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This article considers the obstacles of praise to practice from four perspectives:

First , distract the heart;
second , damage the disgust of reincarnation;
third , be jealous of the merits of others;
fourth , destroy all kinds of good deeds that accumulate merit , wisdom, and resources.

Why are these faults? We analyze one by one through a public case of Devadado.

Speaking of Devotado, I believe that many Daoists are familiar with him. He is the brother of Venerable Ananda and grew up with the Buddha. After the Buddha became enlightened, he also became a monk with the Buddha.

After more than ten years of practice, he did not show the merits that he should have (some merits should have appeared in the practice of Buddhism, but due to his own obstacles or some other reasons in the practice, the merits and effects did not appear), so he began to get angry , Worries, to learn magical powers, in order to gain fame and good fortune.

The Buddha observed that he had become guilty, so he stopped his thoughts. Devadatta again asked the five hundred noble monks to learn supernatural powers, but the five hundred noble monks observed that he was guilty and refused. Finally, he asked the elder Shili Kashebo for magical powers, and the elder didn't know the purpose and taught him.

After getting the magical powers, Devadado went to the heaven to eat, looking for all kinds of wonderful things, and then wanted to be respected by all people, and thought that in the future, he would give up and become the king's prince Ajashi. For this purpose, Devadado went to deceive King Ajash. But it was not easy to deceive, so he did not hesitate to use all kinds of supernatural powers to seduce King Ajānshi, and show his "merit". The prince thought that Devadatta supernatural powers were better than the Buddha, so he offered wide offerings to him.

Later, Devadado wanted to further expand his desire for fame and fortune, and wanted to replace the Buddha.

We see that, in order to gain the prince’s trust and admiration, Devadado no longer focuses on spiritual practice and is scattered in the temptation to change various possessions, desires, and magical powers. Isn't this a kind of trouble that distracts the mind? Because I want to be admired by others, or after getting admiration from others, my heart is unable to practice and is in disarray.

Contrasting yourself, you say: "I am not as bad as Devadado." But why are we not so?

For example, in the process of nursing students, you should have taken good care of yourself, but in order to appear dignified and decent in front of everyone, you have to dress up carefully before going out;

When I move fish at the nursery site, I pay attention to dressing and pay attention to everything in order to appear clean, which leads to forgetting to send bodhicitta;

Finally, when reciting the mantra, in order to show that he was more attentive and sound better than others, he forgot to send bodhicitta.

See, in order to get admiration from others, I just want to stay here, so I forget the practice on the ground and benefit all beings.

In fact, it is not only the Dharma, but in the worldly law we will also be scattered because of fame. Just as the previous eulogy said, "If it is just a fame, you lose your wealth and die." If a person keeps coveting the praise of others, or feels complacent when others admire him, he will completely forget the current situation and cannot concentrate on the situation. If you continue to complete your career, you will only be mistaken by a false name.

In short, whether you want to get praise, or ultimately get praise, you will be scattered in various external realms because of praise, and you will not be able to concentrate on spiritual practice or accomplish worldly affairs.

Devadatta swore to seek power in order to surpass the Buddha and become a new Buddha. Let's compare ourselves whether this is the case.

In fact, reputation is a false greenhouse in reincarnation . In this greenhouse, you want to praise, others continue to praise you, it makes you feel very wonderful. Others flatter you, "You look so good! You are so rich! You are really capable!...", you are very useful.

During this process, you feel that the current situation is pretty good, and there is no need to go out of reincarnation. When it comes to renunciation, you will feel petty, "How can reincarnation be so bitter!"

You see, our reputation has made us lost in the greenhouse of falsehood, completely losing the courage to leave.

Therefore, Venerable Atisha warned us: "Praise praise, deceive, and discard it like spit." Praise and reputation will push us into the abyss of sin, so we must abandon it like snot .

