How to get rid of your own difficulties and troubles in life

  

Author: Tao Qing Hsu

People may face serious life difficulties and troubles at a certain stage in their life, and the life difficulties and troubles faced by everyone are not necessarily the same, because everyone’s fate, the people and things they face, the environment, and their circumstances are different. Secondly, everyone's personality, thoughts, attitudes and endurance of facing people and things are different. This will affect the degree to which we perceive the difficulties and troubles we face in life.

And some unsatisfactory general environment is difficult to change by our current personal ability, but this does not affect us to use our own strength to change ourselves and free ourselves from the quagmire of difficulties.

When we are faced with difficulties and troubles in life, we should analyze carefully, which has other and self-caused parts. "Other cause" means that the factors that cause our difficulties and troubles in life come from other people or external factors, and "self-cause" means that this factor comes from ourselves or internal factors. When most people face difficulties and troubles in life, their first reaction is to blame others. They only think of "other causes," but they can't review themselves. They just can't think of self-causes.

Buddhism is the education of cause and effect. When we are faced with difficulties and troubles in life, this is our own retribution. How to change or eliminate this retribution, we must go back to the part of the cause, carefully examine the cause, and list it one by one. Review, and then completely reverse this cause. As long as this bad cause is changed or eliminated, our bad result can be changed and eliminated. Only in this way can we completely solve the difficulties and troubles we face in life.

Give a simple example to illustrate that most people have had this kind of self-seeking trouble experience. A sentence from others that is aimed at others rather than us, you can see or hear it and you can put it on yourself, restrain yourself, torture yourself and cause your own troubles, and therefore make yourself unhappy. At this time, the cause of this trouble lies in oneself rather than others. Therefore, it is yourself that should change. This kind of self-change requires some methods, but also some time and life experience. Many of the basic practices of Buddhism are taught in this area, allowing us to practice the power of meditation and the power of wisdom to avoid being trapped in this self-seeking trouble.

When we change or eliminate the part of the self-cause, we can face, change and eliminate the part of the other cause more rationally when we face the difficulties and troubles in our life caused by the part of the other cause. For example, we may face difficulties and troubles brought to us by relatives and friends every day. For example, if parents quarrel or divorce due to financial problems, if we are innocent children, we will be forced to face the dilemma and troubles caused by them. For an underage child, he may not have the ability to face and deal with such dilemmas and troubles, and adults must guide him and protect him. However, for an adult child, he may be more able to understand the plight and troubles of his parents, and he may also be able to assist his parents in solving their plight and troubles, and then help himself to solve such plights and troubles. The application of the method is flexible. As long as you understand and understand the part of the cause, you can help them solve the part of the result. This is the basic principle. The reason for each parent's quarrel is different, and there is no absolute method that applies uniformly. If you don't know and understand the part of this cause, anyone who helps solve the problem of parents' quarrels will only scratch their feet through their boots, and will not solve the fundamental problem anyway.

Therefore, to resolve other causes, we must still make good use of our own social experience, observation, analysis, understanding, and empathy, in order to truly solve the dilemmas and troubles brought to us by other factors. Without sensibly blaming others, it will not help us to solve any difficulties and troubles. We must understand this.

In short, how to get rid of one’s own life’s predicaments and worries is to understand the law of cause and effect, understand the operating principle of the law of cause and effect, and completely change the part of the effect from the cause. Difficulties and troubles in life are the manifestation of a kind of effect. When the cause is changed or eliminated, the effect will naturally be changed and eliminated. The principle is simple, but the method can be used flexibly.

Chapter 26: The heaven demon disturbs the Buddha.

(Chapter 26) A Brief Talk about The Scripture of Forty-Two Chapters Said by Buddha 

Co-translators in the time of Eastern Han Dynasty, China(A.D. 25 - 200) : 

Kasyapa Matanga and Zhu Falan (Who translated the said Scripture from Sanskrit into Chinese. )

Translator in modern time (A.D.2018: Tao Qing Hsu (Who translated the said Scripture from Chinese into English.)

