Let Your Soul Be Infiltrated by the Truth

“Mahamudra: Essence and Practice” ( Book II)

Let Your Soul Be Infiltrated by the Truth

◎Chen Yixin: What are the reasons for failing to accomplish Buddhahood?

●Xue Mo: When the practice for the creation stage is completed, that is, when the path of accumulation is completed, there is the path of applied practices and the path of seeing ahead.

After you meet your fundamental guru, he will enlighten your mind-nature. When your mind-nature is enlightened, you enter into the path of seeing, where real practice begins. When you are fortunate enough to meet a really good guru or a reliable teacher, if you are endowed with superior capabilities and with firm confidence and faith, you can complete the path of accumulation right away and enlighten your mind-nature with the help of your guru’s instructions. After that, you begin your real practice.

If you haven’t met your fundamental guru yet, you can practice according to religious rituals, such as Kundalini meditation and illusory body cultivation. When you obtain the state of brightness, it means that you have enlightened your mind and seen your own nature; that is, you have entered into the path of seeing. If you have found your fundamental guru, you don’t have to practice according to these rituals, for to a practitioner of Vajrayana, there is no better Dharma than that of guru homologization. With complete faith, it is easy for you to achieve brightness.

Whatever practice you adopt, the purpose is to see the brightness and then try to retain it, melt into it and become part of it. So the significance of a linage guru is that he passes down the religious rituals so that you can practice accordingly before you meet your fundamental guru. In so doing, it is also likely that you escape suffering and attain happiness and see the brightness. But even when you have seen the brightness, you need the confirmation of an achieved guru. Without confirmation, your practice is futile and meaningless.

I’ll give you a simple example. The other day, a practitioner asked me, “Should I go on practicing?” I told him flatly, “You’d better give up practicing.” “Why should I give up?” he asked. “Because it won’t work,” I told him. He asked what was wrong with his practice. I said the problem was in the translation of the religious rituals.” That man is of Han nationality and he knows no Tibetan. The ritual commentaries he was using are a Chinese transliteration. In other words, he didn’t know the meaning of what he was chanting. Therefore, his practice had no effect on his mind-nature. A parrot which chants the name of Amitabha Buddha for ten thousand years is not likely to attain Buddhahood, because it doesn’t know what is meant by Amitabha Buddha. Likewise, a Han practitioner who recites a dharma–source by parroting the Tibetan pronunciation for ten thousand years will go nowhere, because he doesn’t know what it means.

The purpose of all religious rituals is to infiltrate your mind so that craving, ill-will, ignorance dissolve gradually, your attachments are shattered, and you go toward a state of profundity and sublimity. If you don’t understand its meaning, a mechanical reciting of any sutra is useless. Nowadays, lots of practitioners are still obsessed with technical things, and they waste their time in talking about unimportant things about body or things outside of body. These are non-Buddhist rather than Buddhist behavior.

Buddhist practice focuses on the mind-nature; seeking the dharma outside of the mind is non-Buddhist. Therefore, the dharma-sources which use Chinese characters to stand for Tibetan pronunciations can only serve to control the mind of a practitioner.

What is more horrible is religious threatening. I read in a book that some people say the following in the name of their guru: “If you have faith in the dharma-brothers who practice well, it means you have no faith in our guru. This is against the Dharma. If you go on doing like this, you are bound to have ill fortune when you are alive and fall into Vajra hell when you die. You are not allowed to have other gurus. You are not allowed to read books written by other people. No argument, no discussion, no commenting on the Dharma.” Some believers even wrote guarantees, something like: “I vow to practice only this Dharma throughout my lifetime. Otherwise, I will get the following punishments …” Each guarantee is signed by believers to show their determination.

Besides this, there are much weirder versions in that type of books. For example, “Whether our guru is alive or has entered into perfect extinction, the Dharma of our sect can only be passed down by the person appointed by our guru.”

It is definitely wrong. As a matter of fact, anyone who has had valid cognition and qualifications can be a guru.

We received the Vajra Guru consecration of Master Gong Tangcang of Labrang Monastery in South Gansu Province. During the consecration ceremony, the master blessed us with the wish that everyone would be achieved one day and become a guru and carry forward Buddhist Dharma. But nowadays, in some sects, believers unaccountably set up organizations to brainwash newcomers and manipulate their mind and spirit. Some of them even treat culture common to all human beings as firewood in their own yard. Nobody except themselves is allowed to use it to keep warm. 

Actually, truly excellent cultures are not something to be ashamed of. We should put them to the forefront of the times for people to get to know, for experts and scholars to study thoroughly, to make them nutrients for the souls of contemporary people, and to fulfill their purpose of harmonizing society.

