Accord with Primordial Awareness, Accord with Sentient Beings

On the evening of the fifth day of the Lunar New Year in 2024, I saw young students waiting for transportation down the Ling Jiou Mountain. Taking advantage of this opportunity, I spoke with them for a while and addressed some of the questions they had been carrying in their minds.

Throughout the course of life, one inevitably encounters obstacles of varying degrees. But what is an obstacle? It becomes an obstacle only when one perceives it as such. When something hinders what we wish to accomplish, that is called an obstacle; when the mind cannot work through something clearly, that too is an obstacle. Obstacles and hindrances are, fundamentally, forms of resistance. If we are able to overcome them, those very obstacles become supportive conditions on the path of practice. How, then, are obstacles transcended? By letting go, they can be overcome; through letting go, they can be overcome; by not clinging to them, they can be overcome. Yet we are still bound to take responsibility for many things. When we are able to assume responsibility, obstacles dissolve naturally. To bear responsibility is to allow things to unfold naturally, to accord with conditions, and to participate in an organic process of interdependence.

Some also asked: what is merit? “Service itself is merit.” When we serve others, others in turn offer themselves to us. Over time, people may genuinely come to regard us as a “beneficial presence”—wherever we are present, success follows, and we become capable of helping others succeed. Therefore, “merit is service.” Merit means establishing connections with others, using dedication as the basis of connection. The greatest connection and the highest form of merit, however, is to bring everyone together to study and practice the Buddhadharma and attain buddhahood. This is what is meant by being perfected in both merit and wisdom. Wisdom means realizing emptiness to remove all obstacles—to eliminate obscurations and obstacles through emptiness. Merit is none other than giving.

Sentient beings are all phenomena arising from primordial awareness; therefore, to be accord with sentient beings is also being accord with primordial awareness. Awareness means luminous and clear. Within this clarity, there are no obstacles. It is within such awareness that one is able to accord with everything. What enables such accord is emptiness; only primordial awareness can truly accord in this way.

Since primordial awareness is free from obstacles, we are able to practice by taking it as the basis. What is called “practice” is simply abiding within this accordance. As long as we remain within such primordial awareness, to be in accordance means adapting and harmonizing all conditions while remaining unchanged. To accord with conditions without changing, and to remain unchanged while being in accordance with conditions: this is primordial awareness; this is being in accordance.

Therefore, we should recognize our own clarity—this is what is called awareness. To remain consistently aware of one’s own primordial awareness is to recognize this clear yet ungraspable reality: lucid and knowing, yet without inherent substance.