The Path of Enlightenment
Sources of Illusions: Fixed Ideas
I have been spoken about fixed ideas and the Six Extreme Disciplines. Today I want to tell you how your True Self has been under illusions and hallucinations.
A couple of days ago I made a telepathy experiment with a young man. The aim of the experiment was to guess the age of his girl friend. In fact, I had already known her age, but she did not tell it to him, being concerned about her being older than him.
One day he asked me to tell her age. So I decided to tell it to him after getting permission from her. I suppose that it is unnatural to hide own age from the one you keep company with.
I chose an interesting way to let him know the age. I tried to send the message to him with help of telepathy. He was considerably advanced in practice, so he could receive the correct number I sent through telepathy, namely her age.
However, he could not believe the number he received, because it was out of the range of his notion about age. It is so unbelievable that he thought that he received a wrong number. To say briefly, he denied the number.
What this example underlines is that we are looking at all things through our past experiences and fixed ideas. I talked about fixed ideas yesterday. What I have just spoke about is an example which shows that fixed ideas hindered one from receiving my telepathy.
Enlightenment Is a Transparent Mirror
There is the Grand Cosmic Elements (sometimes they call it "Akashik record") in the Causal World. This is a kind of "data bank." We can get any kind of information from it if we attain Eenlightenment.
If you are not enlightened, however, you can not read data sent down from it. Because your fixed ideas distort or deny the data as in the case of the telepathy experiment. You can not receive them accurately due to prejudice and adherence in the mind. Clear water can show everything exactly as it is. Your mind also should be similar to clear water.
To clean up your mind means to restore your True Self to its real state, that is to save your True Self from hallucinations or to rid your True Self of illusions. This is the process of Enlightenment.
Throw out Both Extremes
Now, I'd like to talk a little bit about obstacles to Enlightenment. For example, we often see proud people. Suppose that here is a proud women, Miss A. She wants to be appealing to everybody: "I'm living here in this way!" Of course, She is full of desires such as the desire to command respect from everyone, if there is a man who hurts her pride, Miss A will fight against him thoroughly. Miss A acts this way because of strong pride.
However, this pride hinders to attain enlightenment. Do you know why? For example, Miss A must be "nose-up" and at everything with arrogance. If so, she can not see things as they are. When indulging herself in the circumstances to satisfy pride, she can not think about self-improvement, so she can't even turn towards enlightenment.
On the other hand, what if her pride is crushed? If her pride is only hurt, she gets angry. However, if her pride is crushed completely, what would happen to her? At a pinch she will become self-humiliating. Don't you think so?
Becoming mean, Miss A starts looking at things upwards. She will also become passive. So, she can not see things they are in this case, either. Naturally enlightenment becomes more difficult for her. Thus, we should neither have a pride nor become self-humiliating.
Rise above Attachments
Attachment is one of the obstacles you have to remove before you can attain enlightenment. Let me use attachment to a person as an example. Listen carefully. Imagine a man who is apt to be attached to a particular person manages an organization. He uses people he likes in his organization. He doesn't care about skills and talent of a person he is attached to. Conversely, he ignores a person he doesn't have attachment to, even if the person is talented and necessary for his organization.
What happens then? The organization that can and should expand does not expand. He will have personal satisfaction for sure. But it can not be said that he is doing a good job.
Next, in contrast with attachment, let us think about a man who can not love anyone. He is very cool and does not believe anything and is denying everything. It is symmetrical to attachment. Let us suppose he manages an organization. Certainly he might have an eye to watch conditions. He thinks, "Miss A has a good character, but is not competent. Miss B does not have a good character, but is necessary for this organization. Miss A is beautiful, but her beauty doesn't matter in this case. Though Miss B is not beautiful, I should promote her in this case." So far so good. O.K.?
However, whichever he may promote, Miss A or Miss B neither of them will follow him. First, since he has no love, they will feel coldness in every word he speaks. Next, hearing negative words always, they will get depressed as if they were frozen. Naturally, both Miss A and Miss B will go away from such a cold leader.
Both of the two types I mentioned now, namely the attached and the loveless, are very far from enlightenment. Because when one attains enlightenment, he is able to love everyone and to see everything accurately. So you can see that enlightenment guarantees happiness not only in the next life but also in this life. Being able to love everybody and to look at things precisely is the condition for bringing us happiness quickly.