Teacher and writer for explaining the said Scripture: Tao Qing Hsu

Chapter 26: The heaven demon disturbs the Buddha.    

The heaven god devotes the jade girl to the Buddha so as to spoil the will of the Buddha. The Buddha said,” Leather bag with much filth inside, you come here for what? Go! I don’t use it. The heaven god is more respectful for the Buddha and thus inquires the meaning of Dao. The Buddha explains it to him, who immediately attains the fruit of Srotāpanna.  

The heaven god here means the heaven demon. The heaven demon here is transformed by the heaven god in order to examine the heart and mind of Buddha.   The heaven demon has the evil will to deliberately spoil the virtuous will of anyone. Meanwhile, he has the magical power to appear and change any forms and appearances of anything to deceive, threaten or bully anyone so as to achieve his evil goal. At the same time, he can use his magical power to kidnap the will of humans so as to control the kidnapped humans to do evil things. They are beings in heaven and also have a lot of children and grandchildren.

When Buddha Shakyamuni meditated in sitting and proved the fruit of Dao under the Bodhi tree, the heaven god wanted to examine whether Buddha Shakyamuni proved the fruit of Dao or not. The Dao here also means the absolutely truth, the nature of emptiness, the empty stillness, the no-thinking and the no-doing.  

Therefore, the heaven god transformed his children to be the sexy and beautiful girls so as to lure Buddha. Jade girls here mean the sexy and beautiful girls. They danced and sang songs so as to attract the Buddha. When Buddha Shakyamuni had seen them, he said, “You are leather bag with much filth inside. You come here for what? Get out of here. I don’t need these dirty leather bags.”  

The Buddha had practiced the perception and thinking of the white bones, which is a method to break the obsession with anyone. We have introduced it in the article of the Chapter 24.

In the eyes of Buddha, what he had seen is not the appearance of the sexy and beautiful girls, but their filth inside their body. If our body has been X-rayed, we know that our intestines are full of feces. Our bladder also accumulates a lot of urine. If we have basic medical knowledge, we know that the cells in our body are dying and metabolizing at any time. In fact, our body accumulates the waste of many dead cells. Secondly, our body has full of toxins and a little cancer cells. Meanwhile, there are many different bacterial and viruses in our bodies, which will cause us to be sick and aging. When the knowledge of humans was not opened, they also thought that a woman's menstruation was dirty. So, inside of our body, it might not be clean, but "filthy".

Our whole skin in our body is like the leather bag which has much “filth” inside. To have such concept is a convenient method, which would help us to eliminate the obsession with anyone. However, in fact, we don’t need to insist that inside of human body is filthy, because the human body has its own natural situation. But, we know that it finally will lead to the aging, disability and eliminated. Even how sexy and beautiful girls, who can not avoid such natural changing.

The heart and mind of Buddha Shakyamuni was very stable. He was neither lured nor affected by the girls and the heaven god. The heaven god was thus more respectful for the Buddha Shakyamuni. And he was humble to inquire the meaning of Dao from Buddha. The Buddha explained it to him, just like the chapter 2 said by Buddha. The heaven god immediately attained the fruit of Srotāpanna, which means the wisdom of the heaven god has been enlightened and he has proved the wisdom in the level of Srotāpanna. Srotāpanna is the transliteration of Sanskrit. The level and wisdom of Srotāpanna can save itself from the suffering of life and death. But, it cannot save others from the suffering of life and death.

This chapter explains that the heart and mind of the Buddha is stable, and cannot be affected by any outside situation. He will not be tied by the inner or outer erotic desire. It also explains that the Buddha not only can be the teacher of human beings, but also can be the teacher of the heavenly beings.

It is also the target of reference for the person who learns Buddha for self proving the fruit of Dao. When one person is enlightened and proving the fruit of Dao, the heaven god will come to examine and test this person. The way will be according to the personal conditions and which will be different for every one. When this person is passing the examination, the heaven god will confirm it and congratulate this person. So, whether one person proves the fruit of Dao or not, it might deceive the masses. However, it cannot deceive itself and the heaven god. That is what we have to know.

