Joy of Dharma

Dharma aims at sentient beings' escape from suffering and attainment of happiness. Devout practitioners sometimes would lean toward zealous diligence and ignore the normal principles such as one should not overwork, and achievements could not be obtained readily, and consequently their Dharma practices and services combined into a hardly bearable load. As a result, they tasted only a bit of the joy of Dharma but experienced gravely the hardship of practicing Dharma.

For those of us that had sincerely aspired toward Dharma we had better advance gradually according to our abilities so that our Dharma endeavor is like a small stream that flows constantly and continuously. Thus our Dharma practices and services would pool into a spring of incessant joy of Dharma, and our efforts would be truly in keeping with how Bodhi is to be cultivated. Expectations and aspirations that are not congruent to normal principles of matters are born of biased grasping, and hence should be given up.

Written in Chinese on October 23, 2004
Translated on October 24, 2004
El Cerrito, California