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| Contents Door 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 previous next * Preface | ||
Prologue:
Furthermore, the above ten places all constitute arisal from conditions, and so mention of one includes them all. That is because each one of the places is congruent with the Dharma nature. Moreover, just as each of the previous times correspondingly pervades all of these places, so too is each of these places replete with all of those previous times, and in all at once this Sutra is spoken.That is when described in terms of the world of things. If described in terms of the worlds of wisdom and proper enlightenment and of living beings, then each and every Buddha’s body’s limbs, joints, and hair-pores all include inexhaustible and multi-layered kshetras. Universal Worthy and living beings are each that way as well. All are places where Vairochana speaks the Sutra.
Commentary:
Furthermore, the above ten places, which were discussed before, all constitute arisal from conditions. Those ten places all conditionally arise, and so mention of one includes them all. Bring up one place, and it includes the other nine. That is because each one of the places is congruent with the Dharma nature. Every single one of the places exactly matches the Dharma nature, being the same as it.Moreover, just as each of the previous times correspondingly pervades all of these places, the ten times discussed before fill these ten places, each time becoming ten times, and each place becoming ten places ¾ so too is each of these places replete with all of those previous times, the principles involved in the ten kinds of time discussed before, and in all at once this Sutra is spoken. The Great Expansive Buddha Flower Adornment Sutra is spoken all at once in all of those times. That is when described in terms of the world of things. There are three kinds of worlds:
- The world of things;
- The world of living beings;
- The world of wisdom and proper enlightenment (that of the Buddhas.)
The discussion so far has been from the point of view of the World of Things, which includes mountains, rivers, the great earth; houses, verandahs, porches, and rooms.
If described in terms of the world of wisdom and proper enlightenment and of living beings, from the point of view of those two worlds, then each and every Buddha’s body’s limbs, joints, and hair-pores, the four limbs of the body of each Buddha, the joints and the hair-pores, all include inexhaustible and multi-layered kshetras. Each hair-pores takes in infinitely many, multi-layered and endless, amounts of varied kinds of Buddha-lands, more than you could count. And each kshetra further has infinitely many different kinds of kshetras to it.Universal Worthy and living beings are each that way as well. It’s not only the Buddhas who are like that, Universal Worthy Bodhisattva is that way, and so are all living beings. If you contrast Universal Worthy Bo with the Buddha, he is a living beings; but compared with living beings, he can be said to belong to the World of Wisdom and Proper Enlightenment, the way the Buddha does. It depends on how you view it. All of them, the Buddhas, Universal Worthy, and living beings, are this way. All are places where Vairochana speaks the Sutra. All locations for Vairochana, the Dharma-body Buddha, speaking the Great Means Expansive Buddha Flower Adornment Sutra.
Prologue:
The third, relying upon the host. Inasmuch as the true body is boundlessly vast, it unites in substance with the Dharma Realm. It is all-encompassing with nothing left outside and grants the myriad transformations alike its use. If one probes the source, there is no duality. If one grasps at the traces, there is multiplicity. The one body and many bodies are differently discussed in the Sutras and Shastras.Commentary:
The third, relying upon the Host. Before we discussed time and place, and now we’ll talk about the Host which, among the Six Realizations, is the Realization of a Host. Inasmuch as the true body is boundlessly vast, it unites in substance with the Dharma Realm. The Buddha’s true body refers to the Dharma body, which is:
Neither great nor small,
with no inside and no outside.
And so the Buddha’s Dharma body pervasively fills all places. There’s no place where it is, and no place where it isn’t. Do you say it’s in this place? If you try to say that it is, it isn’t. Do you say it’s in that place? It isn’t either. Do you say it isn’t in this place? That’s not right either. Do you say it isn’t in that place? That also is not true. It’s not somewhere, and it’s not anywhere. Therefore, the true body is “boundlessly vast.” It has no form or shape.
You look but cannot see it.
You listen but cannot hear it.
You sniff but cannot smell it.
You say, “I keep looking to see what the boundlessly vast is like, but I can’t get a glimpse of it. I keep listening for the boundlessly vast, but I can’t catch its sound. I keep trying to smell it, but it doesn’t have any odor.” That’s what’s meant by “boundlessly vast.” You claim it doesn’t exist, yet it unites in substance with the Dharma Realm. The true body is just the Dharma Realm, and the Dharma Realm is the true body. They become one.
It is all-encompassing. It includes the myriad existing things, everything whatsoever, with nothing left outside. Nothing fails to be included. And it grants the myriad transformations alike its use. The “myriad transformations” are just the states of the thousand changes and myriad transformations. What didn’t exist before, transforms into non-existence. Nothingness and existence, existence and then nothingness -- these changes and transformations are endless. You say it’s transformed into nothing? It comes into being again. Do you say it exists? It again disappears. This is referring to the cycle of change of all the myriad things and myriad creatures in to world. Those myriad transformations function the same way it does and have the same way of working.
