The Hundred Offerings Retreat: Upholding the Primordial Awareness and Attaining Buddhahood for the Benefit of Others

During the twenty-one-day retreat beginning on June 20, 2026, held as the preliminary practice for the Water, Land, and Air Dharma Assembly, I would like to express my gratitude to the disciples who came each day to make offerings and encourage them to apply themselves diligently to their own Dharma practice. Dharma practice consists in uncovering one’s own mind. The mind, in its original nature, is emptiness and devoid of all phenomena; this emptiness is the mind’s primordial state. The original mind is luminous and clear—it is the wondrous mind of nirvana, the mind of the truth of notionlessness. Ultimately, one will ultimately attain the unceasing luminosity and clarity.

For this reason, we should strive to uphold the awareness. To uphold awareness is to realize that the mind is both luminous and of emptiness. This practice enables us to recognize the mind clearly. Since the nature of mind is devoid of phenomena and intrinsically of emptiness, luminosity and emptiness constitute the mind’s essential nature and our original face.

Attaining buddhahood means bringing our primordial awareness to complete perfection. Such primordial awareness requires clear and direct recognition. Primordial awareness has two dimensions: self-awakening and awakening others. Self-awakening means becoming ever more familiar with the original face of primordial awareness until it is fully integrated into our own lived experience, no longer something from which the mind wanders or strays.

Accordingly, attaining buddhahood for the benefit of others means acting not merely for one’s own sake but solely for the welfare of sentient beings. Through the power of aspiration and compassion, we inspire others to enter Dharma practice. If our aspirational power is not strong enough, we become caught in inner conflict and remain preoccupied with ourselves rather than with the sentient beings.

Aspiration is the resolve to attain buddhahood, and buddhahood absolutely entails compassion. Compassion and aspiration must be cultivated together; neither can be absent. Therefore, monastics should strive to be constantly awake and aware, awakening both themselves and others. The degree to which awakening is perfected depends upon the extent of the uncovering of one’s omniscient wisdom. When awakening is perfected, omniscient wisdom is likewise perfected, enabling the Dharma to be propagated universally.

To extend this awakened mind until it is free from all flaws requires continuous self-examination, identifying those areas in which our practice remains incomplete. We must therefore persevere with diligence, constantly sustaining the aspiration to attain realization and guarding against complacency. Complacency is nothing other than indolence, and indolence is the absence of diligence; it is an unwholesome habitual tendency.

I hope that everyone will carefully identify both their strengths and their shortcomings, and also recognize the reasons why they are unable to practice diligently. Only by transforming these habitual tendencies can we progress in step with our own practice.