Diligence and Perseverance: Teachings from Teacher Practitioner Xia Lianju

Teachings from Teacher Practitioner Xia Lianju, recorded by Venerable HaiZe on April 15, 2022.

The Foundation of Spiritual Success

Diligence leads to success, while indulgence leads to loss; diligent practice brings merit, whereas laziness leads to regression! Even if the Dharma is supreme, the teacher is rare, and the Dharma affinity is difficult to encounter, if you do not apply yourself with diligent practice, you will not reap any good fruit. How then can you benefit yourself or save other beings?

Therefore, diligence is the fundamental skill; it is what the Buddha’s gate calls diligent practice, the essential foundation for the purification of your practice. If you wish to deepen your purification, you must be fiercely diligent.

Worldly Effort versus Spiritual Practice

Diligence and indulgence are states of learning observed in the world; diligent practice and laziness are the conditions of learning spoken of in the Buddha’s gate. Before you have transformed your karma and become an awakened being, whether you are diligent or indulgent, practising or lazy, you remain within the laws of karma and cause and effect. You are still being dominated and controlled by your karma, your destiny, your karmic creditors, and the spiritual attachments that reside within your field of consciousness.

The Process of Overcoming Tests

Only by overcoming and breaking through the manifestation and interference of these beings, and by transforming your karma to become an awakened being, can you cease to be controlled by them and attain true autonomy. This process requires you to make vows and to put those vows into action; only then can you transform your karma and achieve a breakthrough. This entire process is known as a test.

The Lifelong Commitment to Purification

If you wish to succeed in your practice, you must constantly accept these tests and break through them. You must continuously purify yourself and allow your inherent Goodness to manifest, so that you may attain the fruit of pure, unblemished Goodness and become an awakened being. Many practitioners spend their entire lives navigating these tests. Some drift with the current, neither advancing nor retreating, remaining stuck in the same place. Others do not advance at all and instead regress, even creating the causes for the hells.

There are also those who are fiercely diligent and, even without becoming an awakened being, perform many acts of pure Goodness. Yet, in the later stages of their lives, they find it difficult to maintain their pure heart and actions. Because their manifestation of karma becomes too strong and they fail to transform or adjust their state of mind, they lose their resolve, create negative karma, and fall into the hells—a truly tragic waste.

The Truth of the Path

Therefore, diligent practice is not a temporary task; it is a commitment for this entire life. If you do not become an awakened being and attain the fruit of Buddhahood in this lifetime, you must continue this work throughout your many lives. This is the truth of the practice.

You must understand this clearly and put it into action, so that you may hasten the day of your becoming an awakened being. This is how you truly save yourself and others, achieve liberation from being reincarnated, gain true autonomy, and ensure that your wish to be reborn in the Western Pure Land is fulfilled.

Namo Amituofo