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《光明大手印：实修心髓》下

让真理熏染你的心灵

◎陈亦新：修不成就的原因是什么？

●雪漠：当生起次第达到圆满的时候，也就是完成了资粮道。但这时候，仅仅是资粮道而已，还有后面的加行道和见道。

当你遇到根本上师之后，他会为你开示心性，上师开示心性你明白后就进入了见道，也即开始了真正的修行。当你真正遇到非常好的上师和善知识的时候，只要你根器好，且有足够的信心和虔诚，你就可能在一瞬间圆满你的资粮，在上师的开示下明白心性。当你真正地明白心性之后，就算进入了真正的修行。

在修行的过程中，如果在没有遇到根本上师的情况下，也可根据宗教礼仪去圆满你的修行，如修拙火、幻身等。当你证得光明时，就是明心见性了，也即见道了。当你遇到根本上师之后，就不一定完全按照这些仪轨来修。因为对于密乘行者来说，没有比上师相应法更好的法了。只要你信心俱足，是很容易见到光明的。

对于修行而言，无论是以哪种方式，其目的还是为了让你见到光明，然后是保任光明、融入光明、化为光明。所谓传承上师的意义在于把宗教礼仪传承下去，在你未遇到根本上师时，按照这些仪规去修，也有可能离苦得乐，见到光明。但即使你见到光明，也需要成就上师的印证。没有印证的话，盲修瞎炼是没有任何意义的。

举一个很简单的例子，前一段日子，有一个信徒问我：“我现在应不应该继续修？”当时，我很直接地告诉他：“你别修了吧！”他问：“为什么不修了？”我说：“因为修也不起作用。”他问我：“问题出在什么地方？”我告诉他：“出现在宗教仪轨的翻译上。”那人是汉人，不懂藏文，他念诵的仪轨，是藏文的汉字音译。就是说，他根本不知道自己念诵内容的含义，根本无法在心性上生起功用。一只鹦鹉哪怕用一万年的时间念阿弥陀佛，它照样成就不了，因为它不知道念“阿弥陀佛”有什么意义。当一个汉地的信徒模仿藏音用一万年的时间去读法本，也起不了作用，因为他不知道是什么内容。

所有宗教仪轨的目的是为了熏染你的心灵，让你慢慢地消除贪婪、仇恨、愚昧，破除执著，走向博大和崇高。无论任何一部经典，如果你不能明白其中道理和意思的时候，机械念诵是没有任何意义的。眼下，好多信徒还在“修”的过程中执著一些技术性的东西，整天争来斗去讨论一些身体以及身体以外无关紧要的东西。如果出现这种状况，则为外道，而不能称其为内道。

内道的修从心性入手，心外求法则为外道。所以，一些执著于藏音汉诵的法本只能起到一种精神控制的作用。

更可怕的是一些宗教恐吓。我在一本书中，见到一些人打着其“上师”旗号说：“你们对修法很好的师兄有信心，就说明对上师没有信心。这种做法是不如法的，如果继续这样下去，活着时必然败运，而死后则会堕入金刚地狱。你们不可以拜其他的上师，不可以看别的书籍，不能争论，不能交流，不可谈论法。”我甚至还看到了一些信徒的保证书，如：我保证我会一生一世去修此法，如若不做，则受到什么样的惩罚。在这些保证书上，每一个信徒都会在上面签名，以示自己的决心。

除了讲到的这一点，那类书上还有更离奇的说法。如：“上师无论是在活着时，还是圆寂了后，对于教派的法永远只能由上师指定的那一个人传。”

事实上，对于这个问题，绝对不是这样。因为任何一个人，只要达到足够的证量和条件，都可以当上师。

甘南拉卜楞寺金席大师贡唐仓给我们灌过金刚上师顶。他在灌顶时，祝愿每一个人都能成就，都能成为上师，都能弘扬佛法。可如今，一些教派当中，信徒们往往会搞一些莫名其妙的组织给另一部分新的信徒洗脑，然后控制他们的思想和精神。有一些人甚至将人类的文化当成自家院里的柴火，只允许自己烧，不允许别人取暖。

事实上，真正的优秀文化不是见不得人的。我们应该将它推到时代以及社会的前沿，让人了解，让相应的专家和学者去深入研究，让它成为当代人的灵魂滋养，起到和谐社会的作用。

声明：本文系文化志愿者试译，非专业人才翻译，错误定然不少，如出现疏漏及错误，敬请读者见谅。如有任何翻译上的建议及修正意见，欢迎及时与我们取得联系，我们会加以校对、修改，并希望有专业才能的朋友也能加入我们志愿者群体中来。

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