Masters, reverends, fellow cultivators, good evening. Today's ceremony, which invoked Amitabha Buddha as the principal Deity, was a ceremony for Bardo Deliverance, Purification, Healing, and Blessing. Each time, when we conduct a Dharma ceremony in accordance with the liturgy of the True Buddha Tantric Dharma, we feel the presence of a very strong spiritual energy. This is an indication of the remarkableness and completeness of the liturgy of the True Buddha Tantric Practice.

This is my first time conducting a Dharma ceremony in person at the Rey Tseng Waken Temple. I find everything very fresh here: a new temple, many new students, and many new faces. Although there are also many familiar faces, it is my hope that we will get to see more and more new faces. [audience applause]

Looking back at the whole course of my Buddhist cultivation, the first practice I came into contact with was the chanting of the Amitabha epithet. I was a very devoted practitioner of the Pure Land school then, and I still am. I was so dedicated that I was chanting Amitabha's name every step I walked. Even on my feng-shui consultation trips, I chanted continuously while travelling in the car. I engaged the Pure Land practice first, because Amitabha's great vows to help sentient beings have made the Pure Land practice a great and expedient pathway.

At the time he expounded on the Amitabha Sutra, Shakyamuni Buddha said to Shariputra, "As long as one chants Amitabha's name ten times, with a mind of one-pointedness [at the time of dying], one may be reborn to the Amitabha Pure Land. Even chanting the Buddha's name for ten days will enable one to be born there." This is indeed a very expedient pathway. But, this practice of the Pure Land school mandates "faith." One must be a believer, must wish to be reborn to the Western Pure Land, and practice what the Amitabha Sutra prescribes. This is "faith, desire, and actualization." Here "desire" refers to the wish to be born to Sukhavati, Amitabha's Pure Land. That is why this is a very expedient pathway - one must have faith and follow the practices outlined in the Amitabha Sutra.

At that time, I was very devout in my chanting practice. And to this day I am still just as dedicated. People volunteering at the "corresponding office" all know that my chanting of Amitabha's name goes on even while I answer my mail. [audience applause]

Pure Land practitioners observe a relatively smaller number of precepts, which of course include the basic Buddhist Five Precepts and Ten Wholesome Acts. If, today, some of you here decide that all you want to do is just this chanting practice, you may do so. The True Buddha School does not prohibit anyone from engaging in just this practice only. You may choose this "chanting pathway" and devote yourself to chanting until the practice ripens. Then, at the moment of death, chant the Amitabha epithet ten times without any mental perturbance and, without wavering, keep the desire to be reborn at Sukhavati. Amitabha Buddha is committed to his vows and will definitely come to guide you to the Pure Land. You have to have faith in him. You just have to keep chanting his name regardless of whatever activities you are involved in - this is the expedient pathway to rebirth in the Pure Land.

Some of you in the audience are perhaps entertaining the thought, "I think I will just practice the Pure Land chanting pathway, since it gives one such an assurance to go to the Pure Land." That is right, as I myself also practice this great chanting practice of Amitabha which is also a Vajrayana practice. There is even a longer version of Amitabha's epithet that one may chant: "Namo 36 trillion, 119 thousand, and 500 Amitabhas."

Actually, the Pure Land practice is incorporated into our True Buddha Tantric Dharma practice.

Among all the Buddhist practices, I feel that the Pure Land pathway is the most expedient one to help one achieve rebirth in the Pure Land. If one finds the True Buddha Tantric Dharma too complicated and does not want to do the Energy Yoga of chi, channels, and light drops - perhaps one's getting on in years - then one may just practice the chanting pathway. This way, one may still go to the Pure Land. This is something that I would like to bring to your attention today. If one cannot learn so many of these Vajrayana practices - perhaps one has not had much schooling and finds the practices hard to understand, or perhaps one is illiterate - in that case chanting the sacred epithet of Amitabha will serve one well.

