Rectifying Body and Mind

Amitabha Buddha's discourse:

When Shakyamuni Buddha was widely expounding the Infinite Life Sutra in India,

He already knew that this sutra would be widely disseminated in the future,

therefore, He repeatedly taught and exhorted the attendees, hoping that future listeners of the Infinite Life Sutra

could receive magnificent benefits of the Dharma.

In the midst of His repeated exhortations, it is stated in The Infinite Sutra (The Buddha Speaks the Mahayana, Infinite Life, Adornment, Purity, Impartiality, and Enlightenment Sutra):

"If you perform good deeds, what is the foremost? You must rectify your heart and rectify your body. Your ears, eyes, mouth, and nose must all be rectified.

When body and mind are pure and clean, they are in sync with Goodness."

Ears, eyes, mouth, and nose refer to the Six Roots.

The body, mind, and Six Roots must all be rectified; to be rectified without bias, evil, or defilement is the foremost of all good deeds.

Rectifying body and mind is a matter of importance.

The body is the manifestation of the mind; if the mind is biased, the body will appear biased and not upright;

if one can guide it correctly, turning the mind back to the righteous path, the body will also enter the righteous path and cease to be biased.

Why does this change occur?

It is because the fluctuations of mental notes are the primary cause for attracting karma, karmic creditors, attached spirits, and demon crowds to manifest,

which will interfere with practice, speech, conduct, and thoughts.

If the mind is biased and not upright,

it naturally attracts biased and not upright beings, karmic creditors, or those whom one has harmed in past lives due to one's own bias and lack of uprightness,

causing them to manifest and inflict suffering upon this body.

This is the manifestation of karma, the fairness of karma,

and it is also the Universal Principle, the Truth, and the Right Way; it is not something that others can cause.

If these karmic creditors wish to inflict suffering upon the karmic debtor, they cannot do so either.

Because without the cause from the past, there is no resulting retribution.

The retribution that karmic creditors inflict upon the karmic debtor can be little or light, but it cannot be heavy;

if it is heavy, it will naturally be resolved and eliminated, rendering it ineffective, or the karmic creditors will receive their own retribution.

Therefore, when one turns the heart and mind back to the righteous path, the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind—the body being one of the Six Roots—

will naturally appear rectified, without bias or lack of uprightness.

This is also the relationship between cause and effect.

People in the world do not know this, or do not pay enough attention to it, and often suffer because of it.

Therefore, when the World-Honoured One expounded this sutra, He strongly reminded the masses in His teachings.

Our Buddha is compassionate; to this day, these exhortations remain just as important.

The Universal Principle, the Truth, and the Right Way do not change due to the shifting of time and space,

and because the True Teachings are rare and difficult to encounter, they appear even more magnificent and precious.

Namo Amituofo