“Dear respectable distinguished guests,
Dear respectable guests,
Dear respectable Dharma friends, and
Dear respectable vajra brothers and sisters,
Please let me represent
Holy Zhi-Ji Vimalakirti Our Ahdharma Buddha Patriarch Master WANG to once again welcome all of you to this year's Buddha's Holy Birthday Dharma meeting. Today's content is a Sheng Mi Tian Kai Guang Grand ceremony and a Chinese traditional Bathing Buddha Grand ceremony.
I believe this is your first visit to this first floor teaching hall of Jin-Gang-Dhyana Institute. You might be interested in the wall pictures, however you may not know what they are all about. Please allow me to introduce them to you as we go on:-
About twenty-five hundred years ago in ancient India, besides the Great Sage Sakyamuni who disseminated the Dharma, there was a holy being with the name of Vimalakirti present at the same time. He was assisting Sakyamuni Buddha in spreading the Dharma. Holy Vimalakirti was a wealthy elder of the society. He had a family with wife and children. He dressed in fine clothes, frequented palaces and befriended members of various strata of the society. He did not shave his head.
Vimalakirti was actually a great reincarnation of the time. The modern term for Him is - He was a living Buddha. He was the reincarnation of Jin-Su Tathagata who, countless aeons, i.e. countless number of years ago, He had already made offerings to countless Buddhas and had attained Buddhahood.
Holy Vimalakirti is the model for our Holy Tantra Esoteric Buddhism practitioners. This is the basis on which people with family are accepted to be practitioners of Holy Tantra Esoteric Buddhism.
Someone might ask: Why then you have your head shaven and yet Holy Vimalakirti did not?
When the first generation ancestral masters of Holy Tantra Esoteric Buddhism brought the teachings, techniques and culture of Holy Tantra Esoteric Buddhism to China thirteen hundred years ago, they, in the language of Holy Tantra Esoteric Buddhism, were reverently referred to as the Great Holy Jewel Vajra Acarya Subhakarasimha, the Great Holy Jewel Vajra Acarya Vajrabodhi and the Great Holy Jewel Vajra Acarya Amoghavajra. They were supported by the imperial family of the Great Tang empire. On the appointment of the Great Holy Jewels of Holy Tantra Esoteric Buddhism as Imperial National teachers, practitioners of Holy Tantra Esoteric Buddhism shaved their heads owing to the objective change in their environment. However, this practice was later reverted after Emperor Wu Zong of Tang Dynasty decreed to exterminate Buddhism. As Emperor Wu Zong ordered arrests and executions of everyone identified to be an Esoteric Sangha, Holy Tantra Esoteric Buddhism practitioners had to wane from the public eye in order to survive.
To shed the hair is to display a holy sangha appearance, to grow the hair is to present a deva human look. People's impression is that hair shedding is sangha leading a monastic life, while hair keeping is practitioner leading a family life. In fact, the practice demand on those keeping hair, displaying the family mode is even higher. “Only when the inner mind is pure, then one is a real Sangha.” This is Holy Vimalakirti ancestral master's teaching.
“Those having family, can just as well be Sangha;
Keeping the hair, can also lead monastic life.”
One important edification of Vimalakirti Sutra is that the profound meaning of practitioners leading monastic life being the transformation in the spirit of the inner mind.
Let us go back to Holy Vimalakirti at Sakyamuni Buddha's time. At that time, Sakyamuni Buddha openly taught Hinayana and secretly disseminated Mahayana and Tantrayana teachings, while Holy Vimalakirti assisted in educating sentient beings, to the extent that Buddha's ten great disciples had also been educated by Holy Vimalakirti. These stories are so very interesting.
These pictures are taken from wall paintings in Ming Sha Sheng Mi Tian (Humming Sand Holy Tantra Heaven) in China. The majority of these pictures depict the sacred deeds of Holy Vimalakirti. These sacred deeds are all recorded in a Buddhist Mahayana scripture: The Vimalakirti Sutra.
For those who are interested in these stories and would like to know more, please liaise with us, we can arrange for teachings on the deeds of Holy Vimalakirti.
Elder Guru Vajra Yong Le delivered a great fearless lion roar. The speech was simple but the meaning was profound, the words were near yet the principles were far reaching. Those who took it in tasted Dharma superlatives, were irrigated by Dharma rain and filled with Dharma bliss.
