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Kuo Jing's Journal: Malaysia
Alor Star
27 August (Day 30)
We start at 8:30 a.m. and drive north for about two and a half hours. We speed by endless miles of coconut and palm trees – to our left gray buffalos plough the fields, to our right is the blue ocean, gleaming against a cloudless sky. Sun-browned boys in their wrap-around sarongs are playing on the white sand by the water’s edge. Alor Star is our next stop. We arrive at a complex which houses a Thai Wat (temple) plus the local Buddhist Society. The population is Fukienese.
At the Thai temple we are greeted by some forty Theravada monks in their ochre robes. They chant a hymn to the Triple Jewel in Pali for us, and then we’re treated to lunch.
Some of the Thai monks come later to join us in a group picture. A few of them are tottering, old, in their seventies. They ask the Abbot’s age through an interpreter, and he gently replies, “Tell them, they may be seventy, but they are still like children to me.” This brings big grins to their faces. The Abbot has the capacity to charm even the most sour and despondent of natures.
There is a refuge ceremony in the afternoon in which about two hundred people take refuge. In the evening a crowd of over a thousand turn up at the Buddhist Lecture Hall. The Abbot talks about the need for unity within Buddhism, no matter whether Mahayana or Theravada within Buddhism, no matter whether Mahayana or Theravada. If we criticize each other it is like killing our own flesh and blood. Excerpts:
“Because I’ve said a lot of things that people do not like to hear, after I leave, there are bound to be many who will scold me. Now, you who have taken refuge with me should not get upset when this happens. Just bow to these people, and admit that it’s your teacher’s fault. Don’t fight on behalf of your teacher. If I have to rely on my disciples to fight for a good name, I do not deserve to be called your teacher.”
Some questions and answers:
Q: “How can we convince people who know only how to bow to the Buddhas to truly investigate the Bodhisattvas conduct?”
A: “Why don’t you teach them to be hoodlums instead? Here are people who already know how to bow and recite, which is already much better than doing a lot of other things. Why do you not use your time to convert bad people instead of harping on finer points? In this world, there is no definite standard of good and bad: you say a person is evil, and there are bound to be people more evil than he is; you say a person is good, and there are bound to be people better than he is, too. There are no fixed standards. If people can already recite and bow, isn’t this already much better than not reciting at all?”
Q: “If left-home people do not practice the Buddhadharma, can we as lay people convince them to return to lay life?”
A: “Better still, why don’t you leave home? Just leave home and be a model Sanghin, then you’ll show them.”
Q: “There are some families in which congenital diseases pass from one generation to the next, is this explainable by cause and effect?”
A: “Of course, heredity is just the same as cause and effect. If there were no cause planted before, there would be no effect. Heredity is just the transmission of the cause from generation to generation. Again, do not nit-pick about details. A person is a person. It’s not because his head is on top and his toes below that he’s a human being.”
Inspired by the Abbot’s seemingly boundless patience towards living beings, I ask him:
“Shih Fu, what does real compassion mean? I don’t feel it entails just being ‘nice’ to people, because that often is false.”
“Of course, compassion is not mere external show of kindness. The latter falls easily into the realm of artificiality. Compassion arises on its own as you understand more. As you grow up, it flows out from your self-nature because then you are able to really see. The same goes for wisdom. Being able to say the right words at the right time, to be in perfect harmony with the occasion, this is part of genuine wisdom. Now why do people appreciate my way of answering their questions? It’s because I don’t think, I don’t calculate for myself.
“Real eloquence is not something learned or copied from textbooks. It arises spontaneously from your self-nature. Whenever you try for an effect, that already is extra baggage, and your speech may end up having an adverse effect. You try to say something striking, and you end up muddling that issue or hurting people’s feelings. Don’t pretend, don’t try to make a good impression. Just be really true; everything else takes care of itself.
Now, I am one who doesn’t think. Even with regard to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, I’m not twiddling my thumbs, wondering from where we’ll get our next contribution. I just let things happen naturally. Let it flow. I don’t think about the past, the present, or the future. My mind is empty.
