The Cycle of Beauty: Lifetime After Lifetime Revised Edition

By: Shih Cheng Yen

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Master Cheng Yen told stories from the Buddha’s time and instances from daily life. This book includes three parts:

In part one of this book, “The All-Pervasive Heart,” a young child deposits coins in a piggy bank every day in order to “help Grandmaster build the hospital.” In this child’s young heart, a window of love is opened, and as she grows up, the goodness in her heart will continue to grow.

In part two of this book, “Self-Refinement,” there is a story from the Buddha’s time about an elder who asked the Buddha how to eliminate illness. The Buddha told him, “If one’s mind remains well even when one’s body is sick, one can achieve liberation from the pain of illness. Unenlightened beings are all afflicted by the Five Aggregates (form, feeling, perception, action, and consciousness). Once we fall ill, our lives become enshrouded by pain and fear. If we can fully understand that our body is merely an illusory form, and that aging, illness, and death are natural, our bodily suffering will not be as intense.”

The final part of this book, “Serenity at Life’s End” provides many real examples to show that even at life’s end, we can transcend the afflictions of birth and death so long as we can let go of our attachments. In this part of the book, there is the story of a cancer patient who endures the pain of illness and refuses chemotherapy in order to preserve his body for medical research. There is also the story of elderly people who live out the final stretch of their lives in a state of peace and ease.