If you wish to achieve spiritual success in your practice, the most significant challenge you must overcome is the tendency for your mind to fluctuate or be stirred by external influences. Any movement of the mind, any emotional stirring, acts as a signal broadcast into the spiritual realm. Any beings who have a karmic connection to these signals will immediately receive them. When this happens, you invite suffering upon yourself. If you lack the awareness to stop these fluctuations in time, your suffering will have no end.
There are many types of practitioners when it comes to this awareness. Those who can recognise major mental fluctuations and stop them immediately are common. Those who have attained a degree of meditative concentration can perceive even subtle mental movements, which allows them to avoid significant pain and suffering. However, there are also those who are constantly caught in mental fluctuations without even realising it. They allow their thoughts and behaviours to be led by these disturbances. Not only do they create negative , but they also cannot escape the consequences of their actions in this very life. If such behaviour occurs within a temple, it is a matter that requires deep self-reflection and urgent correction.
The Threefold Path to Inner Stillness
Cultivating meditative concentration is a vital lesson in your practice. To achieve the Three Learnings of , Samadhi, and Wisdom, you must first establish a foundation of self-discipline and strictly uphold the Precepts. Only then can you progress to the point where meditative concentration manifests naturally. Without this concentration, it is difficult to maintain the Precepts, as you will easily be swayed by external environments, people, and objects, leading you to violate your vows.
If you know something should not be done, yet you do it anyway, this is a sign of mental movement. Any such fluctuation indicates that your meditative concentration is insufficient and that you are still burdened by impurities. To remove these impurities, you must have action. Without the action of upholding the Precepts, it is impossible to remove these stains, let alone progress in your practice or realise your true nature. These impurities are often deep-seated habits and negative behaviours accumulated over many lifetimes. If they are not strictly regulated by the Precepts, it is difficult to prevent yourself from violating them, thereby creating negative causes and reaping evil consequences. This is a case of suffering the results of one's own actions.
The Pure Gate and the Vigilance of the Heart
For those in the Buddha’s gate, especially monks and nuns, the requirement regarding the Precepts is absolute: the mere arising of a thought that violates the Precepts is considered a transgression. I, Skanda , have repeatedly emphasised the importance of the Precepts to everyone. This is because, within the pure environment of this temple, if you wish to receive the benefits of purification, you must use external guidance, regulations, and the Precepts to strictly restrain your thoughts and behaviours. Without this, it is difficult to help you remove defilements and attain purity.
However, the most important factor is your own willingness. While the temple provides this support, you must be willing to raise your right mind and right thoughts. You must be willing to face your own problems and commit to changing them. That is the key to successfully upholding the Precepts, which in turn is the foundation for achieving concentration and wisdom.
The Unseen Consequences of the Wandering Mind
Within the temple, the prohibition against using personal mobile phones and accessing websites unrelated to the temple is a crucial form of self-discipline. In truth, whenever you use a personal phone or access private websites, a fluctuation is immediately transmitted throughout the space. While ordinary people may not see this, all beings in the space, including myself and other protectors, are already aware of it—not to mention the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
Before you even face the consequences of violating the Precepts, your own have already benefited from your actions, as they now have an opportunity to seek revenge. At such times, I will not intervene to stop them, as this is a matter that Practitioner Su has repeatedly emphasised to everyone in the temple. If it is a first offence, I may still offer protection; however, if you repeat the offence, I will step aside. If you continue to violate the Precepts despite knowing better, I will not interfere with the karmic creditors who come to claim their due from such stubborn members of the fourfold assembly.
After all, the temple is a Buddha-land. In the place where the Buddha abides, most karmic creditors do not dare to act recklessly. How can you examine yourself to see if you are in this situation? If you find that your problems—such as or mental agitation—cannot be improved, it indicates that you have a blind spot in your practice. It is not just about using a phone or a website; it is about knowing you are at fault and yet failing to change. The laws of karma and your karmic creditors will not spare you simply because you find it difficult to change. You will still suffer the consequences. Therefore, no matter how difficult it may be, you must summon greater determination and perseverance to change. Otherwise, the one who suffers the most and is most deeply harmed is yourself. I hope everyone will listen to my advice and strictly guard your thoughts, words, and actions.
.
This message was recorded by the Buddha's disciple, Venerable HaiZe.