Supplementary note: Dao is transliterated from Chinese, meaning way and method, deeper meaning as a system of learning or religion. Dao is Tao, which is transliterated from Chinese. The original meaning of Dao is the way and path, and it is extended to be the truth of life that we can learn and practice in our lives.

Supplementary note: Dao is transliterated from Chinese, meaning way and method, deeper meaning as a system of learning or religion. Dao is Tao, which is transliterated from Chinese. The original meaning of Dao is the way and path, and it is extended to be the truth of life that we can learn and practice in our lives.

We can't replace anyone to live their lives.

Author: Tao Qing Hsu 

There is a father who is very responsible for his small family. He is worried about his wife and children every day, for fear of not making enough money to provide them with a good material life. Therefore, he is very happy as long as he has work, because it means that he has income and can provide a good material life for his wife and children. He works diligently every day, just to make more money, to make the family rich, to let his son have a house and a car, so that this family can take a wife into the door, so that the son and wife can add grandchildren and joy to the family. The father also wanted to save and gather more money so that his daughter would have a large dowry and get married beautifully. Of course, he still needs to save enough retirement funds so that he and his wife will not worry in their later years, and will not cause a burden to their children.

All this makes him live in a dream of being a good husband and father, which can make him have a face among relatives and friends, saying that he is a good man who loves his family. However, as long as he has no work to do and no income, he feels anxious and very uneasy. Because of this, his heart is furious, and he always cares about everything with the native family. Not only as a father, but in a single-parent family, the mother makes money to support her family, just to save money and build a house for his son so that he can marry his wife. To this end, this mother will not hesitate to sacrifice her daughter, and will not hesitate to squeeze her daughter's labor and financial resources.

These parents worry about their children's hardships for their children's bright future. Not only do these obsessive parents work hard to make money and pay for their children’s tuition, but they also do not want their children to spend time to work, just to help them lay the foundation for their future career. In addition, the house also helps children buy well, so that they have more conditions to get married and start a family. These infatuated parents also hope that it is best to help them have children and raise them.

The wives and children living in such a worry-free environment have weak ability to make money and support their families. They have always depended on the powerful fathers and husbands. Even if these wives and children are already adults, they have a job, but they do not earn much. They are eager for comfort and want a richer material life. Therefore, they asked the father and husband every day to make the man live in anxiety, just to earn more money and provide better materials for family members to enjoy.

I saw what these obsessive parents did, and saw the father who was anxious about money every day. In order to alleviate his inner anxiety, I told him: "You cannot be responsible for the lives of your wife and children. Your wife and children must be responsible for their own lives. You must always remember this."

From our daily experience, we are often curious about what our relatives and friends are doing. Some people are very opinionated about the living conditions of relatives and friends, because the current living conditions of relatives and friends are completely inconsistent with their ideal state of mind.

For example, if someone does not have a boyfriend or girlfriend, they ask him: "Why don't you make a boyfriend?" If someone is single and unmarried, they ask him: "Why don't you get married?" If someone doesn't work outside, they just ask him: "Why not go to find a job and do it quickly?" If people don't have children, they ask him: "Why don't you have children?" If they think the public office is stable, they ask him: "Why not go to have an Examination for public office?" And so on. People who raise such questions may express a concern. However, for those who hear, they will feel that these people are very ignorant. Why? Because these people who question others often just look at the appearance of things from their own perspective, rather than from the other side's perspective to understand in depth. Some people are very personal, and they hate such questions from others, so they just say, "What am I going to do, what am I not doing, what is your business?" Yes! Does it matter to us whether others get married or have children?

