é™æ€è¯ Readings For Silent Reflection
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Is one always reborn as a human being?
No, there are several realms in which one can be reborn. Some people are reborn in more luxurious worlds, some are reborn in more suffering worlds(Including animals), and some are reborn as hungry ghosts and so on. More luxurious worlds are not a place but a state of existence where one has a subtle body and where the mind experiences mainly pleasure. Some religions strive very hard to be reborn in more luxurious worlds, mistakenly believing it to be a permanent state, but it is not. Like all conditioned states, they are impermanent and when one’s life span is over that is finished, one could well be reborn again as any realms. More suffering worlds, likewise, is not a place but a state of existence where one has a body and where the mind experiences mainly anxiety and distress. Being a hungry ghost, again, is a state of existence where the body is subtle and where the mind is continually plagued by longing and dissatisfaction.
So beings in more luxurious worlds experience mainly pleasure, beings in more suffering worlds experience mainly pain, and human beings experience usually a mixture of both. So the main difference between the human realm and other realms is the body type and the quality of experience.
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It is the most difficult of difficulties for one to believe in the teaching of the Amitabha-Recitation and make others believe it too. To transmit the great compassion of Amitabha Buddha to others and to spread his teaching far and wide is the true repayment of the benevolence of Amitabha Buddha.
- Master Shandao
Namo Amitabha! -
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Letting Go
How can we move ahead? By letting go. Relinquishment is a kind of liberation.
Only by letting go can we free up our hand. When we grasp our hands tightly, they contain nothing. But if we open them up, they can accommodate even the world. When we pick up a burden, it weighs a ton. If we lay it down, it becomes light as a feather.
When we learn to let go, our pressures, vexations, enemies and suffering diminish greatly.
What if we cannot let go? Continue to bear the burdens. When we can’t bear them anymore, we will naturally lay them down.
Who to pass them to? Except Buddha-nature or Amitabha, no one will accept our irksome burdens.
Those who can let go, come close to Buddha-nature and Amitabha. Those who cannot, remain at a distance. To the extent that we are able to let go, we approach Buddha-nature, we approach Amitabha, we approach truth.
-Master Jingzong -
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Among tigers, lions, leopards & bears I lived in the jungle.
No one was frightened of me, nor did I fear anyone.
Uplifted by such universal friendliness, I enjoyed the forest.
Finding great solace in such sweetly silenced solitude. -
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Better it is to do a good deed, after doing which one does not grieve.
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Senses coming through these five sensory organs are like oceans, vast with swirls, trenches, and fear, if one takes all the senses moderately, he is the one who has crossed all the oceans and relaxes.
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Look at this body..
Even though it has been well decorated..
This is a skeleton filled with flesh..
Subject to suffer from hundred of sicknesses & diseases..
Even though ignorants have so many fancies of this,
There is nothing permanent of this..
Nothing going to last...