Blog » Sweet Dews Of Dharma Talks » 2010 » It All Begins from the Family
It All Begins from the Family2014-06-24
A Dharma talk given by DM Heng Yun
English translation by Lotus Lee
In the praise for bathing the Buddha, it says “I now bathe all Thus Come Ones, Who are adorned with pure wisdom, who have amassed merit and virtue.” When we bathe the Buddha, are we bathing someone else? Do we need to bathe the Buddha because he is not clean?
“All Thus Come Ones” can mean one Buddha, and it can also mean immeasurable Buddhas. Buddhas are utmost pure and clean, they don’t need us to bathe them. The Buddha said that all living beings have the Buddha nature, and they can all become Buddhas. All living beings are future Buddhas, but in order to become Buddhas we have to make ourselves wholesome first. Cleaning the body is not just cleaning the physical body. The body, mouth, and mind must all be clean. Through the symbolic action of bathing the Buddha, we are simultaneously hoping that our mind and body will become pure, and we will gradually walk towards Buddhahood. It is only when all of the karma of the body, mouth, and mind are pure that we can be “Adorned with pure wisdom and amass merit and virtue”; it is only when your pure wisdom appears that your merit and virtue will be complete. So where should we start? We have to start from ourselves. Every one of us is like a small world, if that little world is clean, then the big world will become wholesome as well.
Many of you have families. When your own body and mind is unpolluted, you can gradually influence your family members to become the same as you are. The Venerable Master once said: When the world deteriorates, it is because the family is deteriorating; and when the world changes for the better, likewise, it starts from the family. We are all members of families, and every member of a family should take care of his/her own body and mind. A good family is where the husband and wife respect each other; where the parents are compassionate and the children are filial; and where the husband is righteous and kind, and the wife is virtuous and competent.
Through my life as a left-home person, I have met many laypeople with different family backgrounds. Let me tell you a story. There was a man who used to be the boss of a big company. After he retired, he devoted all his time and effort to learning the Buddhadharma. He said that this is what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Not long after, he started to think about leaving the home life. His wife said, “If he wants to leave the home life, then I will buy a house next to the temple so that I can take care of him.” Why she would say that really puzzled me. I finally understood after she explained her situation. She said that they had been married for about forty years. And through all these years, her husband never helped to set the table or wash the dishes after meals. She had to do everything for him. He always waited until his wife had set the table and gotten the rice ready, then he would come to the table to eat. And this poor woman had had to do this ever since they were married. Afterwards, I told this man, “Now you are a Buddhist. As Buddhists, we have to practice the Dharma ourselves and in our lives. Starting from today, you should get your own rice and wash your own dirty dishes.” Some time later, his wife happily told me that her husband had improved; now, he would get his own rice and wash his own dishes.
Once I saw a lady stay at the temple until very late, so I told her to hurry up and go home. She said, “It’s all right, my husband takes care of everything at home, so I don’t have to leave so quickly.” This is one kind of family. There is another kind of wife who, whenever she comes to the temple, is always very anxious: “My husband is almost home, I have to hurry back, or else he will yell at me when I get home!” Then there are the husbands. There was a layman who didn’t come to the temple for a long time. When I saw him again, I asked him, “Why haven’t you come here for so long?” He sighed and said, “That one at home [his wife] wouldn’t let me come!” As you can see, the situation in every household is very different.
A better situation is where both the husband and wife are willing to learn the Buddhadharma together, and they help each other accomplish the way. In the temple, I have seen quite a few couples who respect each other like this. Since you have especially good affinities, you should help each other accomplish Buddhahood. Don’t put up a show in the temple, but then back at home the husband treats the wife like a servant, or vice versa. As we were bathing the Buddha today, we sang the praise “I now bathe all Thus Come Ones”. It actually means that we should purify ourselves beginning from our own mind and body. Even if we have read many sutras and bowed to many Buddhas, but in our daily life, if the husband still yells at the wife all the time, or the other way around; or maybe if we don’t get along with our relatives and children, then we have not truly learned the Buddhadharma. Learning the Buddhadharma is not like learning worldly knowledge. Understanding and practicing are both important; after you understand the principle, you have to actually do it and change yourself. Only then will you have truly received its benefits. It is like eating; only when you eat will you know the satisfaction of eating.
