‧Written by Sheng-yen Lu‧
A US Daden Culture Publication
I often sing this song to Ping Er, a three-year-old girl living next to the Ling Shen Ching Tze Temple in Redmond.
Here goes the song:
Line the little benches into a row!
Oh little children, hop aboard!
Our train is about to start.
I am the train conductor.
Chooga, chooga, chooga.
Toot, toot, toot…
The train is the True Buddha Train moving towards the Buddha Pure Land.
The passengers are students who have taken refuge.
The conductor is Living Buddha Lian-sheng Sheng-yen Lu.
I am the conductor who will transport students with affinity to the Maha Twin Lotus Ponds.
Nagarjuna Bodhisattva has written this verse:
By the principle of dependent origination,
Arising and disintegration are abandoned.
The Mighty One who proclaims this,
I prostrate and pay homage.
Nagarjuna Bodhisattva tells us that Shakyamuni Buddha taught the principle of dependent origination, a method to abandon existence and non-existence. To such a mighty saint, we have to prostrate in reverence!
Here is another verse from Nagarjuna:
I take refuge in the One who extinguishes the world in the three times,
By teaching the true doctrine of dependent origination;
If one understands that all dharmas arise in dependence upon other dharmas,
One abandons desire in one’s actions and activities.
I say:
“If one recognizes all dependently arisen entities have no inherent nature, that is liberation!”
Thus another analogy:
I am not the conductor.
There is no True Buddha Train.
There are also no passengers.
(This is the true nature of ultimate reality.)
I, one who comprehends the nature of mind and recognizes Buddha-essence, have already understood the “fundamental true condition.”
Impermanence.
Non-self.
Emptiness.
Suffering.
True nature refers to:
All conditioned things being in a constant state of flux.
All phenomena are without a permanent self.
Nirvana is quiescence.
This is the true condition of the human world.
I once asked a medical doctor:
When will this ailment be cured?”
The doctor replied:
“At the time of death, it will be gone! After death, all illnesses will be gone!”
When I heard that, I had an awakening!
After reading this, will you have an awakening?
Here I sing:
Line the little benches into a row!
Oh little children, hop aboard!
Our train is about to start.
I am the conductor.
Chooga, chooga, chooga.
Toot, toot, toot…
Ha! Ha! Ha!
What a game!
“Do you see the game?”
“You get it. But, have others?”
