancestors, you will drive a fool insane.
Yet, people do not know what the other person truly is, so they coerce one another. Everyone coerces each other, indirectly transforming into various physical forms to exert pressure, all merely to achieve their own self-serving goals. In the end, they even forget what their original goal was and forget the origin from which they came. This is the normal state of sentient beings. Every person, after living a lifetime, remains in this state. Whether you act like an idiot or a lunatic, it is only harmful and without benefit, destroying your relationships—such as husband-wife, father-son, and colleague relationships.
Once relationships are destroyed, cooperation becomes even harder, leading you to exert even greater coercion. Eventually, you even destroy the very capacity to coerce, because people will inevitably fight. Fighting escalates, and taken to the extreme, the final result is death. Did you truly win? Have you ever thought about coercing people? How many people have you coerced?
When people do not know each other well, they can socialize and develop deep connections. Once they know each other, coercion begins, even persistent, relentless coercion—like two people chained together by iron links in eternal movies. (What kind of figures are they, and what Buddhadharma do they understand? The outcome of their testing is pure suffering, leading to extreme suffering, portrayed through cinematic forms. They understand it themselves and find ways to help everyone understand.)
Why must there be coercion? It is simply greed (lobha). Coercing through various means is nothing more than wanting to satisfy greed. Greed is the root cause, while coercion is the means. To achieve their goals—their greedy objectives—people target many things and employ many methods. What they convey to others is mostly coercion, pressure, and even aversion.
As time goes on, all the best relationships around you will leave you, or else fight and kill each other. As a result, you can only allow yourself to rot completely. Rotting like a discarded, rotten apple, emitting a foul stench that makes others feel nauseated and avoid you. The moment you coerce others, you are rotting—everyone despises you, and everyone avoids you.
Therefore, can we all become awakened (bodhi)? If you can know things as they truly are (yathā-bhūta-ñāṇa), you can awaken; if you can see things as they truly are (yathā-bhūta-darsana), you will naturally generate knowledge of reality. Conversely, seeing as it truly is and knowing as it truly is naturally yields awakening. Once awakened, you will know how to truly benefit yourself: benefiting others is benefiting oneself. You are all in the midst of this; can you clarify whether doing so truly benefits yourself?
Why “constantly accord with sentient beings”? It means not going against or defying sentient beings. For example, the five yakṣas only drank blood, and without blood, they would starve to death. At that time, the King bled himself to feed them and simultaneously made a vow (praṇidhāna). The vow served as the cause (hetu); as their causal conditions (hetu-pratyaya) deepened, it led to the realization of the five bhikṣus (pañca-bhikṣu). The Buddha’s life-after-life salvation of the five bhikṣus was entirely through constantly according with sentient beings. He never coerced a single person, nor did he make harsh demands. He simply knew what you were and how he should benefit you.
He will only ask you to do what you are capable of doing at your current stage; he will never coerce you to do what you cannot do. That is the Buddha. In the process of interacting with you, he cultivates the conditions for your liberation, gradually allowing you to mature (paripāka), and ultimately leading you to obtain the supreme fruit (uttama-phala).
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