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| Contents Door 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 previous next * Preface | ||
Prologue:
Like the minor characteristics and the Asamkhyeya, which are spoken by the Buddha. In the rest of the assemblies, for the most part, Bodhisattvas speak. The Dharma Realm Chapter is the first to have Sound Hearers speak. All the Good Knowing Advisors and so forth for the most part are Bodhisattvas who speak, which is also called Living Beings speaking. The Bodhi Tree and so forth are the Realm of Things speaking. When the texts are reached, this will be known.
Commentary:
The previous text of the Prologue ended with “If expanded, they are limitless and so within the Dharma Realm Chapter there is not just one kind.” That is, in the Dharma Realm Chapter the speakers are of five kinds, not only one, like the minor characteristics and the Asamkhyeya, which are spoken by the Buddha. This is like the Asamkhyeya Chapter and the Thirty-two Marks and Eighty Minor characteristics, which the Buddha discusses himself. In the rest of the assemblies, the other chapters and assemblies, for the most part, Bodhisattvas speak the Dharma.
The Dharma Realm Chapter is the first to have Sound Hearers speak. Starting with the Dharma Realm Chapter, Sound Hearers do the speaking, too, and all the Good Knowing Advisors and so forth speak. They for the most part are Bodhisattvas who speak, which is also called living beings speaking. In that chapter, living beings speak the Dharma. The Bodhi Tree and so forth… Before it was said that Bodhi Trees also speak Dharma. They are the Realm of Things speaking, the speaking of Dharma on the part of the World Realm of Things. When the texts are reached, this will be known. You’ll know about this when we come to that part of the Sutra.
How can the Bodhi Tree speak Dharma? In the Amitabha Sura it says:
…white cranes, peacocks, parrots and egrets, kalavinkas and two-headed birds. In the six periods of the day and night, the flocks of birds sing forth harmonious and elegant sounds.
Those birds are sentient beings who speak the Dharma, while Bodhi Trees are insentient beings speaking Dharma. For sentient beings to speak the Dharma still doesn’t count as wonderful, as they are sentient. But for insentient beings to speak Dharma is a marvel. That kind of state is inconceivable. In the speaking of Dharma by the Bodhi Trees, there are all different kinds of sounds that flow forth and spread out. The root of the tree is able to speak the perfect, sudden Dharma sound. The branches and leaves can speak the Dharma of the Three Vehicles. Every leaf of the Bodhi Tree can proclaim wonderful Dharma, and that is speaking on the part of the Realm of Things.
Countries also speak the Dharma, as right now the entire country we are in is speaking Dharma. Everything is telling people to understand, and that’s just speaking Dharma. So there are two lines in the poetry of Su T’ung P’o which go:
Of the colors of the mountains,
None are not the vast, long tongue.This refers to the line in the Sutra which tells how all the Buddhas bring forth:
…the appearance of a vast and long tongue, everywhere covering the three thousand great thousand worlds.
The colors of the mountain are just the appearance of a vast and long tongue.
Of the sounds of the streams, all are the clear, pure sound.
This is a matched couplet. “The colors of the mountains” are matched with “the sounds of the streams,” colors being matched with sounds, and mountains with streams.
Of the colors of the mountains, none is not the vast, long tongue.
Of the sounds of the streams, all are the clear, pure sound.The sounds of the streams are the clear, pure sound of Dharma. Su T’ung P’o studied Buddhadharma to the point that he probably figured he had opened enlightenment, so he kept writing these kinds of matched couplets, odes, and sonnets which bear some resemblance to the Buddhadharma.
In the Yuan Dynasty, the Layman Chan Jan – that was Yuen Lu Ch’u Ts’ai, Prime Minister of the Yuan Dynasty – he, too, was always writing poetry. The Old Man Wan Sung was his teacher. He said, also using matched couplets:
The Western Paradise is just three steps away.
