Rely on the Dharma, Not on an Individual Teacher
To rely on the Dharma is to always rely on the truth. We cannot rely on people because everyone has different perceptions and interpretations. Any single teacher is subject to birth, aging, sickness, and death, but the Dharma has not changed since beginningless time. So in seeking the Way, we must always rely on the Dharma itself and not on the people who teach it.
Although there are people who can instruct us and help us along the path, we still must experience and understand it for ourselves in order to truly make it our own. When learning from others, we should examine everything under the lens of our own introspection. In a famous Chan story, a student once asked Chan Master Zhaozhou (778-897) how to learn the Dharma. Master Zhaozhou stood up and said, “I am going to go take a piss now. Ah, even trivial matters like taking a piss I must do myself.”
Sakyamuni Buddha once said that we should rely on ourselves and rely on the Dharma, not on others. We should believe in ourselves, rely on ourselves, believe in the Dharma, and rely on the Dharma. Therefore, while we should listen to the teachings of the Buddha and the instructions of our teachers, if we truly wish to gain wisdom we still must rely on ourselves to experience the truth.
Hsing Yun Xīngyún Dàshī 星雲大師 the 48th generation lineage holder of the Linji Chan school
Submitted September 05, 2017 at 09:28PM by Dhammakayaram http://ift.tt/2vIxsUC
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