Upholding the Right View in Life

Every one of us has lots of habitual tendencies to tame. What would be the way? It is through Chan practice that we can transform habitual tendencies and dispel ignorance. No one could attain enlightenment without Chan practice . It is unprecedented. Chan practice is the basic work for enlightenment.

We lose our mindfulness on our daily activities due to habitual tendencies and conceptual elaboration. If we practice Chan regularly, we’d be free from conceptual elaboration and abide within the purity of Chan. The reason that we are deluded by elaborations is our poor job of being mindful. If we could tame our minds through Chan prac-tice, our daily activities and conduct would also improve. It is unlikely to execute all the “three thousand deportments and eighty-thousand subtle acts” perfectly. However, if one practice Chan, subtle conduct would also become excellent. 

Often, we don’t know how to live. What is life? Although we’ve learned about Dharma, it remains an idea if we don’t act on it. When we carry out Dharma within our life, we’d no longer be lost without a goal. The right view is foremost in Dharma practice. When one lacks the right view, there’d be no right action or right livelihood. The motivation to strive is therefore absent.

Why don’t we have the right view? Because we are deluded. Why are we deluded and what about? We are deluded between existence and non-existence; right and wrong; good and bad; agreement and nega-tion; living and dying; sadness and happiness. We’re deluded by events, notions, relationships, etc. Keep in mind that the suffering of life. Suffering from meeting what is unpleasant, parting from what is pleasant , and more are embedded in all the events and notions. How?  When we are deluded, we are not in the state of our true mind, or nature. Hence, we stay in cyclic existence. There’s a saying in Hokkien, “Not following the leading of the people but the ghost instead”. This is samsara made up of clinging to notions and be swayed by phenomena. Always keep in mind that, “All All  “Magical illusion, dewdrop, bubble, Dream, lightning or a cloud — know all compounded phenomena to be like this.“   conditioned dharmas are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow. Like dew and lightening. Thus they should be perceived.”.

Every being is already a Buddha endowed with qualities of the tathagata. Yet, these are veiled by afflictions and attachments. Dharma practice is within daily life. We must begin by taming this mind. We’d come to understanding and then attain realization. If our mind is always distracted, we can’t detect the sign of realization. This physical body parish perishes. It’d be wise to know what is in our innate possession. We need to contemplate that at all times. Seize the mo-ments to practice so our mind isn’t wasted on useless matters. 

That way, clarity, and awareness will come forth. In life, samsara would come to an end when we stop clinging. On the contrary, we’d doomed to take rebirths if we like to cling. What does it mean to be “non-grasping”? With non-abidance, such mind comes forth. It is our nature.