96. Helping Yourself and Helping Others

¹ How can one help oneself?

¹ 怎樣才能自度？

² (1)   Use tangible resources to help others the best you can.

² (一)要以有形財富盡量助人。

³ (2)   Resolve to guide others toward goodness when opportunities arise. Set an example by your own behavior.

³ (二)要盡量發心，把握機會勸人為善，現身說法。

⁴ Offerings of wealth and dharma can erase residual bad karma, which resulted from sins we have committed in lifetimes of thrashing about in the cycle of reincarnation.

⁴ 財施、法施這兩種方式，可以消除你的宿孽－生生世世在輪迴裡，顛顛倒倒所造下的罪惡。

⁵ Luckily, we have been given the opportunity to be reborn into a human body. Not having strayed away from our original nature, we wish to cultivate the Dao. Let us hope the Dao mindset is steadfast in us, so we do not fall back into the cycle of reincarnation.

⁵ 幸而重得人身，可以重新做人。由於我們今天沒有迷失本性，所以想要修道。希望大家堅定道心，不要再掉入輪迴裡！

⁶ To save yourself, you have to eliminate bad karma that remained from other lifetimes. No matter how hard you practice quiet sitting, if bad karma is not erased, many demonic hindrances and obstacles will surely keep you from sitting with a calm mind. This is definitely not superstition. I have over fifty years of personal experience in this.

⁶ 宿孽一定要消除。宿孽不消除，你再努力靜坐，魔障、阻礙一定還是很多，使你無法安下心來靜坐。這絕不是迷信，我有五十年的親身經歷。

⁷ Frankly, helping oneself is saving oneself. You must be saved before you can help others cross to the other shore ^[14] or help save them. If you carry evil inside you while advising others, who is going to believe you?

⁷ 老實講，自度是為了自己。自己得救了才能去度人、救人。你若罪惡在身而去勸人，誰會相信你？

Spiritual Talk about the Practice of Chinese Original Quiet Sitting, July 29, 1979

中國正宗靜坐傳習精神講話－民國六十八年七月廿九日