Only by constantly reciting the Buddha's name in your dreams can you escape from suffering
2024-03-14
Lecture by Venerable Master Zibo
Monk Huiz-hou visited and paid homage, the master asked, "Why did you become a monk?"
Said: "To seek relief from suffering."
Master: "Which method do you use to escape from suffering?"
He said: " I am dull and can only recite Buddha's name."
The master asked, "Do you often stop reciting the Buddha's name?"
Said: "I forget it when I close my eyes and sleep."
The master rebuked him with great authority and said:
"If you forget to recite the Buddha's name once you close your eyes, even if you recite it for ten thousand years, it will have no effect! From now on, you must continue to recite Buddha's name in your sleep dream. Only then can you escape from suffering. If you cannot recite the Buddha's name in your sleep dream, you have forgotten it. When you open your eyes, you should burst into tears, kowtow before the Buddha until your blood bleeds, or recite a thousand times, or recite ten thousand times. Just do your best. After doing this for three or twenty times, naturally,
even in the great slumber, the Buddha's name is uninterrupted. Moreover, people in the world who chant the Buddha's name may chant the Buddha's name for thirty or twenty years, or throughout their entire life, but it is useless when they are dying. This is because they never had the thought of chanting Buddha's name in their sleep dream. Life is like waking up, and death is like a dream, so those who recite the Buddha's name in their dreams will naturally in right mind when they are dying."
The method of chanting Buddha's name is the simplest and most convenient. But nowadays, those who recite the Buddha's name have no fixed intention. Therefore, among hundreds of people chanting Buddha's name, not one or two achieve it. This Buddha's name: All Bodhisattvas, all gods, and all people, if they are successfully reborn in the Sukhāvatī, have survived the sea of suffering because of this sentence of Amitābha. However, at the critical moment of testing whether the mind of reciting the Buddha's name is true or not, we can obtain evidence from two places: joy and worry. The true and false mind can be clearly distinguished. Those who sincerely recite the Buddha's name will definitely recite it uninterrupted in the midst of joy and trouble. Troubles can't touch him, and joy can't touch him. Since troubles and joy cannot move him, he will naturally not be frightened in the state of death and life. Nowadays, those who recite Buddha's name, once some small joy or anger comes to them, and Amitābha Buddha is left behind. How is it possible to pass the consummate proficiency verify of Chanting Buddha ? If you follow the method of reciting the Buddha's name that I taught you, if you can really not forget this sentence of Amitābha at the moment of love and hate, but you still don't get the benefits now and you can't rebirth in the Sukhāvatī when you die, my tongue will definitely be broken. If you don't practice according to my teachings, then chanting the Buddha's name will have no effect, and the fault will still be yours and has nothing to do with me.
