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The Aura of Wisdom
- Book 154: The Aura of Wisdom
- Chapter 59: Leakage Spells a Fall
- Written by Sheng-yen Lu
- Translated and edited by True Buddha Foundation
- Translation Team (Cheng Yew Chung, Victor Hazen, Dance Smith)
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The word ?eakage?is another term for afflictions, which carries the meaning of leakage or dissipation. When we are troubled and worried at all times, some of our primal chi or essence within us continuously leaks through the six sense organs, and develops into a condition known as `leakage spells a fall`. This `fall` implies falling into the three lower realms.
To my knowledge, the areas of `leakage` include the leakage of speech, leakage of body, and leakage of mind.
Leakage of speech - lying, slander, abusive speech and idle chatter.
Leakage of body - killing, stealing, debauchery, alcohol
Leakage of mind - greed, anger, ignorance
I read the Golden Mother of the Jade Pond on Liberation Sutra and the Golden Mother says, `Death comes with leakage, and it is through the same areas where the vital and spiritual energies of humans have dissipated that they have to be replenished.` This shows that leakage does refer to a body contaminated with afflictions.
The human body is indeed a vessel of leakage. For example: a woman experiences leakage through menstruation, and a man through semen. In Tantric Buddhism, the discharge of menstrual fluid from the female is known as the red bodhicitta. The male`s semen is called the drop or white bodhicitta.
Among the cultivation practices of Tantric Buddhism is the non-leakage practice, which conditions the male practitioner to attain permanent non-leakage of semen, and the female practitioner to attain permanent non-leakage of menstrual fluid. Thus, the non-leakage practice helps the Tantric practitioner develop the non-leakage vajra body, which is indestructible.
My view is that even leakage is categorized into invisible and visible. Invisible leakage is the afflictions of greed, anger and ignorance. Visible leakage is the discharge of menstrual fluid and semen. Whether the leakage is of the visible or invisible, it does affect the cultivator.
A true practitioner shall maintain a desireless state, cutting all afflictions in the spiritual aspect of cultivation. And in the physical aspect of cultivation, he or she can cultivate the non-leakage practice and completely prevent the leakage of semen and menstrual blood. Only then can one achieve true liberation of body and mind, and achieve fearlessness.
Only upon the liberation of body and mind, being free from all delusions and contamination, can it be called `non-leakage`.
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