A woman graduated from a well-known university, and in her forties, she chose a job as an operator. Relatives and friends felt incredible, and wondered why she made such a decision. Because of her academic and experience, she has worked in the society for such a long period of time, in her forties, and should have a good career, at least also have a fairly high supervisor position, and take a high salary. Therefore, relatives and friends asked her, "Why not go to find a better job?" She said that in the past, her job content made her too brainy, too nerve-wracking, and the work pressure was very heavy. The operator's work, almost without thinking, can let her brain rest. She feels that she is very happy to do this job.

After listening to this story, I realized the truth: "We can't replace anyone to live their lives. "Everyone knows his own situation best. We are outsiders. How can we know their situation and the troubles they face? What kind of life they want to live in is only known to them. What we can do is to respect their lifestyle and any choices. After all, we cannot take charge of their lives, nor can we replace them to live their lives for them. For example, assuming that they have cancer or depression, can we replace them to bear it for them? This is absolutely impossible, as everyone understands.

And this also led me to the following thinking: I often squeeze cold sweat for a dictatorship? Why? A dictatorship is like these obsessive parents, these nosy relatives and friends. They control everything the people have. They like to interrogate and interfere with people's freedom. In my opinion, this is replacing them to live their lives for these people, and replace them to be responsible for their lives. To put it bluntly, these dictatorships are too great, because they carry all the karma of the people on their own. This is so great!

If you think about it, when you control the people's freedom of thought and expression, it is as if you are binding a person's hands and feet. From another point of view, you are also living his life for him and taking on the responsibility of his life for this person, because this person's hands and feet are tied by you. When this person's hands and feet are tied, how can he have excellent ability to work well to make money and support his family? Once they cannot support themselves and their families, they become a burden for the government and the country. Either you raise him or let him go extinct. In any case, the personal karma and responsibility of this people will be carried on the dictatorship.

Therefore, we will see countries with authoritarian regimes, those groups of authoritative parents and officials who control the people in the regime, they are very active in working hard to make money, and they are rich and powerful, they also accumulate a lot of money, and also provide wives and children the excellent material life. Of course, they also build houses for the people and distribute them to the people, so that the people can get married and have a room to live in. The children born by the people are raised by the state. Unfortunately, in countries with authoritarian regimes, people’s ability to make money and support their families is generally low, and most of them live in poverty. They must rely on the government to support them. The poor people are more prone to complain and dissatisfaction with the government, thus rebelling against the government. The authoritarian government must use more severe means and spend more financial resources and resources to suppress the rebellion of the people.

Therefore, when we replace anyone to live their lives, and also replace them to take any responsibility of their lives, it is a foolish thing to do. It is doing a thankless job. It is let any doing things be double, but the credit is halved. We have done our own hard work, others are not necessarily grateful, and even complain. You see, this is really a waste of our own life.

Those play with party politics, their retributions are in the three evil ways.

Author: Tao Qing Hsu 

In this world, we don't understand why some people's values and ideologies of right and wrong are different from ours. Their reactions, opinions and handling attitudes to some things are also different from ours. Due to the difference between values and ideologies of right and wrong, their positions, opinions, attitudes, and ways of dealing with things are also different from others, so they show a state of resistance and opposition to others. This is not only present in our daily lives, but also in domestic and international political events.

Some people cannot distinguish between good and evil, and lack the ability to think independently. They are often easily deceived by any words and opinions which seem plausible and powerful. Unfortunately, this actually appears in the current party politics, not only domestically but also internationally.

Of course, everyone wants to use some words to wrap up their inner desires and ambitions. However, it is too far-fetched and implausible to enforce legislation to force others to comply with their selfish desires, ideology, and attempts. Even the Buddha did not dare to do so. The Buddha clearly understands that for selfish purposes, it must be a cause of evil, and it will go towards the evil results, and the evil will necessarily happen to itself. The Buddha did not dare to say: if you don’t believe in Buddha, you don’t believe in Buddhism and you don’t convert to Buddhism, then you are a sinner, you are foul, you should go to hell, or you should die. The Buddha never said that.

