What is Affinity?

Question: What do you mean by affinity? By conditions?

Response: An affinity is a favorable relationship. (Enmities are unfavorable relationships.) Conditions are the situations we encounter. Affinity and condition are the same in Chinese, yuan.

For innumer­able lifetimes, we have been creating affinities. When we meet someone and instantly like him, it is due to good affinities from past lifetimes. Instant dislike is due to bad affinities. Actually, we have affinities with all beings. As the Buddha said, all beings have been our parents.

If in our daily interactions with others and situations, we accord with af­finities and conditions, we will be happy. But our contentment will vanish if we seek affinities. As affinities or conditions arise, act on them; but when they are absent, do not try to force some­thing to happen, for to do so will end in frustration. In such cases, the conditions, whether favorable or unfavor­able, to resume past relationships have not matured. The time is not yet right.

Bodhisattvas Fear Causes, We Fear Results

 

Patriarch Yin Guang wrote in his journal that the sutras teach, “Bodhisattvas fear causes, sentient beings fear results.” The Master then wrote, “To avoid the result of suffering, Bodhisattvas destroy evil causes in advance. Thus, evil karma is eliminated and virtues are accrued in full, up to the time they become Buddhas.” [i]

Whether worldly phenomena or the teachings of the Buddhas, nothing is exempt from the law of cause and effect. It is said that everything is empty and unreal, an eternally impermanent element, but the law of cause and effect is unchangeable and real, an eternally permanent element.

Both cause and effect are closely related, as they mutually co-exist. A cause produces an effect that in turn becomes another cause. From this endless cycle, we can see that a particular cause is not fixed. Neither is an effect the only effect. The combination of cause and effect forms a vicious cycle: birth and death.

A bodhisattva is an understanding awakened being and is therefore well aware that every cause produces an effect. Because of this, they are very cautious in their every thought, word and deed, understanding that a negative cause will become a negative karmic result in the future for which they will have to personally bear the consequences. Unlike bodhisattvas, sentient beings do not understand the principles and realities of life. Our knowledge is limited and vague, far from complete. Consequently, we carelessly commit causal actions and do not understand, when the results occur later, why they happened. By then, it is too late.

Based on the work of Ven. Master Chin Kung

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[i] From Pure-Land Zen Zen Pure-Land Letters from Patriarch Yin Kuang, Trans. by Master Thich Thien Tam

Honor and Respect the Religions of Others

Do not honor and respect only our own religion and condemn those of others, but, honor other’s as well. In so doing, we help our own religion to grow and render service to others as well.

In acting otherwise, we dig the grave of both. Whosoever honors his own religion and condemns others, does so through devotion to his own, thinking:

“I will glorify my own religion.”

But on the contrary, he injures his own more gravely. So concord is good. Let all listen, and be willing to listen to the doctrines professed by others.

~ Emperor Asoka (BCE 273-232)

Continuous Cycle of Causality

Cause and effect are a continuous cycle. A cause triggers a result. That result then becomes a new cause, which will trigger another result. And become another cause with another result. On and on. Over and over. Ad infinitum. This chain not only affects us but others as well. We do something and it affects someone with us. In their response to us, they affect someone else. This creates a wave-like response of cause and effect that moves out in an ever-widening circle. The ripple effect of one drop of water splashing in the ocean thus results in all the other drops of water in the ocean moving.

Giving Happiness and Security

Society tells us that we need to have a strong ego. We need it to succeed at work. We often seem to need it just to get to work! We feel that we must assert our rights. This is what we are taught. But asserting our rights at the expense of and happiness of others is wrong. Trying to accomplish things at the expense of others will never permanently make us happy.

Forget the idea that everyone has to believe and act as we do. Instead, we can ask, “How can I help this person? What do they need?” If we are able to do this unconditionally, without any expectation of reward, if we can let go of constant thoughts of “I, me, and mine” and think only of others, then we will find all sorts of ways to help others.

We can give material resources, or our time and abilities. If we see someone having a difficult time and does not have enough to eat, we can provide them with food. Then, we can find ways to teach them what they need to know to be self-reliant in the future.

Or if we see someone who is upset, we can just smile at him or her. This costs us nothing. But this simple act accomplishes one of the major forms of giving because it removes the fears and worries of others. Once we start practicing giving, we will begin to feel happier because we will be acting from our true nature.

Our human nature keeps prodding us to be selfish, “Keep it, don’t give it away, look out for yourself first.” But our true nature prompts, “Help others, do not hold anything back.” When we give from our true nature, we will receive all that we could wish for. But to do this, we need to offer without thinking of self-benefit, without thinking of ourselves. We can give others happiness, joy, knowledge, security.