Venerable Sayalay Dipankara shares her spiritual experiences

Venerable Sayalay Dipankara shares her spiritual experiences

Someone asked me to share my spiritual experiences and how I overcame suffering in my life.

Since I was invited to speak on this topic, I will share my practice with you today.

When I was young, I liked to meditate and practice Buddhism. However, it was not easy. My parents were not interested in meditation, hence it was quite a challenge for me. 

When I was seven or eight years old, I often paid respects to the Buddha (Buddhanusati).

I practiced by myself. No teacher taught me to sit in front of the Buddha. I didn’t know what to do. I just felt very happy sitting like this. I felt that the Buddha would protect me.

Later, someone told me that I could recite the Buddhanusati with prayer beads, "itipi so bhagava...".  I just recited like this for two hours per day.

This generated happiness, peacefulness, and calmness in me. I liked that feeling.

Then, one day I had a dream, a very clear dream. I saw that there were many sentient beings in a tower. I couldn't count how many sentient beings there were. All these sentient beings only revealed their faces. 

Their heads were big but their bodies were small. I didn't know what kind of sentient beings they were.

I heard them wailing in my dream, "We are burning, we are burning, it's very hot and painful, please help us! " But in the dream I replied, "I really want to help you, but I don't know how! "

They replied, "You only need to continue your daily practice (Buddhanusati), and then spread metta (loving kindness) and share your merits with us", they taught me when I was dreaming.  I did this every day. I rushed to meditate after school. 

As I didn't want to keep all the merits to myself, I have been sharing all my merits with everyone all these years. 

After two weeks of doing so, I dreamt that these sentient beings had been liberated from their suffering. Since then, it has generated much happiness in my heart. They were now free from pain and suffering, and I knew how much pain they have endured in their lives. After I dreamt that they informed me they were free from suffering, I felt peacefulness arise in my heart, and since then I truly generated the wish to help others.

But as I didn't know how to help others, I just practiced every day like this, and continued to practice this way for 15 years. I am just sharing my own experiences, you can also practice in this way. 

Many sentient beings suffer a lot, but most people don’t want to interact with ghosts, however I feel very comfortable with them. Every time I meditate, I share my merits with them. 

Everywhere I go, I feel the sentient beings there. Oh! I am so happy that I can help them. 

Immediately, I spread loving kindness to them, hence I get along with them very well.

Sometimes during retreats, such as those conducted at some Chinese temples in Singapore, we can see ghosts interfering with meditators.

Immediately, the meditator's behavior and disposition  changes, and we can see that their characteristics resemble that of ghosts. 

Others are not sure what to do, hence they want to send these meditators to the hospital. I told them that they don’t need to be sent to the hospital. We know that beings are interfering with them.

What should we do? We don’t need to beat them or scold them. We just need to spread loving kindness: "Oh, please don’t interfere. Please listen to me. Please leave, you will get good merit", we will give them the merit.  They are very happy, and immediately they leave. So it is good if you can become friends with sentient beings who are ghosts, and slowly they will listen to you.

After changing their external appearances, these beings no longer look like human beings.

You know, because they are hungry ghosts and they want to eat, so they come over, and I ask my students to give them water from a cup. They don’t want to drink from a human's cup. So I took the cup and asked them to drink, and they started to drink, like a dog, not like a person. 

Having become ghosts and having changed their appearances, they licked the water with their tongues like dogs, this is what we can see. It is not imagination, this is what really happens in actuality in our society. You can see how much sentient beings suffer, regardless of how much we try to help, although we are all working hard to help them.

I don’t just help the beings in lower realms, I also help the Devas. Since I was seven, I have also been dedicating my merits to the devas. After I reached the age of ten, I couldn't sleep at midnight.  Every time I slept, someone would nudge me in the back, so I had to get up. As I stayed on the upper floor, I would have to go downstairs to the courtyard, where I would recite the Dhamma Chakrawattana Sutta every night, which was the first scripture taught in Varanasi. I didn't understand the meaning. 

Hence, I just opened the book and recited it while looking at the sky. I could see that many Devas were listening. I chanted it in Pali. I kept chanting, every night, for 15 years. 

I have always liked being alone since young. I didn't have many friends. I only had very few friends, regardless of whether I was in high school or university. 

I liked to stay in the room with the Devas and with the ghosts too, but I was afraid of people. I did not know why.

After I ordained, I realised human beings were very important. It is easy for human beings to understand the Dharma. No matter how much I help, ghosts cannot become arahants or attain Sottapana because their wisdom is very low and they cannot understand the Dhamma.

Therefore, I feel it's a waste of time. It might be better if I share the Dhamma with human beings. After learning, human beings can gain concentration (samadhi) ,  develop insight knowledge (vipasanna), and possibly benefit the next generation.

From then on, my thinking has changed. I stopped being fixated on helping other beings. Now, I only devote my energy to teaching humans.

Afterwards, I tried slowly to teach more human beings the Dharma. Since then, over ten years have passed. I have traveled to many countries and interacted with many people. 

Although I am very young, I wish to go to more countries and meet various people of different religions.

It is very difficult for us females to spread the Dharma in general, let alone travel to spread the Dharma. I believe that there are many Devas who are protecting me. I don’t know what kind of karma has caused me to travel to so many different places. 

Everywhere I go, people are very friendly. They take care of me. I also spread loving kindness to everyone in every country equally. I regard them as my relatives, Dharma brothers and sisters, hence I do not have any animosity towards anyone at all.

I like to practice loving-kindness very much. I spread loving-kindness to many people every day, and I don’t like to think about the faults of others. I understand the nature of human beings.

Sometimes people do bad things and criticize me.

Sometimes in my own life, I have encountered many problems, but I try to overcome them and try to forgive others. 

If you regard such as human nature, then you can forgive.

I love everyone and every sentient being, so I am always at ease. I have never accused anyone of offending me. I see everyone as equally adorable and cute. Sometimes some people want to criticize me, sometimes others want to voice their complains to me.

Regardless, from my perspective, they are all adorable and cute, in my heart I always treat them like children. 

But my practice is not perfect yet. I try to do my best every day, so it is easy for me to get along with humans without causing any problems. It's the same for all of you. One day, you will also be like mothers to the sentient beings of children, and you will also have many students in the future. You will need to teach people from different countries. Hence, this requires you to have a pure mind. If you have a pure mind, anything you see will be beautiful, there will be no negative emotions. If your mind is not pure, everything you see will be negative, this is the law of kamma at work.

--Excerpt from the Dhamma Talk at Xiangguang Temple on 05.11.13, translated by Ted.