If one probes the source, there is no duality. If you look for water’s source, there is only going to be one, not two. A single water source divides up into a thousand or ten thousand different kinds of flows: rivers, streams, lakes, and seas. But if you trace them back to their origin, they only have a single source. So if one probes the source, there is no duality. If one grasps at the traces, there is multiplicity. There being no duality when one probes the source is returning the branch-tips to the root. Then they are one.
Trees are like this, too.
One thousand branches
Ten thousand leaves,
But only one trunk.
All numbers are based on “one.” If you seek true emptiness, then you probe the source. But, if you grasp at the branch-tips, you become attached to all existence, which is what living beings do. Then wonderful existence is no longer wonderful, but simply existence.
Basically, when one probes the source there is no duality, and true emptiness has no marks. Wonderful existence also has no shape to it. True emptiness and wonderful existence is just to use the root to gather in the branch-tips, so the branch-tips return to the root. If you grasp at the traces, appearances multiply into lots and lots.The one body and many bodies are differently discussed in the Sutras and Shastras. Some Sutras say the Buddha has one body, and others say he has many bodies. Some Shastras say he has two bodies, one true and one false. The true Buddha then is the Dharma body, while the false Buddha is the retribution body and the response bodies. The response bodies are also called transformation bodies. There are places where the Sutras and Shastras differ in their accounts, yet the principle remains the same. Though discussed in different ways, the principle is still one.
Everyone is welcome to come here to participate in the Dharma Assemblies and investigate the Buddhadharma, but they have to follow the rules. For example, if the Sutra lecture begins at 7 o’clock, you can’t wait until 8:30 to come day after day. What are you coming for if you wait until the lecture is about over? Especially since people here listen to the Sutras with intense concentration. As soon as you come knocking on the door, you scatter everyone’s attention. If you do that, not only do you have no merit, you even create offenses.The assembly was so intent in their study of the Buddhadharma that they are on the point of becoming enlightened, and you knock on the door and prevent them from getting enlightened. That’s true. So the causes and effects are very severe in this. If you want to investigate the Buddha-dharma, you have to come at the right time and leave right away after the lecture is over. Don’t hang around, thinking about smoking or drinking some wine. Though you don’t actually drink anything, you want to so much that it amounts to the same thing. Do you understand?
We here are incredibly busy. If you come here and listen to the Buddhadharma and hear the Sutra lecture, that is studying the Buddhadharma, and it can answer all the questions you don’t understand. You should pay attention and listen. Don’t come here and read a book or do some other kind of work while everyone else is listening to the Sutra and then start asking people questions after the lecture is over.You have to listen to the Sutra lecture with complete attention. If you haven’t the faintest idea what was said during the lecture, what point is there to it? You’re just wasted your time. You’d have been better off staying at home and sleeping, for at least you’d have gotten a little rest. There are lots of books on Buddhism in the libraries outside. Why do you have to come all the way here to read a book? You should do what everyone else is doing, not take it upon yourself to have a special style or start telling people what to do. We all act as one here. If you went east and someone else took off for the west, and everyone ran about as they pleased, it would be a mess.
For instance, if everyone is circumambulating the Buddha in a clockwise direction, and you decide to go the other way around, wouldn’t you hit head-on? So, to come on time and follow the rules shows that you really want to study the Buddhadharma. If you come dragging in half asleep, and even go to sleep here, then how can you study the Buddhadharma? You say you don’t understand the lecture? It’s just because you don’t understand them that you have to listen to them. If you understood, you wouldn’t need to listen.
Prologue:
Is the Buddha who now speaks this Sutra the true or the response, one or many? If you say he is the true, then how can you term him Shakyamuni residing in the Saha world, whom humans and Gods both see? If you say he is the response, how can you speak of Vairochana located in the Lotus Flower Treasury, whom the great Bodhisattva see, seeing the Buddha’s Dharma body?Commentary:
National Master Ch’ing Liang, anticipating objections, asks some rhetorical questions, saying is the Buddha who now speaks this Sutra the true or the response, one or many? Is the Flower Adornment Sutra now being spoken by the Buddha’s true body or by the Buddha’s response body? Is it being spoken by one Buddha or by the Buddhas of the ten directions? If you say he is the true, if you maintain it is the Buddha’s Dharma body, the true body, which speaks the Flower Adornment Sutra, then how can you term him Shakyamuni residing in the Saha world, whom humans and Gods both see? How can you talk of Shakyamuni Buddha speaking the Flower Adornment Sutra in the Saha World, seen by the gods in the heavens and the realms of people? If it is spoken by the true, the Dharma body, then people and gods wouldn’t be able to see it. How do you explain that?If you say it is the response, that the response body speaks the Flower Adornment Sutra, how can you speak of Vairochana located in the Lotus Flower Treasury, whom the great Bodhisattvas see, seeing the Buddha’s Dharma body? On what grounds would you assert Vairochana Buddha spoke it in the Flower Treasury, his Dharma body being seen by the great Bodhisattva? If it’s the response body, there shouldn’t be Vairochana Buddha. If it is the true body, then there shouldn’t be Shakyamuni Buddha. So how do you explain that?
