Sage advice (Long Beach 1)

Ven. Hsuan Hua, Long Beach Sagely Monastery; edited and expanded, Wisdom Quarterly

Theravada Buddhist monk, Borobudur, Indonesia (H.KoppDelaney/H-K-D/flickr.com)

  
Wisdom Quarterly visits Long Beach, California this end-of-summer week. "The LBC," as Snoop Dogg famously dubbed it, is a southern coastal city in Los Angeles. It is rich due to its massive port, possibly the busiest in America. It is amazing for its diversity, at one time a hangout for sailors and shippers, merchants and traders. Today it is even more amazing for its exotic mix of Buddhist temples within a small radius, from a Bangladeshi Buddhist vihara (monastic residence) to a Tibetan center favored by the 14th Dalai Lama, who comes to the Long Beach Civic Auditorium almost annually, from Cambodian to Vietnamese temples, to Japanese and Chinese monasteries. One Chinese complex, the Long Beach Sagely Monastery (LBSM), in particular is fascinating for its Catholic past and miraculous Virgin/Kwan Yin present.

  

According to the Buddha, as reiterated by Chinese Master Hua in a talk at LBSM:

"All conditioned dharmas [things]
Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows,
Like dew drops, and lightning flashes:

 Contemplate them thus."

Today some Dharma Protectors have requested this monk to ascend the Dharma seat to speak the Dharma. The Dharma [the Buddha's teaching, the truth, the path to liberation] is not fixed, so there is no fixed way to expound it. [Even the historical Buddha, after realizing its subtle and profound import, made his own formulations, which came to be preserved as "lists" such as the Four Noble Truths, the Ten Perfections, the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment, etc.] Even [attachment to] the Dharma should be renounced, let alone the non-Dharma!

It is also said,

 
"If one sees all appearances as [illusory] non-appearances,
One sees the Thus Come One [Tathagata]."

  
Non-appearances means they are false, unreal. We should understand that all appearances are illusory and false. Wealth, sex, fame, food, and sleep are illusory, impermanent things that intoxicate people so we cannot be liberated.
 
This is all because we attach to false appearances and forget about the real. Once we forget the real, we are no longer free and at ease.
 
If we can see through false appearances, the true appearance will manifest. We will then understand the truth and have genuine wisdom.

If we can be like this, then we will greatly benefit Buddhism and gain great benefit and joy ourselves. And we should be pioneer who have no peer among those who come before and after us.

Therefore, Dharma-protecting laypeople, all that has to be done is breaking through ignorance and cutting off afflictions, and the wisdom that has gone and is going beyond (the prajna) of the True Appearance will come forth of its own nature.
 
Ignorance means being muddled and unaware and, consequently, doing upside-down things. Leading a befuddled life, we cycle through the six [sensual] planes [of the Kama Sphere], never able to escape.

Dharma-protecting laypeople, it is of great benefit to all if one does one's best and courageously advances towards Buddhahood. When the lotus flower opens, we will see the Buddha and realize the patience of non-birth.
 
A Mahayana verse goes,

"I vow to be reborn in the western Pure Land,

With the nine grades of lotus as parents;

When the flower opens, I shall see the Buddha and become enlightened to non-birth,

And irreversible Bodhisattvas shall be my companions."

• The Sagely monks advise, go vegetarian. Why?
• Do not think, "That good deed is trivial; I'm not going to do it. This bad deed is really minor; I'll go ahead and do it. It doesn't matter." For example, you [may] think, "I'm vegetarian, but it won't matter if I eat an egg." But in the future when you are reborn as a chicken, you will know that it was because you ate chicken eggs. If you are not clear on these small matters, then you are "mixing good and evil, and the retribution is never [far] off." That would not be fun." - Ven. Master Hsuan Hua