People are born alone into this world. Solitary. When I was young and yet a student of the Way, I used to prefer to be by myself. I seldom talked, and I looked really dumb. Many people looked down on me, even novices looked down on me, ordering me to this and that. And I voluntarily took on menial chores that nobody else wanted to do: washing the vegetables, cooking, and cleaning out the pit toilets. I gathered my essence and internal jewels and mixed with the dust. I wasn’t about to disclose them to anyone who happened along the way. Even now at Gold Mountain and the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, I am solitary. I enjoy most being my little room, doing my own work. Most people who come to talk have nothing of import to say. Why talk for the sake of talking, why waste time on non-essentials?
When I help people, I don’t want it to be known that I am helping them. They need not thank me or become attached to any external aspects of Dharma. Real compassion is often silent.”
We drive back to Penang. It is late and the night air clear. Outside the stars glisten in quiet contentment. An engulfing silence soothes our minds.
Sungei Patani
28 August (Day 31)
In the morning we head for Sungei Patani, which is about an hour away, and stop at the Kedah Buddhist Association, where a group of about fifty lay people are waiting for us.
Professor Yu Kuo K’ung has, in these few days, opened his wisdom; it gushes forth exuberantly like a bubbling stream. Amazing how noticeable changes can occur in a brief period, provided the groundwork has been laid.
It becomes increasingly important that we support others in our investigations into self, particularly when certain individuals are on the verge of breaking new ground. The more we help them, the more we help Buddhism as a whole. Jealousy and obstructiveness are the most debilitating factors.
“Never, never be selfish. Don’t look out just for your own benefit or put it before everybody else’s. The reason for stupidity is selfishness. If you are not selfish, you’ll immediately open up great wisdom,” the Abbot admonishes.
In the afternoon a crowd gathers for questions. People’s faces take on such a mellow flow as they gather around the Abbot like happy children. At night we drive to the Town Lecture Hall that adjoins an Indian temple. About thirteen hundred people have come. The hall is bubbling in a turmoil of excitement. It’s been said recently that our delegation is like a precious pearl, and many people are trying to grab a share of it. Tonight the obvious escalation of mood -- an electrifying exuberance – seems to drive home the point.
The Abbot speaks immediately about the liberation from greed and seeking.
“When you get to the point of no-seeking, that is no-worrying; the less you know about affairs, the less affliction you have. Otherwise, you’ll always be embroiled in the cross fire of the eight sufferings.”
He goes on to talk about vigor:
“Vigor means not being lazy, not just vigorous for one day and then slack for ten. One has to be vigorous at every moment, day and night, month after month, year after year, lifetime after lifetime. It is easy to bring forth a bold resolve for Bodhi, but it is hard to persist year after year in the same vein. That is the task of a great hero. Like the tow monks who are bowing once every three steps. They are not seeking for their own comfort or fame; they’ve dedicated their lives to all of humanity. This is the path that all Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and patriarchs have tread. That is not to say that they are already Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, or Patriarchs, but they are going along the right path. They are two highly intelligent people; they could not have been easily taken in by any clever rap of mine.
So, we should cultivate the Path with vigor. When you cultivate, do not seek. You shouldn’t calculate like this: ‘I’ve just recited the Earth Store Sutra, how much merit have I acquired?’ Why don’t you ask yourself how many offenses you created before you recited the sutra? Do not keep tabs on the benefit you’ll get from reciting the Buddha’s name. Cultivation is something you ought to do. It is your duty.
When people cultivate, they sometimes attain some state or other which they mistake for something fantastic. They think they’ve obtained spiritual penetrations. Let me tell you, they haven’t even attained ghostly penetrations. Don’t be deluded like Su Tung P’o (famous fifteenth-century Sung Poet, artist, and Ch’an student). One day while sitting in meditation he had a minor state; this inspired him to compose the following verse:
Bowing to the lord of the skies,
Your light illumines the thousand universes.
