Episode 104: The Wisdom of Saving the People

Dear Bodhisattvas: Amitabha!

Welcome to the "Selected Buddhist Stories".The Buddhist story we are going to tell today is "the wisdom of saving the people". We will use this story to further illustrate the four methods of attraction taught by Sakyamuni Buddha.

In the era of Sakyamuni Buddha more than 2,500 years ago, there was a country people with very, very strong and irritable temperament. They were very fierce and difficult to subdue regardless of gender, age and age.One day, the Buddha led his 500 Arhat disciples to a country near this country. The Buddha's disciples all heard that the people in this country were very difficult to subdue and were very strong, so they all hoped to use Buddhism to save these people.

First of all, Venerable Maudgalyayana asked the Buddha that he would go to this country to save these people.After Venerable Maudgalyayana arrived in this country, he began to preach Buddhism to them and then told them the benefits of practicing;However, the people of this country were very, very strong and irritable. The various insults and beatings and scolds were given to Venerable Maudgalyayana, which caused Venerable Maudgalyayana to suffer many setbacks, and it was impossible to convince them to practice Buddhism.Venerable Maudgalyayana tried this for a while, but there was no result at all. So he returned to the Buddha in a very discouraged manner and told the Buddha, "Although I have worked hard to teach them the Dharma in this country, they have no way to believe in it, and have also done many actions to insult me, beat me, etc."At this time, when Venerable Shariputra saw that Venerable Maudgalyayana returned in vain, he said to Maudgalyayana: "Maudgalyayana!You should use 'wisdom' to save these people!"Ven. Shariputra set out to save these people with compassion.

After Venerable Shariputra arrived in this country, he began to use the wisdom of Buddhism to tell these people that the principles of Buddhism are so wonderful and wonderful, and that if you practice Buddhism, you can achieve ultimate liberation.Although Sariputra Sariputra taught many wonderful Buddhist teachings with his wisdom, people in this kingdom, because of their strong mind and nature, were completely unable to accept the Buddhist teachings taught by Sariputra;And he also insulted Venerable Sariputra, which made it impossible for Sariputra to spread the Dharma smoothly.Similarly, after a period of hard work, Sariputra made efforts to preach the Dharma to these people, but these people had no way to accept it, so Sariputra gave up after working hard for a period of time.So I went back to the Buddha and told the Buddha that although he used wisdom to preach Buddhism, the people in this country still had no way to practice Buddhism.

At this time, the first person in practicing asceticism, Mahakasyapa also asked the Buddha for advice: "Buddha!I want to use this method of practicing asceticism to save them in this country."So Venerable Mahakasyapa walked to this country and used his method of practicing asceticism to save the people of this country;But he also suffered a lot of insults.The people of this country have no way to accept that if they want to practice Buddhism, they must use the method of asceticism - to give up all the things they have to practice asceticism;Therefore, after working hard for a while, Venerable Mahakasyapa still returned in vain.In this way, one great Arhats went to this country in sequence and preached Buddhism to the people of this country one by one;However, after working hard for a while, every Arhat still couldn't make the people in this country want to practice Buddhism.So in this way, five hundred great Arhats went to save the people one by one, but they also returned one by one without success. They had no idea how to save the people of this country.

After Venerable Ananda learned about this, he was very worried about the people of this country, so he asked the Buddha and said, "Buddha!Is the blessings of the people of this country so poor?Five hundred great Arhats came to them one by one to teach them and preach Buddhism, but not only did they not accept Buddhism, but also insulted these Arhats by slandering and beating and scolding;In this way, they will not only be unable to increase their merits, but will also reduce their merits.I, Venerable Ananda, was very worried about them. Do you ask the Buddha to have any method that can prevent them from slandering these saints and Arhats like this, and then be able to practice Buddhism more diligently."After hearing Ananda's request, the Buddha sent Manjushri, the most wise among the great bodhisattvas, to this kingdom.

　Manjushri Bodhisattva is one of the best among all Bodhisattvas who follow the Buddha to practice Buddhism.After Manjushri Bodhisattva accepted the Buddha's instructions to this kingdom, he did not, like the previous five hundred great Arhats, hurriedly began to preach the Buddha's Dharma and preached the way to increase wisdom as the Buddha taught;When he first arrived in this country, he first used the method of admiration to serve as the first step to contact the people of this country.When he arrived in this country and came into contact with everyone in this country, he carefully looked at the advantages of the person he was in contact with, where his advantages were. He did not see his shortcomings, but only his advantages;Then he spread the advantages of the person he observed in words and words, so that other people can also know what the advantages of the person are.Everyone that Manjushri Bodhisattva contacted uses this method, so after he contacted many people, the advantages of these people were widely promoted, so that others knew what the advantages of each person were.The language he used was full of joy and admiration, so in less than a few days, Manjushri Bodhisattva praised the language of the people in this country, and it spread to the streets and alleys of this country. Everyone knew where the advantages of other people were and what their own advantages were.