Zen (Ch'an) is also very popular in Chinese Buddhism. I have often mentioned that, rather than being an expedient pathway, Zen is the most profound pathway. While the Pure Land practitioners rely on the power of Amitabha, who is committed to his vows to provide one guidance, Zen practitioners do not depend on any "power from others" at the time of death, relying entirely on "self power" developed during cultivation. Among the many schools in Buddhism, Zen is the most difficult, so do not think that it is the simplest. "Direct transmission of mind" and "Enlightenment through a glimpse into one's nature" are far from being simple.

Since many Zen masters do not want to rely on power from the Buddhas, there is a Zen saying: when the demons come, slaughter the demons; when the Buddhas come, slaughter the Buddhas. What did the Zen lineage master mean by this? He meant that he wanted to rely entirely on his own strength to reach realization, as he himself is the Buddha. This is by no means a simple or easy thing to do.

The realm of Zen is basically beyond one's imagination. Zen is entirely a state of mind: let go of everything, regard everything as empty, and abide in the inherent nature of everything. Many people who practice Pure Land or Vajrayana say they are going to give up their practices and take up Zen because they think it is easier. People with such opinions are ill-informed. They think practicing Zen will be easy while, in fact, it is the most difficult. It is impossible to express Zen with any spoken or written language. Therefore, when Mahakashyapa beheld Shakyamuni Buddha holding a flower and smiling, the transmission of mind occurred. Mahakashyapa was the only one receiving the transmission of mind at that moment. He also broke into a smile, signifying the attainment of a tacit understanding in him and the union of the two minds. Although Mahakashyapa understood, no one else was able to make head nor tail of it.

This historical case of "mind transmission" has met with criticism. Some Zen masters have pointed out, "Why bother with the holding of a flower? Just looking at each other is sufficient." Others then ask, "Why even bother with looking into the eyes unless one is trying to show some disdain, or trying to charm the other person?" Zen is basically without any trace. By holding the flower, the Buddha has given himself away. There is no need for holding any flower or any other ritual, or for using any written or spoken language. Everything is inherently empty. There is only the merging of minds and the direct transformation of an ordinary mind into the mind of Enlightenment. This kind of phenomenon is called Zen, and it is not reached by climbing any ladder.

After making these observations, I came to this conclusion: the Pure Land school is just too easy and the Zen school is just too difficult! What is the best pathway then? The True Buddha Tantric Dharma is the best. In the Tantric Personal Deity Yoga practice, one invokes the Personal Deity and visualizes the blessing of the three lights - this is reliance on the Buddha's power. As long as one achieves yogic response in the Personal Deity Yoga, I absolutely guarantee that one will secure a rebirth to the Buddha's Pure Land. I will issue you a birth certificate to the Pure Land and put an approval seal on it. [audience laughter] I won't charge you much for it - pay whatever you will. I also guarantee that a residence will be waiting there for you in the Pure Land. You won't go there and find that Grand Master Lu has neglected to provide you with real estate ownership. You won't go there by yourself and find that you don't even have a bed to claim. This won't happen.

If you succeed in your Personal Deity Yoga practice, the assurance that you will go to the Pure Land is much greater than that provided by the Pure Land chanting practice. Many practitioners of the Pure Land school, although they chant "Namo Amitabha" all the time, do not experience any psychic or yogic responses. One of them came secretly to see me, "Grand Master Lu, I have been chanting the Buddha's name for so long now, can you tell if there is any guarantee that I will be reborn to the Pure Land?" He found it odd that all these years of chanting had not brought him any spiritual response. Was he confident of his rebirth to the Pure Land? No, he had no idea. He did not have much confidence.