Five Conditions of Enlightenment
We have been thinking about necessary conditions for enlightenment with examples. Now I'd like to summarize them.
Main points are as follows:
1. Break down fixed ideas.
2. Throw away attachments.
3. Love everybody.
4. Overcome pride.
I talked about these four points today. None of them is prior to others. They are equally important. Now there is one more condition, which I have not mentioned today. So let me add it. That is not to get angry. Because anger also hinder you to look at and judge things correctly.
Conditions of a Buddha
If you decide to walk the path of a Bodhisattva, you need to gain supper-siddhis, superhuman powers, and to attain emancipation finally. That is not enough, however. We also need to attain enlightenment. You become a true savior when you attain both emancipation and enlightenment.
Super-siddhis are necessary to see things correctly in a true sense. But super-siddhis are not enough, because one can not understand what he saw correctly with super-siddhis alone. So enlightenment is also necessary. Only after emancipation and enlightenment are combined, we can save others. To lead people to the world of true freedom, true happiness and true pleasure, this is the salvation we are aiming at.
Meditative Technique Which Brings Happiness
We seem to have a little more time, so let me teach you the meditative technique which brings you happiness in this world as well as enlightenment. I told you that it would make you happy to be able to love all and to look at things correctly. What I'm going to explain is the meditative technique to attain this state of mind, which is called Shimuryoshin, the Mind of the Four Immeasurables. The reason I have chosen this topic today is that you are not monks and nuns but lay practitioners. So I think you may want to feel happiness in your daily lives. First, you need to train yourself to see everyone and everything equally.
Equanimity Is the Basis of the Mind of the Four Immeasurables
Suppose you are walking along the street and see someone being carried on a stretcher to an ambulance. When you see him and make sure the injured is neither your father nor your mother, you may become indifferent. However, just stop and think about it. Though he was not one of your parents in this life, he might have been your father or your mother in one of your past lives. Or rather, because you have been in the cycle of countless lives since the beginless past, you can think that all souls were once your parents, can't you? If so, you should love every sentient being as you love your parents of this life, shouldn't you?
If you can realize this, you can weep for anybody who is suffering. Even if a person you love argues or quarrels with a person you don't know, you can see who is really telling the truth. This is the mind of equanimity. The basis of the mind of equanimity is to love every being equally, to be compassionate for every being equally and to share joy of every being equally.
The four of Shimuryoshin (the Mind of the Four Immeasurables), namely love, compassion, joy and equanimity, are inseparable. Unless you have the mind of equanimity as the basis of the other three and can love every being equally, you can not practice true love, and you can not have true compassion; you can not share joy in the real sense.
The Bread for a Bodhisattva: the Mind of the Four Immeasurables
The complete mastery of Shimuryoshin (the Mind of the Four Immeasurables) brings you happiness in this life. For a Mahayana Bodhisattva, namely a Bodhisattva who made Daihatsugan (the Great Vow) to Lead All Souls to Maha-nirvana like us (the AUM members attending this lecture), Shimuryoshin is indispensable. Or rather, there can be no Bodhisattva without Shimuryoshin.
The Technique for Salvation
Bodhisattvas do not need pride. They don't need to be mean, or have fixed ideas, either. They see everything equally, and they love and feel compassionate for every sentient being equally; they share joy with everybody equally. Bodhisattvas need this practice.
Through the practice of Shimuryoshin (the Mind of the Four Immeasurables), you should cultivate the mind of a Bodhisattva, and then you should turn towards salvation. As for the method for salvation, first make people believe you. You should start with getting people's confidence. There are two ways to do so. One is to relieve people of their diseases, and the other is to help people to solve their worries. You should save people from these problems and help to bring them up to a marvelous world. You can do so well when you attain and combine enlightenment and emancipation. For the sake of this goal, AUM members are practicing
1. The Six Extreme Disciplines
2. meditation to eradicate worldly desires, and
3. meditation of Shimuryoshin.
This is the conclusion of today's lecture.
Glossary
1. Maha-nirvana: the highest part of Nirvana with absolute happiness, joy and freedom