The Eastern Sea is just one cup in depth.He said, “Just three steps and you reach the Western Paradise.” Would you say he walked fast of not? Hundreds of thousands of millions of Buddhalands to the West, and he gets there in three steps. The Eastern Sea is enormous, but he said it was only a cup deep – just as deep as his wine-cup. Those are examples of distance not obstructing nearness and being near not ruling out being far away, as well as largeness not interfering with smallness and being small not stopping something from being large. Yueh Lu Ch’u Ts’ai was describing that kind of state. He was quite erudite. They call him “Layman Chan Jan,” and he wrote a book called the Wen Ch’au of Layman Chan Jan.
So, the Bodhi Tree and Countries speaking Dharma are speakings on the part of the World of Things. When it’s the Buddha, it’s the World of Wisdom and Proper Enlightenment speaking Dharma, while Bodhisattvas, Sound Hearers, all the Good Knowing Advisors – Good Friends – are living beings speaking Dharma. Previously it talked about how the speakers penetrated the three worlds. It meant throughout the World of Wisdom and Proper Enlightenment, the World of Living Beings, and the World of Things, the World of Living Beings also being called the World of Sentient Beings. In the Flower Adornment Sutra, Buddha, living beings, and also countries speak the Dharma, so the speaking penetrates the three worlds. You will know about all this when we reach those parts of the Sutra text.
Prologue:
Those persons who speak use methods that differ. They may use sounds, they may use wondrous forms and colors, and so forth, as is explained in the substance of the teaching.
Commentary:
Those persons who speak, be they Buddhas, living beings, or countries – which is speaking on the part of the world of inanimate objects – use methods that differ. They may use sounds, for example, to speak the Dharma – either vocal sounds alone, or exclusively non-vocal, or both; and there may be a combination of sentient and insentient beings speaking the Dharma. In any case, all the Dharma spoken is inconceivable Dharma.
They may use wondrous forms and colors, making inconceivably splendid colors appear to speak the Dharma, or else inconceivable shapes and forms. If you understand this principle, then to the exhaustion of empty space and the ends of the earth there is no place where all the Buddhas of the ten directions and he three periods of time are not speaking Dharma. Nor is there any spot where all the Bodhisattvas, Sound Hearers, Good Knowing Advisors – Good Friends – are not speaking Dharma.
No place lacks Bodhi Trees and countries speaking Dharma, either. If you understand this principle, then you will understand how it is true, actual and not false that the Buddha pervades all places. Wondrous forms and colors may be used to speak the Dharma, and so forth. Later on there will be lots of other ways of speaking Dharma, as is explained in the substance of the teaching. When we come o the section of the Prologue concerning the Substance of the Teaching, this will be made clear.
Since both sentient and insentient beings can speak the Dharma, what can speak can speak Dharma, and what can’t speak can speak Dharma, too. You could put it like this:
The mute can speak Sutras,
The deaf can listen to Sutras,
The blind can read Sutras.I’ll say it whether you believe it or not.
The mute can place phone calls.
The deaf can listen to phone calls.
The blind can see phone calls.– or look at television, we could say. How can they see? They just can. So the world is full of thousand of changes and myriad transformations of ineffable wonder – wonderfully ineffable!
Prologue:
The seventh, depending on the person listening. When he was told Tzu Ch’i had died, Pai Ya ceased playing the lute. It there are no listeners, there will never be a speaking.
Commentary:
The seventh, depending on the person listening. There also have to be people who listen to the Sutra. If no one had been listening when the Buddha spoke. The Great Means Expansive Buddha Flower Adornment Sutra, there would have been no use in the Buddha’s speaking it. Listeners are essential. When he was told Tzu Ch’i had died, Pa Ya ceased playing the lute. As the saying goes:
When people know each other well, they are said to know each other’s sound.
