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| Contents Door 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 previous next * Preface | ||
Prologue:
It says that there are eight consciousnesses which are only production and extinction and, based upon consciousness produced and destroyed, establishes production and extinction as the cause for nirvana.
Commentary:
It says that there are eight consciousnesses – or, that there is an eighth consciousness, the mother of the preceeding seven consciousnesses – which, before consciousness has turned around to become wisdom, are only production and extinction, produced and destroyed. But once you turn consciousness around so it is wisdom, there is no production or extinction.
Here it’s before the turning occurs, prior to the Eighth Consciousness reversing to become Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom, and so there is still production and extinction. It still is only the produced and destroyed, and does not yet include the unproduced and undestroyed. One of consciousnesses one through eight have turned around to become wisdom yet.
And, based upon consciousness produced and destroyed, not reversed to wisdom, it establishes production and extinction as resulting, one could say, form Nirvana as the cause. Or you could say it sets up production and extinction – samsara – as forming the cause for the fruit of nirvana.
The text allows for many interpretations, as long as they are reasonable. It’s not as fixed as the text of the Sutra itself. But even Sutras can have special interpretations. Remember how when Dharma Master Tao Sheng was lecturing the passage in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra which says icchantikas lack the Dharma Nature, he said icchantikas have it, and that turned out to be true? It was clarified in the second half of the Sutra. If your viewpoint is based on understanding, you can do that.
Prologue:
The Dharma being that way, there is eternal distinction between existence and non-existence of the seed. Therefore, the five natures are fixed as not the same. Inasmuch as the consciousnesses established are only produced from karma and delusion, the true suchness thus established is constant and unchanging and does not allow for according with conditions.
Commentary:
The Dharma being that way, there is eternal distinction between existence and non-existence of the seed in the Eighth Consciousness. There is a definite and everlasting demarcation between what has and what does not have the seed-nature, i.e., between what does and what does not have production and extinction.
Therefore, the five natures discussed before – Sound Hearers, Those Enlightened to Conditions, Bodhisattvas, Unfixed, and Those Without the Seed Nature -- are fixed as not the same. They are set as different natures, different from one nature. Inasmuch as the consciousnesses subject to production and extinction established by the Initial Teaching are only produced from the creation of karma and the giving rise to delusion that precedes it, once the karma is created the retribution must be undergone. Creating karma confuses and deludes one, and the karma was created because one was deluded and confused. Having created that karma, one undergoes birth and death.
Although there is discussion of True Suchness in that Teaching, it says that it is constant and unchanging and is only able not to change. It does not allow for changing from according with conditions. This is just the start of talking about the Great Vehicle, and so its principles are not yet perfectly interpenetrating, because True Suchness does not change according to conditions, yet while changing it accords with conditions. But this Teaching lets it be eternally unchanging, and does not say it can accord with conditions.
This passage can be interpreted in various ways. For example, it could read: “The seeds of dharmas as they are,” meaning that if you plant Bodhisattvas then Bodhisattvas come forth, plant Arhats and Arhats arise, plant gods and gods are produced, plant asura seeds and you’ll get asuras.
Whatever kind of seed you plant will yield that kind of fruit, and so it says, “there is eternal distinction between possession and non-possession of the Buddhanature.” But it could also read “between existence and non-existence” as previously interpreted, or “between what does and what does not have production and extinction.” Interpreted as “possession,” it could also mean, “between having defilement and having purity” on the part of the seeds. Seeds without defilement are pure seeds, and seeds with defilement are defiled seeds.
That’s why there is eternal distinction between possession of the Buddha Nature on the part of four of the Five Natures previously discussed. Sound Hearers, Those Enlightened to Conditions, Bodhisattvas, and the Unfixed all have the Buddha Nature, but the fifth kind of nature is that of Those Without the Seed Nature.
There are a lot of ways this line of text can be discussed, but when I lecture Sutras for you I mostly give just the main idea, and you have to investigate on your own to know the fine details and recognize what the substance of the Dharma is like: “Why does it say, ‘The Dharma being that way?’ it’s just because that’s the way the Dharma is. What’s the principle?” You have to look into it.
But if you recognize how the Dharma is just that way, then to the exhaustion of empty space and the Dharma Realm there is nothing that is not just that way. Dharma is thus and just that way. That’s just how the Dharma is. If you completely understand all dharmas, then you won’t have any attachments, and without attachments you won’t pay attention to whether they exist or not. It won’t make any difference whether they are or aren’t. You’ll transcend the Dharma Realm -- the realm of dharmas – and be free from attachment to dharmas.
