The eyes of the Buddha are the eyes of omniscience, and the Buddha does not have any darkness that needs to be illuminated, but we have, from beginninglessness to the present, we are selfish and ignorant, and then from there there are derived the distractions and delusions of the world, like dark clouds, which cover our purest Buddha nature, the Buddha-nature, like the Buddha. Greed, anger, naivety, slowness, doubt, these disturbing obstacles do not allow us to get out of samsara. The obstacle of knowing is the three rounds of separate thinking, and it is also the obstacle that prevents us from attaining the attainment of Buddhahood, both of which must be purified.

When we light a lamp and make offerings to the Buddha with the most devout heart, what are we praying for? We hope to pay homage to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the Ten Directions with our most pious hearts, and break our arrogance with a pious heart. If we don't kneel down in front of the Buddha and repent with our hearts in front of the Buddha, we will never know how many shortcomings and faults we have; If the great Buddha hadn't spent that long preaching, we would never know where the root of our problems were. Therefore, to get to the point of our inner faults, we must read and understand the Buddhist scriptures, so that we can compare our shortcomings and faults.

Why do we take refuge in the Buddha, take refuge in the Dharma, take refuge in these disciples of the Buddha, in the Sangha? Because we can't see the path to our own liberation without the ignorance of ordinary people, and we can't see clearly where our shortcomings and faults are. So we have to pay homage to the Buddhas, we are mortal people with great sins, although we have the same Buddha nature as the Buddha, but it is the sun that is obscured by the clouds. If we are not humble and arrogant, we will never see ourselves clearly. There is a Tibetan saying: "You can't leave a drop of water on the cliff." "The arrogant person who holds his head high cannot observe his inner world.

A person can only reflect on himself if he is humble. Just like the Buddha, the Buddha doesn't need us to kneel, and the Bodhisattva doesn't need to. So are the sutras needed? Of course not. Do the lineage masters of the past need us to kneel? No, you don't. Why kneel? We ourselves need humility. The more you learn about the greatness of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the more you will know how big your shortcomings are, how deep your faults are, and how stubborn your habits are. Many people know that they have these shortcomings and faults, but they are unwilling to purify them, and they always find reasons for themselves.

There is a story in the Buddhist scriptures: In the desert, a thirsty man ran in front of him, and a well chased behind, and the well begged the thirsty man: "Drink me!" "And the thirsty man runs ahead and does not want to drink water. That is to say, all of us in the turbid world now have a great need for the Dharma, just like the thirsty people in the desert, but when the well appears in front of us, and the Dharma appears in front of us, we don't know how to cherish it, and we still don't want to use it. Like a terminally ill person, he can't find a good medicine or a good doctor, and the doctor takes the initiative to send the good medicine, but he still doesn't want to take it, it's the same reason. So, we need to reflect on ourselves.

We all have to have a state of mind that makes universal offerings, and insatiable greed is a habit that people have accumulated and formed since the beginning of time and have become accustomed to it. What is greed? It is the insatiable demand for one thing or thing, and the pursuit of it at any cost. Regardless of the process, methods and methods, blindly greedy, this is greed, and there is no possibility of satisfaction. Do you think we will be greedy for the surrounding houses? Yes, one or two, or even ten or twenty houses are not enough for us. Fame and fortune are even more important, fame is good or not, but in fact they are very illusory, and they are not visible at all; But just because of what others say, whether it's right or wrong, we care a lot. The same is true for the attitude towards profit.

For the sake of what we have in the world, what we see, as long as we don't have it, we want to have it, so it depends on our mortal thoughts, can we let go of it immediately? Not easy. Everyone knows that too much greed is a harm to themselves, but no one can let go, one side can let go, the other side can't let go, that's it. So, we use universal offerings to break our insatiable greed. So how do you make offerings? As ordinary people, we admire the greatness of so many Buddhas and the merits of the Buddhas, and we are willing to make merits for the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas we admire.

It's easier to make offerings to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas: we say we want to build a temple, and everyone will donate money, we say we want to build Buddha statues, and everyone is happy to do it, and the same is true for printing sutras, and everyone is happy to do it. This is the first step, because we feel that it is sacred, that it is great, and that as Buddhists we should do it. The Buddha also said that all the merits of building ashrams, building Buddhist monasteries, providing clothes and food to monks, taking care of the famine, taking care of the long-term sick, taking care of guests from afar, giving him food, and so on, are all great merits. Since the Buddha said that the seven merits of wealth are all like this, we are happy to do such things. The monastery allows us to make offerings to the Buddha in the Buddha hall, offering lamps, flowers, and fruits, and in this way we can accumulate good fortune, which is very good.

In addition to the upper offering, it is also necessary to give the lower alms. There are several ways to do it, but the bodhichitta we talked about earlier is the best kind of giving, because we have limited financial resources and limited abilities, and we have already talked about what we can do, and many of the rest are not able to do it. Why can't it be done? We have 10,000 pieces on us, and we give them to 10,000 people, and each of us can take a dollar; But if there is the thousandth and one person who comes to take the money, we will not be able to do it. What to do at this time? The intention is to do charity with the heart. So, the greatest way of giving, with bodhichitta and with strong compassion for all sentient beings, is to share the merit that we have done – even though we can't give 10,000 pieces to 10,000 people, but we can give merit to more than 10,000 people, 100 million or billions of people, and even to immeasurable beings in the world – and we can do it with our hearts. This is a kind of generosity that manifests itself in the mind. For us, merit is the use of skillful methods to make great merit in a short period of time. This is universal offering.

When we learn to be humble about the people and things around us, it means that our minds are being broadened. Through the study of the Dharma, we are supposed to use the wisdom of the Dharma to teach the goodness that has been hindered by the Dharma, skillfully use it in our own mental actions, and in this way, we can brush away the dust of our habits and karma, so that the goodness and compassion can be truly revealed. If before we study the Dharma, we were arrogant and unreasonable, or if we were arrogant, then after studying and reflecting on our minds, we should become more generous, more low-key, and more humble. If, when we find that our compassion has not grown and our afflictions have increased after studying, then we should ask ourselves whether we have established the correct understanding of compassion and benefit for sentient beings on this path to liberation, rather than pursuing the worldly dharma of continuing to covet our own interests.