Material needs and spiritual life

Go out to the mountains and take the northeast country road. An old farmer came face to face with a heavy burden. He asked curiously, "Excuse me, superfine product, do you believe in Buddhism or Taoism?" "Buddhism, and you? The old farmer replied seriously: "I don't believe in Buddhism or Taoism, so I believe in' sleep teaching'." After that, he continued to do his farm work. I was lost in thought. Yes! In order to support his family, the old farmer traveled all over Daiyue. What he lacks is food and sleep. So he thinks that sleeping is a great pleasure in life, and naturally he believes in "sleeping teaching". At present, many people in the world are still below the poverty line, and the problem of food and clothing has not been solved, and they are still rushing for their lives. How can they have time and energy to think about spiritual life? Therefore, human beings must first meet the necessary material needs, and then they can talk about spiritual life. In other words, the necessary material conditions are the foundation of spiritual life. This is the eternal truth. As early as the sixth century BC, the Buddha elaborated this idea in detail.

In order to find a way to relieve human suffering, the Buddha spent six years in penance, skinny and extremely weak, and finally realized that extreme asceticism did not help people understand the truth. Finally, he accepted the chyle provided by the herdsmen, recovered his physical strength, and sat quietly under the bodhi tree for 49 days, which became enlightenment. This fully shows that even a great man like Buddha still needs the help of material conditions to concentrate on entering the spiritual world and finally win the Buddha's fruit, not to mention us ordinary people.

After becoming a monk, the Buddha traveled around the world to educate all beings. Once, the Buddha and his disciples were invited back, and they met a very hungry person on the way, which was very painful. Disciples made clear the Buddha's explanation for this man in order to alleviate his pain, but the Buddha did not explain it for this man, but told the monks the Dharma: "Monks, what this man needs most at this time is a bowl of rice, not the Dharma. Bring a bowl of rice. After the man was full, the Buddha taught him Buddhism and instructed him how to gain wealth and inner peace.

In the "increasing branches" in Yang Xuan Jing, the Buddha divided human beings into three types:

1, Blindness: This kind of people don't know how to increase their wealth, how to acquire new wealth, and can't tell whether morality is good or bad.

2. Cyclops: He has only one eye for money and no eye for morality. Such people only know how to increase their wealth and create new wealth; But I don't know how to cultivate good moral quality.

Binocular: He has both eyes of money and eyes of morality. He can not only increase his existing wealth and gain new wealth, but also cultivate good moral quality.

The beauty of this classic is that it vividly describes a man who only has money in his eyes. People who have only a moral vision but no money vision are not classified as a group alone, because it is more practical to meet the most basic material needs than pure morality. This is the so-called truth in Buddhism that "the dharma wheel does not turn, but the food wheel turns first". In order to further explore this truth, in the middle Prajna Sutra, the Buddha divided the most basic human desires into four categories:

1, may my wealth increase day by day through proper channels. In other words, everyone wants to be rich. Wealth is what people crave most.

When a person is rich, what he longs for is fame. He hopes that my good reputation will spread all over the world, especially among my relatives, friends and teachers.

When a person has money and a good reputation, he prays for health and longevity. He wished me health and longevity.

When a person is rich, famous, healthy and has a long life, he naturally hopes to be happy after death. He made a wish: May I live happily after death.

Through the above analysis of the Prajna Sutra, we can clearly see that acquiring wealth is the first need of mankind. Therefore, Buddhism puts the necessary material conditions in a very important position. Generally speaking, the poor will not think too much about fame, longevity and happiness after death, which is determined by their psychological state. Because the poor are hungry and cold, and they struggle with poverty all day, how can they have time and energy to pursue a high-level spiritual life? ! As the pipe says, "You will know the honor and disgrace when you have enough to eat and wear warm clothes". Therefore, it is difficult for poverty to coexist with morality, but it is easier to become twin brothers with immorality. Poverty and unhealthy thoughts often go hand in hand.

There is a simple reason. When a person can't even satisfy the most basic material life, he can't think of a perfect moral life. He is always thinking about how to meet his most basic survival needs. Therefore, it is inappropriate to talk about moral obligations with poor and hungry people, because what they urgently need is a piece of bread to satisfy their hunger! The most urgent problem we need to solve is to help them solve the problem of food and clothing. Only when people don't have to worry about food and clothing can they further consider their reputation, longevity and happiness after death and gradually enter the spiritual world. Therefore, in general, people with certain wealth are more likely to talk about morality than poor people. The Buddha often warned us: monks, in this world, poverty is the pain of human beings and the main obstacle to seeking a noble spiritual life. The Buddha further said that this kind of human suffering can only be truly solved by social means. The duty of the state is to actively create wealth, eliminate poverty and improve people's living standards, so as to meet people's most basic material needs and pave the way for enjoying a noble spiritual life.

Some people may ask that Yan Hui, a disciple of Confucius, can "live in a humble alley and get enough to eat and drink, and people will be worried if they can't bear it, and they won't have fun when they go back". What is the explanation? Yan Hui has no spiritual life? First of all, we must admit that Yan Hui is not only rich in spiritual life, but also very rich. However, we must also admit that such a saint as Yan Hui is rare throughout the ages. How many people can match him since ancient times? ! This is why he has been an example for people to learn for thousands of years. Secondly, Yan Hui is the kind of "rich"; With his conditions at that time, this man, who had been poor and humble, was able to take things as they were and be content. It cannot be said that he was too poor to even eat. What's more, we don't mean that the poor will always be poor and never get any spiritual life. To illustrate this problem, some classics divide human beings into two categories: darkness and light:

1, dark man. Can be divided into two types. The first kind of people are poor and have no self-confidence. They can only go from darkness to darkness and never get rid of it. The second kind of people are poor, but very charitable and confident. They will go from darkness to light and finally get rid of darkness.

