Enlightenment
For practitioners, enlightenment is truly difficult!
It requires not only years of practice but also a foundation of wisdom and, most importantly, rare opportunities!
In Zen Buddhism, there are many interesting stories of enlightenment through koans! There was a monk who suddenly attained enlightenment after using the restroom,
someone who became enlightened after suffering from a serious illness, a Zen master who saw the moon and suddenly attained enlightenment,
and some who threw stones in their hands, heard the echo from the bamboo they hit, and also achieved enlightenment!
For ordinary people, enlightenment means awakening! The problem is that many have never even considered what the value of life is?
What does it matter if one awakens or attains enlightenment in relation to living? For most people, whether one attains enlightenment is irrelevant! What matters is whether life can go on!
In fact, awakening means seeing through life; it means understanding how to live; being able to achieve “universal joy,” bringing joy to oneself everywhere and making others happy all the time! This is achieving the core value of life.
If living happily for oneself is the value of life, then living happily for others is an even higher value! There will always be moments of awakening in life!
Awakening may seem simple, yet too many people spend their entire lives unable to reach it. If one can live peacefully within one’s own limits, that would be good,
but if one insists on indulging in the five poisons: greed, anger, ignorance, arrogance, and doubt—being solely focused on personal fame and profit while being combative by nature—enjoying disputes over right and wrong or competing over wins and losses could only harm oneself and others. Those in high positions may also mislead themselves and their country because of this.
Ordinary people only awaken after death! At that point, even they themselves do not know! This is called passive awakening!
Because everything is let go; everything returns to dust and nature! This type of awakening is also referred to as “returning to heaven and earth” or “returning to nature”! It means returning to the origin.
If we say that the value of life comes from awakening and enlightenment! Let me ask what values we have learned through our studies? Do we recognize our true essence of life?
Everything in life—whether rich or poor, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, wise or foolish, joys or sorrows—are merely processes! Everything will eventually return to its origin!
Dear friends, have you awakened? Have you attained enlightenment? Unfortunately, up until now I still have not awakened nor attained enlightenment. However, I remain steadfast in my duties and will never engage in actions that harm others or myself. by – Director Chen