When two people are good friends, they don’t necessarily have to talk, but each can know what’s going on with the other person just from a sound. Someone who can do that is said to “know your sound.” For example, if you cry, then I’m sure something sad has happened to you, so I “know your sound.” Of course, sometimes people burst into tears from joy, for:
Joy to the extreme produces sorrow.
It’s not fixed. Or if you laugh, it should indicate you’re happy. Yet, sometimes people go crazy and laugh when they’re angry. You have to have wisdom to recognized people’s sounds.
Tzu Ch’i – Chung Tzu Ch’i – was a woodgatherer in the hills, and he had a special talent for listening to music. He could recognize whatever kind of melody you were playing. Pai Ya – Yu Pai Ya – was an official in the imperial government who was devoted to music. Wherever he went, he took his lute – probably a valuable antique. He always had it on him even when traveling or on his official rounds. Once he took his lute up to Mt. T’ai where he ran into a rain storm. He sat down and started strumming on the lute, playing his “high mountain song.” Chung Tzu Ch’i happened by just then and said:
Lofty indeed, like Mount T’ai!
Yu Pai Ya didn’t say anything, but just strummed some more on the lute, playing his “flowing water song.” When he stopped playing, Chung Tzu Ch’i spoke again and said:
Surging like running streams!
It reminded him of flowing water.Yu Pai Ya thought to himself, “Ah! Here’s someone who knows my sound!” thereupon he played, this time a sorrowful lament.
Chung Tzu Ch’i’s reaction was
Sad, indeed, like grievous tears!
He said it sounded like crying. When the playing turned to laughing sounds he said:
Merry, indeed, like burst of laughter!
He recognized whatever kind of sound was played.Yu Pai Ya was beside himself with joy, and said, “You are really and truly someone who knows my sound.” Then the two of them bowed to each other as brothers and agreed to meet in the same place at the same time the next year. For that year’s calendar was too full, but Yu Pai Ya planned to take some more time off the next year to spend in the mountains investigating the principles of lute-playing with Chung Tzu Ch’i.
As it happened, the following year when Yu Pai Ya returned and started playing, Chung Tzu Ch’i failed to appear. He kept on playing, but still no Chung Tzu Ch’i. He kept at it calling to Chung Tzu Ch’i to come with the sound of his lute, and then Chung Tzu Ch’i’s mother approached.
She said, “You’re here playing the lute. Are you by any chance called ‘Yu Pai Ya?’”
He said,”Yes.”
She signed and said, “My son, Chung Tzu Ch’i, has died. You bowed to each other as brothers. Before he died he told me that a certain Yu Pai Ya, whom he had bowed to as his elder brother, as going to come here looking for him and asked me to tell you not to wait for him. He is dead. The new grave right over there is his.”
As soon as Yu Pai Ya heard that, he cried and cried. Then he took his antique lute, which was so valuable, and smashed it to bits, and after than he never played the lute again. Why not? It is because, with no one left who could listen to his playing, there was no use to his playing anymore, for no one knew his sound. So he broke his cherished lute to pieces. The way the ancient texts put it is:
Yu Pai Ya smashed his lute from grief for one who know his sound. That’s the reference in “When told Tzu Ch’I had died, Pai Ya ceased playing the lute.” His lute was the one thing he was most unable to part with, but he smashed it to bits and never played the lute again when he heard Chung Tzu Ch’i was dead. As it’s said in the Pai Jen Hsia Ch’ing Shu:
“When he realized Tzu Ch’i was dead, Pai Ya for the rest of his life never played the lute. Why not?”
Why not? Scholars work for the sake of those who know their sound. The erudite will do something for those who appreciate and understand them. If no one knows their sound, they don’t do anything at all, but just lie down and go to sleep.
Women make themselves pretty for those who like them. Here Pai Ya stops playing the lute. In other situations people might cease studying, drop out of school, or stop planting the fields.
If there are no listeners, there will never be a speaking. If nobody listens, no one will speak Dharma. So, for the Buddha to speak Dharma, there also have to be people to listen.
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