Practice Everywhere

Yutang Lin


Whatever encountered could be an occasion for awakening;
How could we limit our training to certain forms and paths?
Grasping to forms one will judge wrong and misunderstand;
All that help awakening and opening up are useful practices.

Comment:

Dharma practices center on releasing grasping, not attaching to forms, and cultivating wisdom and compassion. Although there are stages of the path arranged and formal institutions of various schools established, once a practitioner is deep into practices he or she should not be confined by formal considerations and sectarian views, rather he or she need to practice applying Dharma in daily life encounters, and thereby gradually harmonize and penetrate through all situations.

People that are grasping to forms could hardly become aware of their own wrong footing, but would readily rush into judging who's right and who's wrong according to appearances. They could hardly appreciate the subtle significance in what Tathagata said in the Diamond Sutra, that "all things are all Buddha's things" and some ancient virtuous one's saying, as recorded in Chan koans, that "there is no one place that is not medicine."


Written in Chinese and translated on May 6, 2003
El Cerrito, California


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