Episode 858 – The Buddha’s Unmatched and Boundless Grace
>> The Buddha’s grace is boundless, incomparable. It is the grace of guiding us to enter the Tathagata’s room, the grace of bringing joy and ease with great loving-kindness, the grace of liberating us and relieving suffering with great compassion, the grace of the warmth provided by the clothing of gentleness and patience and the grace of the peace found in the seat of the emptiness of all phenomena.
>> “The World-Honored One’s great grace is an extraordinary matter. He taught and transformed us out of compassion and to benefit all of us. Even over countless millions of kalpas, who could ever repay this?” [Lotus Sutra, Chapter 4 – Faith And Understanding]
>> The World-Honored One’s great grace: His lifetime of teaching and transforming was all a great grace. Beginning with the Great Dharma of the Avatamsaka, He prepared [to teach us], we failed to live up to this great grace.
>> The Agama teachings suited limited capabilities; they were a guarantee and biased toward emptiness. This shows the World-Honored One’s compassion for us. During the Vaipulya and the Prajna periods, He criticized and weeded this out. This is how the World-Honored One taught and transformed us.
>> For 40 years we had received the great grace of the Tathagata’s patient guidance, right up until today. Having taught the sutra, He entered Samadhi. Radiating light in His perfect manifestation, He then bestowed predictions of Buddhahood to benefit all of us. These were all extraordinary matters.
>> The Buddha sat upon His seat, composed in body and mind, having quickly attained peaceful stability. The sound of the Buddha’s teachings enabled all to hear. Universally worthy to receive offerings from humans and heavenly beings alike, the Tathagata on His seat has enabled us to be replete with the grace of cultivating ourselves and transforming others.
>> He taught and transformed us out of compassion and to benefit all of us. The Agama teachings suited limited capabilities; they were a guarantee and biased toward emptiness. This was the. World-Honored One’s compassion for us. This was how the Buddha treated His disciples. During the Vaipulya and the Prajna periods, He criticized and weeded this out. These were the World-Honored One’s methods of teaching and transforming.
>> Such compassion, such teaching and transforming and such benefit are all great grace and virtue. No words can describe how to repay this.
>> Even over countless millions of kalpas, who can ever repay this? When we first attained the small fruits, we thought we had lived up to the teachings and sufficiently repaid the Buddha’s grace. But from our assessment today, how can we repay it in a single life or kalpa? Even over countless kalpas, who can repay this?
“The Buddha’s grace is boundless, incomparable.
It is the grace of guiding us to enter the Tathagata’s room,
the grace of bringing joy and ease with great loving-kindness,
the grace of liberating us and relieving suffering with great compassion,
the grace of the warmth provided by the clothing of gentleness and patience
and the grace of the peace found in the seat of the emptiness of all phenomena.”
The Buddha’s grace towards sentient beings is truly great. Sentient beings are deluded, so we cycle endlessly through the Six Realms. Over countless kalpas the Buddha has repeatedly returned, all for one great cause, to teach all sentient beings that everyone intrinsically has Buddha-nature. Everyone who is lost can find their way back to the path to enlightenment and be liberated from suffering and cyclic existence. This is what the Buddha did for incalculable lengths of time, over spaces so vast that they cannot be described in words.
Thus, the Buddha’s grace toward sentient beings is extraordinarily great indeed. It cannot be quantified or compared to anything in the world. The Buddha often used the sands of the Ganges as an analogy for large numbers. Actually, the sands of the Ganges is not an adequate analogy because its number is finite while the Buddha’s grace is boundless and incomparable.
In so many ways, He [expresses] His love for us so that, by giving us love, little by little, He guides us into the Tathagata’s room. It is as if we are wandering vagabonds or impoverished people, with no possessions and no place to call home; exposed to the wind and freezing cold, the suffering is unbearable! But the Buddha hopes that we can all have something we can rely on, not just for one lifetime, but for many lifetimes to come. To have this [refuge] life after life, we must return to our nature of True Suchness. This is the analogy of “the Tathagata’s room.” With the Tathagata’s wisdom, we can be equal to and abide in the same place as the Buddha. We will not need to wander about out there, physically tormented by the cold and snow. We will have a place to live. It is a very warm and cozy place. This is the Buddha’s great loving-kindness; He helps us peacefully abide in the Tathagata’s room. This grace of helping us to attain joy and ease is likewise the Buddha’s grace toward us.
There is also “the grace of liberating us and relieving suffering with great compassion.” In a state of confusion, not knowing where we are going, we transmigrate in the Five Realms and four forms of birth without any control. For this reason, the Buddha spent a long time repeatedly returning to look for chances to approach sentient beings. Those with the affinity have the conditions to be delivered; this is how He saves us from suffering. He hopes to have the karmic conditions to enable sentient beings to encounter the Buddha-Dharma and through it, attain liberation. This is the Buddha’s grace of relieving our suffering with great compassion so that we can be liberated.
Next is “the grace of warmth provided by the clothing of gentleness and patience.” If it is freezing cold, what should we do? When there is wind and frost, snow and ice, what people need most is warm clothing. We need soft clothing that can keep out the cold. Similarly, the Buddha taught us how to live in a way that is both gentle and full of warmth. Just like putting on like clothing, we must cultivate gentleness and patience.
In our interactions, when others act harshly, we should respond with gentleness. This is like throwing a ball at the ground. If the ground is hard, the ball will bounce back up even higher. If the ground is covered with something soft, like a pile of sand, when the ball is thrown, it will rest in the sand, unable to bounce back up. We need to exercise gentleness and patience in the way we interact with sentient beings as we work with other people. When sentient beings are saved, we ourselves will feel very warm and happy. We can apply all Dharma in this way; by avoiding attachments, we will be at peace.
