With Wholehearted Diligence, Other Forces Can Respond to You

Using this metaphor, "When a person cultivates with wholehearted diligence, seeking the Way without ceasing, the fruit will surely ripen, and no wish will go unfulfilled." Please pay attention, everyone: this "wholeheartedness"—the supreme mind, the utmost sincere mind—whether in worldly affairs or in the transcendent Dharma, whether we can accomplish anything depends entirely on these four characters: wholehearted diligence.

From the ultimate perspective, this supreme mind is none other than the mind of true suchness, the unborn-and-undying mind of equality in which Buddhas and sentient beings dwell together. Yet when this wholeheartedness manifests in actual conduct and attitude, it expresses itself as that kind of sincerity, that kind of single-minded focus, that kind of relentless perseverance. One must bring such a mind to one's endeavors.

This is what the Contemplation Sutra means by "perfectly bringing forth the three minds." The first of these is the wholehearted mind. When Master Shandao annotates this wholeheartedness, he identifies it as the mind of utmost sincerity. For a person to truly embody this wholeheartedness, there is a prerequisite: one must be selfless. If self-grasping remains, one absolutely cannot achieve wholeheartedness. Looking across China and beyond, throughout history, if you were to distill the secret of every successful cultivator's achievement, it would be precisely this: wholehearted diligence. Master Huiyuan stayed within the gates of Mount Lu for thirty years, never crossing beyond Tiger Creek—that was the expression of his wholeheartedness. Master Shandao would recite the Buddha's name until, even in winter, his entire body was drenched in sweat before he would stop; he kept his evening lamp burning for thirty years without interruption—that was Shandao's wholeheartedness. Master Yinguang could chant a single Buddha name for sixty years, never tempted to try this method or that method—that was Yinguang's wholeheartedness. Only through such wholeheartedness can ordinary beings transform into sages. But if one is fickle, warming to things for a day and cold for ten, always eyeing the next mountain as higher, drifting east today and west tomorrow—such a person will accomplish nothing at all.

Then, being diligent without scattering, advancing without retreat, cultivating the Way without interruption in the middle—one can accomplish every Dharma enterprise. No wish goes unfulfilled. This was the very first essential of practice expounded by Lokeshvararaja Buddha. You see, wholeheartedness encompasses seeking the Way without ceasing.

In our Chinese tradition, there are also many expressions of this, such as the Jingwei bird filling the sea, and the Foolish Old Man who removed the mountains. The story of the Foolish Old Man is very familiar to us Chinese; it has long been included in middle school textbooks. It comes from the Liezi, and this book contains many profound principles and cases that merit careful reflection.

The story of the Foolish Old Man expresses precisely this point of wholehearted diligence. The Foolish Old Man's home was blocked by two mountains—the Taihang and Wangwu ranges. He lived to the north, and the moment he stepped outside his door, these two enormous mountains stood in his way. They were truly vast, spanning some seven hundred li in circumference and rising seventy or eighty thousand zhang in height. The Foolish Old Man was already ninety years old. Yet suddenly he conceived a vow: this problem had to be resolved. He determined to remove both mountains. He gathered his family to convene a council and declared that the two mountains should be removed, so that they could travel directly from their doorstep to the south of Yuzhou, reaching the great metropolis. Otherwise, to get to the major cities, they would have to scramble over ridge after ridge—extremely troublesome.

When he proposed this, the majority of his family members actually agreed. Only his old wife expressed doubt: "You're already so old, and besides, if you move the mountains, where would you put all that earth?" In the end, the family largely agreed they would dump the earth at the shore of the Bohai Sea. What did moving the earth to the Bohai coast signify? His home was very far from the Bohai coast; a round trip took a full year. So under these circumstances, he set to work, taking with him the three people capable of labor—his sons and grandsons—and began.

