The decline of man didn’t begin with the time of Eve, as indicated by Jesus. This Earth has gone through more than one civilization and primitive period; there were prehistoric civilizations that were destroyed. In some cases Earth was utterly destroyed or replaced, with a completely new one being created. Hasn’t mankind talked about catastrophes that end the world? It has been religions that have talked about this, in fact. After a certain time passes a large catastrophe occurs, and after some time a small catastrophe takes place. In a small catastrophe people are wiped out on a local scale; when a certain area has turned very bad it is destroyed. There are earthquakes, the submerging of continental plates, the spreading of sandstorms, or famines and wars. A small catastrophe is localized, while a large catastrophe affects most all of mankind. A large catastrophe occurs only after the passage of many years. The shifts that take place on Earth, like the movement of objects, follow certain patterns. The large catastrophe that unfolds with its shifts is what leads to mankind’s annihilation. There are a small number of people who survive, however, and inherit some of the culture that predates history, and they live a life similar to that in the Stone Age. Since all tools of production will have been destroyed, the ensuing generation has an even worse predicament, for much will have been forgotten. So the population begins to increase from a primitive state, and over time there emerges again civilization and advanced technology. When the human race again deteriorates, catastrophes again unfold. There is thus cyclical change wherein there are periods of formation, stasis, and degeneration.
In other words, the degeneration of man is an inevitability. But in each age when civilization comes about, invariably there are divinities who send great enlightened beings to the human world to save people. The purpose is to prevent the disproportionate degeneration of the human mind in relation to substances and material on Earth. All matter that makes up the Earth of this universe has a special property. Only with this special property is it possible to form primitive, formless things into matter that has form and life. But it is forbidden for the human mind to degenerate before matter does. That is why each time a civilization or culture comes about among human beings, there appear great enlightened beings. Great enlightened beings have emerged in all periods of prehistory. In the current civilization, beings such as Jesus, Shakyamuni, and Lao Zi came to tell things to people. In the civilized areas of different periods, there were different enlightened beings who were responsible for teaching people how to return to one’s original, true self. They enabled those who could obtain the Dao to achieve Consummation; showed ordinary people how to cherish virtue; and required that mankind maintain its morality at a relatively level state, thus ensuring that the human mind would not degenerate so easily. When finally one day all matter in the universe was to degenerate, they would then be hands-off. But that is an extremely long process.
During those times, what the enlightened beings try to do is prevent man’s degeneration and, in doing so, enable those who may progress in cultivation to truly attain the Dao through cultivation. Man did not, as Darwin claimed, evolve from the ape. That is a case of man degrading himself. Human beings all fell here from the many dimensions of the universe. They no longer met the requirements of the Fa at their given levels in the universe, and thus had to drop down. Just as we have said before, the heavier one’s mortal attachments, the further down one drops, with the descent continuing until one arrives at the state of ordinary human beings. In the eyes of higher beings, the point of a human being’s life is not for you to merely be human, but rather, to have you awaken quickly on Earth, this setting of delusion, and return. That is what they really have in mind; they are opening a door for you. Those who fail to return will have no choice but to reincarnate, with this continuing until they amass a huge amount of karma and are destroyed. That is why Earth has witnessed many catastrophes.
From another perspective, however, Earth is but the garbage dump of the universe. There are countless galaxies and planets within countless vast universes, and on each planet there are beings. Human beings deny the existence of other dimensions, so they are unable to see those beings. They exist in other dimensions of the same planets [as the ones that we see], not our dimension, and thus ordinary people cannot see them. It’s similar to how human beings say that the Mars of this dimension is hot, but if one were to break through this dimension, it would prove to be somewhat cold over on the other side. Many people with supernatural abilities gaze at the Sun, and after doing so for a while find it no longer to be hot. And after gazing again, they find that it is dark. Looking yet again, it is seen to be a cold and refreshing world. In this material dimension it manifests in one way, while in another material dimension it manifests otherwise. So, there are living beings found everywhere, and that includes human beings. And when they are not in line with the standard of a given level, bit by bit they drop. It’s analogous to a school student failing to advance to a higher grade, only in this case they ultimately fell to the point of being among ordinary human beings. The human beings in the universe who are bad fall downwards, falling to the very center of the universe—Earth.
A person who dwells in the human world goes through reincarnation, and there is no guarantee he will be reborn as a human being. He might reincarnate into any of a number of different material things, different plants, different animals, or even microorganisms. And throughout the course of his reincarnations, the wrong that he does is always carried with him, and that is karma. What a being can carry along are namely virtue and karma, and they are always with him. If someone whose karma is large reincarnates as a tree, that tree will have karma. And if he reincarnates as an animal, that animal will have karma. The bricks, soil, rocks, animals, and plants on Earth can all have karma. Why is it that the medicine taken by or injected into patients in the Age of Law’s End is not as effective as in the past? It’s because today’s human beings, having generated an enormous amount of karma, carry strong karma on them, and thus the medicine’s original efficacy is gone and it’s not in the least capable of treating that condition. Yet if a larger dose of medicine were administered, the patient would be poisoned. Today many diseases are incurable. Such is the state of the entire planet; everything has in fact degenerated to a grave extent. Jesus was able to bear man’s sins, and Buddha Shakyamuni spent forty-nine years saving people, laboring tremendously. Didn’t they set out to broadly save sentient beings? Then why didn’t they just send everyone right up to heaven? Because people did not meet the standards of higher planes; for this reason they couldn’t go there. Each level has its standard. If you are not qualified to be a college student, can you go to college? The reason you can’t go [to heaven] is that there are far too many things you can’t let go of, and your body is too encumbered. Wherever your moral standard is, that’s where you are. The only way [to ascend] is analogous to attending school: If you can make it to the next grade or year, then you will go there. The rest will turn ever more degenerate and be destroyed. When garbage turns foul it shouldn’t be allowed to contaminate the universe. It thus has to be destroyed.
Broadly saving sentient beings is what Buddhas preach and make a practice of. Or, more specifically, it is at the Tathagata level that saving sentient beings is of concern. Buddhas whose level is twice as high as Tathagata do not look after the affairs of ordinary human beings. Were they to do so, the utterance of just one sentence of theirs would cause changes among ordinary humans. So they cannot look after them, as their power is too great. For a greater Buddha, Earth isn’t large enough for so much as his toe; and for a still greater Buddha, Earth is too small even for his hair follicle. The words a Buddha utters are Fa and, when spoken, cause immediate changes. For this reason they never get involved in affairs on Earth. The only ones who make a practice of broadly saving sentient beings are Tathagatas and Bodhisattvas.
Tathagata Buddhas refer to human beings as ordinary beings, but even higher divine beings at very high levels look upon Tathagatas, upon reaching that plane and looking back, as ordinary beings. In the eyes of a divine being at that high of a level, human beings don’t amount even to microorganisms. Upon taking a look, [they would say,] “Such a rotten place, demolish it! Destroy it!” Earth is such a place. Those who show pity toward human beings are the Buddhas in closest proximity to human beings. Jesus was at the level of Tathagata, and so was Lao Zi. Those at higher levels don’t care about human affairs. If human beings call out to them, they cannot hear it. A human being’s so much as calling out their names amounts to insulting them. It’s like a sound coming from a lump of feces, calling out your name.
joan falun volume 2
http://www.falundafa.org/
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