Devadado was greedy for fame and wanted to expand his power and surpass the Buddha. Later, he became jealous of the Buddha, competed with the Buddha, and tried every means to kill the Buddha. Once, he even drunk an elephant and arranged it in a place where the Buddha often walked, in order to make the drunk elephant trample the Buddha to death. Wanting to be famous, competing with famous people, and even killing each other, this is the true manifestation of the faults of jealous and virtuous people.

Let me compare it again: When we face the excellence of others, we often appear very calm and objective, analyze various pros and cons, and appear to be right. But from the bottom of my heart, we can see that this is just an act of kindness that we don't want to please others.

When someone else listens to the class, you just say "he doesn't understand anyway";

Others protect students, you will say, "He is just for good health and has no bodhicitta at all"...

No matter what others do, you immediately jump out of some negative judgments. After all, this is not calm and objective at all, but is caused by jealousy.

Why are we jealous? In fact, I hope that all the praise of others will be transferred to myself.

For example, someone praised you: "You are really serious about listening to the class!" You immediately said: "No, I'm just working hard." But when he praised others for listening to the class, you said: "In fact, he doesn't understand. "Isn't that obvious? You just want to let the good reputation of your family fall on you, and then you don't choose whether you understand it or not. This shows that we are actually jealous when we are greedy for fame.

Jealousy really hurts us, makes us physically and mentally uncomfortable forever, and destroys our own good deeds. Therefore, we need to care less about reputation.When you don't pursue it, no matter how others praise each other, you won't have any reaction, and you won't be jealous.

We work hard to practice diligently and constantly surpass ourselves, and we will definitely get some admiration-whether we like it in the circle of friends or silently praise it behind the back, in short, we will be admired by people for excellence, and we may be jealous with admiration. So what should I do if I am praised by others? What should I do if I am jealous of others?

If we are admired by others , we must think about these faults instead of creating a trace of indulgence or arrogance.

If you are jealous of others , it is actually their recognition of you-because he wants to be like you so much that he will be jealous of you. So we have to be grateful to him, after all, if he does not approve of you, he will not be jealous.

In short, we must pay more attention to the benefits of others , so as not to cause more troubles because of other people's jealousy.

Driven by jealousy, Devadado committed three five indiscriminate sins in order to become a new Buddha: first, to instigate the division of the Sangha; second, to harm the Buddha without harm (the stone he threw was caught by the mountain god ), but the stone fragments splashed out and hit the Buddha's feet, and the blood of the Buddha was born; third, kill Arahani. In the end, he fell into infinite hell.

Let’s compare ourselves below, for example: we listen to a class is to "listen to truth"; to help others is to "give others"; to explain to others is to "open performance"; Offering a bouquet of flowers and a glass of water is the practice of “providing”; understanding thinking and doing it on the ground are “thinking” and “practising”... In short, these are ten ways we practice Buddhism.

If you have greed for reputation, you will do less and less about these ten things, and you will eventually destroy these good ways of accumulating resources .

I care about the level of fame every day—for myself, I’m happy when I get fame, and if I don’t get it, I ask others: "Do you think it is good for me to do this?" "Do you think I am doing this right?" Others say yes , You are very happy; if others say that it is not good, you will suffer, and you must try to prove it to others.

For others, comment on the long and short, "Who and who will say he is bad, I tell you he is really bad", it is because we are obsessed with praise that we pay special attention to the reputation of others, and get together and gossip. , And even comment on the long and short of people who have nothing to do with them. It is easy to cause many bad karma, such as oral karma.

Thinking about these things every day, where can I still think about practicing Buddhism? Completely lost in the greed for praise. Combining the public case and analyzing our own continuity, we will find that praise is not a good thing for practitioners.

Some people will say: "Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will also admire and rejoice with each other, and use'Buddha and Buddha to praise each other' to achieve merit!"

In this regard , we must understand in our hearts that mutual praise between Buddhas and Buddhas is not because of greed for famous reputations, but to increase the confidence of sentient beings in the Dharma, to make it convenient for others to practice, and to benefit sentient beings .

And our obsession with admiration is because of selfishness, which is an obstacle to practice. Therefore, we must always reflect on our continuity.