Many people think that the ascetic monks who practice the tutuo practice in terms of things and appearances are really great practitioners who have practiced and certified with suffering. Therefore, the great virtues who have always been more likely to be respected and admired by the public are mostly showing the image of asceticism. Including Shakyamuni Buddha once did the same.And those people who seem to live a happy life, take famous cars when they go out, associate with celebrities, and enjoy the best of all kinds of benefits are not practicing asceticism. This view is actually very narrow.Once when I went out, I took a taxi because I couldn’t catch a bus. The driver praised me, saying that I was very down-to-earth in my practice and only took taxis, unlike the abbot of a certain mountain, who only took famous cars when I went out. That is not practicing.After I heard it, I quickly stopped the driver and told him, maybe the archmage is not willing to take a famous car in his heart?It's just that in order not to let his believers lose the opportunity to cultivate blessings, he also wants to follow the wishes of his disciples?Fortunately, the driver was also very kind, and after hearing this, he stopped continuing the ostomy business.In the past, among the ninety-six kinds of heretics in India, there were many ascetic monks who practiced the practice of dharma, and their meditation skills have even reached the four dhyanas. But still can not escape from the three realms of reincarnation.In view of this, Shakyamuni Buddha will also clone to India to show the liberation process of the eight signs and enlightenment, and teach these living beings who have become well-established Buddha roots to completely escape the suffering of samsara.Therefore, the ascetic practice in terms of things is not the end of the real practice, it is only the necessary foundation.The suffering and happiness in the world are relative.For people who are indifferent by nature, rough tea and light meals are actually enjoyment, not asceticism. For example, Confucius' student Yan Hui, Confucius praised him: "Xianzai! Hui is also. A bucket of food, a ladle of drinking, in a poor alley, people can't bear the worries, return Don't change your joy. You are virtuous! Come back." And for those who don't like prosperous and extravagant, it's really a pain to let them enjoy it.I once heard on the news that there was a rich man who always liked to disguise himself as a beggar when he had nothing to do, and went begging everywhere to make a living, feeling like a god. Take the opportunity to slip away.For him, it would be an ascetic life to live a rich life with an image that worries him.In modern times, there are also many young people who have lived a life of reaching out for tea and opening their mouths with food from birth. There are many people who have never even entered the kitchen for most of their lives.Especially the rich and raised children under the mainland's one-child birth control policy, when they grow up, they even lack the ability to take care of themselves. These people don't even want to be volunteers in Buddhism, because the volunteers around them often have to be special in their lives. To take care of them, and from time to time to clean up the mess for them.For these people who have never endured hardship since childhood, it is extremely ascetic to just let them learn to cook, clean, and learn to adapt to obeying others' commands.Therefore, the standard of asceticism, under different conditions of each person, has a completely different standard of definition.

Asceticism is further divided into physical asceticism and mental asceticism.It is not difficult to distinguish the asceticism in the appearance of things, that is, to work hard with less desires, and deliberately deal with one's own emotions and five desires.For example, the buddhist pilgrim in Buddhism only eats one meal a day, sleeps under a tree, and only wears three clothes for three hundred and sixty-five days.In Buddhism, the practice of Theravada practitioners is particularly focused on the practice of asceticism in terms of appearance, while the Mahayana is mainly based on the mind and the practice.Therefore, the ascetic standards of the Mahayana vehicles are very different.However, no matter what kind of person you have, you must start with the ascetic practice in the initial practice. The Buddha's teaching of taking suffering as a teacher and taking precepts as a teacher is applicable to practitioners of great and small vehicles. Only in this way can the practice of practice have a foundation. .For example, if people in the world are most greedy for wealth, sex, fame, food, sleep, and sleep, if you understand the horror of these five desires from the scriptures from the beginning, and you just think about it, then you can cultivate it from the heart. , it doesn't matter that things are constantly interrupted, so that's a big deal.Because ordinary living beings will have the troubled habit of deceiving themselves and others, so if you start cultivating from a high level all of a sudden, you will almost certainly have misunderstood the news. In other words, even if you think you have been practicing Buddhism for decades, you still haven’t started. , in the end, the opportunity for liberation in this life will be lost in vain.

