During the Pureland retreat today, I noticed that the old man in front of me didn’t chant about half of the time, while he looked left and right at whatever and whoever in the hall… other than at his own mind. That he was distracted distracted me to some extent. I thought of telling him to ‘nianfo’ – to be mindful of Buddha (which was what the retreat was about anyway). At one point, I did. I simply said ‘nianfo’ to him – but he probably didn’t hear it or understand. I knew it was likely that he will be distracted for the rest of the day. Then it struck me that if I were to let myself be disturbed by this, I would be doing no better in my own practice, wasting as much time as him!
Hey, this is a Buddha mindfulness retreat. If so, why should I be mindful of a random unenlightened sentient being instead? I should try to be a good example to him (and others) instead. The worst case scenario would be me being visibly distracted by him being visibly distracted, which leads others to be distracted by him and me… ad infinitum…. and everyone in the hall might end up distracted! On the spiritual path, it is our own responsibility to not be distracted from it. Only when we ourselves are sufficiently focused can we truly help others; or we might end up becoming one of those needing reminders to focus. Anyway, there are ‘invigilators’ in the retreat. It’s their responsibility to ‘re-focus’ those who are distracted.
Even those distracted are distractions.
Don’t be distracted by the distracted.– Stonepeace
Try sitting next to someone who mispronounced the Buddha’s name during the whole retreat. 阿弥陀佛 becomes é˜¿å¼¥ä½›é™€ï¼ :dizzy:
After in a recent environment that one is easily distracted in idle talk, I now appreciates why a conducive environment is really important for practice, the reason why there is also descriptions of birds singing Dharma in Amitabha Buddha’s Pureland to remind/motivate one to concentrate on practising. A conducive environment with good company is really important.
Agree, ä¿—è¯è¯´ï¼šè¿‘æœ±è€…èµ¤ï¼Œè¿‘å¢¨è€…é»‘ï¼ Good influence will influence one to be good and vice versa :pff:
Let’s go to Pureland to be positively influenced, so as to be able to more positively influence others as Bodhisattvas! In the mean time, we can positively influence one another with the Dharma here! Amituofo
😉