A Pristine Heart In The Moment

I sat next to the corpse of my grandmother for 6 hours.

The torrents of tears and remorse washed over me as I recited the Buddha’s name for the next 6 hours. I hated myself for not making it to see her before she saw the world for the last time.

In the bitterly cold room at the funeral parlour, I stared at the lifeless body of Grandma on the icy cold stainless steel bed. Amidst my tears, I asked myself what the meaning of life was again and again.

When my grandmother died gradually over a 10-year period due to a debilitating stroke and cervical cancer, I saw how useless money was in buying good health.

As Grandma took her last breath, she had no single kin by her side.

Why should I give birth and raise children, to have them fulfil the happiness tank in me and societal expectations, only to force them go through the terrible trials of sickness and death?

How do I tell them that they have no choice?

How do I tell them that that is my true love for them?

After Grandma’s passing, I had never celebrated the Mid Autumn’s Festival again.

Within 49 days of Grandma’s passing, I went down on my knees in front of the altar at a True Buddha Temple, and made a vow to Grandmaster and the Buddhas: That I will offer my life to the propagation of Dharma and Chinese Metaphysics to benefit all sentient beings, and dedicate all merits to my Grandmother. May she ascend the Pure Land and never suffer the endless cycle of birth and death.

Well, the vow sounded noble but for the past 12 years, I have not been diligent in fulfilling it.

Until these recent two years.

On 12th June 2017, the Holy Birthday of my Grandmaster, I specially conducted a Feng Shui workshop where I gave out a book authored by my Grandmaster, titled 當下的清涼心, to my participants at the end of it.

I shared with my participants the aspiration I made 12 years ago, and briefly introduced my Grandmaster and the benefits of this book to change their destinies and career luck.

Among them were many whom I met for only the first time that day. However all of them, regardless of their ability to read Chinese, generously accepted my gift of the book, allowing me to fulfil the merits of this act.

On 1st February 2018, I did a Facebook Live, and gave out 當下集, a compilation of writings from Grandmaster’s books 當下的清涼心 and 當下的明燈.

I had never given out Buddhist books on my Facebook before and I mildly worried about if this pioneering move would be well-received.

Then again, since it was a virtuous deed, I wanted to model after the courage of our Buddhist lineage masters, so I gave it a try!

The result: all 14 books were snapped up in 2 days.

In the same month, I signed up as a volunteer with 真佛般若藏 (True Buddha Prajna Depositary) to convert the writings of my Grandmaster to audio books.

In April 2018, we started the first recording for 當下的清涼心

A seemingly simple task took us more than 2 months. From being a total noob in this to a competent level, this journey was a tedious one.

My sincere gratitude to Grandmaster for His blessings, not only for the successful completion of the first audiobook, but also for the many benefactors along the way:

My Shifu, Master Dai Hu for his financial support,
Teacher Lee for his endearing voice and tutelage,
Edmund, the Husband’s boss, for giving us the use of his office meeting room,
Finding the right oriental music accompaniment and sound effects,
and many others.

Why are educated professionals like us willing to propagate His Writings with our own effort, time and money?

Why did I choose this book 當下的清涼心?

I analyse Bazi and audit Feng Shui for a living.

A person’s Bazi is his report book of his accumulated karma from his past lives.

With no intervention from a Master, the ups and downs of a person from his birth to his death will not differ much from what is written in his Bazi. Hence, this gives rise to an accurate fortune telling.

The kind of Feng Shui he will get is also based on the fortunes of his Bazi.

I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of Bazi.

In the many stories and people I heard and seen, their encounters and consequential misfortunes are exactly like what Grandmaster depicted in His books.

An accomplished Varjayana Buddhist master with 5 million disciples worldwide, His prajna wisdom can be found in his 266 books. Every book is a gem, written to awake us from delusion.

From an ancient adage: Lust is the worst of all sins.

The Five Precepts states

1. Refrain from killing
2. Refrain from stealing
3. Refrain from sexual misconduct
4. Refrain from lying
5. Refrain from intoxicants

The precept that’s most easily transgressed by many people is the third one.

Reading pornography
Watching pornography
Saying dirty jokes
Enjoying listening to dirty jokes
Illicit sexual relations with the wives or daughters of others
Voyeurism
Gossiping about others’ sexual lives
Having affairs
Cheating on your partner
Prostitution
Buying sex
Masturbation
etc

Is karma only created when we act? When one has a lusty thought, does our merits and fortunes get chopped off?

Among my clients, too many of them have transgressed this precept.

If you are one of them, do you know what you can do to remove the karmic retributions?

In this book 當下的清涼心, my Grandmaster wrote incisively about sexual desire, its origin and various karmic consequences.

Out of His great compassion, He also teaches readers, who have broken the precept, the Four Opponent Powers of Purification:

The Power of Repentance
The Power of Refuge
The Power of Resolution
The Power of Remedy

These powers will abolish the karmic conditions for retributions to take place, make attainment of emptiness possible, eliminate the seeds of karmic misdeeds, bring forth positive conditions, and when you pass on, you can be reborn in the Pureland of Buddhas.

Are women the cause of trouble, or are men the ones who started it first?

In any case, it’s time we smarten up and stop creating bad karma for ourselves in a muddleheaded fashion. It’s no joke to get our fortunes and merits slashed.

Here’s a sincere invitation from me to you to visit: www.tbboyeh.org.

Registration is free. Once you are logged in as a member, you can search for Book #145 當下的清涼心 at the catalogue 真佛總集 and read to your heart’s contentment.

For the elderly, folks with weak vision, and people who can understand spoken Mandarin but unable to read in Chinese, you can opt to listen to the audiobook.

I personally think commuting makes a great time to listen to the audiobook and learn Dharma on the go.

I have attached a chapter excerpt “Heaven Knows” from the book for your listening trial.

Joseph Ng and I also lent our amateurish voices to the different characters in this book.

This is our first time producing an audiobook and there is much to learn. If you have any constructive suggestion for us to improve, you are welcome to leave a comment.

我知道，在我們的生命中，最有價值的就是「般若」。我們在當下中只要謹記：

「當下勿造惡業。」
「當下注意因果。」
「當下不受輪迴。」

如此一來，必然獲得：「當下的清涼心。」

~ 蓮生活佛盧勝彥

www.tbboyeh.org