Although it’s true that Dharma is just that way, if you become attached to it being “just that way,” you’ll still be within attachment to dharmas. On the other hand, you can’t say, “I won’t study the Buddhadharma so I won’t have attachment to dharmas.” If you basically don’t understand the Dharma, what kind of attachment can you be talking about? If you don’t even know, how can you be attached to what is known? You still haven’t made it to the level of having attachment to what is known, for you are not studying.
An analogy for this is when you are wei nwo and are supposed to chant. If you can’t chant, then how can you refuse to chant? You have to be able to chant to refuse to and casually do whatever you please instead, reciting in a loud voice or a soft voice, silently or aloud. Because you have the understanding and the ability, you know which methods to apply and how. But if you don’t yet understand, yet want to dispense with them, won’t it be the case that you never will understand?
So if before knowing the Dharma you want to free yourself form attachment to the known, that’s the epitome of stupidity – too stupid. The right way to do it is to know the Dharma first, then become free from attachment to it. For example, if you can know something tastes good because you’ve eaten it before yet not become a glutton over it and have no gluttonous worm, that counts as getting free from the Obstacle of the Known. But if you don’t know and yet want to be free from the known, what are you freeing yourself from? If you don’t have it, how can you leave it?
As an example, before a child could walk, upon seeing adults walk around, feel tired, sit down and rest, the child might decide, “I don’t want to walk. It’s too tiring!” it can’t even walk, and its knowing tiredness can result from walking doesn’t make it able to walk so it can decide not to. I mention this because during the lecture some people were having the false thought, “Ah, studying the Buddhadharma has the Obstacle of Afflictions and the Obstacle of the Known, so I’d better not study Buddhadharma so I won’t have the Obstacle of the Known. And if I don’t do anything I won’t have the Obstacle of Afflictions either. I’ll just go seal myself in a cave in the mountains and not see anyone, and neither Obstacle will come along with me.”
That’s an erroneous way of thinking, and so I’m discussing this principle today. Anyone with that fault of wanting to be free of the Obstacle of the Known without having studies Buddhadharma, and wanting not to do anything so as not to have the Obstacle of Afflictions, should return the light and look within and take a good look at what one is all about oneself.
Prologue:
The nature that arises dependent on something else seems to exist and is not non-existent, yet is not identical with the true emptiness and being without a nature of the Perfectly Accomplished. The doctrines of emptiness in the sutras spoken are only in terms of what is attached to.
Commentary:
The Three Natures were discussed before. They are 1) The Nature Everywhere Calculated and Attached to (parikalpita); 2) The nature that arises dependent on something else (paratantara); and 3) The Perfectly Accomplished Real Nature. (parinispana). Every person has those three kinds of confusion, and makes those kinds of discriminations of nature which are false. The Nature Everywhere Calculated and Attached to is when you yourself don’t know what something is. You don’t recognize it and so make a guess – the guess is the arising of the Nature Everywhere Calculated and Attached to.
We can use the analogy of a person walking along in the dark who catches sight of something long, narrow and black in the road ahead. At first glance he doesn’t know what it is, but his immediate reaction is, “Oh! It’s a snake!” That first thing that occurs to him makes him cautious because he’s afraid to being bitten. Then when he can see it more clearly the Nature That Arises Dependent on Something Else emerges, as he looks to see if it will move or raise its head, and perceives that it is a piece of rope and not a snake. With that recognition, he ceases to be scared, picks it up and notes that the rope is made of hemp – and that the hemp basically is empty.
That’s called the Perfectly Accomplished Real Nature – emptiness, non-existence. He’s gone through imagining it’s a sanke to its being a rope to taking the rope apart so there’s nothing at all – no snake, rope or even hemp or the hemp can become dust and then disappear: the Perfectly Accomplished Real Nature.
It is because people don’t understand objects and become attached to existence, non-existence, short and long, that things have those three natures of their own. Because dharmas interpenetrate without obstruction, you can make these three natures correspond to the Three Vehicles and the Three Contemplations and equate Ordinary, Common People who attach to what is false with the false supposition that the rope is a snake.
Those of the Two Vehicles – Sound Hearers and Those Enlightened to Conditions – are attached to existence. They recognize the rope is not a snake, but are still attached to the existence of the rope. The Great Vehicle takes one look and realizes that the rope is empty, being made of hemp which can turn to dust and go. You should realize that we now are all walking along in the dark and that for us everything we encounter is a snake. We don’t even know it is a rope, much less recognize its basic emptiness – and that can hardly be called the Middle Way.
When people are quizzed and describe what they think the Three Own-Natures are and others evaluated their descriptions, that too is the Nature Everywhere Calculated and Attached to. However, what all of them are discussing is the Three Natures, which is the Nature that Arises Dependent on Something Else – that kind of attachment that arises dependent on the Three Natures as topic for discussion. After the discussion, all that they have said is gone. It’s all been said, and although it’s on tape. That’s the tape’s. So that’s the Perfectly Accomplished Real Nature.
