Giving Your All: Teachings from Master Xuanzang

The Necessity of Wholehearted Devotion

To achieve Awakening through the Buddha's teachings, one must commit oneself entirely. You cannot be half-hearted or distracted, with your body present in the Buddha-land while your mind wanders elsewhere. If your thoughts are not focused on the Buddha-name or the sutras, or if you perform your daily tasks with a scattered mind, you will lose your concentration. If you do not stop this wandering immediately, you will inevitably fall into a state of drowsiness or mental agitation.

Giving your all means doing your absolute best with every ounce of your strength. This is a fundamental requirement for any significant achievement. Think of it like a torch: it must be ignited and kept burning to emit light. The larger the torch, the longer it burns, the wider the area it illuminates, and the brighter its glow. A smaller torch will illuminate a smaller area and burn for a shorter time. The light within your own heart—whether it is a small spark or a brilliant flame, whether it is dark or bright—depends entirely on your own mind-capacity and the depth of your practice. Whatever is right, whatever helps the majority of people, and whatever is in sync with the Universal Principle, the Truth, and the Right Way, you must commit to it with everything you have.

Five Pillars of Total Commitment

If you wish to achieve success on the Buddha's path, you must embrace the following five pillars of commitment:

• Letting Go: You must let go of worldly emotions, worldly hearts, worldly thoughts, and worldly intentions. What is worldly? It is the ego. You must discard private emotions, selfish hearts, selfish thoughts, and selfish intentions. If there is any impurity mixed in, it is turbid and evil, and you will be unable to see your true self. Without purity, you cannot achieve perfect goodness.
• Single-mindedness: You must have no other thoughts or intentions; there must be only one heart and one mind. When you chant the Buddha-name, there is only Namo Amituofo in your heart. Your mouth speaks only the Buddha-name, your eyes see everyone as a Buddha, and your actions reflect the Buddha-heart and Buddha-actions. This is the true, practical expression of learning from the Buddha.
• A Pure Environment: Practising in an environment free from pollution is vital. For those who have attained strong meditative concentration, it does not matter where they are or what they are doing; they remain undisturbed. Their hearts remain in a state of continuous, clear, and pure chanting, regardless of the time or place.
• Diligent Practice: You must give your all to your prostrations and your chanting. You must be fully committed when reciting sutras, studying the teachings, and listening to the Dharma. You must be active and persistent in accumulating merit and virtue. You must give your all to Faith, Vows, and Practice, as well as to the Precepts, Concentration, and Wisdom. Whatever Namo Amituofo and your teachers have entrusted to you, you must perform with your full heart. You must be fully committed to your purification and to finding your true self. You must give your all to saving yourself and others, resolving karmic conflicts, performing Chao Du for beings so they may be reborn in the Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, and spreading the Pure Land teachings.
• Disciplined Conduct: You must strictly follow the teachings of Namo Amituofo and your teachers regarding what you must not think, what you must not say, and what you must not do. You must cut off these thoughts, words, and actions. You must never think them, never say them, and never do them. This is what it truly means to give your all. Until you can fully cut them off, you must at least be able to stop these thoughts, words, and actions until you reach Awakening.

The Dangers of Ego-Attachment

Before you reach Awakening, your Body, Speech, and Mind are not under your own control. They are dominated and controlled by your karma and destiny. Often, when you are acting out of habit, you do not realise that you are creating negative karma and will soon suffer the consequences. At such times, you must never insist on following your own will. Because your ego-attachment and personal views are being driven by your karma, your thoughts, words, and actions may deviate from the Right Way and the Truth. Not only will this fail to help your practice, but it will also cause great harm. You must never be arrogant or insist on your own way, for the mistakes you make will be grave indeed.

If you have a wise teacher by your side to observe and protect you, they will stop you or counsel you to retreat. If you do not listen to their advice, remember that in Mahayana Buddhism, sins are judged by the intent of the heart. If you have already created the intent and the action, you will suffer the consequences. You must be extremely cautious.

Living in the Truth

After you reach Awakening, you can see and understand the true reality of all laws of the world. In your daily life—whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, 24/7—you will never depart from the true reality and the righteous path. How you think, speak, and act will always be in sync with the Truth. At this stage, in order to save beings and lead them onto the path of the Dharma and the Western Pure Land, you can act as the situation requires, flowing naturally with the Dharma without ever losing the righteous path.

You must keep your distance from anything that goes against your true self, such as turbid and evil views, ego-attachment, selfish interests, and bad habits. You must give your all to everything that is in sync with your true self: purification, doing good, accumulating merit and virtue, compassion, Wisdom, perseverance, mind-capacity, no-self, selflessness, and the state of no-thought.

Students of Hsiang Kuang Pure Land Buddhist Centre, you must know that under the guidance of Namo Amituofo, Teacher Practitioner Xia Lianju, and Practitioner Su, you must find your true self, share the same heart and vows as the Buddha, follow the Buddha in your actions, and work together to save all beings so they may be reborn in the Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss.

This message was recorded by the Buddha's disciple, Venerable HaiZe.

Namo Amituofo