The mind’s activity is the vitality of life; it is itself a form of spiritual capital. In Buddhism we often speak of accumulating merit and purifying obscurations. The strength, vitality, and energy of the mind are precisely the merit we have accumulated in the past. This merit must be used wisely. If it is not used for spiritual practice, it will inevitably be used to create negative karma.
When it is used for practice, it becomes the very power of cultivation: it makes meditative concentration easier to accomplish, allows the Dharma to be understood more clearly, thoroughly, and directly, and gives rise to various forms of merit and virtue. If, however, this merit is used to create unwholesome karma, not only does it fail to produce any virtue, it is also consumed extremely quickly. This kind of merit is indispensable. Even the ability to enjoy ordinary happiness depends on it. When mental strength is depleted, one cannot even sustain worldly happiness; when it reaches that point, it manifests as what is commonly called depression.
In addition to depression, there is also what is referred to as a manic–agitated condition. Both conditions are closely related to the notion of spiritual capital discussed above. When a person’s mental strength is completely exhausted, nothing is capable of arousing a sense of joy. This state is known as depression, and its fundamental cause lies precisely in the depletion of that spiritual capital. When a person still possesses some spiritual capital, yet at the same time harbors karmic obstructions, the virtuous forces within the mind cannot be properly channeled and manifested.
As a result, emotional agitation and irritability arise—this is what is commonly referred to as a manic–agitated condition. There is also bipolar affective disorder, which is characterized by cyclical fluctuations between depressive and agitated states. When spiritual capital is deficient, depression manifests; when there is even a slight accumulation, mania arises. Therefore, mental strength itself is a form of spiritual capital. Once we have obtained a precious human life endowed with freedom and favorable conditions for dharma practice, we should make good use of this capital, rather than exhausting it through mutual hostility and pointless venting.
In addition, as practitioners, we should strive not to be swayed by others’ words. Whether others criticize you or praise you, if your mind follows after them, you are already consuming this kind of mental energy of tranquility. With just a little flattery, your face blossoms like a flower, yet in reality your mental strength has been wasted on a meaningless sense of delight. With just a hint of criticism—being told that you are inadequate and then feeling disrespected—you immediately fall into distress, and anguish, which is even more pointless.By reacting this way, it is as if creating negative karma right along with them. When this pattern plays out within a group, people provoke one another in this way, and the situation only escalates.
Consequently, that precious human life is thus squandered—pointless and foolish!. All of this amounts to the senseless depletion of the mind’s precious spiritual capital.
This phenomenon is by no means limited to one or two groups. In fact, in our present era, almost all Buddhist communities exhibit similar issues to varying degrees. Many respected Buddhist teachers have repeatedly addressed this phenomenon in their teachings, reminding practitioners to cherish their time for practice and not to become entangled in trivial worldly disputes.
Conflicts driven by habitual patterns are often illusory, with no clear purpose at all. Sometimes such behaviors are not even as goal-oriented as those of gangsters. Gang members, for all their problems, are usually driven by straightforward aims: power, money, and lust. They don’t cause chaos for no reason. Real gang members are not like the caricatures seen in movies—strutting around everywhere, shouting loudly, wearing huge gaudy gold chains, covered in tattoos, and swaggering down the street like crabs. That kind of behavior would be, in fact, incredibly stupid. It would be like yelling, “Hey everyone, look at me! I’m in a gang—be afraid of me!” while also shouting, “Police officers, I’m a gangster—come get me!” Isn’t that ridiculous?
That is not real gang life at all. Real gang members are precisely those who fear being publicly known as gang members. Those flashy young people are usually nothing more than street thugs who have failed to find a viable way to survive. Take the Hong Kong film Young and Dangerous as an example. It portrays gangs as large groups of people roaming the streets with machetes, looking powerful and intimidating. But in reality, Hong Kong has never had gangs operating in such a way. Anyone behaving like that in public would be arrested—and swiftly eliminated—very quickly!
Real gang figures in Hong Kong are nothing like the image portrayed in films such as Young and Dangerous. They drink red wine, wear suits and ties. They would never parade through the streets brandishing machetes the way movie characters do. On the surface, genuine gang figures appear calm, restrained, and even refined. But when real interests are at stake, they show no mercy—they are genuinely lethal. In the past, gang forces exerted strong influence over Hong Kong’s film and entertainment industry.
