Lecture by Venerable Master Hsuan-Hua
When listening to the sutra, whether you understand it or not, you should have the patience to stay here and listen. In this Dharma assembly, this is Vāsanā (behavioural tendency imprint); it is like the fragrant smoke fumigate. Fumigate one times two times, over and over, your wisdom light will develop. There are many people who become enlightened while listening to the sutra. Don't take listening to the sutra too lightly!
When I was in Hong Kong, there was an old woman in her 70s who couldn't listen to sutras at all because she was deaf. How can she listen to the sutra? But whenever I give lectures, she must come to listen. She is in her seventies and has to climb up a mountain with more than 300 stone steps. Look, a person is going up the mountain like this to listen to the sutra! After listening to the sutra, it was around nine o'clock in the evening before walking down the mountain. She had to take the bus back and forth at such an old age, she was so diligent and determined to listen to the sutra!
Strangely, after listening to it for more than a month, she was no longer deaf! A deaf person who listens to sutra and is no longer deaf sounds like a myth when talking about it. In fact, this is not surprising at all. Because she had a kind of sincerity: "Even if I can't listen, I still want to listen!" As a result, she heard it!
This seventy-year-old old lady can have such induction; if each of us is sincere, even if we don't understand it now, we will understand it. Don't be afraid that you don't understand it temporarily. As long as you are sincere, you will eventually understand it one day!
If you are not sincere and say, "I listen and listen but I don't understand. I am one of the "five thousand people who have withdrawn from the assembly," and I have also withdrawn from the assembly!" Then you withdraw from the assembly. If you withdraw from the assembly, it means you are not virtuous enough. Therefore, most of the people who enter this Dharma assembly must be virtuous. An immoral person cannot sit still in this place; when he sits, he feels like he has to stand up again, and when he stands up, he has to sit down again, and he feels anxious and wants to leave. Why? It was his evil obstacle spirits that were holding him back. The ghost came and said: "You don't stay here! It won't work if you stay here! Let's be good friends, you should just come with us and do evil!"
宣化上人講經節錄
宣化上人講經節錄
Hsuan Hua
