Chapter 18 Look!Troubles are burning like flames! (16)

Under the sky in early winter in the south, the bright red flowers of the flame tree are burning like fire. The two flame trees outside the window, as soon as the wind blows, a few huge lotus-like red flowers turn towards me from far and near, as if I can reach out.The flaming flame flowers swaying in front of the eyes and the silent falling flowers falling to the ground form an interesting contrast. I remembered that Pali texts often compare the function of "heart" to "fire" - for a heart that has not yet fully realized the truth and eliminated afflictions, it is like a raging fire; fire.Therefore, "wise men, they are extinguished like this fire"; however, countless beings who have not yet been liberated in the world are burning...

In the "All Burning Sutra", the time goes back to more than two thousand years ago. The Buddha just converted thousands of fire-worshiping heretics to Buddhism and joined the Sangha. In addition, Indian farmers at that time slashed and burned, which often caused wildfires in tropical forests. Burning, so the Buddha said to the Bhikkhu on Mount Gaya: "Everything in the mountains is burning. The fire of greed, hatred, and ignorance has never gone away in the world, nor has it stopped in the body and mind of all living beings, ranging from personal emotional struggles to ethnic groups. , The war between countries is burning all the time.

The Buddha said that everything is burning because our six organs of "eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind" come into contact with the corresponding six objects of "color, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharma" to produce Feelings of suffering, happiness, neither suffering nor happiness, etc., create all kinds of attachments and afflictions, and life is thus caught in an endless cycle of birth and death. As a result of the spread of the fire of afflictions, the world is like a burning house, hot and restless, with nowhere to cool off.Therefore, the Buddha told the monks: "Small fires can still be restrained. When people feel pain or happiness, they should take good care of them, see clearly the impermanence of universal love, and don't hold on to it, causing the fire to spread into disaster."

The wind picked up, and the flames were still swaying brightly in front of the window, like a raging flame in the wind.And as long as people's troubles continue, the world will be burning everywhere! How can we turn flames into red lotuses and create a pure land?In addition to watching your own thoughts and thoughts, and not letting a small fire develop into a prairie fire, when the fire of greed, anger, and ignorance arises in your heart, you must actively use righteous thoughts to extinguish the fire of greed, use compassion to extinguish the fire of anger, and use compassion to extinguish the fire. Wisdom extinguishes the fire of delusion.

If everyone can gradually reduce the fire of their afflictions, and always inject nectar into the world with kind thoughts and deeds, the burning house can be transformed into a cool place! (This picture is provided by Wu Xiaodan)