All the Buddha’s words emphasize some important points, that is, any cause created by the individual, which is the action of this initial thought, plus various opportunities, it will present a result, and this result will eventually form a retribution, reward in itself. Therefore, whether this initial thought is selfless or selfish, pure or evil, and the opportunity for process development, will lead to the final result to affect whether the result is good or evil. All this has nothing to do with whether you believe in Buddhism or not. Because, that initial thought depends on you, not Buddha or Buddhism. This is what the Buddha wants to make all beings understand.

Some people’s ideas are strongly influenced by binary opposition, strongly influenced by certain ideologies, and strongly obsessed with self-right and others wrong, and resolutely take this as a yes, even if they are unscrupulous and cocooning, they must achieve this goal. These ideologies are very ridiculous to the Buddha. Why? The Buddha revealed it in the Heart Sutra: without eyes, ears, noses, tongues, body and conscious; without the realm of eyes and even without of the realm of conscious. Did you see? Without the realm of conscious. Since there is no realm of conscious, what are these people clinging to? In the eyes of the Buddha, the attachment to any ideology is ultimately empty. Because it will inevitably go through the process of "generate, dwell, change, eliminate; form, dwell, destroy, empty." And the process is only the difference in length of time. In other words, no matter what ideology we are attached to, we are self-limiting. Only in an empty state can one be infinite and flexible.

In the Buddha's teachings, he did not use our current nouns, such as dictatorship, autocracy, democracy, civil rights, human rights, etc. These nouns are all only found after the opening of modern human thought. In the eyes of the Buddha, these are just the changes of the name and the concept. The concept of the name is empty. When we understand this essence, we can further understand that some people may commit evil in the name of democracy. Or some people may seem to do evil in the form of authoritarian dictatorship. In fact, they achieve substantive good deeds. Therefore, the term “democracy” does not necessarily mean good, and the term “autocracy” does not necessarily mean evil. Seeing all this from the perspective of emptiness, the Buddha will not be kidnapped by the concept of duality and any concept of nouns.

When we understand the Buddha’s instructions and use it as a basis, we observe the political situation at home and abroad, and we will find that some people may seem to do good in the name of party politics and the ideology they admire. They seem to be thinking for the people, as if standing on the side of justice. In fact, they have their own selfish interests behind them. They played with party politics and deliberately provoked mass opposition to achieve their selfish interests. It is a pity that they do not understand, to play with party politics, to deceive the masses, to disrespect all living beings, and their results will be in the three evil ways. To understand this, we must be careful about what we do and observe carefully to avoid being deceived by such party politics, but also to avoid being led into evil destiny and results by such party politics.

Blessed people do not need to take advantage of others to profit.

Author:Tao Qing Hsu

In observing numerous numerology, it is found that some people have insufficient luck, and their lives seem to be blessed, but in fact they have insufficient luck. The reason is that the desire is deep. In the "Miaohua Lianhua Sutra", the Buddha once stated: "Greedness is the source of suffering." The Buddha also mentioned that all beings take pleasure in greed and do not know that greed is suffering. This observation of human nature can allow us to perceive the motives of these actors, and even observe their future destiny. The destiny trend mentioned here is not only this life, but also the afterlife.

There are thousands of human desires, which are covered in various sounding reasons and arguments, and even use ridiculous and ridiculous legislation in an attempt to "legalize" their selfish desires and unwholesome motives. Maitreya Bodhisattva has a famous saying: "A big belly can tolerate things that are hard to bear in the world; when you open your mouth, you laugh and laugh at people who are ridiculous." But these uncomfortable things and ridiculous people happen every day. What's interesting is that these happen not only to ordinary people, but also to those who are rich and powerful.

Whatever the reasons for seeming to be rationalized, we will find that in fact, the motivation behind these attempts to rationalize their actors is nothing more than the desire to obtain personal benefits by taking advantage of others. And this behavior will even be done in the form of groups or political parties. Therefore, when we learn Buddhism, in addition to perceiving our inner greed from self-examination, and being cautious about what our greed is doing, based on this, and thus observing the behaviors of greed of all beings, we can naturally raise wisdom to help them and lead them towards the good side.

