This business of enlightenment does not depend on whether you are lay or ordained, a novice or experienced, nor is dependent on the influence or the practice of the many past lives. Sudden awakening only lies within the one clear faith of the practitioner’s thought. This is why the Buddha also said, “Faith, as the root of one’s fundamental being and the mother of virtue, brings about the development of the good dharma of the fundamental unity. Faith brings about the development of wisdom’s virtue and faith infallibly brings one to the arrival in the seat of Vairocana.”

 

Whether presiding over domestic matters, directing public affairs at the ministry, having guests over to share some conversation, eating and having some tea, going out, standing, sitting or lying down, in the end, by all means please ask yourself, “What is all of this?” If you simply ask yourself this question ceaselessly, meditating on the truth without rest, before you know it you’ll find yourself laughing uproariously. Thereupon you’ll come to know for the first time that it is not necessary to shave your head, wear the robes, leave home, practice asceticism or sit on a cushion like a monk in order to have such an experience of awakening.