In this short period of time, the number of you who come to participate in the practice has increased day by day, which shows that the people in Shanghai are kind-hearted and have great merit. It can also be seen that everyone is tired of worries and wants to be quiet, wants to get rid of suffering and pursue happiness. In fact, life is full of suffering and little happiness, and time flies. A few decades pass in the blink of an eye. Even if Peng Zu lived for 800 years, it is very short in the eyes of Buddhism. In the eyes of the world, it is a rare age for a person to live to be seventy. You and I now know that this short, illusory state is nothing to be attached to. Coming here to participate in this seven-day Zen retreat is truly the result of good karma accumulated in past lives.
However, the key to cultivation is to have a long-term mind. All Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in the past have gone through many kalpas of cultivation before they succeeded. The Shurangama Sutra, Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva's Perfect Enlightenment Chapter, says: "I remember that in the past, countless kalpas, there was a Buddha who appeared in the world, named Avalokitesvara. I developed the Bodhi mind towards that Buddha, and that Buddha taught me to enter Samadhi through hearing, thinking and practicing." From this, we can see that Guanyin Bodhisattva did not succeed in just one or two days. At the same time, he openly told us his method of hard work.
He was the first of the twenty-five perfect enlightenments at the Shurangama Conference. His method of practice was to obtain the perfect enlightenment of the ear root through hearing, thinking and practicing, and enter into samadhi. Samadhi means "correct meditation" in Chinese. Therefore, he also said: "In the early stage of my practice, I used my hearing to gradually enter the state of concentration. After deepening, I no longer felt the realm of hearing, nor the self who could hear. I transcended everything and was in harmony with the original wonderful awakening mind of all Buddhas." This method is to use the ear root to reflect on the self-nature, not to let the six roots flow into the six dusts, but to collect the six roots and flow into the Dharma nature. Therefore, he also said: "When one enters into stillness, the two aspects of movement and stillness do not arise."
He also said, "With such efforts, we will gradually reach the highest state of hearing, and we will not even be attached to hearing." This means that we should not stagnate or doubt in the effort of "reverse hearing", but should gradually improve and work harder to achieve the state of "this thought and the emptiness it feels, the emptiness is complete, the emptiness is extinguished, the arising and extinction are quiet, and the silence is present." After all birth and extinction are extinguished by the effort of "reverse hearing the self-nature", the true mind will appear. That is to say, "the crazy mind stops suddenly, and the cessation is Bodhi".
When Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva reached this state, he said, "Suddenly, transcended the world and the world beyond, and became enlightened in all directions. Obtained two special merits. First, united with the original wonderful awakening mind of all Buddhas in the ten directions, and shared the same compassion with the Tathagata. Second, united with all sentient beings in the six realms in the ten directions, and shared the same compassion with all sentient beings."
Today, when we study Buddhism and practice cultivation, we should also do this first, do a good job in our own practice, and save all sentient beings such as greed, anger, ignorance, and arrogance in our "self-nature", and realize the original pure wonderful awakening true mind. Then we can practice and teach others, like Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva, who has thirty-two responses to teach and teach according to their kind, and then we can have power.
Therefore, Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva may appear in the form of a boy or a girl and manifest himself in the world. People do not know that Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva has already attained Buddhahood and does not have any discrimination between men and women or between people and me. He appears according to the needs of sentient beings. However, when people in the world hear the name of Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva, they all feel love and respect for him. This is nothing more than chanting his holy name in past lives, and there are seeds of this in the eight consciousness fields, which are then manifested. Therefore, the sutra says: "Once it enters the ear, it will forever be a seed of the Tao."
