(33) Why would the contemporary generation foster the above specified delusion about Buddhism? Its delusion about Buddhism is actually activated by the prevalent biased mentality of the public, which has triggered off many very evil habits. For example, many people habitually eat luxuriously and astonishingly wastefully, and their clothes are exceedingly expensive and chic. When they are bored and want to dabble in Buddhism for a change, they want Buddhist institutions to highly venerate them as if they were already Buddhas, because they are so presumptuous as to reckon that even the rank of arhat or bodhisattva is quite beneath them. Suchlike guys are laden with greed (raga), hatred (pratigha), ignorance (moha), arrogance (mana), and doubtfulness (vicikitsa). But what they don’t know or are not mindful of is that Buddhism is exactly for freeing their minds thoroughly of greed, hatred, ignorance, arrogance, and dubiousness. “Doing sitting meditation” and “chanting name of the Buddha and contemplating virtues and meritorious deeds performed by the Buddha” are, as we know, just “physical demonstrations” of a practitioner’s exertion to push ahead with his self-cultivation. However if a practitioner lacks “the stock of virtues and the blessings which are naturally derived therefrom”—as such a stock of virtues is invariably accumulated by dint of his diligent exertion to pursue proper self-cultivation through all aspects of everyday life—all his exertions to execute the aforesaid “physical demonstrations” can lead nowhere. Even if a practitioner has acquired, through his self-cultivation, the ability of landing in a state of Samadhi—namely, Dhyana concentration—when he practices sitting meditation, he is still apt to lapse into his evil behavioral pattern in his post-meditation hours, in case he is lacking in “the stock of virtues and the blessings which are naturally derived therefrom”. Greed (raga), hatred (pratigha), ignorance (moha), arrogance (mana), and doubtfulness (vicikitsa) are called the five poisons (visas). To effect a radical removal of them from a practitioner’s psyche, he has to eradicate them. But how? Buddhism refers to the six sense organs in a human being, which are the eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and mind (citta or manas), as “the six roots”, because they function totally as the foundation on which a human survives and can be likened to the roots of a tree. To eliminate the five poisons means to extirpate them from a human’s six sense organs. The elimination has to start from every aspect of everyday life. This would call upon a practitioner to stick to the religious behavioral adage which says that a sincere Buddhist votary needs both to “steer clear of all the possibilities which are to lure him into an evil practice and to strive to do anything that is beneficial to others”. One of the popular idioms of Buddhism exhorts practitioners to strive for the realization of “purity of the six sense organs”. How can a practitioner realize the purity of the six sense organs? He has to do this by ridding his everyday life of all the pollutants. His mind would be free of all pollutions when it is steered clear of the five poisons. His peace of mind would be restored once his mind has been ripped of all pollutants and weaned from any obsessions. In his Platform Sutra, Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch of the Buddhist Chan Order, points out, “When a practitioner is no longer manipulated by any obsessions, he is said to be perfectly masterly in wielding the practice of meditation. And when he can retain thorough equanimity in his mind all the time, he is said to have already secured irreversible Samadhi.” If a practitioner is irrevocably determined to embrace Buddhism and if he is resolute in purging his soul of the five poisons, then the only correct path for him to take to reach these two goals is practice self-cultivation through all aspects of life until his life becomes a process of humility, of labor, of service, of prayer and gratitude, and of meditation.（From My Heart My Buddha）