Realizing Innate Potentials, Taking the way of the Bodhisattva

There are two aspects concerning Dharma practice. One is to realize our innate qualities and the other is to carry out the action based on aspiration. The former is to realize our primordial wisdom or Buddha-nature. It is to recognize the perfect and innate awareness that is unarising and unceasing. Once we realize it, we can accomplish the Buddha-field. Most people are uninformed about inner practice. Additionally, many people have little time to properly engage in the inner practice. That's why I'd encourage you to get involved in virtues, charities, and the way of the bodhisattva as a start. By physically participating in virtuous acts, we'd become habituated with the intent of altruism. Meanwhile, we can gather the two accumulations of merit and wisdom through altruistic activities.

Realizing Innate Potentials, Taking the way of the BodhisattvaHow do we gather the two accumulations? To accumulate merit or virtues, one must practice reducing malicious and harmful intents. Instead, one would give rise to kindness and virtuous acts at all times spontaneously. As we cultivate this habit, we are correcting the negative pattern of thinking and beginning to accumulate virtues. By accumulating accumulate wisdom, one could obtain liberation. If we could reflect consistently, we can realize our primordial awareness, recognize our Buddha nature, and see our original face. Any Buddhist scriptures or practices are methods to guide us to the realization of primordial awareness. Once we see the clear light nature, we'll find our true nature and never be lost again.

Realizing Innate Potentials, Taking the way of the BodhisattvaTherefore, we must come to the recognition that everything is impermanent and illusory. As we cultivate non-greediness, non-fixating, non-grasping, and unforsaken determination for Dharma practice, we can break free from cyclic existence and mental afflictions. That’s when we will abide in our nature of the mind. That way, we might pass away ignorantly when impermanence strikes, such as illnesses and other factors.   

This human birth is so precious that we mustn’t let it slide so easily. We should seize the opportunity to practice notionlessness, which is to understand that “All conditioned dharmas are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow. Like dew and lightning.” That’s how we contemplate that no notion is graspable. That’s how our nature will manifest. Such practice of the mind is particularly helpful to maintain stability in this chaotic Age of Degeneration and the pandemic’s rampage.