The eight winds cannot move me,
Sitting upright upon purple-gold lotus.He was extremely pleased with his own verse. Now the eight winds are: praise, ridicule, suffering, joy, benefit, decay, slander, and repute. Su thought he had attained such a high state that he was now in a state of unmoving suchness, even when confronted by the eight winds. He told a messenger to take his verse across the Yangtze River to Dhyana Master Fwo Yin, so that Fwo Yin could certify him. D. M. Fwo Yin took one look at the verse, and without saying a word, wrote four characters on the scroll and sent it back.
Now, the messenger could not read characters, so he took it right back to Su Tung P’o. Su had expected lofty praised, but when he opened the scroll he had a fit. On it was written in bold strokes, ‘Fart! Fart!’ He toppled right down from his purple-gold lotus throne!
He tore over to D.M. Fwo Yin’s place and threw a temper tantrum. D.M. Fwo Yin eyed him coolly and said, ‘Oh, I thought you were one who is not moved by the eight winds, yet two farts have blown you all the way across the river.’ Su Tung P’o knew he’d been had. But it was too late.
Cultivators should be in control of states; states should not turn people. Cultivators should not get angry, no matter what state they encounter.”
A large rainfall during the lecture – just as we leave the hall, it stops abruptly. Wherever we go, we have observed an interesting pattern in the weather; it only rains later at night or early in the morning, but never right before or after the lecture when people are coming and going.
About several hundred youngsters swarm the car, shaking the Abbot’s hands, their plaintive little voices intoning, “Shih Fu, Shih Fu”. The outburst of warmth is heart-felt. The Abbot says we drive out,
“These beings were all taught and transformed by me in previous lifetimes, that is why they so spontaneously bring forth their true hearts when they see me again.”
Everything else can wait
Everything else can wait, but cultivation cannot. Appointments, deadlines, jobs, family – all are man-made limitations, all can be changed by people. But, if you don’t cultivate, you may have missed the entire game. You ask, “What is cultivation?” One way of putting it simply is that cultivation is the art of mindfulness. Honing the mind to a fine point, until it loses all sense of discrimination. Becoming one with everything.
Be prepared to lose your head when you cultivate. You can hide for aeons behind a false thought, your pen, clever words, your talents, or an attitude so deeply. Lodged that it’s hardly perceptible to your consciousness. But in the end you must see through the place where all dharmas are empty and level.
Whatever you can’t put down,
Put that down the hardest.
Cultivation is doing the things that are hardest for you to do.Abbot Hua
Sometimes, the more you want to cultivate, the more exacting the tests become. Bodhisattvas come to test you on your very words. When the pressure is on, the vile, ugly aspects of your own nature may erupt like water from a punctured tank, and it’s at times oppressive and scary. You never had to face up to how unpretty you are. On such occasions, patience and samadhi (concentration) can soothe the pain. The fruits of cultivation are hard-earned. Every bit is garnered from blood, sweat, and bitterness. No amount of smarts can cultivate for you, neither can your looks, your learning, your girlfriend or boyfriend. Cultivation is the complete do-it-yourself kit.
Kota Bahru
29 August (Day 32)
We bid farewell to the community of Penang and take a plane to the state of Kelantan. The last leg of our journey will be stops at three major cities on the east coast;
then our journey around the entire state of Malaysia will be complete and we will return to Kuala Lumpur to conclude the Earth Store Dharma Assembly.
After a lunch of peanut butter sandwiches on the plane we touch down at the capitol of Khota Bahru at 12:30 p.m. Ng Fung, Yang Da Sheng and his wife, and Wong Chen Chiao have accompanied us on this leg of the journey. We drive over to the Kelantan Buddhist Association. This newly finished temple comprises three stories, with a lecture hall on the ground floor that can hold about seven hundred, a Buddhahall on the second floor, bedrooms and a library on the third. All the local “big shots” are waiting for us. Over hot tea, the Abbot says in his arrival speech,
“in studying the Buddhadharma, don’t seek high and wide, but seek it right within the common affairs of your daily life. To get to the far, you have to start from the near, to get to the high, you have to start from the low. It means within every thought, word, and deed, returning the light and shine within.”