After careful observation and publicity through Manjushri Bodhisattva, the people of this country all became happy for others and for themselves, and saw the advantages of others - many advantages - and at the same time, they also saw many advantages of themselves;Therefore, they were very grateful to Manjushri Bodhisattva for being able to observe so carefully so that their own advantages could be revealed.So they came to Manjushri Bodhisattva and happily developed the supreme equality to offer to Manjushri Bodhisattva, saying, "Manjushri Bodhisattva!You are so awesome!You can see the strengths of each of us, tell us all about our strengths, so that others can also know.We are really very happy that you have discovered my strengths, so we are here to offer you today. You are really a very wise Bodhisattva."So many people in this country offer sacrifices to Manjushri Bodhisattva because of this.

　When Manjushri Bodhisattva saw that the people in this country had begun to change their minds and nature, he told the people in this country who came to offer, "Don't just offer to me, because what I have practiced and my wisdom comes from my teacher Shakyamuni Buddha;It is better for you to offer to my teacher Shakyamuni Buddha to the blessings and merits that you can accumulate.Shakyamuni Buddha is the teacher of humans and heavenly beings, and he is the kind father of all sentient beings. If you can offer him, you can accumulate your own blessings and merits.Shakyamuni Buddha has full of blessings, he has meditation, he has wisdom, he is the teacher of our world and our master of Dharma;If you can offer Him sincerely, you will receive a lot of blessings you have received from me.Therefore, in order to make the blessings you offer to accumulate very quickly, I will take you to offer to my teacher Shakyamuni Buddha.”

The people of this country have already appeared through the propaganda of Manjushri Bodhisattva.Therefore, after listening to the advice of Manjushri Bodhisattva, a great joy arose in his heart. They thought to themselves: There is such an incredible field of blessings in the world, which is really a rare opportunity for us!So today we have such a good opportunity, and we should ask Manjushri Bodhisattva to take us to offer to his mentor Shakyamuni Buddha.

So Manjushri Bodhisattva led the people of this country to the place where the Buddha lived in a mighty way.After arriving at the place where the Buddha lives, the people of this country respectfully bow to the Buddha and come to offer sacrifices to the Buddha;After offering to the Buddha, they received very, very great blessings, the Buddha taught them the great points of Buddhism.Because the Buddha's teachings and the great Dharma principles mentioned by their good roots have been initiated, after they listened to the Buddha's teachings, the people of the entire country were filled with joy and were now able to obtain the unreversible fruit of practicing Buddhism.At this time, the land of the Three Thousand Worlds was shaking, and all the mountain gods, forest gods and herbal gods in the world were very happy and praised: "Manjushri Bodhisattva is truly a great Bodhisattva who has reached the stage. It is really amazing and admirable that he can use such a skillful and skillful convenience to broaden the people of the entire country!"The great Arhats saw that the people of this entire country were unable to be saved, and through the skillful convenience of Manjushri Bodhisattva, they took them to the Buddha to receive the Buddha's teachings;The people of the entire country accepted the Buddha's power and became a resignation. They also became respectful and thought: The wisdom of great bodhisattvas is still much higher than that of us, so we must learn from all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in the ten directions with the most sincere and respectful heart.

From this content, we can see how Manjusri Bodhisattva’s wisdom presented the wisdom of “the wisdom of saving the people” we talked about above?Manjushri Bodhisattva first observed and praised their advantages, which made the people of this country feel happy and had a good impression and respect for Manjushri Bodhisattva. This is the first step.Step 2: Manjushri Bodhisattva let the people in this country go from offering to Manjushri Bodhisattva to increase their blessings, and instead bring them to Sakyamuni Buddha to offer to Sakyamuni Buddha to increase their blessings and gain greater and wider results;Then, lead the people of this country to Shakyamuni Buddha, and Shakyamuni Buddha personally guides and saves them.Therefore, the wisdom of Manjushri Bodhisattva is that he does not need to personally teach the Dharma to the people of this country, but lead them to the Buddha and teach them;With the great power and great wisdom of the Buddha, one can personally teach the people of this country so that the people of this country can achieve the unretreatment, so this is Manjushri Bodhisattva.

We can also see from this story that sometimes when we want to preach Buddhism, we don’t need to tell it personally. We can have the cause and condition that makes more wise people preach, so we can save these people with destiny. Therefore, the auxiliary seal of Buddhist scriptures and the extensive spread of Buddhist books are also one of the methods.

Next, let’s talk about the four methods of attraction taught by the Buddha - the four methods of attraction to save the people.The Buddha once taught that there are four methods of skillful means of saving people, namely giving, loving words, benefiting behavior, and colleagues.What is giving?When we want people with destiny to get close to Buddhism, we should first give them some things and give them some small gifts to make them feel good about you;After he has a good impression of you and will not reject you, the second method is to say something to praise him. This is the skillful and convenient used by Manjushri Bodhisattva, which is love words, and uses cute and joyful language to make the listeners feel happy after listening;The third method is to benefit one's actions, which is to allow the other party to benefit from those who want to accept this Dharma;The last one is colleagues, who work with people who want to accept Buddhism to practice Buddhism, so that they can empathize and feel that you are with them.The above four methods of attraction - giving, loving words, benefiting actions, and colleagues are the skillful means taught by the Buddha to save people.

Due to time today, we will say that this is the end.Thank you very much for watching!

I wish all Bodhisattvas: peace of mind, diligence in the Tao, increase blessings and wisdom, and early attainment of Bodhi!

Amitabha! (Teacher Lin Zhengren )