PureInsight | November 7, 2011
[PureInsight.org] One day after work, I returned to my accommodation and found my workmate with whom I shared accommodation watching a documentary about the archaeology of Tibet. I turned to have a glance at it and a picture appeared in front of me. It was a temple on a mountain. Although it was a temple, its structure was that of a simple and worn stone hut. A lot of historic sites and relics remain of this ancient lost kingdom, which are both mysterious and fascinating. What I saw was just a stone house among ruins, but it touched me deeply and reminded me of a remote memory.
During the period when Buddha Fa was widely spread in ancient Tibet, many temples were built everywhere for people to worship and for monks to devote themselves in practice and cultivation. The construction of those temples was a fine and exquisite work of art. The sacred Buddha cultivation and secular matters were entangled with each other, however, the magnificence of the temples was not able to blind those cultivators who eventually left them to seek true Buddha Fa.
Some cultivators trekked a very long way to remote distant places seeking the most sacred temple which could provide them with genuine practice. After numerous disappointments one of them, a young man, suddenly saw a house looming on the top of a mountain that was not very far from him. The house was surrounded with clouds of sacred lights. The young man was so overjoyed that he rushed to climb the mountain. He thought that it was because of his sincere heart that he was directed by Gods to this sacred temple. After much effort, he reached the top of the mountain. He looked around. Besides a worn stone hut, there was only an old monk wearing ragged clothes sitting in meditation. He did not find any sacred temple at all. But before he arrived, he had witnessed the auspicious clouds and sacred lights over it.
The young man put his palms together to pay a Buddhist respect to the old monk and said, “I really want to cultivate. I have trekked a long distance to seek a sacred temple for devoted cultivation. The sacred lights led me here, but I don’t see a magnificent temple. Please give me some hints about where I can find such a sacred temple?” The old monk quietly listened and calmly responded, “It is right in your heart.” The young man did not understand and wanted to ask more about it. Suddenly, the auspicious clouds and sacred lights appeared and the old monk disappeared like a rainbow. The sacred voice of the old monk echoed and repeated in the sky, “It is in your heart.” The voice slowly disappeared.
The young man was very doubtful, but he thought this was his predestination and he did not want to go somewhere else. He respectfully put on the ragged clothes of the old monk and went to the place where the old monk had disappeared and began his cultivation. Although he did not understand the meaning, he firmly remembered the old monk’s words. He reinforced his practice with those words and stayed in the worn temple hut to diligently practice. Day after day and year after year, his mind gradually opened and his wisdom greatly increased.
One day during meditation, he suddenly enlightened that the most sacred temple is found in the heart of a cultivator and that it was righteous faith that made that temple magnificent. Those worldly temples were filled with rich incense and were decorated with expensive gold and silver. However, the sacred temple in one’s heart is decorated by one’s diligent mind of cultivation. He came to clearly understand that there is an incomplete temple in everyone’s heart. The difference for a cultivator is how to cultivate himself to make the temple in his heart complete. A cultivator is able to use his righteous thoughts to build up, bit by bit the magnificent temple in his heart. It is the most important thing for a cultivator so that sentient beings obtain eternal blessings and gain infinite protection.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2011/6/27/75482.html