Many actors and public figures were harassed, and some were even shot and killed. Yet did those gang figures ever roam the streets waving machetes around? Of course not. So do not be deceived by movies or novels. If our understanding and thinking are still shaped by such attention-grabbing portrayals, then we are nothing but fools, utterly blind to reality and misled by spectacle.
Speaking of gangs at length is in order to make one point clear: even gangs understand that there is no reason to fight over matters that bring no real benefit. Yet we, as Buddhist practitioners, should in principle have let go even of the very worldly interests that gangs pursue. And still, we find ourselves constantly arguing and quarreling, without any clear sense of what we are fighting for. Such disputes and conflicts serve no purpose at all. They achieve nothing except damage and exhaust our wisdom-life.
Seasoned practitioners are not disturbed by taking a loss. Even if a loss cannot be called a blessing, at the very least it helps purify past karma. But if one becomes constantly worried, resentful, or angry over every loss, is that not an even greater loss? Not only does it fail to purify old karma, it creates new afflictions—loss upon loss. This is not the Seven Injuries Fist in Jin Yong’s wuxia novels, where injury upon injury somehow makes one stronger. Therefore, no matter what others say about you or about someone else, remain calm and clarity. Simply attend to cultivating your own mind and keep your mouth shut. Do not let yourself be disturbed by such matters, and do not follow suit and gossip about this and that.
When shortcomings or weaknesses of others are perceived, the mind should move toward generosity and tolerance. Among fellow practitioners, mutual forbearance and understanding are essential. If someone genuinely has certain problems or faults, it is the guru’s role to instruct. Unless one truly has sufficient capacity, maintains a harmonious relationship with the other person, and can point out an issue at the appropriate time without giving rise to conflict, it is better to refrain from playing the role of a teacher. This is a relatively ideal way to handle such situations.
Many great masters have taught that samaya commitments (the fundamental vows of Vajrayāna practice) among Vajrayāna fellow practitioners are easily broken, thereby giving rise to many problems within a community and even hindering one’s practice from yielding results, even over years of sincere effort.This is by no means an empty claim; any earnest practitioners can reflect on this for themselves. One should not become immersed in pointless disputes, constantly entangling oneself in questions of who treats one well and who does not. Such calculations lead nowhere and have no end.
We ordinary beings, living in the Saha world, lack any form of supernatural power. As such, we are fundamentally unable to know the true thoughts or character of others, and therefore should not judge them lightly. Whenever we notice that our minds have again become entangled in such concerns, we should turn inward and reflect: I am a Buddhist. I should not exhaust my mental energy on futile entanglements with personnel conflict. Instead, I should devote this precious time to practice, so as not to squander this rare and meaningful human life.
Even those who seek worldly merit should not cling to such meaningless disputes—how much more so for those who seek liberation? The very purpose of Buddhist practice is to relinquish all that is clung to by the self, and ultimately to recognize that such self does not exist at all. Given this, why should we bother calculating and arguing over worldly interests? If there is not even any clear worldly benefit involved, but only entanglements in conflicts driven by habitual tendencies, then this is all the more pitiful. Such behavior serves no purpose other than exhausting one’s accumulations and damaging one’s wisdom-life.
Sometimes, the causes of certain afflictions are simply the desire to gain recognition among fellow practitioners—to be respected by others, to have one’s words carry weight, and to be followed. These are precisely very coarse manifestations of grasping at the self of person. If the mind clings to such concerns, how can meditative concentration be properly cultivated? Without entering concentration, the mind cannot even experience calmness and peace, let alone gain a deep realization of the nature of mind. And without realizing the nature of mind, how can one speak of “afflictions are bodhi”? For such people, afflictions remain afflictions, and bodhi remains bodhi.
Only those with very deep realization can truly live the principle that “afflictions are bodhi.” Such practitioners may even deliberately stir up afflictions in order to deepen their realization of bodhi. In fact, the practice of “one-sided emptiness” can also be applied in this way. Through contemplation and visualization, or even by consciously making use of one’s environment, one can deliberately evoke the experience of afflictions, and then apply the sense of unreality—cultivated through the practice of one-sided emptiness—to counteract and dissolve them. This is a very effective method of practice. However, many practitioners tend to focus only on counteracting physical phenomena, and as a result overlook the countering of mental phenomena.
For example, although someone verbally abuses you, because you have reached a certain level in the practice of one-sided emptiness, you may not feel much disturbance at the moment. However, after returning home, you could deliberately allow the thoughts to arise: “This person is truly unpleasant—slandering and attacking me with nothing but untrue and malicious words.” At that point, you could re-engage the practice of one-sided emptiness by directly visualizing or experiencing: this person—whether his body, speech, or mind—is entirely lacking inherent existence. This is the emptiness of the object. Then you turn back to observe yourself. Their slander and attacks have triggered sadness, anger, resentment, depression, and more similar emotions within me. These emotions, too, are entirely illusory and likewise lacking inherent existence. Thus, through the re-practice of the sense of unreality, all of this is dissolved into nothingness. By repeatedly training in this way, such practice becomes deeper than the initial stage of merely counteracting form phenomena. It is a more profound method for dismantling attachment.
Of course, for beginners, training in this way from the outset can be quite difficult. One should first cultivate a clear sense of unreality through the practice of one-sided emptiness to counteract physical phenomena, and only then use this unreal sense to work with mental phenomena such as emotions. We once describe such practice with the word “stamp.” This means that when an emotion arises, one immediately “stamp” it with the cultivated sense of illusion. When such practice matures, a single act of stamping is enough for the emotion to dissipate instantly without a trace.
To master the ability of “ stamping,” one is in fact cultivating the ability to disengage from attachment at the level of consciousness. In the early stages, this requires a solid foundation in the practice of one-sided emptiness through counteracting form phenomena. Practitioners with relatively sharp faculties may quickly develop such ability of stamping, if the unreal sense of form phenomena is well brought to bear on emotions.However, if this is difficult at present, sustained and long-term practice is required. In addition to further strengthening the practice of counteracting form phenomena, one should also regularly practice to stamp the illusory sense on emotions, and even deliberately evoke them in order to counteract them. Gradually, the mind will become deeply tranquil, gentle, and spacious.
If one is able to train in this way over a long period of time, cultivating meditative concentration will no longer be a problem. This is a classic method of entering calm abiding through insight. Once meditative concentration has been properly established, the practice of one-sided emptiness will dismantle attachment to form phenomena in a deeper and more subtle way. At that point, turning the attention back to observe one’s own mind also becomes much easier, clearer, and more penetrating.
Some may feel that this mode of training is tedious and dull. Yet before realization, our restless and chaotic minds must undergo such necessary trials. We repeatedly make the vow, “For the benefit of all sentient beings, I vow to attain Buddhahood,” but if we cannot even endure a small measure of monotony in practice, how can we ever attain Buddhahood? Buddhahood is sought for the sake of liberating others. But if we ourselves have not yet crossed to the other shore, how can we possibly guide others across? Therefore, we should devote ourselves wholeheartedly to practice and completely abandon distraction and contention.
We are lay practitioners, not monastics. Monastics are able to devote themselves fully to practice without having to attend to so many worldly affairs, whereas lay practitioners must still deal with worldly responsibilities in order to sustain their lives. Simply handling worldly matters already consumes a great deal of our time. If, after entering a Buddhist community, we then spend our remaining time engaging in trivial disputes, this is unquestionably a tremendous waste of this precious human life. Human life passes in an instant, like a white horse flashing past a narrow gap. Decades of youth slip away in the blink of an eye, and before we realize it, our forties, fifties, and sixties arrive one after another. Time moves on relentlessly like this—truly, it must not be squandered.
What has been discussed above concerns the impact of disputes and quarrels on the practice of meditative concentration. Of course, the factors that affect meditative concentration are not limited to this alone. In Buddhism, the influences that obstruct meditative concentration are described as the Five Hindrances. We will not go into them in detail here. Nevertheless, the causes discussed above are undoubtedly among the most prominent and defining characteristics of Buddhist practitioners in our present era.
