The Truth of Practice and the Path to Liberation

This message was recorded on August 17, 2017. It features the late Venerable Master Wei Chueh, who, having sought deliverance through the Hsiang Kuang Pure Land Buddhist Centre, now resides in the Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss. In this forty-third letter, he addresses his former followers at the Chung Tai monastery, urging them to reflect on the true nature of their practice and the necessity of genuine liberation.

Venerable Master Wei Chueh speaks:

"What is true practice? In the classrooms of Chung Tai, this question could be treated as a multiple-choice question, a short-answer prompt, or even the subject of a master's thesis. But in the actual, lived reality of our practice, what is the answer? Why do we abandon our worldly lives to enter the life of the Sangha? Every student at Chung Tai grows day by day under the care of their teachers, eventually becoming capable of standing on their own to face the devotees and visitors who come to seek guidance and pay their respects.

The Fleeting Nature of Life

Days pass in a cycle of year after year, and life slips away, second by second. We move through the stages of childhood, adolescence, youth, middle age, and finally, old age. But where does that spiritual life go at the very end? This is a profoundly important question. Even more critical is how this is actually unfolding in our daily lives. This is a serious matter concerning the Dharma Body and the life of wisdom. It is the reason why I, Wei Chueh, have been sending out these letters—this is now the forty-third one.

Once a person at Chung Tai receives the Precepts and becomes a monastic, they have renounced their home and abandoned their desires to enter the Buddha’s gate. Whether or not one can achieve liberation from birth and death becomes the most important issue to face in one's practice. One must be able to be at ease with birth and death; only then will one's life not have been in vain, and only then can one be reborn in the Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss. This is a vital lesson. You must grasp the right direction so that your efforts do not become a futile effort. If, in the end, you are still drifting with the waves, pulled by your karma into the six realms of rebirth, then no matter how diligent your practice was, how effective your skills were, or how deep your meditative concentration was during your life, you have merely established a Dharma affinity with the Zen school of the Buddha’s teachings. When we meet again in future lives, we may not even recognise one another.

A Heartbreaking Reality

My own process of rebirth, from the time I passed away until now in the Western Pure Land, has been described in my previous letters. I have recounted the journey from entering the hells to being delivered to the Western Pure Land by Practitioner Su at the Hsiang Kuang Pure Land Buddhist Centre. Now, the truth that I, Wei Chueh, see is this: at the end of their lives, even with the longest periods of chanting for the deceased, none of the people from Chung Tai—neither the monastics nor the lay practitioners—are being reborn in the Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss! They are found in the heavenly realms, the human realm, and even more frequently in the ghost realm, the hells, and the animal realm. This is a truly heartbreaking fact.

A Plea for True Deliverance

True practice is meant to enable one to end birth and death and escape the three realms in this very lifetime. For beings in this Dharma-ending age, the most convenient and direct path is the Pure Land method of chanting Namo Amituofo to be reborn in the Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss! It is not to come back and cycle through the six realms of rebirth again! I do not wish to keep watching this continue, to see the same results over and over. I hope that the people of Chung Tai, whether they believe it or not, will find a way to visit the Hsiang Kuang Pure Land Buddhist Centre to speak with me. I am waiting for you!"

Written by Wei Chueh

Interview message recorded by the disciple of the Buddha, Shi Haliang.