第四十集視頻文字檔如下:
Please find the full texts of Ep 40 below：
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經為什麼沒聽懂 念佛為什麼得不到效果 – 第40集
Why don’t you understand the sutra teachings? Why can’t you get the results from chanting Amitabha Buddha’s name?
The Infinite Life Sutra explains this more clearly because of its long scriptural text. In the eighth chapter of this sutra, we see a different arrangement from the general Mahayana sutras as far as maintaining virtue in three karmas is concerned. In the general sutras, the Buddha spoke about the three karmas in the order of actions, speech and thoughts, while in this sutra, the Buddha began with speech karma followed by the karmas of actions and thoughts. There is a special meaning behind this different arrangement. Speech karma is the easiest to commit. That’s why there are four types of speech karma. You see, there are only three types of karmas for both actions and thoughts. Very often, the merits accumulated by Pure Land practitioners from practising Buddha-name chanting are lost through their speech. They cannot tolerate others and like to criticize. As a result, they failed to be reborn in the Pure Land despite having chanted Amitabha Buddha’s name for a lifetime. Great Master Hai Xian accumulated abundant merits from chanting Amitabha Buddha’s name for 92 years because he did not lose any of his merits through verbal karma. By contrast, we lose our merits even as we chant Amitabha Buddha’s name because we keep on committing verbal karma. That’s why the Buddha listed speech karma first to specifically warn Pure Land practitioners against committing it. Since the Buddha-name chanting method is the swiftest path to Buddhahood, the Ten Virtuous Acts are more important than anything else. ‘Maintaining virtue in speech and not ridiculing others for their faults’ also means refraining from dishonest, divisive, enticing and harsh speech. This must be observed! Why do you commit karmas? Of course, every karma springs from the karma of thoughts (the master) i.e., greed, anger, ignorance and selfishness. Your thoughts are unwholesome. You are complete with all the five poisons of greed, anger, ignorance, arrogance and doubt. Every of your thought is very naturally prone to taking advantage of others for personal gain, which is very bad. Since you have been intentionally or unintentionally committing the karmas of the Three Evil Realms every day, you cannot accumulate the merits that you earned from practising Buddha Mindfulness. How can you be liberated from the Three Evil Realms when you spend little time chanting Amitabha Buddha’s name and spend a long time committing karmas? How can you leave the Three Evil Realms when your power of chanting Amitabha Buddha’s name is weak but the force of committing evil is strong? To put it impolitely, how can you leave hell when all that you commit are the karmas of hell? Do you understand the sutra teachings? No, you do not understand because you have not listened to the Dharma lectures sufficiently. Why not sufficient? Because you have been using a distracting mind to listen to the lectures and to chant Amitabha Buddha’s name. That’s why you cannot get the results from listening to the Dharma lectures as well as chanting Amitabha Buddha’s name.