No 26 of Living Life Series 1
With three incense sticks, our forefathers did pray, seeking the divine presence of the Heavenly Saints to bless them day by day.
Devotion calls to mind the offering of incense by our forefathers, but nowadays devotional hymns, chanting and group prayers are offered as instruments of devotion.
The wise one sees more to the incense than meets the eye. He goes the way of the incense, as you should also do. The fragrance of the incense rises to merge with the heavens above. Only the residues of burnt ash are left behind to be discarded and forgotten.
Brethren, let our minds go the way of the incense. Let us burn away our impure or evil thoughts and release the fragrance of pure thoughts to pervade the void left by the discarding of the impure thoughts.
Void the mind off pollutants of impure thoughts. The void that results is not seen but yet felt. The polluted sees this void as nothingness, for nothing is apparent to him. The pure neither perceives the void as something to see nor as nothing, but he perceives it as that which is real and felt.
Truth is purity, as you should know. Truth is to be experienced (by the wise) but not seen (by the ignorant).
Such is purity to be realised. Truth is never easy to explain or to see. You may launch Truth in a thousand words but what one perceives may not be what you wish to convey by your words. Truth can only be realised by one for himself. The lord saint Lord Bo Tien, like all saints, only provides the way.
Go the way of the incense. Void the mind off all evil thoughts of pride, ill will and wrong views; and experience the purity of the mind voided thus to release the sweetness of purity that is Truth itself.
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