Acho
Rinpoche gave a key teaching after the group prayer tonight on “letting go”.
What should we let go? How do we let go? Only when one has understood the
meaning of “letting go” and put the teaching to practice in his daily life,
will he be able to attain the true liberation free of sufferings.
Acho
Rinpoche shared the teaching of Venerable Jin Kong as follow.
Even
an ordained person might not be able to truly “let go”, let alone a layman
Buddhist who is preoccupied by worldly concerns like his works, his family etc.
Sakyamuni Buddha said that a layman Buddhist may attain Buddhahood too.
Vimalakirti, a layman Buddhist during the time of Sakyamuni Buddha, attained
the same level of enlightenment as Bodhisattva Manjushri, who was an ordained
person. In one of the sutras (阿难问事佛吉祥经), Buddha advised his students that “A Buddhist may do the worldly
activities but he should not feel attached to them.” It means that a Buddhist
may live a layman life including getting married, having children, working
etc.; however, he should not harbor the thoughts of wanting to take control of
them and own them permanently.”
People
tend to assume that this world is real and permanent, and reject what they
dislike and feel attached to what they like. They wish to own, monopolize and
control what appear to be pleasant to them. However, all the phenomena in this
world are transient in nature and appear only in the form of composite
existence due to our karma; they will change over time and finally disappear
completely. People tend to feel anguished when they lose someone or something
they love - it is actually our sense of attachment to the worldly phenomena
that creates the feeling of pain in us. In fact, we may enjoy the things
presented to us at the juncture they appear, but we will need to learn to let
them go when they disappear before us. Let them go, and we will then liberate
ourselves from the feeling of pain of not wanting to let go.
Acho
Rinpoche advised us that we may fall in love wholeheartedly with someone but we
must let our lover go when the karmic connection between us has ended. There is nothing permanent in this world
including our husband, wife, children, colleagues etc. If we insist on wanting
others to follow exactly what we want them to do, that is the root cause of our
own suffering. We need to let go of the notions of “I”, “me”, “mine” including
our own physical body, and treat them like a hotel which we will only be using
for a short while and leave them behind after that. Do not harbor the thought
of wanting to take possession of someone or something, let alone wanting to
“control” them. This is the key to attaining the ultimate liberation from all
sufferings in life.
By
“letting go”, it does not mean ignoring all things in life but to simply let go
of our inner desire of wanting to own, monopolize and control the people and
things in our life. It is the wrong ideas that fabricate the feeling of pain in
our mind. We can certainly enjoy the things presented to us at present but do
not fall prey to the thoughts of wanting to own, monopolize and control them
perpetually. When it is time for them to disappear before us, learn to say
“goodbye” to them. Apply this key teaching in our daily life, be it at home, at
work or when dealing with our family etc., and we will gradually liberate
ourselves from the sufferings in life.
Reported
by Sun-Moon KFS on 17-9-2016