Among all the people in this world, there is only one person who will become your husband or wife. It is the result of deep affinities. Of course, everyone’s causes and conditions are different. Some couples have good affinities with each other, so they get along very well. But for those who don’t have good affinities in the past, they end up fighting and arguing all the time. The Venerable Master had a disciple who was a very nice person. He got along well with everyone except his wife. The two of them were always arguing. One time his child told the Venerable Master that he had a vision where he saw, in a past life, his mother was a dog, and his father was a human who beat that dog all the time. The child asked, “Is it true that my parents used to be like that?” The Venerable Master nodded his head. From the bad affinities in the past, it was very hard for these two people to get along in their present life. It got so bad that the Venerable Master had to tell this disciple, “Be nicer to your wife.” Somewhere in their consciousnesses they still bore the painful memories of the past, and due to that, their marriage was never happy.
Although some couples may have bad relationships, it does not mean that it cannot improve. There is a saying, “Things happen because of our effort.” Fate is not absolute. It can be changed, but it needs effort. In ancient China, during the Liang dynasty, there was a famous monk named Dharma Master Zhi Gong who had the ability to see peoples’ past lives. One day, a lady came to ask for his help. She said that her life was full of suffering and pain, because her husband often beat her for no reason. She asked Dharma Master Zhi Gong what she should do. Dharma Master Zhi Gong told her, “In your past life, you were the owner of a mill, and your husband was a donkey. You always hit the donkey whenever he slowed down or stopped while he was pulling the millstone. So in this life, this donkey became your husband, and he will repay you by hitting you as much as you hit him in your past life. If you want to change your predicament, I can teach you a method: since your husband uses whatever is on hand to beat you up, when you get home, tidy up the house and only leave the head of a broom in sight. When he sees that there is nothing else to use, he will use the broom to hit you. When he does so, don’t run or retaliate. Accept it willingly, because you have to pay back your past debts.” She promised that she would do that.
After this woman went home, she did what Dharma Master Zhi Gong told her to do and willingly allowed her husband to hit her. Her husband thought it strange and asked her, “Back then when I hit you, you would yell and scream, but why is it that today you are not even retaliating?” She then told her husband everything Dharma Master Zhi Gong said. After hearing the story, her husband replied, “From now on I shouldn’t hit you anymore, or else in the next life it’ll be your turn to hit me.” The couple was at peace with each other afterwards. Why did Dharma Master Zhi Gong tell her to prepare a head of a broom? It’s because there are many hairs on the head of a broom, and when her husband used it to hit her, every hair counts as one lash. Therefore, she was able to pay back her debts very quickly.
Now, if you encounter a similar situation, you should recite Guan Yin Bodhisattva’s name. The Venerable Master had a disciple whose husband knew tai chi. Even when this lady was getting old, he still liked to practice tai chi on her (in other words, he beat her a lot). It was really sad. She went to the Venerable Master for help. The Venerable Master told her, “Whenever he beats you, just recite Guan Yin Bodhisattva’s name.” Previously, whenever her husband hit her, she would retaliate, but after the Venerable Master’s instruction, she would only recite Guan Yin Bodhisattva’s name. After a while, her husband told their daughter, “I’m not going to hit your mom anymore, because she doesn’t even struggle. All she does is recite Guan Yin Bodhisattva.”
As Buddhists, we should know the logic of cause and condition, and we should act in accord with the situation to eradicate our bad karma. At the same time, we are also relying on the Buddhas’ and Bodhisattvas’ vow power to help us change our affinities. Today we are bathing the Buddha. I hope that everyone can start practicing the Dharma from the self, to change the heart and purify the body and mind. Like I was saying, if you have a bad affinity with your husband or wife, both of you have to work hard to improve the relationship. However, if you have a good affinity with your spouse, then you should cherish it, be thankful, and walk towards Buddhahood together.