A neighbor, a widow with a seven- or eight-year-old son, also came hopping and skipping to help with the work. As they labored, a "wise old man" nearby saw what was happening and immediately began to mock him. "Your strength cannot even damage a single hair of this great mountain. A single round trip to haul your loads takes a full year—do you truly think you can move these two enormous mountains? Isn't that laughable, utterly impossible?" So he said to him. But the Foolish Old Man was not shaken in the slightest upon hearing this. On the contrary, he replied, "How stubborn your mind is! I may be old and my strength may fail, but I still have my sons. My sons will have grandsons, and those grandsons will in turn have sons, and so on, sons and grandsons without end. These mountains will not grow any higher. Why, then, could I not remove them?" When he uttered this vow, it was truly earth-shattering, and the wise old man found himself speechless, with no rebuttal to offer.

And so the Foolish Old Man persevered with unyielding resolve, continuing his work day after day. And then something interesting happened. As he kept digging day after day, the Serpent-Wielding Deity—the mountain god—could no longer sit still. He grew frightened: if this man really moved my mountains, the territory under my jurisdiction would vanish. Seeing that the old man's resolve would not be easily abandoned, the Serpent-Wielding Deity reported the matter to the Supreme Deity, hoping the Supreme Deity might intervene to obstruct the work. But who would have thought it? Upon hearing this, the Supreme Deity instead dispatched the two sons of a great strongman named Kua'e, an ancient divine figure of legendary might. These two sons, possessing tremendous strength, did not need to keep digging; they simply hoisted the great mountains onto their shoulders, placing one in the east of Shu and the other in the south of Yong, and in an instant the path was opened.

There is deep meaning embedded in all of this, a kind of symbolic representation of the Dharma. The Foolish Old Man's descendants, laboring at this task, represent the first six consciousnesses in action. The Serpent-Wielding Deity represents the seventh consciousness (manas), which transmits the message—and where does it transmit it? To the perceiving aspect of the eighth consciousness, the alaya-vijnana, the deepest layer. This represents the Supreme Deity. When the Supreme Deity stirs, that is to say, when the deep life-energy within us begins to move, then things become manageable. It finds a way to send forth whatever assistance is needed. This is wondrous and unfathomable, yet it can solve the problem.

This phenomenon truly occurs in the causal-ground practice of bodhisattvas as well. Take the case of one who vowed to bail dry the great ocean. Of course, in the process of bailing, the strength of an ordinary being is limited. He bails and bails, and soon moves the celestial beings to come to his aid, and very quickly the waters of the great ocean are bailed dry. So you see, in our process of cultivating the Way with wholehearted diligence, you should not fixate solely on the limited strength of ordinary beings. As long as you are doing the work, sincerely and diligently seeking the Way without ceasing, ultimately you can resonate with and receive the blessing and empowerment of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. That is the principle. Once the Buddhas and bodhisattvas empower you, it is no longer a matter of quantity; a qualitative transformation manifests at once. Therefore, "wholehearted diligence, seeking the Way without ceasing, the fruit will surely ripen" does indeed represent a secret key to cultivating the Way.

This is why the patriarchs and great masters of old, without growing weary, continually emphasize what the secret of practice is: it is simply the two characters, "utmost sincerity." There is nothing else. When Master Yinguang replied to the layman Hu Bihua, who asked him the secret of practice, his answer was just "Utmost sincerity and earnestness—wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!" Four "wonderful's" for these four characters.

Ordinary people, however, tend to glance at such words and brush past them, finding nothing remarkable. Human beings are fond of strange and unusual things, and these two characters of "wholeheartedness" they regard with disdain. Yet in fact, within them lies the most essential secret. And precisely because of this, it is something ordinary beings generally cannot achieve. Ordinary beings are full of calculating minds, cunning, always seeking to take advantage.

And so it is the principle: difficulty first, harvest later. The beginning of practice may be very hard, but in the end one reaps the reward. How is the reward obtained? You cultivate with wholehearted diligence, and other forces can come to your aid, resonating and connecting from above.