2. Those smart people. It can also be divided into two types: the first type is rich but not confident, and will go from light to darkness. The second kind of people are confident and will be from light to heavy.

It can be seen that the poor can move from darkness to light and finally get rid of it. So in Buddhism, poverty is not completely condemned. Buddhism recognizes that the poor can get out of the predicament and eventually enter a beautiful spiritual world, but they cannot directly enter the spiritual world. They must create wealth with their own hands, and let themselves get out of poverty and enter the spiritual world as soon as possible.

To sum up, Buddhism does not advocate that the poorer you are, the more glorious you are, nor does it oppose having wealth. On the contrary, Confucius and Mencius advocated that people must be rich, and Buddhism also encouraged people to be rich.

In the Amitabha Sutra, the western heaven is called "seven rafters, seven nets and seven trees, all of which are surrounded by four treasures, hence the name Blissful". In Sharifutsu, there are seven treasure pools in Elysium, and Ba Ding Shui is everywhere. The bottom of the pool is purely decorated with golden sands, four steps, gold, silver, colored glass, red beads and agate ... "This may be the most magnificent land in the world! Amitabha itself is:

Amitabha is golden, and her lover is bright and incomparable.

Bai Hao turned to Wu Sumi to clarify the four seas.

Therefore, people are respectful when they see Amitabha. According to Buddhist scriptures, Buddha is also a lover and bright, and people are respectful and happy when they see Buddha. So there are countless people who converted to Buddhism in a short time. If a person is sallow and emaciated because of lack of nutrition, how can people be respectful and happy when they see you?

Among the twelve wishes of the pharmacist Buddha, the first wish is to be bright and prosperous, the third wish is to satisfy all living beings, the tenth wish is to prevent all living beings from being robbed by evil kings, the eleventh wish is to make hungry living beings eat, and the twelfth wish is to make the poor without clothes get strange clothes. So seven of the twelve wishes are about material things. In the morning and evening, I will recite the auspicious mantra of disaster relief, the mantra of merit and treasure mountain, and the mantra of Dalagni, the king of Ruyi Baolun, all of which wish the country solemn and the people ample food and clothing. Therefore, Buddhism not only does not advocate poverty, on the contrary, Buddhism pays special attention to solemnity, so that happiness and affection can be achieved.

Giving is a way of happiness and affection. It ranks first in six degrees (giving, keeping precepts, enduring humiliation, diligence, meditation and wisdom) and first in four pictures (giving, loving words, doing good and colleagues), which shows how important giving is. However, a person can only give alms if he has certain property. When a poor man sees a starving child, no matter how merciful he is, he can only watch him starve to death! Because he has an empty heart to pay, but he has no strength to pay. The heart is willing, but the strength is not enough! What's more, in today's highly developed commodity economy, no matter what you do, it will be difficult to lack funds. A car cannot run without oil. Similarly, even if we are all enthusiastic about Buddhism and have no necessary funds, we can't move a step, but shake our heads and sigh, helpless! Therefore, Buddhists should be the symbol of China's seriousness and wealth, not the representative of poverty and backwardness.

Maybe someone will ask this question: since Buddhism advocates strictness and wealth, why should we say that everything is empty and give up becoming a monk? In fact, this is not contradictory at all. These are just two aspects of the same problem, which is the dialectical unity of emptiness and non-emptiness. When Zen talks about practice, it often emphasizes emptiness, saying that fame and fortune in the world are fleeting, and our bodies are made up of four or five aggregates, which are born of fate and have no self-nature, so they are empty, so as to get rid of self-nature, let go of everything, and be brave and diligent on the road of practice in order to obtain Buddha's fruit as soon as possible. These are the hearts of the Tao. However, we must clearly realize that we must live in life and live in life. Just because you are born, sick and dead doesn't mean you won't live. On the contrary, we should learn to live through birth, illness and death. Just think, how can people who can't live live live and die? If you can't even do well, how can you become a Buddha and a ancestor? ! Therefore, we must learn to live and let ourselves have a strong body, which is the foundation of practice.

Without a good body, we can't devote ourselves to practice. Imagine how difficult it is for a sick person to concentrate on spiritual practice! In order to have a healthy body, the necessary material conditions are still very important. In fact, all beings can't live without material life. Therefore, The Theory of Abandoning Everything says: "When we say the Buddha since since the enlightenment, we are just saying that all living beings live on food." "One Agama" also said: "All living beings live on food. If they have food, they will survive, and if they have no food, they will die. All these show that Buddhism still has an empty side. If we deny the non-empty side in order to emphasize the empty side, then this kind of emptiness is one-sided and stubborn, and we cannot really understand the true meaning of emptiness. The result will inevitably make people mistakenly think that Buddhism advocates poverty and will eventually go to extremes-asceticism. On the other hand, if we emphasize the non-empty side unilaterally and try our best to accumulate wealth, it will only go to the other extreme-sensualism. The Buddha has clearly pointed out that asceticism and indulgence are two extremes, which are very harmful to normal practice and should be abandoned. The correct way to practice is the middle way-the eight right ways. Therefore, we must correctly understand the dialectical relationship between emptiness and emptiness.