The Method to Leave Suffering Behind

The Heart as the Source of All Suffering

Where does all the suffering in this world originate? It originates from the heart. When your heart is obscured by confusion, you lose the ability to be the master of your own actions. Because you have lost this internal clarity, you allow your karmic creditors and various demon crowds to take control of your body and mind. They drive you to create negative causes. When the conditions for these causes ripen, the results manifest, and that is when you experience the full weight of suffering.

Therefore, if you wish to leave suffering behind, you must put in the work at the level of your heart. Do not allow your heart to be obscured, and do not allow your actions to be without a master. You must ensure that your heart and your conduct are not dominated by karmic creditors or demon crowds.

Resolving the Debts of the Past

If people are unaware of the existence of their karmic creditors, they will never be able to resolve their grievances. Without this awareness, they cannot invite these spirits to hear the Dharma, nor can they perform the necessary Chao Du to help them find peace. Consequently, they remain trapped in a cycle of suffering.

Karmic creditors come to seek revenge for past grievances. When this karma manifests, you will inevitably face great hardship. You will encounter the various sufferings of human existence: the suffering of birth, the suffering of aging, the suffering of sickness, and the suffering of death. These are all difficult to bear. If a practitioner does not have faith in the Buddha, these sufferings will arise, and the cycle of aging, sickness, and death will be impossible to escape.

The Protective Power of the Precepts

The true method to leave suffering behind is to have faith in the Buddha—a deep, unwavering faith. Only then will you have the opportunity to see your true nature and be reborn in the Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss. To see your true nature is to reach the point where you can truly be the master of your life. You will become free from aging, free from illness, and your spirit never dies, allowing you to be reborn in the Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss.

Before you reach this state of Awakening, you must distance yourself from, and eventually sever, the influence of Greed, Anger, Ignorance, Arrogance, and Doubt, as well as wealth, lust, fame, food, and sleep. You must uphold the Precepts and never violate them; if you have already violated them, you must stop immediately. The Precepts serve as a shield to protect you from creating further karma. Therefore, you must observe them strictly, especially those who have left the home life to become monastics.

Awakening and the Path to the Western Pure Land

When you receive the Precepts, the substance of the Precepts protects your body, allowing you to focus entirely on your spiritual practice. However, once you break the Precepts, the substance of the Precepts is damaged. Without this protective shield, your body has no resistance against external spirits, and that is when you will experience great suffering.

Most people in this world do not know their true self-nature, and thus they cannot find their way back to it to leave suffering behind. Therefore, all students of Hsiang Kuang Pure Land Buddhist Centre, who have now learned of their true self-nature and have the opportunity for diligent practice, must seize this time. You must be diligent and strive to see your true nature. Namo Amituofo.