The practice of the Tantric Dharma, and the achieving of yogic response in your Personal Deity Yoga, will definitely enable you to see the Buddha and be liberated from the cycles of birth and death. If you are able to see the Buddha, then, when you call upon him at the moment of death, he will definitely manifest to you. That is why you will be confident of your rebirth to the Pure Land. That is exactly why the True Buddha Tantric Dharma is so excellent. [audience applause]

The light of the Buddha appearing to you during the yogic response is unique. It is not unlike the cotton candy we ate when we were small - a very fine and dense mass that spins and forms around a stick. They are very fine and close-knit fibers of light that you can tell right away have emanated from a true Buddha, and are not a figment of your imagination or a product of visual illusion. They are very fine, closely woven, and sparkling. It is a kind of light different from ordinary kinds of light, and you will understand in your heart that it is indeed the Buddha. Because the true Buddha manifests, that is why our school is called the True Buddha School. [audience applause]

Many people who practice the Pure Land pathway lose confidence at the critical moment of death. Although many have chanted the Buddha's name for a very long time, their faith is shaken suddenly at the last moment. One must avoid at all cost the losing of faith.

In Tantric practice, after achieving yogic response with the Personal Deity, the Personal Deity is thereafter always in your surroundings; the Buddha is following you at any moment. Any time you want to see the Buddha's light, you only need to pray to him, and he will definitely manifest to you. Join your palms and pray to him, "Please manifest your light to bless me," and immediately you will see the light and the body of the Buddha. This is the guarantee for rebirth to the Pure Land.

As a Tantric practitioner, one must constantly pray to one's Personal Deity. I have said before: before meals I always make offerings to the Personal Deity and Dharma Protectors; before falling asleep, one must do the Sleep Light Practice and pray to the Dharma Protector, Personal Deity, and Guru to bless you with light in your sleep. One prays at night before falling asleep; one prays before breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as before one's evening snack. [laughter] One may have many meals to refresh one's energy, as long as not too much is consumed each time. [audience laughter] One must constantly pray to one's Personal Deity.

To be honest with you, during today's offering and prayers, if I did not know whether or not my Personal Deity and Dharma Protector had arrived, then I, Lu Sheng Yen, should slap my own mouth for telling fibs. Every single time, every meal, when I pray and make offerings to my Personal Deity and Dharma Protector, I can feel them. I have contact with them. This is absolutely the truth. [applause]

If you are able to make this happen, would you still have any worries about not being able to be reborn to the Pure Land? At the time of dying, just join your palms and pray, the same as you do routinely before meals. Use very simple and clear language - there is no need to use the classical language or go into the ceremonial prayer of intent: Personal Deity, please guide me; Dharma Protector, please protect and support me. Or just chanting the name of your Personal Deity will do. If you try to use your last breath to read a long prayer, you might not make it because your pupils are already dilated and you are losing your eye-sight. If you have been interacting with your Personal Deity and Dharma Protector, making offerings to them and having contact with them, then, at this moment, they will manifest the Clear Light to guide you to the Pure Land. That is why the True Buddha Tantric Dharma is "Ichiban"! The reliance on the Buddha's power is inherent in our practice. [audience applause]

If you do not want to engage in the cultivation of Energy Yoga, (because the practices involving chi, channels, and light drops are more difficult,) then by achieving yogic responses in the Personal Deity Yoga practice you may commune with your Personal Deity at any time and invoke him to lead you to the Pure Land. On the other hand, if you continue the practices on chi, channels, and light drops, you will have greater achievement. This is because the Energy practices develop other-power as well as one's own power. Besides invoking the Buddha's power, one's own power also will manifest.

Thus Tantric cultivation is a process that starts with the invocation of the Buddha's power and goes on to develop one's own power. While Zen only focuses on the development of self-power and the Pure Land school only relies on the Buddha's power, the Tantric pathway combines both the development of other-power and self-power. It is an excellent pathway that also gives you psychic and spiritual responses. "Yoga" is "union." When you achieve "yogic response," you will have a very strong and lucid experience. It is definitely not something that one cannot feel.

