As the saying goes: One takes the behavior of one's company. The impact of one's environment upon oneself is difficult to determine. If you spend a long time with friends that are a bad influence, then not only will you not have the hope of arousing bodhicitta, but the good habits that you previously developed may fade away. A person's buddha nature can mature in this life, but due to encounters with others who are negative influences, the seed of buddha nature would not be able to mature and sprout. There would be no chance of liberation in this life. Isn't that a pity?

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

The world has its natural law, our subjective mind needs to be in accordance with the objective law. If refusing to accept and face with the natural law, then we’ll suffer. Hence observing the world with the right views and facing the world with the right mindset will enable us to be tougher.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

It’s stressed in shastras that we need to rely on the dharma, rather than the person. Which means in the course of dharma study and research, we need to have conviction and rely on the authentic dharma or truth, rather than rely on the person’s fame, status, or power. We need to analyze if this person’s words are in accordance with the dharma and the truth, if the answer is yes, then we can trust this person’s words. Otherwise, regardless how famed a person is, we should not follow this person’s words blindly.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

Practitioners need to go with the flow in society, do whatever others do, be it fashion or trends, but abstaining from emulating the un-virtuous acts of others. The Mahayana Buddhism is rather humanistic and open. Modern buddhists need to appear as a fashionable and trendy person, but with an inner self liken to practitioners of 2500 years ago; this is a perfect combination! Buddhists need to have a mundane body and supra-mundane mind.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

Shakyamuni Buddha manifested as sick and taking medicine, these were mere manifestations for his future students. In fact, the buddha had perfected all the qualities and were free from the suffering of cyclic existence. Why did the Buddha manifest like this? He meant to educate his followers not to refuse medical treatment and taking medication when falling ill. Given that we need to go to doctors and taking medication when falling ill, why do we still need to engage in this practice? This practice will enable us to transform the illness into the path mentally while getting medical treatment physically.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

From the perspective of material life, our era has the most abundance of material wealth in human history. We possess advanced devices and products such as airplanes, wireless, computers, etc. However, compared with ancient people, we lost freedom, which is the most precious thing in the world. We need to contemplate on this problem and make some proper choices, endeavoring to give ourself more freedom.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

The goal of dharma practice is twofold: first, seeking happiness; second, being liberated from samsara and eliminating suffering. Buddhism oriented towards the rebirth in the human and heavenly realms seeks worldly happiness of this life and all future lives; the Theravada seeks individual happiness; the Mahayana seeks ultimate, everlasting happiness for the sake of all sentient beings, which is the wisdom of the Buddha.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

We should refrain from thinking that all suffering and unfavourable conditions will be eliminated once we undertake dharma study. Even from the perspective of the Shravakayana, although having realised the selflessness of self, arhats still encounter undesirable conditions and experience karmic consequences.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

An accurate understanding of death enables us to be free from fear, dismayed and evasiveness when death is mentioned. This is because we have acknowledged that death is a mere cyclical process of life, it does not signify that everything ends. We need not be negative and pessimistic when facing death. If we can seize the opportunity, we can improve the level of our lives in the process of death.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES