Upholding the True Dharma: Protecting the Lamp in the Darkness

Have you ever woken in the middle of the night with no light anywhere? You grope your way forward, step by step, not knowing where the deep pits are or where the thorns lie. Without the light of the Buddha's teachings (Dharma), our lives are just such a night of groping in the dark.

**The Grace of the Dharma — Light in the Long Night**

On the day of the great Vu Lan festival, we remember our gratitude to our parents, to our country, and to all sentient beings. But there is one debt of gratitude that encompasses all the rest: the grace of the Buddha's teachings (Dharma). Thay Chan Quang tells us that without encountering the Dharma, "we would live in error, ungrateful and unkind. We would act on our own assumptions, following our own thoughts to condemn one another and destroy one another." It is precisely because of the Buddha's words that we learn to doubt our own thoughts, and to feel sorrow at the suffering (dukkha) of sentient beings.

"We only wish to repay the Buddha by bringing the Buddha's teachings (Dharma) to the world for the rest of our lives."

The grace of the Dharma can never be fully repaid, but it can be answered by living in accordance with the true Dharma and by passing it on to others.

**Study, Practice, Spread, and Uphold**

There are four steps of practice, the four "H" words that Thay mentions: study, practice, spread, and uphold. Each step requires a greater measure of wisdom. Study requires one measure of wisdom; practice requires ten times that; spreading the teachings requires fifty times. And upholding the true Dharma requires one hundred times as much.

"And in order to uphold the true Dharma, we need wisdom one hundred times greater."

Upholding the Dharma is not only the work of leaders. Within our own small sphere, every disciple of the Buddha can protect the Buddha's teachings (Dharma). But first, we must pass through the three earlier stages. And the first step of practice is "reaching into our own pockets" — knowing how to give and to share. If we cannot do this, then all other talk of merit is empty words.

**Upholding the Dharma — The Most Difficult Stage**

Upholding the true Dharma is the highest stage, because it requires someone who has already studied, practiced, and spread the teachings. A defender of the Dharma must be skillful, both gentle and firm at once. Thay compares this to the image of the guardian standing before a temple: "wearing armor of the finest quality, and holding a sharp sword in hand." The sword here is not made of iron or steel, but of wisdom and compassion.

"One who can live and die for the Dharma, who is skillful and wise, both gentle and firm, in order to protect the Buddha's teachings (Dharma) — such a person has wisdom one hundred times greater."

Why is upholding the Dharma so difficult? Because of the law of the universe: building is very hard, while destroying is very easy.

**The Law That Building Is Hard, Destroying Is Easy**

Thay Chan Quang offers very ordinary examples: building a house for a poor elderly woman takes two long months of work, yet a single ember can burn it all down. A hundred-story building requires decades and enormous sums of money, yet one bomb can bring it crashing down. A tree grows for three hundred years, yet a logger needs only half an hour to fell it. This is why the destruction of the Dharma is so easy, and why Buddhism weakens.

"Building is always very hard, and destroying is always very easy. Creating blessings from merit is always very hard, while creating karma is always very easy."

Thay speaks of his own experience: more than six hundred dharma talks, nine thousand hours of preparation — yet only half an hour of slander is needed for all that effort to vanish like smoke in the wind. The Buddha practiced for three thousand great kalpas and taught the Dharma for forty-five years, yet when someone dismisses Buddhism as "pessimistic," many people's faith wavers at once. This cruelty is not truly cruelty; it is simply the law of things.

**The Schemes to Destroy the True Dharma**

To protect something, we must know how we are being attacked. Thay lists the ways: slanderers distort the teachings, infiltrators pose as false Buddhists, agitators sow discord between teachers and lineage holders, and they turn Buddhists against their venerable teachers. They "slander us one by one, bringing each person down in turn." At such times, faith wavers like a lamp in the wind.

Slandering the true Dharma

Infiltrating and impersonating Buddhists

Sowing discord among the venerable ones in the tradition

Stirring up trouble and planting doubt

Today, religions compete for followers, sometimes using unscrupulous means. Those who study the Buddha's teachings (Dharma) cannot remain indifferent. Anyone who has understood the Dharma and practiced it has a duty to stand up and protect it.

**Be a Defender of the Dharma**

Protecting the true Dharma does not mean drawing swords and brandishing weapons. It means lighting the lamp within each mind/heart. Begin by studying the teachings, putting them into practice, and then gently sharing them with others. When you see the Dharma being disparaged, present the true Dharma with gentleness. When you see fellow practitioners at odds with one another, mend the rift with compassion.

Each of us is a lamp. The more people light their own lamps, the less the darkness can prevail. May all of us become defenders of the Dharma, endowed with wisdom and compassion.