Many people doing Zen practice or sitting meditation do not experience any responses at all, even though they have been practicing for a very long time. Similarly, many people have been chanting the Buddha's name for a very long time and are unsure if they can be reborn to the Pure Land. But, when you practice the True Buddha Tantric Dharma, once you attain "union" with your Personal Deity, you are guaranteed a rebirth in the Pure Land.

When you are always in communion with the Personal Deity during ordinary times, and you proceed to cultivate the chi, channels, and light drops practices, then more experiences will arise in the realm of psychic and subtle energy. The "bliss experience" refers to a state of "lightness and joy" that fills up one's whole body. It is a kind of joy unlike any ordinary joy. When chi moves and passes through the subtle channels in one's body, a joy and bliss is generated - this is what is called the "state of great bliss." In the next stage, since one's channels are now open, the inner fire will transform and manifest as the pure light. With light inside one's body, one may perceive and see one's own "luminous body." The "luminous body" next transforms into the "vajra chain." One will see the vajra chain and the emergence of the "Buddha Group." When the Buddha first emerges, it is sometimes in the form of a half-body. Later on, a great assembly of Buddhas emerges - the brotherhood of Buddhas is enormous, like the Lion's Club! Many Buddhas, though not hundreds of thousands of them at one time, will emerge together to empower you by shining lights on you. After drawing all these lights into your heart, you then manifest your own light from within yourself.

Just think, this union of pure lights is no ordinary light phenomenon. When it happens, you will know that you have not only secured rebirth to the Pure Land, but also attained "Buddhahood in this body." You no longer need the Buddha for guidance, as you have become the Buddha yourself! [audience applause] At this stage of Great Perfection, your own power is evident. At death, there is no need to supplicate to the external Personal Deity to give you guidance. As I have said in the past, what happens if the Personal Deity is suddenly very busy at the critical moment? What if he has to use the bathroom suddenly and cannot hear you? You would be in trouble and have to undergo transmigration again. What if you supplicate to the Dharma Protectors when they are busily drinking and partying? You would be finished if you had not engendered any self-power. Such scenarios are, of course, improbable, but the point here is that it is more assuring to be able to rely on one's own power.

What is being realized, at the time the internal Personal Deity manifests in one, is the realization of Zen. At such a moment, one attains Enlightenment and sees into one's own Buddha nature. The manifestation of one's own Buddha Light is Enlightenment, the highest realm of Zen. On the other hand, Buddhahood by guidance is a Pure Land pathway. The True Buddha Tantric Dharma has integrated both Pure Land and Zen into its practice. [applause]

Inherent in the True Buddha Tantric Dharma practices are Pure Land, Zen, and Tantric elements. What is "Tantra"? "Tantra" is yoga, and yoga is union. Yogic experiences, engendered during the process of practicing, allow one to become fully confident of the True Buddha Tantric Dharma - unless one does not feel anything or experience any yogic response at all.

Take the Tantric practice of fire offering as an example. Just one fire offering can result in a tremendous increase in one's yogic power. Let us say, in my case, that there are normally three Dharma Protectors in the retinue following me. After just one fire offering, the number would increase to three hundred, with an immediate escalation in one's yogic power. By performing one fire puja and doing invocation pure-heartedly, all of a sudden three hundred Dharma Protectors emerge. This is a one hundred-fold increase in one's yogic power, based on my own experience.

At the end of a fire puja, after making offerings and praying, you will discover that the number of your Dharma Protectors has increased many-fold. This demonstrates the importance of fire puja and how it can increase one's yogic power. As long as one performs this fire offering practice with a pure heart, the powers rendered to one through the Dharma Protectors, Personal Deity, and the Guru will all expand. This kind of yogic power is tremendous, and extremely strong. After performing one thousand fire pujas, I do not believe that one's Personal Deity would not manifest to one, bestowing a yogic response.

