Recorded and transcribed by ’s disciple, Venerable HaiZe.
During the midday offering on the twenty-seventh of April, 2025, Teacher Practitioner Xia Lianju provided these essential teachings on the nature of a life lived without regret.
The Path of Selfless
What does it mean to walk the path of practice with no regrets? It is the willingness to help all beings leave suffering behind and find happiness, even if it means enduring personal hardship. When you undertake the work of to save demonic beings, you may find yourself suffering under their magical attacks. Yet, if you can endure this, you allow these beings to enter the Western Land of Nature and finally be saved. To save beings, you must move forward with a steady heart, acting without complaint and without regret.
If a practitioner is overly concerned with protecting their own body and avoiding any discomfort, they will fail to save others. In doing so, they lose the precious opportunity to nurture their compassion, dissolve their , and remove the obstacles that hinder their progress. As long as you can engage in diligent practice and elevate your spiritual achievements, even sacrificing sleep is a small price to pay. You will find that you have no regrets when your efforts lead to the liberation of others.
Overcoming the
The five desires are the roots of suffering that bind us to the cycle of rebirth:
Wealth: The pursuit of material gain.
Lust: The craving for sensory pleasure.
Fame: The desire for recognition and status.
Food: The attachment to sensory indulgence.
Sleep: The tendency toward lethargy and unconsciousness.
These are known as the five roots that lead to the hells. If you can reduce your attachment to sleep, you are effectively distancing yourself from the hells. By doing so, you avoid the trap of excessive slumber, which only increases the likelihood of falling into the lower realms to endure suffering and punishment.
The Discipline of Transformation
As long as you can take charge of your own mind and overcome the state of , you are making progress. Even if it requires changing your personality, performing prostrations, or curbing your anger, you must do so without regret. You must make a firm, painful decision to change, even when your habits are deeply ingrained and difficult to alter. If you feel drowsy while performing prostrations, use cold water to wake yourself up. You must no longer be subject to the suffering of Aging, sickness, and death, nor the suffering of being unable to take charge of your own life.
To truly transform, you must commit to the daily lessons of the practitioner:
Prostrations: Bowing to the Buddha to humble the ego.
Chanting Namo Amituofo: Keeping the Buddha’s name in your heart at all times.
Reciting the Sutras: Studying the teachings to gain wisdom.
If you truly perform these actions and genuinely change your heart, the power of the Buddha will surely support you.
Resolving Karmic Debts
Do not allow anger to arise. Instead, chant Namo Amituofo to cultivate meditative concentration and strictly uphold the . Use the thought of the hells—which are fueled by the fire of anger—as a warning. It is not worth burning down your forest of merits because of a moment of rage. You must stop creating new karma. Resolve your conflicts with all beings in this lifetime; do not wait for the next.
Even if the suffering you face today is not caused by your actions in this current life, it is the result of your past deeds. Therefore, when your come to seek balance, you must face them without resentment or regret. If you can change your personality beforehand, preventing beings from suffering in the present, and if you are willing to endure the resulting hardship yourself, this is the true practice of compassion. Namo Amituofo.
