Chapter Ten: Belief and Dedication 1

The Founding Master said, “When a teacher meets someone who wishes to become his disciple, he first examines that person’s belief and dedication. If the practitioner has genuine belief, then the teacher’s dharma will be transmitted and the disciple will achieve merit; but if he or she does not have belief, the dharma won’t be transmitted and no merit will be achieved. What, then, is called the ‘the believing mind’? First, the disciple should not harbor doubts about the teacher. Belief means not to have one’s faith in the teacher waver, even when thousands of people slander him by referring to thousands of different things, nor to judge and speculate even when one finds some dubious points in what one personally witnesses. Second, belief means only to obey all the instructions of the teacher without insisting on one’s own opinions or being stubborn. Third, belief means to accept everything and never to complain, no matter how the teacher treats one, whether he offers excessively harsh admonitions or severe criticism, exposes one’s faults in front of others, or makes one carry out excessively strenuous tasks. Fourth, belief means never hiding or disguising one’s own faults in front of the teacher but truthfully confessing them. If the disciple possesses all four of these aspects, then his belief is extraordinary. He will readily manage to become the dharma vessel of the buddhas and enlightened masters.”