When you practice the Tantric fire puja and pray to the Personal Deity to commune with you, or pray to the Dharma Protectors to appear to you and for yogic response, your prayers will invoke a response from the heavens, as long as you carry out the liturgy in accordance with our True Buddha Tantric Dharma. Do not over-simplify the whole process, however. Do not just casually take a small stove the size of a bowl, burn a few incense sticks each day, and call it one fire puja practice. The fire is still burning and you go and blow it out. [audience laughter] Four drops of milk and a few woodsticks do not constitute a proper fire puja; that is just child's play. The process must be done in a dignified way. Why? Because one is inviting the devas and Personal Deities to descend to one's shrine. Therefore, one decorates the shrine majestically with many flowers. The size of the fire puja stove should be optimal, but not too big. You do not have to find a stove the size of a swimming pool [audience laughter] just because you want to have a big yogic response. That would be too excessive.

I think the size of the Japanese fire puja stove is just right - its center is neither too big nor too small. One may use lots of flowers, incense, candles, teas, and fruits to decorate the shrine to transform it into a beautiful altar. One may even offer as many as eight, twenty-one, or up to thirty-seven kinds of offerings. When a shrine is decorated as splendidly as this shrine here [at the temple], how can the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas not descend? When the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas see how much energy has been put into creating a dignified shrine, they are pleased and descend to the shrine.

Therefore, do not invent a miniature fire puja stove [laughter] that can only hold a piece of mantra paper and a few incense sticks. Do not blow out the fire as soon as the drops of milk have been added, while the fire is still burning.. This is just too childish. Of course the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas may still be moved by your sincerity and radiate a beam of light on you. You may say, "Oh Grand Master, this works, there is light from the Buddhas." That is just a beam of sympathy! [audience laughter] You overshadow the mini stove by too much when you stand up, don't you? Anyway, the stove, just like everything else in spiritual practice, should be "optimal." Please do not invent such miniature fire puja stoves. [audience laughter] Really, I hope the size of the fire puja stove is in just the right proportion to the size of the human being.

You can see that the True Buddha Tantric Dharma is an excellent pathway. It offers you fire offering practice, practices that cultivate chi, channels, and light drops, as well as the Four Preliminary Practices, Guru Yoga, and Personal Deity Yoga. There are also practices beyond these levels. You know, the channel and chi in your body are directly connected with the channel and chi of the Personal Deity. Your future light drops can be transformed into a "luminous body" that directly leads to the "luminous body" of the Universe. The entering of this "luminous body" of yours into the "luminous body" of the Universe is the phenomenon of the meeting of the "offspring and mother pure lights." What a complete practice the True Buddha Tantric Dharma is! What a perfect liturgy it is! What a lucid explanation it offers! Furthermore, after practicing the Energy Yoga of chi, channels, and light drops, the chi in your body will become full and vigorous, just as in someone who practices Chi-kung. When your channels become unblocked, pure light will be generated and luminosity will appear. After your light drops meet and merge together, they will give off light and transform into a luminous body: that is, your innate Personal Deity will manifest inside the luminous body. This is a very good method of cultivation that brings solid results, and lets you experience psychic and yogic responses. It develops both other-power and self-power. Therefore I feel that the True Buddha Tantric Dharma is a most excellent Dharma! [audience applause]

The development of both other-power and self-power, as well as yogic responses in our Vajrayana practices, will serve to strengthen our faith in them. True Buddha School students in possession of full confidence can withstand any kind of attack or slandering. Such attacks would not mean anything to you anyway, because you are confident and fearless, and nothing can trouble you. What kind of realm is this? It is a realm built upon faith, confidence, and yogic responses. No matter what happens to you, no matter where you are, you will have full confidence to shoulder everything. This is the key to the practice of the True Buddha Tantric Dharma. Go and give all of this some thought. There are so many and varied practices in the True Buddha Tantric Dharma that you may start with the simple ones and work progressively towards the more profound ones. This way, you will attain accomplishments. You can also tell other people about the benefits of learning and practicing the True Buddha Tantric Dharma, so that we can all reach Enlightenment together.

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