We as independent human beings, don’t want to be told what to do, we would rather follow our instinct and wisdom, taking action with our own initiative. We believe in ourselves and deal with whatever consequences that come after, we learn from our mistakes and hopefully get it right for the next time. I have discussed this with many people. I’m not against this opinion, as it’s the most natural and even positive attitude we can take based on our experiences and wisdom we gained from it.
However, from True Buddha’s perspective, human beings have a one-sided point of view or petty outlook with our limited perception and wisdom, like common mortals. Buddha and ourselves are human beings, but the difference is we are not able to perceive the true nature of reality in this universe, which Buddha managed to perceive and could understand the mechanism of life and how to become enlightened and deal with our sufferings.
Buddha told us that there is hidden consciousness in ourselves, which is even beyond our subconscious, which we are not aware of. In fact, there are 9 levels of consciousness according to True Buddhism teaching. (*Please look at the diagram)
The 5 senses are very familiar sensors that can perceive information outside of our body, and bring it to the 6th sense, which is ‘Mind’ that processes the information and which in turn is influenced by the deeper level of consciousness, 7th sense, which is the ‘Subconsciousness’ (the Buddhism term being ‘Mana Conscious’); this functions to catch the information the first 6 senses perceive and process and evaluates it based on self-centred thoughts, self-centred desires, and self-attachment. Thus people tend to seek what they do not have and take action to fulfil their desires.
Earthly desires are stemmed from our fundamental 3 poisons that we possess ‘Greed, Anger and Ignorance‘ which have effects on all the 7 senses and create the cause of sufferings.
Deeper still is the 8th sense, Karma (Alaya Conscious), which is still a very much unknown area from a scientific point of view, but somehow many people accept the idea, as it seems natural for us to receive retribution for what we do.
Karma is like a storage space for keeping all our thoughts, words and actions, which have been accumulated from our remote past. This determines our life conditions; where we are born and what kind of parents you are born from. Further, each of us is born with different abilities and appearances, which has a strong influence on one’s thought process, actions in one’s entire life.
Finally, we have 9th sense, Buddha Nature (Amara-Conscious), it is the consciousness that is fundamentally pure, absolute, and unchanging. It is frequently compared to the pure white lotus blossom. If we activate the Buddha Nature, we can transform our Karma and Earthly Desire into a positive source of energy (Enlightenment) in our life without having to discard desires.
Shakyamuni Buddha taught this process in the Lotus Sutra:
How would it be possible to achieve the purification of all senses and the elimination of all sins, in the present time, without severing ourselves from earthly desires? (Lotus Sutra, p. 610)
Even if you do not enter samadhi (Deep meditation), you will attain enlightenment without fail, if you simply recite the Lotus Sutra of Myoho-Renge-Kyo, if you wholeheartedly devote yourself to the practice of the Lotus Sutra, and if your heart and mind never deviate from the Lotus Sutra. (Lotus sutra, p. 612, [Summary])
Although we all face various restrictions in our present lives due to Karma from past existences, Buddhism explains that even though we are in the middle of Karmic retribution, we can determine our future fortune by our own volition.
This volition is committing sincerely to this True Buddhism, through the benefit of embracing the Dai-Gohonzon, we can change our evil karma from past lifetimes and construct happy lives, both in this existence and the life to come.