A Mouth That Criticizes or a Mouth That Praises? The Practice of Praising the Tathagata Opens a Measure of Morality

Imagine a morning when you are riding down a road. In an instant, you see someone bending down to pick up a piece of trash and placing it into a large bag. What arises in your heart? Nothing at all, or perhaps a feeling of praise that wells up before you even have a chance to speak it?

According to the second practice of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva in the Avatamsaka Sutra — the practice of praising the Tathagata — your answer reveals a great deal about your moral character and your level of spiritual cultivation. This practice may seem simple, yet it holds the secret to accumulating boundless merit.

Ordinary people love to criticize; the noble ones love to praise

We are often accustomed to a mouth that criticizes rather than one that admires. Thay Thich Chan Quang points out clearly:

When sentient beings open their mouths, what do they usually like to do? Criticize, curse, and scold.

When we see an article or something unusual, we rush to judge: "It's all staged!" without needing any proof. That is the carelessness of sentient beings. Science demands evidence, yet ordinary people want to dismiss whomever they wish and approve whomever they wish, without any grounds. In contrast, a person of virtue prefers to praise more than to criticize. Thay teaches:

A person who has virtue will prefer to praise more than to criticize.

You can measure yourself with a concrete method: keep two glass jars, one filled with white beans and one with black beans. Each time you praise someone, drop in a white bean. Each time you criticize someone, drop in a black bean. After six months, look at the two jars and you will know whether you have been cooking "sweet soup with white beans" or "sweet soup with black beans." If your jar holds only black beans, then you have already abandoned your own virtue.

Seeing the goodness in others, rejoicing as if finding gold

A noble person does not stop at merely refraining from criticism. When they see someone doing wrong, they also see the karmic consequences that person will face, and compassion arises in their heart:

When we see someone doing wrong, we also see the karmic consequences awaiting them. And when we see those consequences, the heart is moved with compassion, so we keep praying that they will overcome their faults.

Conversely, when they see a good quality in someone, they rejoice as if they had found gold, and they seek to spread the word so that everyone may know. That is the heart of the celestial beings, the heart of the noble ones. Thay tells of a little child in the neighborhood who, every day on the way to school, would fold their hands and bow to their parents and to everyone around. Day after day, the child did the same. Eventually, the feeling of admiration in the hearts of those who witnessed it gradually overflowed into words of praise: "What a good child — I consider you my own." That is a heart of admiration that has ripened.

Praising the Buddha for the Buddha to hear, and for sentient beings to hear: Different degrees of merit

A bodhisattva praises the Buddha because they clearly see the greatness of the Buddha, and that feeling is so full it must pour forth into words. We do the same whenever we chant the sutras. But how many of us truly understand the meaning and feel the emotion when reciting the verse "The Supreme Dharma King"? Thay reminds us:

When we praise the Buddha for the Buddha alone to hear, we do receive blessings from merit... but only one third of them. When we praise the Buddha in a way that many others can hear, we receive the remaining two thirds of the blessings.

Why? Because when we speak to others about the merit of the Buddha, they may give rise to reverence in their hearts. We have handed them a piece of precious gold. Thay says: "Even gold of the purest kind, if we give them that, is still counterfeit gold." But the gold of reverence for the Buddha is imperishable gold — its value never rises or falls. It is priceless.

A heart of reverence is a precious treasure of the heart

Thay tells of a young man studying abroad who fell into depression, so discouraged that he no longer wanted to study. When Thay asked him about it, he said: "I lack someone to revere, to admire, to look up to." In a purely practical environment where everyone regards everyone else as ordinary, the heart of reverence dies. When that happens, we lose our motivation to live, and we lose our ideals as well. For this reason, Thay emphasizes:

If within our heart we hold a spirit of reverence — reverence for some noble being — then we must understand that it is more precious than gold, silver, and diamonds.

Nurturing reverence is also a way of preserving the cultural identity of our nation. We need to revere our parents, our teachers, and the leaders of our country — they are our "sovereign, teacher, and parent." We should also deeply respect the good people in this life: the farmer who donated land to build a school, the elderly woman who quietly fills in potholes on the road. All of them are worthy of our reverence.

Practicing the praise of the Tathagata today

So how do we practice? Thay offers these suggestions.

First, the heart must be filled with feelings of love and reverence for the Buddha.

Second, praise the Buddha for the Buddha to hear — but chant with both understanding and emotion, not mechanically.

Third, praise the Buddha for sentient beings to hear. To do this, study and memorize the life of the Buddha, then gently share it with others. Do not tell it all at once at great length — water it drop by drop, like watering a plant, letting the soil absorb it slowly.

Pay attention to your own mouth today. If words of praise arise naturally when you see someone doing something good, that is a sign that your practice is progressing. Every sincere word of praise is a gem placed into another person's heart. And that is precisely the practice of praising the Tathagata that Samantabhadra Bodhisattva taught for all generations to come.