Conditions in Cultivation

Cultivation may be favourable or adverse. When an adverse condition appears, one should know that it results from a bad cause planted in the past. If a person displeases one or goes against one, then one should just laugh it off as this will cancel out the karmic debt incurred in the past.

If one becomes angry, one will incur another debt on top of the old debt. Instead of cancelling out the old debt, one will have even more problems. As it said, "If one owes money, one will repay with money. If one owes life, one will repay with life. Reprisal breeds reprisal. It is cyclical and never ending".

This principle, "to cultivate one is to cultivate all" was explained in the Avatamsaka Sutra. It is the learning and cultivation of non-hindrance. Everything arise from our true nature. If the cultivation is in accordance with the true nature, then it can be regarded as cultivating all.

If we do good deeds that are not from our true nature and because we are seeking, we will only receive what we seek, nothing more than that. If we seek from the true nature, then not only we will attain what we seek, but also we will gain infinite benefits.

Many practitioners have voiced the concern over what they should do because they found it hard to maintain their aspiration for enlightenment and they often retrogressed. These practitioners stated the truth. It is indeed very easy to retrogress and it is up to oneself to think of a way to prevent oneself from retrogressing.

Because people have different capacities and karmas, there is no one fixed method. If there were a specific method suitable for everyone despite their different capacities, then Sakyamuni Buddha would not have needed to teach eighty four Dharma doors or countless Dharma doors. He would only have needed to teach only one Dharma door.

Greed is the cause of the karma that results in us being born into the hungry ghost realm. By failing to rid ourselves of the resentment and anger caused by greed, we will be born into the hell realm. Ignorance, lacking in wisdom, results in us being born in the animal realm.

In both worldly teachings and in Buddhism, there is truth and falsehood, justice and injustice, right and wrong, good and bad. An ignorant person cannot tell the difference between them. Intentional or unintentional, he or she often confuses falsehood and truth, bad and good.