【Description】
What does “dharma joy” mean? How else can we experience it aside from self-cultivating and listening to dharma? Let’s find the answer in Grandmaster JinBodhi’s illuminating talk.
【You willearn】
- What is dharma bliss
- How dharma bliss is manifested
- How you can achieve dharma bliss
【Featured aphorism】
- Dharma bliss is not your own joy; it’s the blessing of the Buddha’s joy.
- People who help others receive the Buddha’s blessing of compassion and joy.
- When you do good deeds with compassion in your heart, when a strong sense of kindness arises within you, and when you are focused and sincerely grateful, you will experience an overwhelming moment, which is the auspicious energy bestowed by the Buddha and deities.
【Content】
Do you know what “dharma bliss” means? It has many meanings. First,it is the wonderful feeling we get during our Buddhist practice. This feeling is wonderful, thus it is blissful. We may feel we are floating. Our skin becomes
fine and smooth. We may have been upset before meditating, but after wardwe feel so comfortable and wonderful. Also, our vision used to be blurry, but now it is clear. We had leg pain in the past, and now it is gone, we are so happy. All these are dharma bliss.
After listening to Master’s or enlightened sages’ teachings, you awakenand are filled with joy and reverence. That is also dharma bliss. After you have helped people, your joy is dharma bliss as well. With deeper study, you realize
this isn’t just one person’s joy. The dharma bliss that arises from helping, is the joy coming from the blessing of compassionate energy.
Say, you helped someone with his work with no expectations in return.If that person is your neighbor, and he is weak and blind, you may help him once a week, such as cleaning his house. It is tiring and you sweat, soiling your clothes. After you finish, he expresses appreciation and respect. The joy that fills you makes you feel easeful and delighted.
It is not just you who feel joyful. In that instant when the other person feels grateful to you, and when helping others and practicing the bodhisattva way, Buddha, Bodhisattva and Master will bless you, bestowing the most auspicious energy according to your contribution and aspiration. So when you feel so joyful, the fatigue from a day’s work will disappear instantly. Why? It is the work of Heaven.
So dharma bliss isn’t just one person’s joy. It is Buddha’s joy and my joy.MY joy is Buddha’s joy. That is true dharma bliss. Say, today I feel wonderful while meditating. Does the wonderful feeling come from me? No. It is Buddha’s gift. It is the joy of Buddha, felt by me. That is how it works. There is a connection. It is the connection and transmission of energy between 2 lives. That is why we have harvested wonderful feelings.
Once you have great compassion, and have done good deeds, or when you have kind thoughts and intentions, do you feel grateful as the energy gathers? In that instant, you feel awestruck, as you have received Buddha’s energy blessing.
(True dharma bliss comes after we have helped others. It is the compassionate energy blessing from Buddha. Thus, when we do good deeds with compassion, we will receive Buddha’s most auspicious energy blessing.)