A large rain-cloud slowly gathers in the afternoon, moving like a huge white canopy, recalling passages from the Avatamsaka Sutra, when dragon kings summon the rain. For a couple hours it hovers on the horizon, as the gale gathers force, hissing and slashing at the trembling palms outside. The sky becomes an eerie blotch of green, red, and gray. Then, suddenly pearls of thunder crash like magnificent cymbals, the sky lights up on the far corners in electric flashes, and torrential rain pours down in silver cascades. To see a tropical storm in action is mesmerizing. Every tree, every blade of grass and stone is turned. The air is crystal clear and cool afterwards. We bow through the rain squall with about fifteen lay people behind us. Scores of others stand around and gape in unending curiosity. The Buddhist Association is also recording the visit on film.
At night the Abbot speaks to an audience of seven hundred. Chinese are a minority on the east coast, and Buddhism is relatively new here, compared to some of the more built-up communities on the other coast. The Abbot says,
“When cultivating, be careful about cause and effect. Don’t be the least bit casual about what you say, don’t recklessly slander people, and don’t use a common person’s measure to estimate a sage. I’ll relate an account of something that happened in Hong Kong, though many people probably will not want to believe it. There was an elderly laywoman in her sixties named Liu Kuo Chuen who took refuge with me. She started eating pure food, and whenever I lectured the Sutras she would not miss one session, otherwise she’d feel very uncomfortable. But, the strange thing was that she was deaf: she couldn’t hear a word. At that time, I was at Hsi Le Yuan, ( Western Bliss Gardens) which was built on a mountainside, and to get up to the monastery one had to climb up a steep flight of three hundred stairs. It was hard for her, but she always came.
One day during a Sutra lecture she suddenly heard the phrase, ‘Homage to the Lotus Pool Assembly of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,’ and thereupon promptly opened up her hearing. She was no longer deaf! From then on, she cultivated even more ardently. However,
If you want to become a Buddha,
You may run into demons;
If you want to be good,
Your karmic obstacles catch up with you.There was something she had refused to believe in her past life and in this life she had to undergo a retribution for that disbelief. Several hungry ghosts came to dwell in her stomach. One night, she dreamt that three fat children entered her stomach, and from that day on, she had to eat about eight meals a day. She had to eat a full meal every hour.
This perturbed her to no end. She consulted both Chinese and Western doctors, and none of them could discover the source of her illness. After about a year of this wearisome malady, one day she said to me,
‘Shih Fu, there is someone in my stomach who talked to me.’
I asked her, ‘What did it say?’
‘Well, this morning I was making oil cakes, when this voice from my stomach started whining, “No, I don't like oil cakes!”’
‘And what did you tell it?’
I said, “It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not, I just have to fill you up.”
I answered, ‘Even if there was a baby inside your stomach, it still wouldn’t talk. There must be something weird in there. Tonight before you go to sleep, light a stick of incense and bow before the Buddha; then observe what happens.’
That night, she lit a stick of incense and bowed and, just as she was about to doze off, she saw Wei To Bodhisattva come with a bowl of noodles in his hand. He put the bowl down and the three chubby children scrambled out of Liu Kuo Chuen’s stomach, gulping down the noodles as fast as they could. Wei to Bodhisattva grabbed each one of them by the ear and spirited them away. From that moment on she felt her stomach had become empty. She no longer had to wolf down eight meals a day.
So, ultimately, who were those three kids? They were three monsters: two huge lizards and a big frog. And why did she contract such an illness? It was because in her previous life she encountered someone with exactly the same illness. A Dharma Master who healed that person told her about the two lizards and the frog, and she wouldn’t believe it. ‘Now that’s what I call a bunch of superstitious rot!’ she said. And because she had said something wrong in disbelief, this lifetime she got to experience the illness first hand. So from this incident, you should know the intensity of erring in cause and effect.