We observe that those who try to obtain personal benefits by taking advantage of people may achieve their temporary purpose, but when we look at them in the long run, we will find that these people's ending will be very tragic. Unfortunately, those who are miserable in the end are those who have no introspection and vigilance. If these people have such self-examination and vigilance, they will know that they have been reformed, and will automatically become good after repentance, so they will not go to a tragic life situation.

It seems that justice or legislation can safeguard justice and human right for the world. However, justice or legislation is artificial, it may be misused and distorted. It may even be misused by wicked people, using justice or legislation as a tool for authoritarian dictatorship and controlling the public for personal gain. Unfortunately, this happened in the current world.

The Buddha once mentioned that some of the beings on our planet are controlled by the devil, thereby deliberately destroying the goodness and justice of mankind. These demons are also a kind of celestial beings. They have some supernatural powers. They can control the human will through the power of supernatural powers to disrupt human civilization. And who is most easily controlled by these demons? Those who are greedy.

There is a civilized world 100 times higher than human civilization in this world, living in the same space as our human beings. Western scientists have recently stated that they have discovered at least 38 highly intelligent civilization worlds, and the wisdom and civilization of all beings in these worlds surpass humans.

The Buddha has revealed in the past that there are many different worlds in this universe of thousands of worlds. Many of the sentient beings living in these worlds have been verified as Bodhisattva fruit positions, and they are all highly intelligent sentient beings. At the same time, these highly intelligent beings can move in different worlds. How long does it take to move? It is the time for the forearm to stretch, which is one second, which is just an instant.

Therefore, the earth is just a small world in the universe, and in this small world, there live good and good beings who are just and can give others benefits, and greedy and vicious beings who take pleasure in encroaching on the interests of others. Interestingly, the highly civilized and intelligent beings of other worlds are actually not very involved in the human things on earth, but in fact, it does not mean that they do not intervene and assist. There are many kind-hearted beings on earth who often pray for world peace from God or Bodhisattvas. If the majority of people tend to be kind, they will help. If the human heart tends to be evil, they will persuade all beings to be good. However, if most people's hearts are evil, they will let humans eat the fruits of their own evil.

In addition to affecting the blessings of mankind, the good and evil of mankind will also affect the lifespan of mankind. In the Buddhist scriptures, the Buddha revealed that the human heart is pure and the life span of human beings can reach ten thousand years, which existed hundreds of millions of years ago. It is a pity that this does not exist in the five thousand years since mankind began to have historical records. Because people's hearts are becoming evil, their lifespan is gradually decreasing. At present, in the five thousand years of human history, human life span is only 100 years, which is the longest possible human life span. In fact, more than half of human life spans are less than 50 years.

It can be seen that most sentient beings are not blessed, so they infringe on the rights and interests of others to gain their own interests, not only to hurt others, but also to let themselves eat the fruits of their own evil. Some organizations and political parties even use lies, fraud, concealment, shirk their responsibilities, label others, arbitrarily convict people, intimidate, violence or kill people, and even let others commit suicide to achieve their personal interests. Such evil in the human heart is also a cause of shortened life expectancy.

The Buddha said that humans on this earth are living in a world of five turbidity and evil. There are very few good people who can learn the Dharma and learn from the Buddha. Unless it is the blessings accumulated over the ages and the long-cherished wishes of the world, human beings cannot encounter the cause of learning Buddha in this life, nor have they had the opportunity to meet the Buddha and Bodhisattva to teach the Dharma in person. Blessed people have many patron saints who personally come to support their daily needs. These blessed people do not need to encroach on the rights and interests of others and take advantage of others to make profits for individuals. This is not something ordinary people can understand. If we understand it, we know how grant our blessings are, so grant that we can share them with all beings. Therefore, instead of being a person lacking fortune and hurting all beings, it is better to expect to be a blessed person and benefit the world.