Prologue:
If you say he is one, how can there be different appearances in many places? If you say he is different ones, how can you, on the other hand, say he does not divide his body? Therefore, the Buddha who speaks this Sutra is definitely not as was previously described. It is the Dharma Realm’s inexhaustible clouds of bodies, true and response fusing with each other, one and many not obstructing each other. This is because Vairochana is just Shakyamuni.Commentary:
Previously it was considering whether the Flower Adornment Sutra is spoken by the true body or the response body. The questions being posed are all hypothetical, not questions actually being asked by someone. National Master Ch’ing Liang asks them and answers them himself. If you say he is one, if you say it is a single Buddha who speaks this Sutra, how can there be different appearances in many places? How can the Buddha be seen in a lot of different places, in individual appearances of Buddha bodies? If you say he is different ones, if you say that a lot of bodies, many Buddhas, speak the Flower Adornment Sutra, how can you, on the other hand, say he does not divide his body? Then why does the Sutra also say he does not divide his body to go to other places? How can that be?
Therefore, the Buddha who speaks this Sutra is definitely not as was previously described. That means the Buddha who speaks the Flower Adornment Sutra doesn’t fit the alternatives discussed before: whether it was spoken by the true body or the response body, whether it was spoken by many Buddhas or by a single Buddha. That’s not the way to talk about it. Then what? It is the Dharma Realm’s inexhaustible clouds of bodies.The Flower Adornment Sutra is the Sutra of the Dharma Realm, and so the Buddha, in speaking the Flower Adornment Sutra, makes appear the Dharma body of the Dharma Realm’s infinite and multi-layered bodies, as endless as clouds, true and response fusing with each other, one and many not obstructing each other. The true body interpenetrates the response bodies, and the response bodies interpenetrate the true body as well. The Buddha’s Dharma body and response bodies interpenetrate and fuse, so they are indistinguishable. A single Buddha and many Buddhas do not rule each other out. This is because Vairochana is just Shakyamuni. Vairochana Buddha is precisely Shakyamuni Buddha, and Shakyamuni Buddha is Vairochana Buddha. They are two and yet not two.
Prologue:
Because his always being present in this place is being present in other places; because his being far away in other places is constantly dwelling in this one; because the bodies are not divided or different, and also are not one; because at the same time in different places the one body, perfectly and completely, appears in all of them.
Commentary:
Because Vairochana Buddha is just Shakyamuni Buddha, his always being present in this place is being present in other places. Living beings see him as always in the one spot, yet he is always in other places, too. Vairochana Buddha is seen here and also there. Because his being far away in other places is constantly dwelling in this one. By “other lands” it means the worlds of the Flower Treasury. “This place” means the Saha World. He is always in the worlds of the Flower Treasury and also always in the Saha World. He is always in the Saha World yet in the worlds of the Flower Treasury all the time, too. This is a case of non-obstruction of one and many and mutual functioning of the true and the response.
From the ordinary person’s point of view, this is a state that cannot be understood. Not only do ordinary people not understand it, Bodhisattvas don’t understand it either, for these are all inconceivable states. The principle of the one and the many is the same as was discussed before;
One moon universally appears in all waters;
The moons in all waters come from a single moon.
One Buddha universally appears in all words, the way a single moon appears in all the waters. The Saha World has the Buddha, and so do the other worlds. Just as every living being feels that the moon is right before him, every living being feels the Buddha is right before him, too. So this place and that place are not further than the tip of a hair apart.
Because the bodies are not divided or different, and also are not one. There is no division into many bodies, and yet there also isn’t just one body. They aren’t one or many. Because at the same time in different places, simultaneously, being both many and one, the one body perfectly and completely, appears in all of them. The single body of Vairochana Buddha universally appears in all lands, completely.
The Medicine Master Repentance has the following verse:
The Buddha’s body fills the Dharma Realm,
Universally appearing before all beings;
In accord with conditions, going everywhere to respond,
Yet yet ever remaining in his Bodhi seat.
The Buddha’s Dharma body filling the Dharma Realm is one. Universally appearing before all beings in response bodies in many. In accord with conditions, going everywhere to respond, yet ever remaining in his Bodhi seat is neither many nor one. You may say it’s one, but bodies go everywhere to influence in accord with conditions. Do you say it’s many? Yet he ever remains in his Bodhi seat. This describes the Buddha’s state, the state of the Buddha’s body, which is the same as the state of the Flower Adornment Sutra.previous next Contents * Preface
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