Free from Feeling Bothered

Yutang Lin

Answering requests for prayers out of compassion,
Just as nursing crying baby at night complaint-free.
Slightest care for self-interest renders it intolerable;
Thoroughly benefiting others loses self-dominance.

Comments:

Dharma service includes praying for others so as to satisfy their wishes to reduce karmic debts or accumulate merits. The compassionate intention may be likened to parents' nursing crying baby in the middle of the night. The slightest sense of intolerance or unwillingness indicates that there is still traces of self-interest considerations remain. After many years of Dharma services one has witnessed many kinds of worldly situations, and yet the original intention of providing pure Dharma connections has not changed. Thus, a sense of unwillingness or feeling bothered has naturally been deported into nowhere.

Written in Chinese on March 13, 2001
Translated on March 15, 2001
El Cerrito, California

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