 |
||
|
||
|
||
The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra
PROPER BELIEF IS RARE
CHAPTER 6
Sutra:
Subhuti said to the Buddha, “World Honored One, in the future will there be living beings, who, when they hear such phrases spoken will truly believe?”
The Buddha told Subhuti, “Do not speak in such a way! After the Tathagata’s extinction, in the last five hundred years, there will be those who hold the precepts and cultivate blessings who will believe such phrases and accept them as true.
“You should know that such people will have planted good roots with not just one Buddha, two Buddhas, three, four, or five Buddhas, but will have planted good roots with measureless millions of Buddhas. All who hear such phrases and produce even one thought of pure faith are completely known and completely seen by the Tathagata. Such living beings thus obtain measureless blessings and virtue. And why? Those living beings have no further mark of self, of others, of living beings, or of a life; no mark of phenomena and no mark of no phenomena. If living beings’ minds grasp at marks, then that is attachment to self, to others, to living beings, and to a life. For that reason you should not grasp at phenomena, nor should you grasp at no phenomena. Regarding that principle, the Tathagata often says, ‘All you bhiksus should know that the dharma which I speak is like a raft. Even the dharma should be relinquished, how much the more so what is not dharmas.’
Commentary:
The words Subhuti said to the Buddha were added by the Venerable Ananda when the sutras were compiled.
Subhuti said, “Is it possible that living beings will hear this sutra which the Buddha has spoken and will actually believe it?” What he was really asking Shakyamuni Buddha was, “Is it the case that they will not believe it?”
The Buddha immediately admonished Subhuti for even suggesting such a possibility, and said that even in the last five hundred years beings would believe the sutra.
1. The first period of five hundred years is called “The Period Strong in Liberation.” It constitutes the time when the Buddha is in the world, and many people certify to the Way and attain liberation.
2. The second five hundred years is called “The Period Strong in Dhyana Samadhi.” That period follows the Buddha’s extinction and is a time when many people gain certification through the cultivation of dhyana samadhi.
3. The third five hundred years is called “The Period Strong in Learning.” During that time many people investigate sutras.
4. The fourth five hundred years is “The Period Strong in Fighting.” That is the period referred to in the text, the present Dharma Ending Age.
You can plant good roots or bad roots. If you do not believe in and make offerings to the Triple Jewel, your bad roots increase. When you withdraw from the Triple Jewel, your good roots decrease. When you are near the Triple Jewel your good roots increase. Take heed. Do not do bad deeds. Offer up only good conduct.
The inhabitants of Uttarakuru cannot see the Buddha, hear the Dharma, or see the Sangha, and so their good roots die. In order to plant good roots one should first take refuge with the Triple Jewel. To plant further good roots one can receive the five precepts, the eight precepts, or the ten major and forty-eight minor precepts of a Bodhisattva available for laymen; or the 250 bhiksu or 348 bhiksuni precepts available for those who wish to leave the home life.
The good roots one plants by accepting and holding the five precepts and cultivating the ten good acts cannot be seen, smelled, tasted, or touched because they are without a mark. “All with marks is empty and false,” but people do not realize that, and only know how to nurture their bodies, not their good roots.
“What are good roots?”
Good roots are another name for your dharma body and your wisdom. Good roots are the firm foundation which comes from cultivation. A good foundation causes your dharma body to manifest, your wisdom to increase, and your originally existent real mark prajna to function.
It is essential, however that you plant good roots before the Triple Jewel in order to reap the fruit of Bodhi. If you plant good roots with non-Buddhist religions, you will not be able to reap any ultimate benefit, no matter how many good roots you plant or how long you nurture them.
Living beings who produce the purest, most sincere thought of belief upon hearing the Vajra Sutra are those who have planted good roots before limitless millions of Buddhas. Giving rise to such a true, real mind, a mind that is without the least divergence or skepticism, they obtain limitless and unbounded blessings and virtue.
Such people have realized the emptiness of people and so have no mark of self, others, living beings, or a life. Having no self means seeing the self as empty. Having no mark of others means seeing people as empty. Self and people both empty, living beings are also empty. Naturally when living beings are empty then there is no mark of a life, which refers to the continual quest for immortality as well as to the constant pursuit of all things which one loves and cannot see through.
Having realized the emptiness of people one should also realize the emptiness of phenomena, and relinquish the mark of the nonexistence of phenomena as well. When there is no longer any judgment of phenomena as being right or wrong, then one has arrived at the basic substance of dharma.
If those living beings’ minds grasp at marks, if they hold to the mark of people, they still grasp at the four marks and have not obtained liberation. They have not genuinely put everything down. If they grasp at the mark of phenomena they are still attached to the four marks; if they grasp at the mark of the non-existence of phenomena, they are also attached to the four marks, because they have not seen through and smashed them. They have not realized the emptiness of people, of phenomena, and of emptiness itself.
Regarding that principle, the Buddha often said to the bhiksus, “You should know that the dharma which I speak is like a raft.” The raft is used to cross the sea of suffering – birth and death. Before you have ended birth and death, you use the raft in cultivation. Once you have ended birth and death, you should put the raft aside. If you do not put the raft aside you have an attachment. If you do not put the dharma aside you have an attachment.
Attachment to the dharma can infect one like a disease. Using the dharma which teaches the emptiness of phenomena as medicine, the disease can be cured. Once cured, if a person fails to
realize he is well and continues to take medicine, then he develops a senseless attachment to the medicine, and that amounts to yet another sickness. Those who have realized the emptiness of people and the emptiness of phenomena must also relinquish attachment to the non-existence of phenomena.
The marks of phenomena should be cast aside. When one has ended birth and death one should put phenomena aside. People and phenomena are empty. One should even cast aside true proper dharma, how much the more so the non-existence of phenomena. One should relinquish all one’s persistent attachments.
Contents Preface Translator < Previous Next >
Chapters & Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32