It is said that Bodhisattva fear causes but do not fear the effect, whereas common people fear effects but do not fear causes. The Bodhisattva is extremely careful on the causal ground not to make mistakes so that on the effect ground he is no longer afraid – he figures he’s only reaping what he deserves. Living beings, however, are just the opposite. They do not fear the causes they plant. They recklessly go about killing, stealing, lying, indulging in deviant sex, and taking intoxicants, yet when the retribution catches up with them, they are scared out of their wits. It’s said that if you kill someone’s father, somebody else will kill your own father. Cause and effect work unerringly. If you plant good causes, you will reap good effects; if you plant tomatoes, you won’t get red peppers. If you’re filial to your parents now, later on your children will be filial to you. There is a saying that,
Families that do good always enjoy good fortune;
Families that do evil are plagued with early deaths and many disasters.
The retribution of good and evil follows you around like a shadow.Everything that befalls you, whether good or bad, comes not of itself but as a direct response to your actions. Effects are never off by a hair’s breadth.
We should not be confused about cause and effect. When Dhyana Master Pai Chang was lecturing the Sutras, an old man with a white beard used to come to listen. One night, the old many stayed behind. D.M. Pai Chang asked him who he was, and it turned out that he was an old fox who lived in the mountains beyond. ‘Prior to this, I was a left-home person,’ he explained. ‘Once, someone asked me, “Do great cultivators fall under the rule of cause and effect?” At that time I replied, “Great cultivators do not come under the rule of cause and effect.” Here I made a great mistake. Even the Bodhisattvas fear causes and do not fear effects, how much the more should great cultivators be wary of cause and effect. Because I answered incorrectly, I received the retribution of a fox’s body for the next five hundred lives. Now, can the Venerable Master help me?’
D.M. Pai Chang told him, ‘You can ask me the same question now.’
The old man asked, ‘do great cultivators come under the rule of cause and effect?’
D.M. Pai Chang answered, ‘Great cultivators are not confused by cause and effect.’
It’s the word not confused that’s the key. Cultivators are very clear about cause and effect; they have to thoroughly understand its workings. Upon hearing this, the old man became enlightened. He took leave of D.M. Pai Chang, saying, ‘Now I can go off to rebirth, you can find me in the mountains yonder.’
The next day, D.M. Pai Chang went looking for the fox’s whereabouts, and sure enough, in the cave he’d been directed to lay a fox’s corpse. D.M. Pai Chang cremated it with a ceremony befitting a Sanghin.”
Questions and Answers:
Q: “Is there a God or not; how would you describe him?”
A: “If you say there is a God, then there is one; if you say there isn’t any God, then there isn’t any. Why? Because if in your mind there is a God, then he exists; if in your mind there is no God, then he doesn’t exists. You look all around you and you can’t see God, you can’t pin him down. Yet, many people believe in him because of faith. All dharmas are created from the mind alone.”
Q: (for Prof. Kuo K’ung): “When you say that Buddhism is science and science is just Buddhism, what do you mean?”
A: “When I say that Buddhism is science and science is just Buddhism, I enlarge both domains. Buddhism is the study of the truth of the Mind – if expanded it also covers the study of all material bodies. Science is the study of the truth of material bodies – if enlarged its scope includes the study of the Mind as well. Now, the Abbot says that science is included within Buddhism, something which most people find harder to understand. ‘Everything is made from the mind alone.’ So if you investigate things to the ultimate, there are really no material bodies, no science – there isn’t even a thing! Everything is empty, but from this emptiness arises to more and more infinitesimal particles – from the atom, to the neutron, to the newly-discovered J-particle. You can see that this particle exists in a ‘field’. A ‘field’ is so wonderful because it defies normal description: if you say that it exists, then there is not a thing, if you say it does not exist, all things come from it.”
Buddhism is not strong in these parts, yet judging from the ready receptivity of tonight’s audience, there is a chance for it to flourish widely. Kuo K’ung’s analysis marks the beginning of a certain approach to Buddhism that will appeal to many Western-trained individuals. The more we bridge the differences among systems and disciplines, the more we perceive the universality of Buddhism’s net. The net is laced with gems that interpenetrate and shine but do not obstruct one another. All learning, all religions and all dharmas are not outside the Buddhadharma.
