Dharma Outline????6-1 Seeing mountains as not mountains; seeing water as not water 見山不是山，見水不是水

(English Subtitles) 佛法修學概要, Lectured by Master Jìng Jiè (淨界法師) from Taiwan.
Subtitles:
【79】為什麼你必須把心找一個家，以安住為根本？ Why do you have to find a home for your mind, and make dwelling in peace as its foundation?
In the last two classes we talked about what Buddha is, and now in this class we will talk about what dharma is. The Buddha's Dharma, strictly speaking, has three key aspects: the power of dwelling in peace, the power of subduing, and the power of guiding. These three powers are rooted in dwelling.
We have to face the delusions from beginningless time and deal with the karma of birth and death left over countless eons. In our lifetime, life after life, there are so many life problems to deal with. We have gone through countless cycles of birth and death, and have accumulated a lot of problems in our minds.
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But the first thing you need to do is find a home where you can dwell in peace. You can't live without a home. A wanderer has to endure the wind, rain, and sun. Why? Because he has no home, and his life is very passive. He can only get things done when it's not raining and there are no typhoons. Why? Because he is homeless.
In fact, we all have a home in our hearts, but we choose to wander. We are willing to stay with delusions. This is a big blind spot for sentient beings.
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We are clearly hurt by delusion, but we don’t want to leave it and want to stay with it. Deep in our hearts, there is a place without wind or rain, without afflictions or karma, without old age, sickness and death. That is our home where we dwell in peace.
You can't make the excuse that if nobody disturbs you, you won't have delusions. Only when having no affliction, with air conditioner on, you can practice and chant the Buddha. There are too many requirements for you to raise the Buddha's name. Your Buddha's name is too fragile. How can you withstand the disorder at the time of death? At that time, you were hooked up to all those tubes,
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and it wasn't a time of calm waters. Therefore, you must give the Buddha's name a home. This home should be very solid and undisturbed. Where is this home? It is, “How unexpected that one's self nature is inherently pure.” You must first understand this principle. Aren't you originally like this? If we were inherently deluded, inherently afflicted, and inherently bound by karma, then life would hold no hope, and the Buddha would never have appeared in the world. Then it is impossible to change ourselves because it is just the way it is. But in fact, we were not like this originally, we became like this later. Therefore, we should recover our lost home. This is called peaceful abiding in the truth as it is.
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You must establish this home before you are qualified to address the issues of taming afflictions, leading to the Pure Land, and converting to Bodhi. If your mind is in turmoil and uneasy all day long, you are homeless in your mind, it will be very difficult to practice. You will always be advancing and retreating, and your life will be full of variables.
First of all, we must know that our lives of countless eons have left us with many problems to deal with. There is no way around it. We must accept the past in general. No one can leave the past, and cause and effect are never wrong. We don't avoid the past, but the first thing you need to do is to settle yourself down. First establish the home within your heart— That is “How unexpected that the true nature is inherently pure.”
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We must face delusions from a perspective where there are no delusions originally; face karma from a perspective where there is no karma originally; face old age, sickness and death from a perspective where there is no old age, sickness and death originally. Only then will you be able to succeed in a short period of time in this life.
【80】How can we dwell in peace?
The patriarchs of Chan Buddhism divided the cultivation of the Dharma into three stages of the path: First, when you first enter Buddhism, you feel very happy in your mind. This is called "seeing mountains as mountains and seeing water as water." The ancients said these are practices in forms.
You have many aspirations in your mind, hoping that through your cultivation in this life, you will have wonderful and happy rewards in the next life. This is understandable and is the path to happiness and peace. That's why we are willing to volunteer, willing to sneak in to clean the toilets while people are napping. We have a vision in our mind. I don't mind suffering in this life.
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I accumulate good karma and will enjoy joyful fruits in the next life. It is always like this at the beginning, it's practice in forms. But you slowly tell yourself that the rewards of having forms will trigger the karma of birth and death, and you will pay the price. There is poison in a sweet cake.