Master Xuecheng: What does it mean to widely form good karma?

Dear students and fellow practitioners:

The theme we talk about today is "Widely form good karma" . These four words are often heard, but what exactly do they mean by "generating good karma"? What is "good karma"? How to "Guangjie"?

We now advocate "orderly management", "family harmony", "social harmony" and "world peace". "Building good karma widely" means building perfect and good interpersonal relationships and social order, and creating a good space for public activities.

Yuan refers to various relationships: including the relationship between people, the relationship between people and things, the relationship between people and things, the relationship between the past, present and future, the relationship between things and principles, and the relationship between things and laws. relationship. Among these relationships, those that are kind are called good karma; on the contrary, those that have a corrosive effect on interpersonal relationships, public order, and social stability are not good karma, but bad karma. If the things we do and the laws we do are conducive to the establishment of public order, social order, and interpersonal order, then it is good.

How do we start “building good relationships”?

If you want to burn incense in the temple, you can take it as you like, and you think it is a good relationship; or if you want to eat, you can eat as you like, and you think it is a good relationship; or you can take scriptures as you want, and you think it is a good relationship. Make good friends. Of course, for temples, these are all forms of establishing good relationships. But as people who burn incense, eat, and read scriptures, are we building good relationships? It's hard to say. It depends on how we set our minds and what our motives are. There are some scriptures in the temple that don’t have room to pile up, so you come and get them and just finish them; or sometimes there is a lot of incense in the temple and it is difficult to deal with it, so you come and buy it for others to burn to bring blessings to all living beings, or sometimes you can’t finish the food. Inviting others to come, these can all lead to a wide range of good karma; however, these are passive karma.

If I have 100 yuan and see a person, I give him 5 yuan, thinking that this is to build good relationships. Who wouldn’t do such a thing? This is the idea of ??egalitarianism, not the pursuit of good karma. Developing a wide range of good karma is not egalitarianism, building a wide range of karma is not without principles, and building a wide range of karma is within limits.

So, how do we understand and achieve good karma in temples? This is a very important question. For example, when we speak, if we say it just right, people like to listen and accept it, and their behavior can change immediately after receiving it, and it can have an effect, then our language will be effective. On the contrary, if someone is doing something here, and you say that we are practicing Buddhism and not doing things, then what we say has nothing to do with what they are doing, and we will form a bad relationship with them. Or when we see people working there, worshiping Buddha, reading sutras, or meditating, we go over and say, "Let's take a walk. Don't sit there all day." This is not a good relationship, but a bad relationship. His mind is already very quiet, but your words will have the opposite effect.

Monk Zhaitang on the second floor of Jianxingtang

Because our hearts are scattered, we often don’t understand what is being said. When you meet someone, just say what you want to say to the other person. After the other person listens to your words and practices your scattered words, he will also become scattered. These karma and results are all real and true. Because when you say this, you unintentionally start from the troubled mind. When people listen to your words and accept them, it has an impact on them. Language itself is a kind of karma, the karma of body, speech and mind. Therefore, whether we are at home or in the temple, how we speak is very important. Be careful with your words and deeds, and don't speak casually. Therefore, by speaking, you can form good relationships.

We need the Master to speak to us all day long. The key is that we have to practice it. If we don’t practice it, we will be like children who have to be managed by their parents every day, and that won’t work. This way the child will never grow up. The same is true for our words. People at different levels have different expressions. At the beginning we may have to say more words and use more languages, but gradually the words will become less and less.

So if we study Buddhism and think that what we do will have results after countless kalpas, then our words are meaningless. Then everyone knows that there will be results after countless kalpas. Then do you know that what will happen after ten years? What kind of results will there be, what kind of results will there be in five years, what kind of results will there be in one year, that is the key. What results will come out of me in this life is what matters. We cannot push the known things into the unknown realm like countless kalpas. On the contrary, we must transform the unknown realm into the known realm. We are far away from becoming a Buddha. We don’t know the year or month. I want to make what I don’t know knowable, and what I can’t do become doable. Then ours is called establishing good karma.