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| Contents Door 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 previous next * Preface | ||
Prologue:
Six is the door of the revealed and secret being simultaneous. If the hearings are different but there is mutual knowing, then that is the revealed not being fixed. If there is not mutual knowing, then that is the secret. When the secret and revealed are simultaneous, there also is no before or afterwards.
Seven is all the preceding doors being suddenly proclaimed at just one time.
Commentary:
Six is the door of the revealed – that which is very open and obvious, that which everyone can know, see and understand, that which everyone can know, see and understand -- and secret, which is hidden and no one sees or knows of, being simultaneous.
The Revealed is when both parties know about each other.
The secret is when both parties don’t know about each other.Therefore, it says if the hearings are different but there is mutual knowing. The Buddha speaks the Dharma, and beings in each of the nine kinds of Dharma Realms hear it as being doctrine of their particular Dharma Realm, so the hearings are different. But there is mutual knowing when living beings know how they understand it and also know how others understand it, even though those understandings differ. Then that is the revealed Teachings not being fixed. If there is not mutual knowing, if:
Dharma is spoken for person A and person B does not know, and Dharma is spoken for person B while person A does not know, so that person A and person B do not know about each other.
Then that is called the secret. When, as now, the secret and revealed are simultaneous, so the revealed is just the secret and the secret is just the revealed, there also is no before or afterwards. It’s not that there is first the revealed and later on the secret, or the secret first and later on the secret, or the secret first and later the revealed. Rather, they are both at the same time.
Door seven is all the preceding doors being suddenly proclaimed at just one time. The principles of all six doors just described are all-of-a-sudden spoken at the same time.
Prologue:
Eight is that from fist attainment of the way up until Nirvana he never spoke a single phrase.
Commentary:
Door tight is the door of Silence Without Speaking, and so it says that from fist attainment of the way under the Bodhi tree, after seeing a bright star at midnight and enlightening to the Way up until the time of entry to Nirvana, during all the time between, he, the Buddha, never spoke a single phrase of Dharma. Not one sentence of Dharma was proclaimed. All was silence. There is a passage in chapter Twenty-six of the Nirvana Sutra which says this, that goes:
If someone knows that the Thus Come One never spoke Dharma, that person is said to be possessed of much erudition.
Someone who knows the Buddha never spoke Dharma is foremost in learning. But if you know the Buddha spoke Dharma, that doesn’t count as erudition. Roll 425 of the Great Prajna Sutra has the Buddha saying:
From the time I accomplished the Way up to now, I have never spoken a single word, and you also have not heard.
He says that from the time he became a Buddha he hasn’t spoken even one word of Dharma, and that they hadn’t heard anything either. Another passage from Roll 567 of the same Sutra says; living beings all think the Buddha speaks Dharma for them alone, yet the Buddha basically has not spoke or made any revelations.
Living beings all say the Buddha speaks Dharma and teaches living beings, and yet the Buddha hasn’t spoken any Dharma of disclosed any Dharma. In Part One of the Vimalakirti-nirdesha Sutra it says:
The speaker of Dharma has no speaking and no representing. The listeners to Dharma have no hearing and no attaining.
There is no Dharma which can be spoken or represented by the speaker of Dharma, and those people who truly listen to the Dharma don’t hear any Dharma or obtain any Dharma. Also, in the First Chapter on Mindfulness of the Buddha in the Buddha Treasury Sutra the Buddha tells Shariputra:
Not being able to penetrate all Dharmas is to have a covering of words. Therefore, the Thus Come One knows all speech as being deviant, to the point that if there is the least bit of language, one does not attain the Truth.
The reason that language and speech obstruct is that one’s attachment to dharmas is not empty. That’s why the Buddha knows all language is incorrect. It covers and obstructs living beings’ wisdom. If there’s even one word or phrase, none of it is true and actual. That’s because:
Whatever has words and speech is not the actual meaning.
If anything is said, it’s an attachment.
When not a single dharma is established,There isn’t a single word. That’s why if people can recite the wordless Sutra they really understand the Buddhadharma. You can recite Sutras with words over and over and you’re just finding something to do when there is nothing to do. So what should one do? If you can recite the Great Wordless Sutra, then you have a method. But can you recite it? If you can’t, then start by reciting Sutras with words until such time as you understand the wordless Sutra and so can stop reciting Sutras with words. What you are able to do is not hard. The hard is what you’re not able to do.
What’s meant by the Wordless Sutra? I’ll transmit that Mind Dharma. It’s when a single thought does not arise. If not one thought arises, what words could there be? If you can be that way, then the entire substance manifests, and all Buddhadharmas are thus, thus, if you can’t manage not to have a single thought arise, then you should create more merit and virtue, nurture your basis for Bodhi and foster your Bodhi Way. When for you the myriad virtues interfuse and the Six Paramitas and Ten Thousand Conducts are all perfected, then very naturally not a single thought will arise and the entire substance will manifest.
The question was raised about both the Prologue and a number of Sutras saying the Buddha never spoke Dharma, but is that ultimately the case or not? If not, then where did the Sutras come from? If so, then why didn’t the Buddha himself admit it? Someone is having the false thought, “I know, originally the Buddhadharma is all false.”
Then you can take a look and see what’s true. His point is that if the Buddha didn’t speak any Dharma at all, then isn’t this Dharma all just false? Well, you can put it this way. If you say the Buddha spoke a single word of Dharma, then you are slandering the Buddha. But if you depart from the Sutra text by a single word, then that is the talk of demons. Os then should you pack your bags and stop studying the Buddhadharma and return home to celebrate the new lunar year? The reason the Buddha did not admit to having speaking any Dharma is that anything spoken is not the actual meaning. Whatever is spoken is not it. True and actual Dharma cannot be spoken. Everything spoken is expedient Dharma.
Even though the provisional is opened to reveal the actual, if the actual is revealed then it’s no longer the real. If you can speak true Dharma, then there is no need to speak at all. So I won’t talk about it either.
Prologue:
Nine is that all the above doors exhaustively penetrate the three boundaries.
Ten is that all nine preceding doors are multi-layered and infinite with respect to place and with respect to time, and none have before or afterwards.
Commentary:
We’ve already discussed eight doors, and this one, number nine, is that all the above doors exhaustively penetrate the three boundaries – the boundary of before, the boundary of right now, and the boundary of afterwards. Door ten is that all nine preceding doors are multi-layered and infinite with respect to place and with respect to time. The principles are so many-leveled and unending that they could never be completely expounded. They apply to infinite possible locations and infinite slots of time.
And none have before or afterwards. Nothing is before or after anything else. Rather, there is inter-reflection of level after level on and on. Prior and subsequent reveal each other, and nothing has temporal sequence. This is the Dharma of multi-leveled infinity without any fixed sequential order of time.
Prologue:
The final two doors are properly the state of the Flower Adornment. They fuse with and take in the preceding eight so they, too, are not apart from the function of the Flower Adornment.
Commentary:
The doctrines spoken by the final two, doors Nine and Ten, are properly expressing the state of the Flower Adornment. They, Doors Nine and Ten, fuse with and take in the preceding eight Doors so they, too, are not apart from the function of the Flower Adornment. The wonderful functioning of the Flower Adornment is that of multi-leveled inexhaustibility, multi-layered infinity of inter-reflection. It is like a net in which the individual lights all shine upon each other and the holes all inter-connect, so each contains and reflects all others. This is what the Flower Adornment state is like.
End of the Second Door
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