30 August (Day 33)
A simple refuge ceremony is held in the afternoon in which the Abbot also transmits the Wisdom Mantra and two of the Forty-two-Hands and Eyes.
In his address in the evening, the Abbot says,
“In cultivating, you have to do it reliably, honestly, down-to-earth. It means not being lazy, it means following the rules. Don’t do seeking for a side door, a short cut to cultivation. All you need to do is to enter deeply into whatever Dharma-door you choose. You shouldn’t be standing on top of one mountain and peering across to another, thinking the grass is greener on the other side. So you recite the Buddha’s name for three days, practice the teaching school for three days, and sit in Ch'an for three days – if you are just hopping back and forth, you’ll have no accomplishment. Why? Because you haven’t been reliable; you haven’t focused on one Dharma-door. It is said,
In single-mindedness there is efficacy,
In diversity you just become scattered.Of the eighty-four thousand Dharma-doors, all are number one; there is no number two. Whatever is most opportune for you is number one. So don’t be greedy, don’t bite off more than you can chew, for you may not even digest the material. If you vacillate back and forth, first dabbling in the Apparent School, then the Secret School, and then reciting the Buddha’s name, and so on, always working on superficial aspects, you are not being reliable.
In cultivation, the most important thing is not to give rise to doubt. If you don’t doubt, but maintain deep faith, you’ll bring forth great wisdom. Having wisdom just means no longer being confused and upside down.
Prajna is a Sanskrit word which means wisdom, but because it also carries other connotations, it’s treated as an honorific and not translated. There are three types of Prajna:
- Literary Prajna – The Sutras and all words which can lead you to wisdom.
- Contemplative and Illuminating Prajna – Use your wonderful contemplative wisdom and illumine all dharmas. Deeply enter the Sutra Store and obtain wisdom like the sea.
- True Mark Prajna – The true mark is just no mark, the real appearance of all dharmas is emptiness.”
The Abbot then comments on Ch'an:
“Dhyana is a Sanskrit word which means ‘cultivation of the mental process’, and ‘quiet ponderance’. It means thinking, but thinking about a hua t’ou at the beginning of each thought, not at the end. You ask, ‘Who is mindful of the Buddha?’ Who is mindful? ‘Well of course it’s me,’ you say. Who are ‘you’? Are you your body? What happens to you after this body dies? After the body is cremated, where do you go? Behind this stinking skin-bag, who is the real you?
You investigate this topic back and forth, in every single thought – you force it to a head:
When the mountains are exhausted and the waters dried up,
And you think there is no way out,
Suddenly, amidst the dark willows and bright flowers
Is another village…Break through! In investigating Ch'an, you are just getting rid of the false. For each fraction of the false you rip off, there appears an equivalent fraction of truth.
In investigating Ch'an, after your skill is developed you may enter progressively into the heavens of the four dhyanas. But, do not think that you can certify yourself in any of these states. Only a Good Knowing Advisor is able to certify your level of accomplishment. And even then it’s not a big deal. You haven’t certified to any fruit even upon reaching the fourth dhyana. The four dhyanas are just the beginning stages of cultivation.
The worst pitfall in Ch'an is engaging in Ch'an banter, or head-mouth Zen. People who rave on about Ch'an usually do not know a thing about it. In 1968 such a ‘head-mouth patriarch’ came to see me at Buddhist Lecture Hall. He said that he’d been certified by the Buddhist association of some country and has advertised in some papers that he is enlightened. I said,
‘You have no shame; what type of enlightenment have you opened?’
He answered, ‘The enlightenment of the Sixth Patriarch, which is the same as the enlightenment of Shakyamuni Buddha.’
In that case I can chop off your head right now. After the Sixth Patriarch entered into the stillness, a Korean wanted to chop off his head and bring it back to Korea to make offerings to it. Since you’re enlightened I can do it to you while you’re still alive.’
That did it; he was scared out of his wits and never dared come back!”