Excerpts from Supreme Master Ching Hai's Lecture:
"All the misery, all the conflict and all the unhappiness on this planet come not from war, not from poverty and not from the poverty and not from the conditions that we live in. They come from lack of wisdom, from lack of knowing that we are more than just a human body. We can see that very well. So many kings, so many leaders, so many rich, famous people, are not happy, and they keep wanting more and more -- more power, more money, more possessions, more of everything. And still they are not happy. But the Buddha, who was the future king of the country, forsook everything and had nothing with him at that time, and he was happy. It is because the Buddha remembered who he truly was, and the other people did not remember."
"In the Zen Buddhist tradition, we also say that the difference between enlightenment and ignorance is just one hair's breadth. That’s it. So, so little is the difference, but how can we traverse this difference? Even though it is so, so subtle, how can we? And can we? The answer is yes. Because the Light that is within us never dies out."
"Really there is no difference between enlightened and not enlightened. The only difference is the attention. Pay attention to this body, pay attention to this physical surrounding, pay attention to everything that is in this material world, then we are material beings in the material world. Pay attention to the inward nature of ourselves, pay attention to the Buddha Nature that is always within us, inborn, and never die, then we become Buddhas. This is the only difference. "
"Actually, we are already the love, we are already the warmth, we are already the wisdom. It is just that we forget; some of us forget! The people who remember their own Self, God Nature, Buddha Nature, we call them "enlightened beings". And the ones who do not remember their own original nature, we call them "not yet enlightened Buddhas". They both are Buddhas! " |