Chapter Three : Practice 58

The Founding Master addressed the congregation at a meditation hall,
“Our practice dharma is the art of war for pacifying a warring world, and you are like cadets who are learning that art of war. The wars are those that arise incessantly in the countries of people’s minds. The country of the mind is originally untouched and peaceful, bright and pure, but it becomes dark and turbid, complicated and disturbed, due to Māra’s minions of selfish desires, leaving few peaceful days in this infinite world. Thus I have called the way such sentient beings live ‘the mind’s wars’; what I call the ‘art of war’ is the method by which we subjugate all of Māra’s minions in our minds. That method is the training in absorption, wisdom, and precepts, and is our path of practice for distinguishing dharma from Māra. This is the great art of war, which is the best for quelling the chaos in the world. But most people do not even consider the mind’s chaos to be real chaos. How can we say that they know anything about the root and its branches? If we probe the origin of all the small and large wars of individuals and families, societies and countries, they all derive from the wars raging in people’s minds. Therefore, the mind’s war is the origin of all other wars and the most severe of them all; and the method for pacifying the mind’s wars is the chief of all other methods and the greatest art of war as well. Thus, you must understand this meaning very well and practice absorption and wisdom diligently, while keeping the precepts even unto death. If you practice incessantly over a long period of time, you finally will subjugate all of Māra’s minions. Once this is accomplished, I feel certain that you will attain the rank of dharma strong and Māra defeated, and will also become excellent commanders who pacify this world, which knows not a single day of comfort due to the wars raging in the mind.”

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