To resume that text, the Nature That Arises Dependent on Something Else seems to exist and is not non-existent. It’s not that since it seems to exist it doesn’t exist. Rather, it seems to exist and does. There fundamentally is such a thing, or how could it arise dependent on something else? Yet the Nature That Arises Dependent on Something Else is not identical with there being nothing at all. It’s just reduced the snake to a rope, and is not yet the true emptiness and being without a nature of the Perfectly Accomplished Real Nature which is when the rope is further reduced to hemp, and the hemp to dust that disappears.
What we said about this Dharma was the Nature Everywhere Calculated and Attached to. The lecturing itself was the Nature That Arises Dependent on Something Else. Now that the discussion is over, it’s the Perfectly Accomplished – completed – Real Nature.
The doctrines of emptiness in the sutras spoken when the Three Natures are discussed are only in terms of what is attached to on that part of people. If you have no attachments, then there isn’t any Nature Everywhere Calculated and Attached to, or any Nature That Arises Dependent on Something Else, or any Perfectly Accomplished Real Nature, either. Then, “all dharmas are empty of characteristics,” characterized by emptiness, and “the perfection of Bodhi returns to nothing being obtained”: “no knowing and no attaining.” There are two verses that sum up the Three Natures:
Because of that, this is everywhere calculated,
And everywhere are calculated all kinds of things.
The everywhere calculated that is attached to
Also has no nature of its own.Due to the prior existence of something, Because of that, this thing everywhere calculated; and because of that one thing, everywhere are calculated all kinds of things. It’s not just a piece of rope that’s everywhere calculated into a snake. There might be a rock that becomes entirely miscalculated so one thinks, “Oh! It’s a tiger!!!” Then when one draws nearer one sees, “Oh, I was scared to death but it was only a rock all along.”
That’s the Nature That Arises Dependent on Something Else. If you pulverize a rock it turns to dust a case of oneself having nothing to do and finding something to do, having no attachments but inventing some. The meaning is that every single thing is false, and you should not think and do calculations on what’s basically unreal and try to computer or count their number. The Nature Everywhere Calculated and Attached to is your computations.
For example, sending rockets to the moon is done by computations of the Nature Everywhere Calculated and Attached to. Do you understand? A device is reckoned so as to reach the moon. “What are moon rocks like? Let’s take some back to investigate.” That’s the Nature That Arises Dependent on Something Else. After the investigation there’s nothing -- Perfectly Accomplished Real Nature. That’s precisely how it leads to calculating all kids of things.
The everywhere calculated that is attached to also has no nature of its own. That which is attached to can’t do the calculating itself. The rope can’t announce it’s a snake. It’s the person who has that thought about it. It’s the person who has that thought about it. The rope itself doesn’t have the attachment. It doesn’t have any nature of its own, and can’t make pervasive calculations.
When you see a stone and think it’s a tiger, the stone is unable to think, “I’m a tiger.” It’s you who give it that false name, but it doesn’t even think “I’m a rock,” which is its substance, for it doesn’t have thought or all the pervasive calculating and arising dependent on something else that you have.
The own-nature that arises dependent on something else
Is produced from discriminated conditions.
The relation of the perfectly accomplished real to them
Is ever far from those previous natures.The own-nature that arises dependent on something else, for example a stone, Is produced from discriminated conditions of why it came to be – how the rock was part of a mountain before, and eventually will be pulverized – the discriminated conditions that brought it about. The relation of the perfectly accomplished real nature to them, when it reaches the point of being empty and not existing, Is ever far from those previous natures everywhere calculated and that arose dependent on something else – hence, its name. when I ask you about these, it’s to see if you’ll put a head on top of the head you already have, or if you’ll cut off your own head.
Prologue:
Since its discussions of the three natures and the five natures are not the same, it therefore says that one portion of living beings definitely does not accomplish Buddhahood – which it terms the non-decreasing of the realm of beings.
Commentary:
Since its – the Initial Teaching’s, discussions of the three natures – Everywhere Calculated, Dependent on Something Else, and Perfectly Real -- and the five natures just mentioned have slight differences here and there, they are not the same, it therefore says concerning the Five Natures that there is one portion of living beings which definitely does not ever become able to accomplish Buddhahood – which it terms the non-decreasing of the realm of beings.
The reasoning is that if even those beings became Buddhas, the realm of living beings would be empty and cease to exist after sufficient decrease. This preserves that realm. Such statements are not complete or interpenetrating, and so this is just the start of presenting the Mahayana. If you wish to go more deeply into the subject, you can investigate on your own.