As for the degree to which the five desires of wealth, sex, fame, food, sleep, and sleep must be let go to be considered ascetic, it depends on what kind of person you want to become and what kind of retribution you want to feel.As far as the standard of being a monk is concerned, in terms of wealth, one must keep the precept of not catching gold, that is, not accumulating personal wealth.When I first became a monk, I used to hold it. This is one of the ten precepts for novice monks. But later, because it was inconvenient to go out, I had to open my predestined relationship.Although you have a good relationship in terms of things, you can still keep this precept, that is, to do purification according to the precepts. After you follow the procedures of the precepts for monks, you can also touch money in terms of things, but that is only when you do it. The role of an accountant is only to manage the treasure of the donor. In his heart, he does not occupy his own wealth, and the operation and use of the wealth must be in accordance with the law.If it is a family member, some people are naturally greedy and greedy for money. If they are told to start with giving up money, for them, this is the greatest ascetic practice.In terms of lust and precepts, family members can still practice sexual misconduct, and legal couples can also have sexual intercourse. If the family members can also stick to this precept of not lustful, as when Kassapa was at home, it can also be regarded as a practice of asceticism. .The precept of not lustful desire is the most important precept for monks. There are two hundred and fifty precepts for monks and three hundred and forty-eight precepts for monks. The first one is abstain from lustful desires, not abstaining from killing. The reason is that lustful desires are the root of life and death. , the lust is constant, the dust cannot be released, and the three realms cannot be separated from the cycle of reincarnation.The precept of killing is much less likely to be committed by the monks than the lay family, so it does not need to be listed in the first rule.In terms of fame and fortune, for a person who has always been unknown, it may not be difficult to hold. Once you have a little appreciation and admiration from others one day, you may not be able to stop without knowing it. But it is far more difficult than austerity in adversity.Some monks can stop greed for money and sex after practicing to a certain extent, but they can’t pass the test of fame and fortune. With face, there is the achievement of practice.For some lay people, especially public figures, fame is often linked to money, so they have been chasing fame and fortune all their lives and cannot control themselves.For these people, it would be a great ascetic to ask them to let go of these things and become an obscure person.Eating and sleeping are the afflictions and habits of ordinary living beings since the beginning of time. For ordinary living beings, if they do not eat or sleep for three days, they are practicing great asceticism. Just do it.Therefore, Buddhist monks must at least not eat after noon. At most, they can only eat breakfast and lunch at most. After noon, they can only drink completely free drinks and boiled water.This is to gradually cut off the dependence on food and sleep, so as to contribute to the improvement of spirituality.Because eating is starvation disease and sleep is drowsiness, these are all morbid phenomena and should be treated thoroughly.It is recorded in the Buddhist scriptures that the earliest gods of Guangyin who came to the world, our ancestors, did not need to eat, so they were as light as a swallow and could fly freely. If he stopped moving, his constitution and temperament had also changed, so he had to take root in the world and couldn't fly back to his hometown.Therefore, many things in the world that we take for granted are actually pathological and must be treated.Therefore, a true cultivator, no matter whether he is a monk or a monk, must, based on his own objective conditions, focus on the five desires of wealth, sex, fame, food, sleep, and practice to truly break through and let go, and be able to take suffering as a teacher and precepts as a teacher. Only then can we really start practicing.After the practice of these five levels has reached a certain level of effort, can you be qualified to mention it according to the circumstances, and then focus on the practice of the Mahayana mental method, that is, the ascetic practice of dealing with inner troubles, and then achieve the goal of being unobstructed and everything. A state of unhindered liberation, only in this way can one have real effort in cultivation, and one will not misunderstand the news and delay major events.

From this, we can also see that there is a huge difference in kung fu between the practice from home practice to the need to leapfrog to monk practice.Therefore, don't underestimate the newly ordained monks, especially those who have already made great careers and achievements in society. It is easier to treat the monks who are newly ordained as "little masters", which is very biased. .People who have been rolling around in the world of fame and fortune for a long time are often those who are more deeply fascinated and stained with these five desires, and these stains are the things that must be purified in practice, unless you can really achieve things and let them go. If you mention it again, you are a true lay Bodhisattva. Otherwise, you should be able to pay homage to a "little master" who transcends the lay family, who has truly sacrificed love and relatives, abandoned the five desires, and is comfortable with the Sangha's daily practice.All in all, in Buddhism, the core of true practice is the mind. All suffering and happiness, all cultivation and realization are ultimately determined by one’s own mind.However, the initial practice must be to engage in mutual understanding, truly purify the five desires, take suffering as a teacher, take precepts as a teacher, and strictly require oneself to deal with the seven emotions and five desires according to one's own aptitude, and overcome all kinds of afflictions that arise. Habits, this is the standard of asceticism.Afterwards, it is necessary to improve the effort to the heart, purify all kinds of greed, hatred, ignorance, delusion, and distraction, in order to achieve the state of free conduct of the director.

