????The Greater the Blessings, the More Ego you will Have, Dharma Outline 1-4 福報越大，自我意識越強

(English Subtitles) 佛法修學概要 Lectured by Master Jìng Jiè (淨界法師) from Taiwan.
Subtitles:
When we come to the theme of the right view section, the first thing I will mention is the concept of cause and effect, good and evil. What is the idea of cause and effect? What is good? What is evil? Because you must not commit too many sins. Though making mistakes is inevitable, you should not make serious mistakes.
Although the Pure Land Sector is based on mindfulness and does not stress karma, karma can still affect your mindfulness. These two are related. If your sins are too serious, you will have too many obstacles at the time of death,
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because your sins will cause you extreme pain and harm to your physical and mental world and will destroy your mindfulness. So, let’s talk about karma first, how to avoid misfortune and seek good fortune, and reduce mistakes first. In particular, there are some serious mistakes that you cannot touch. Killing, stealing, adultery, and lying are fundamentally grave sins, so you must not touch them. Otherwise, you will not be able to pass the test of karma alone.
Therefore, in the section on right view, we will first talk about how to stop doing evil and cultivate good, how to seek luck and avoid misfortune, and talk about this foundation first.
Then we come to the issue of truth and delusion. Good and evil are the foundation, and the issue of truth and delusion is the main axis - how to break the delusion and reveal the truth. Breaking delusion is emphasized in emptiness observation, which means eliminating ego and Material obsession in our mind,
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so as to eliminate the oppositions in our life. All your afflictions and delusions stem from one fundamental concept, that's you have a strong sense of self. Afflictions arise when you are oppose to living beings. If you have no opposition, you won't have afflictions. So when you encounter trouble, the first thing you need to do is cut off your sense of self.
Three good friends wanted to become monks, so they chose a very famous Chan Buddhist temple. In ancient times, one had to take an exam to become a monk. The three people went to the reception hut, and the receptionist master asked the first person, "Why do you want to become a monk?"
"My father wanted me to become a monk."
Receptionist slapped him and said: "Your father wants you to become a monk, but you have no opinion of your own!"
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Then the second one saw that the first one had been beaten, so he went to the room, and the receptionist asked, "Why did you become a monk?"
He then said, "I want to become a monk myself." Slap! "You have no respect for elders. Your father didn't even want you to become a monk, but you did it on your own!"
The third one saw that both of them were beaten, and it was his turn. "Why do you want to become a monk?"
"My father wants me to become a monk, and I myself would like to."
Slap! "Glib-tongued!"
You might have often seen this case in Chan Buddhism. In fact, people who know to read Chan cases will understand their true meaning but not see the false appearance.
The point that the Chan master hits you is not because of your word, it looks at whether your thoughts are moving, whether you have an opposing mind, and whether you have any self-concept inside.
When we look at Chan cases,
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we often see that he was beaten for saying something at first, but when he calmed down and said the same thing later, he was not beaten but was praised. Because the ancestors will see your inner heart, whether you are rest in emptiness and not swayed by delusions. He did not beat your behavior, but your self-consciousness.
Therefore, for awakening, we must first go through the process of breaking the delusion. Everyone, I advise you that if you don't have the wisdom of emptiness observation, if you don't slowly subdue this impurity of self-consciousness before you start cultivating blessings, it's very unlucky for you. But it is not necessarily that someone will tell you that you are doing it wrong.
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If you get the order of dharma wrong, your practice will get worse and worse. Because if your self-consciousness is not subdued and you have accumulated a lot of blessings, the greater your blessings, the more at ease you feel. Whatever you say counts. The ego in your mind is growing fat gradually, which is very disadvantageous to you. Because your self-consciousness is the source of all afflictions and karma; it is the root of reincarnation. How do you deal with your sense of self?
If you look at the Dharma calmly, in fact, the Buddha taught his disciples that when you start practicing the Dharma, you must first calm down, decease greatly, and adjust your inner self.
He does not want you to do good deeds right away, no. Although you must do good, but not right away.