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Heng sure
Voices In My Ear. Bad advisor defeated!
A little yinny voice in my ear wanted to break up my practices last night. Stop sitting. You're really tired." (I was). " don't force it. You need sleep. You were in lotus for evening recitation, that's enough. You've got a good state, why hurt yourself?"
I didn't like the sound of that voice. So I kept my legs in place for the scheduled minimum-one hour of concentrated sitting no matter what. Had to do the 42 hands and eyes twice because invasion by bugs prevented usual recitation of hands at noon. No problem.
Voice spoke again:" Just do the hands, then quit. That's enough" I came really close to stopping but a thought if the master's kindness towards me gave me strength. I said to myself, " hang in there, kuo chen. Only a little longer and you can be true. No falseness! Repay your debt."
Great fire and pain raged in my body as the little voice wheedled on, I couldn't cut it out-so I chose not listen to it. Just as the pain got really unbearable I heard in my other ear a verse from the evening sutra lecture.
"I will take on limitless sufferings on behalf of living beings. I will use my body to ransom them from pain and cause them to be happy and peaceful." -- Avatamsaka sutra "Ten transferences chapter"
How could I not sir still? Rriiinng! Period over. As I got into my sleeping bag, I heard another voice-the master's-say, "if the causal ground is not true, the result is confused." Good that you didn't take a short-cut , kuo chen. You've got to go through all the work ahead, not around it. Amitabha.