Therefore, we need to observe whether a person has cultivated or not. We can’t just see the external image of ascetic practice or the achievement of fame and status, but we must feel his inner compassion and wisdom with our heart, and then look at it from the perspective of moral conduct. If the inner merits are not solid, the more ascetic people on the outside, the easier it is to see the shortcomings of others, the less compassion and wisdom in the heart, and the further away from the Tao.Recently, when I was in Taitung Guanfang, I also met a bhikkhuni who asked about us and said that she wanted to come to place an order for self-study. She said that it has been ten years since she ate one meal a day. Thanks to her merits, she specially went out to the train station to pick her up to close her room, but on the way back, she kept crying to me about how she was a lay person...I advised her to get three hearts, don't think so much.She said: "Three hearts must be said to be easy, but she can't let it go!"I said that since you came to our closed room today, and the closed room is a place for people to work hard, you should learn to let go, right?This is how she can control the emotions she wants to vent.After closing the room, she started to dislike the various equipment in the world and said that the container house I lived in was too "luxury"! .Why!Strange, we don't have any decorations in each of our container houses, just put in the necessary items of ordinary cheap price. I don't know where she is referring to luxury?Otherwise, it is probably not luxurious to have to sleep in a tent under a tree?She also said that I can't not eat after noon, and I should have one meal during the day like her. . .I didn't want to continue to follow her upside-down attitude, so I deliberately asked her, do you know who I am?She said, "I don't know. You can't be a Dharma teacher, right?" I laughed and didn't answer, and then I began to practice forbearance, listened to her teachings quietly, and arranged a "most luxurious" place for her. Fang Andan, she left with shame and knowledge the next morning.This kind of person only cultivates the body and does not cultivate the oral and mental karma, so the wisdom is not opened, the blessings are not gathered, and there will be many obstacles in the process of cultivation. This is a pity. People and things are not right, she is the only one who is right, and cannot be harmoniously integrated with all external environments. To practice this kind of asceticism is outsider Dharma, not Buddhist Dharma. Buddhist Dharma is mental Dharma. External Dharma must originate from the heart. It is the Dharma.

And those people who are famous and have status in the society but have no morality, suffer even more in their hearts. Don't look at their outstanding appearance, that's really called being forced to practice asceticism!Because fame, fortune and power are easy to ascend and difficult to descend. In modern society, through the packaging of technology and media, it is easy for people with a little ambition and cleverness to pretend to become famous monks and great virtues. In the end, due to the image, face or heart, being completely controlled by the desire for fame and fortune, he was unable to control himself, so he had to wear a mask every day to live his life. At that time, what he practiced was really a great ascetic that could not be advanced or retreated!When I was a layman, I already had many opportunities to meet the so-called high-class celebrities. I once had a female friend. Because she had to take care of the whole family, she became a high-ranking official, XNUMX years older than her. People's third concubine, she was often bored and asked me to accompany her, so I also followed a lot of life in the upper class.After I became a monk, I also had many opportunities to observe the situation of some great people. The more I feel, the more senior people, unless it is really a Bodhisattva, the more painful life will be, and the surrounding magnetic fields will also be the worse.On the contrary, I am more happy to be associated with some less obscure little people or small places, and it is easier to feel some good atmosphere of truth, kindness, beauty and wisdom.Therefore, out of the instinct of self-preservation, I always know how to deliberately avoid the causes and conditions of these hidden crises, so as not to let myself fall into this trap that is difficult to extricate myself, because I really know very well that playing the role of that The role is definitely not a free and happy thing, some just bear endless social responsibilities.Therefore, we must observe and feel all people and things with our heart, not just the appearance, but more importantly, we must truly follow the right path, emanate from the heart and form on the outside, and use suffering as a teacher to help us to the extent that we can handle it. Deal with afflictions and habits, and achieve real merit step by step.