พระอาจารย์อธิบายโอวาทหลวงพ่อว่า หัวใจของยอดนักสร้างบารมีคือการคิดถึงผู้อื่นเสมือนคิดถึงตนเอง ผ่านเรื่องราวพระบรมโพธิสัตว์ที่ตั้งความปรารถนาเป็นพระพุทธเจ้าท่ามกลางวิกฤตชีวิต พร้อมอธิบายว่าศีล สมาธิ ปัญญาเป็นพื้นฐานสำคัญที่ทำให้การสร้างบารมีเข้มข้นกว่าการทำบุญธรรมดาThe teacher explains a teaching from their late great teacher: the heart of a true perfection-builder is thinking of others as one thinks of oneself — illustrated through the story of the great Bodhisattva who vowed to become a Buddha amid a life-threatening crisis. He also explains that virtue, concentration, and wisdom are the essential foundation that makes true perfection-building far more powerful than ordinary merit-making.
A student asked the teacher to elaborate on their late great teacher's teaching on the heart of a true perfection-builder.
Thinking of Others as One Thinks of Oneself Is the Heart of a True Perfection-Builder
The teacher explained that ordinary people tend to think of themselves more than others, but the great Bodhisattva thinks of others more than himself, treating thoughts of others as thoughts of himself, feeling no real difference between the two. However we love ourselves, we love others the same way — so working for others' benefit is working for our own. This is the heart of a true perfection-builder.
This is illustrated by the story of when the future Buddha, still an ordinary being, brought his elderly parents on a merchant ship voyage abroad. A great storm sank the ship, and he had to carry his mother on his back while adrift at sea for seven days and seven nights, enduring the depths of hunger, exhaustion, cold, and heat. Others adrift with him grew despondent and hopeless, letting themselves sink beneath the waves — guided wrongly by voice telling them that enduring further was pointless. But voice guided the great being differently, showing him that this suffering was not his alone — all beings face suffering just like this. This led him to think he should become a refuge for the world, and in the midst of that very crisis, rather than letting his spirit wither, he made the vow to become a fully enlightened Buddha in the future.
Building Perfections Requires Other Beings and Their Environment
The unwholesome nature tends to guide people toward selfishness, because it wants to divide and conquer — if people unite, they become harder to control. The wholesome nature, by contrast, guides us toward empathy — understanding ourselves leads to understanding others. Building perfections requires other beings and one's surrounding environment; alone in the world, with no one else present, one could never build perfections at all. Our late teacher taught us to give away coarse things to others in order to store subtle treasure within ourselves — give little if we have little, give much if we have much, cutting away . This includes giving material things, giving forgiveness, giving love and goodwill, giving kind words, giving wisdom, and giving respect and consistency, following the four bases of social bonding. Because however we love ourselves, we love others the same way — when we wish to bring good fortune to others, the wealth that belongs to the world in general flows through us as the one who delivers that fortune, much as national wealth flows through those who conduct honest business and pay their taxes properly.
Virtue, Concentration, and Wisdom Are the Essential Foundation of a True Perfection-Builder
Building perfections differs from ordinary merit-making — it requires genuine dedication, with , concentration, and wisdom as its essential foundation. Without virtue, doing good draws in only a small amount of pure energy, lacking the support that virtue provides. But once precepts are undertaken, the sphere of virtue brightens, drawing in pure energy to cleanse defilement and carrying us into subtler inner dimensions where defilement is lighter still, and where even more pure energy can be drawn in. Concentration and wisdom work the same way, carrying us into ever more refined dimensions. The greater our wisdom, the more obstacles we can resolve — and the sphere of liberation struggles to function at all without virtue, concentration, and wisdom in place. All 84,000 sections of the scriptures rest upon virtue, concentration, and wisdom. A true perfection-builder must therefore learn and deeply understand virtue, concentration, and wisdom, so that their perfection-building becomes concentrated and powerful, drawing pure energy in continuously and at far greater value than ordinary merit-making alone.