Prologue:
In it, the two truths -- the absolute and the relative – are clearly quite different and neither annihilationism or permanence; yet when the fruit is produced the cause is extinguished.
Commentary:
In it, the two truths -- the absolute Truth of true principle, and the relative worldly truth not based on true principle – have a lot that can be said about them. Eight categories could be discussed, for example, but if you do too much dividing up, it confuses people. So we won’t do that for now. In general, Relative Truth refers to worldly dharmas, and Absolute Truth refers to world-transcending dharmas. The Two Truths in the Initial Teaching are clearly quite different with no blurring of boundaries between the worldly doctrine and the supreme doctrine, which admits of nothing worldly. This kind of Dharma is neither subject to the accusation of being attached to annihilationism or to that of attachment to permanence, since there is continuation.
Yet when the fruit is produced the cause is extinguished. When true principle arises, worldly truth is extinguished. Absolute Truth refers to emptiness, and Relative Truth to existence. Here it’s not wonderful existence, nor is it ultimate true emptiness. It’s just a kind of principle of emptiness.
To discuss annihilationism and permanence at greater length, those of externalist ways are attached either to the one or to the other, but in Buddhism there is non-annihilation and non-permanence. The point of view of permanence is that people are people forever, in this life and in the lives to come. They could never become dogs. Those which are dogs this life will always be reborn as dogs and will never be anything else. The same holds true for cats, horses, cows, sheep, chickens, goats, pigs and the rest.
They will always be what they are and never change, says this kind of outside way which maintains the doctrine of spontaneity. For them there is no use in cultivating, for people are spontaneously people and will never be anything else. Another type of outside way “refutes” eternalism but attaches to annihilationism, saying that when people die it’s like a lamp going out – they are just gone with no trace. It’s cut off like that for people, and for everything else as well. That means their doctrines are not unobstructed or interpenetrating.
Buddhism, on the other hand, speaks of cause and effect, and how you reap the result of the kinds of causes you plant. However, the causes can be extinguished. For example, if you have planted an evil cause and are due to reap an evil result, you can extinguish the evil cause by repenting.
If it’s not extinguished, there would be an unbroken interval before the result is reaped, which they think would be falling into the deviant views of the permanence of externalist ways. If the cause were not continuous and the cause were extinguished, that would be to fall into annihilationism. So cause and effect involves continuation, thereby falling into neither of the above extremes.
When cultivating the Way one must be self-reliant and not become dependent. Being self-reliant is to take notes at lectures daily, and not being dependent is not relying on the tape recorder. It’s only there fore re-checking what you didn’t get clear the first time around. If you don’t take notes, it’s easy to fall asleep, and the time goes by in vain if you leave it up to the tape.
Those who truly study Buddhadharma think, “It does its taping and I take my notes.” Writing something down makes three times the impression on you as hearing it once, and over time that amounts to great familiarity and deeper understanding. I even scolded the tape-recorder years ago for encouraging my diligent disciples to be lazy, and today I’ve called that to mind again.
Prologue:
The four marks are simultaneous, extinction indicating later non-existence.
Commentary:
The four marks are sometimes said to be 1) Birth, 2) Dwelling, 3) Change, and 4) Emptiness, and sometimes called 1) Coming into Being, 2) Dwelling, 3) Decay, and 4) Extinction. They are simultaneous, there being the four marks on every point between before and the end.
On a long-time scale, it’s the four great kalpas of coming into being, dwelling, decay and extinction respectively that are the four marks, but in short-terms each thought of ours has the four. Before you didn’t have the thought, and then it starts to arise – that’s the mark of birth or production. Once born it remains – dwelling – buy not forever. Thought is temporary, so there is change and then it is extinguished. And just to mention the one mark of extinction, it indicating later non-existence.
Prior to it there was present coming into being, dwelling and change, and after that it’s gone. This teaching makes a comparison between unconditioned Dharmas and conditioned dharmas – those characterized by the four marks listed above. Before there was nothing, but now something is produced: that’s the mark of production.
Now the conditioned dharma exists, but in the future it will not: that’s the mark of extinction. Change is transformation of the mark of dwelling, since it’s unstable and temporary. Therefore, the four marks are all at the same time, and the mark of extinction is just the sign telling you that later on the dharma temporarily existing now will be no more.
Before a thought was produced, it didn’t exist. Once it is produced there is that thought – the mark of production. After production of the thought it stops. While the thought is being thought and has not been forgotten, and before it has gone by it is starts to change. As it changes it becomes less solid, and finally it is extinguished. So a single thought is replete with the four marks. That is what the Initial Teaching says about conditioned dharmas.
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