Check Out Amitabha Buddha's Promised Benefits and You'll Feel At Ease Right Away

We also encounter this situation in practice: when we have cultivated to a certain level, we get stuck, neither advancing nor regressing, just like the investment we mentioned earlier that yields no visible returns. At this point, an affliction arises: “Oh, I’ve practiced so diligently, why is there not even the slightest sign of progress?” Let me share with you all, I face this very often myself these days — I’ve been practicing for what seems like a very long time, to the point where I’m almost a seasoned practitioner, yet when I look back, I sometimes feel I’m not even as steady and at ease as people who don’t practice at all. Everyone, you need to know that many new practitioners, or even complete outsiders to Buddhism, often dismiss Buddhist practitioners, thinking they’re no better than anyone else. I’ve encountered this countless times. When we practice, we sometimes push ourselves to the limit, over and over, until the only karmic obstructions left to work out are our most deeply ingrained, hardest-to-tame ones, which surface every single day. On the surface, you present yourself as a Buddhist practitioner, but you’re not even as steady and at ease as a non-practitioner? When this happens, we often end up slandering the Dharma through our own unskillful conduct, leading others to turn to external, non-Buddhist paths instead. Why is that? There is a well-known saying among the many challenges of the Dharma path: “External paths appear virtuous, and disrupt the Bodhisattva Dharma.” They seem very kind and approachable, sincere and well-meaning, very skilled at solving people’s immediate problems, so they draw in people who are attached to superficial appearances and chasing quick, easy fixes — isn’t this exactly what’s happening in real life right now? Buddhism is the path to ultimate liberation and full Buddhahood. It calls on us to transcend these superficial concerns to attain great freedom. But when you’re in this situation and look back, you’re not even as free and steady as a non-practitioner — how is it that the more you practice, the more unstable and extreme you become, miserable, even at war with yourself? At this point, it’s especially hard to hold fast to the original aspiration you had when you first started on the path. But I also want to share with you all: it’s possible you haven’t actually regressed at all, or that you have made progress even if you can’t see it. It’s like practicing brush calligraphy: when you first start, the more you write, the uglier your characters look, so ugly you can’t even stand to keep writing. But if you compare the page you’re working on now to the very first sheet you ever wrote on — you’ll see you’ve improved by who knows how many times over! Some lay practitioners, when they first took up their aspiration, were extremely generous — some even sold all their savings and property to make offerings. But when they’ve practiced for a long time without seeing any improvement in their practice, they develop deep regret, which is extremely dangerous. At this point, if they lack the merit, samadhi, and correct view to support them, and realize they’ve gained nothing from the supramundane path while losing everything they had in the mundane world, they will be overcome with regret, and may truly fall back in their practice. There are even those who regress so fully that they abandon their practice entirely — this happens even within monastic communities. Some go to extremes, and may even slander the Dharma and develop deviant views. So what should we do? At this point, we can only rely on the power of Amitabha Buddha’s original vow to receive and guide us. If you recite the Infinite Life Sutra once, and look at the promise of benefits that Amitabha Buddha has made for us, your mind will be at ease immediately. I often think this way: in this Saha world, whatever level of practice I can achieve is good enough, whatever amount of Dharma propagation I can do given my circumstances is good enough, I don’t need to compare myself to others. Do you really think you’re a lineage patriarch, a renowned monk, or a contemporary great virtuous teacher? Don’t compare yourself. You have to convince yourself: whatever level you reach is fine, don’t reject yourself no matter how good or bad you are. Master Yinguang once described himself as a person with crippled legs who could not walk, sitting at a crossroads. But he knew exactly where each road led: where you’d end up if you went east, where you’d end up if you went west, where you’d end up if you went south, where you’d end up if you went north. For people coming from all directions, he could point them the right way. If you follow the direction he points, you’ll go down the right path. In this Dharma-ending age, if you can connect with the Triple Gem and take refuge in it, that’s already as good as burning the highest incense. So when you’ve practiced to a certain point and get stuck, or when you regress — especially when you experience a major regression, feeling helpless and full of regret — use the power of Amitabha’s vow and the method of his reception and guidance to inspire your practice and set your mind at ease. The passage in the Infinite Life Sutra that reads, “All who are afraid, I will grant them great peace” — if you hear these words and feel no resonance with them, that means your mind may never have reached that state of fear, or that you have already been pulled out of it. So if you are practicing with relative diligence, you must keep this in mind: it is possible that one day you will encounter this exact situation. Consider this a preventive shot today.