(14) Those Buddhist-Chan followers who have already made the real effort of religious self-cultivation can be keenly aware of the fact that the effort to carry on the process of strict religious self-cultivation is actually the effort to tap into a source of wisdom. It is through the process of self-cultivation that a practitioner succeeds in both weaning himself from obsession with the reality of the skandhas and elements and attaining a full comprehension of the nature of the void (sunyata). Acquisition of a full knowledge of the superficiality and transience which are inherent in all forms of bhava (material or phenomenal existence) is tantamount to an acquisition of wisdom. So it is evident that the practice of almsgiving and donation functions not only as a dharma gate providing an access to self-cultivation or as a sagely path leading to enlightenment but also as an avenue leading to the realm of wisdom. In Buddhist sutras are recorded noble deeds performed by Siddhartha Gautama in his previous lives—his noble deeds of carving off flesh from his thighs and shanks to feed a hungry eagle so that the life of a dove might be saved and of voluntarily offering first his own blood and then his whole body to a tigress so that she could survive and sustain the lives of all her cubs. In perusing such records of Sakyamuni’s previous-life stories recorded in Buddhist canon, we would of course be deeply moved by and admire and venerate his unselfishness and compassion. But merely cherishing admiration and veneration for Sakyamuni after a practitioner has learned of these episodes is for him far short of the destination which the Buddhist Chan Order would expect him to arrive at. The Buddhist Chan Order would hope that a practitioner can, by reading Sakyamuni’s previous-life stories, perceive the pure wisdom owned by Guatama Buddha in realizing the non-reality of the five skandhas and elements.(From My Heart My Buddha)