All these talks about the Dharma-ending age...isn't it a bit
like accepting the fact that the acceptance of Dharma is going to
end soon instead of trying to do something to change it?
While I do know that everything does has to come to an end
sooner or later, isn't just as bad to accept the demise of
something without making positive efforts to change the fact?
At least in Singapore, I do not witness much efforts in
propagating the Dharma that is strong enough to combat the
aggressiveness of other religion. The most we see is just the
opening of a few grand monestry...
The purpose of telling us about the dharma ending age is not for
us to 'accept fate', and anyway fate is a concept foreign to
Buddhism, though we can make predictions just like weather
forecasters make prediction of when the rain will fall.
The purpose of telling us about the dharma ending age is so that
we can practice even harder and make the dissemination of dharma
last even longer.
Just like the purpose of forecasting hurricane is not just for
us to sit there idle, 'waiting the fate of the hurricane to come'
and kill us. If anything, the dharma ending age should be treated
as a wake up call and inspire earnestness in practice.
As for the efforts to spread the dharma, I agree more should be
done. In fact there is never an 'enough' in this world of samsara.
To a true bodhisattva, he only rests in Nirvana after all sentient
beings in samsara is saved. As long as one sentient being remains,
the Bodhisattva does not rest. Till then, expedient means are
skillfully applied to cause all sentient beings to wake up to the
nature of reality.
It does not mean he is not liberated while appearing in samsara,
he is still equally liberated -- he is in the nirvana of no
abidance. He never grasps on samsara nor nirvana, and sees all
experience as having one taste, just like the ocean full of waves
and a waveless ocean are all just made of water.
A bodhisattva goes through the same life experiences, the same
waves as us, but knows that all are h2o, all experiences in life
are self-liberating, empty and luminous. All are the manifestation
of Buddha Nature. Usually we experience life dualistically -- i.e.
there is an "I" as an experiencer of a "world" out there, and this
wrong perception is what causes all our sufferings. But if all
experiences are perceived correctly as the One Reality
incorporating causes and conditions -- that alone is liberation, is
Nirvana. And the self-shimmering, self-liberating manifestation of
our nature continue to manifest and subside like waves due to the
winds (conditions), does not end there...