Seeing how many disasters there are in the world, it is fortunate that there are Bodhisattvas in this world. In the beginning of the year in Zimbabwe, as people were celebrating the New Year, a heavy rain began to fall. Once this rain started, things got out of hand. With the flooding, there were two meters of water in people’s homes, almost putting the entire roof underwater. Some places were immersed in over a meter of water for nearly an entire month.
The people there live impoverished lives. Their housing is very crude, if not built out of straw, then wit clay bricks if not built out of straw, then with clay bricks. How could they possibly withstand such heavy rain? So, entire houses collapsed. Many people could only watch as their houses broke apart before their eyes, leaving them without a place to shelter and rest, a place to protect them from the wind and rain. Local Tzu Chi volunteers were also affected, but the Dharma was already in their hearts. Having the Dharma is like being in the Tathagata’s room. They tossed aside worries about themselves and quickly made helping the suffering their priority. So, they went out with goods prepared for distribution, bags of rice as well as blankets. They delivered these to disaster areas.
Just looking at the pictures, one would think, “That must be hell. That is not the human world!” There was a 14- or 15-year-old child whose eyes had somehow become infected. Whatever the disease was, his eyes became swollen and deformed; all day long he was crying. Many people who saw him were frightened, but not Tzu Chi volunteers. We saw that volunteers in gray and white uniforms, our local volunteers, approached him and quickly used both arms to embrace him. This child was in such a sad state. When people in the village saw the volunteers approach the child to embrace him, to hold and comfort him, many of them gathered around, saying, “How are there such good people in this world? Why are they not afraid? How are their hearts so tender and loving?” Everyone was very touched.
After the volunteers comforted the child, they saw that his clothing was very tattered, so they immediately covered him with a blanket. They gave him rice to help him and his grandfather get by. This is giving. Teachings of love come from the Buddha-Dharma.
When we encounter this kind of environment, we must be brave and diligent. The volunteers’ actions were truly an example of “the clothing of gentleness and patience.” Those who saw their actions were very touched, and the recipients found it very heartwarming. To achieve this we must sit on “the seat of the emptiness of all phenomena.” We must not have attachments or worry about sullying our image. With love in our hearts and the courage to give, we will be at peace. After giving to others, we attain Dharma-joy, thus we feel very peaceful and at ease and the suffering receive our help. That is what the Buddha taught us. With this kind of Dharma, we can benefit both ourselves and others; this is the Great Vehicle Dharma. This is the Buddha’s grace toward us.
The previous sutra passage states, “The World-Honored One’s great grace is an extraordinary matter. He taught and transformed us out of compassion and to benefit all of us. Even over countless millions of kalpas, who could ever repay this?”
The Buddha’s great grace is truly very extraordinary. He has such compassion and loving-kindness. For sentient beings’ sake, over countless kalpas, a time that is impossible to calculate, He has continuously come to the world to teach and transform sentient beings. He did all this out of compassion. So, He came to benefit sentient beings. “Benefit all of us” is benefiting all beings. “Countless millions of kalpas” is a very long time. The Buddha has not left or abandoned us even after all these lifetimes. How can we ever repay this grace? Who can repay it?
The World-Honored One’s great grace: His lifetime of teaching and transforming was all a great grace. Beginning with the Great Dharma of the Avatamsaka, He prepared [to teach us], we failed to live up to this great grace.
“The World-Honored One’s great grace” is. “His lifetime of teaching and transforming” The World-Honored One’s great grace: His lifetime of teaching and transforming was all a great grace. Beginning with the Great Dharma of the Avatamsaka, He prepared [to teach us], we failed to live up to this great grace. In the Buddha’s lifetime, everything He taught was to benefit and transform all sentient beings. During that lifetime, as we have said, the Buddha had engaged in spiritual practice from the past up to this time. Through His practice, He awakened; this is the Great Dharma of the Avatamsaka. At that time, He had awakened, so initially, He wanted to teach this. However, the people listening seemed to be deaf and mute. Though they listened, they did not hear clearly and were unable to explain it. Thus, they failed to live up to His great grace!
The Agama teachings suited limited capabilities; they were a guarantee and biased toward emptiness. This shows the World-Honored One’s compassion for us. During the Vaipulya and the Prajna periods, He criticized and weeded this out. This is how the World-Honored One taught and transformed us.
So, during the Agama period, He suited their capacities with limited teachings. The Buddha had to use the Agama teachings, teachings of the Small Vehicle, to teach everyone the law of karma and tell them to earnestly eliminate their afflictions. “Refrain from all evil and do all good deeds; I guarantee you will attain blessings and wisdom.” This was what He taught. This was how the Buddha used skillful means to guide and transform sentient beings; but these teachings were biased toward emptiness
The World-Honored One showed compassion to us all; from the Agama, He gave the Vaipulya teachings, and after the Vaipulya period came the Prajna period. After the Prajna period, He “criticized and weeded this out.” At first, we were attached to emptiness, but this was insufficient. From true emptiness we needed to move toward wondrous existence. We must immediately go among people to teach sentient beings. So, He “criticized and weeded this out,” this kind of Small Vehicle mindset.
For 40 years we had received the great grace of the Tathagata’s patient guidance, right up until today. Having taught the sutra, He entered Samadhi. Radiating light in His perfect manifestation, He then bestowed predictions of Buddhahood to benefit all of us.
The World-Honored One taught and transformed for more than 40 years. With the great grace of patient guidance, He taught us repeatedly until we could understand. He did this “right up until today. Having taught the sutra, He entered Samadhi” These were all extraordinary matters. “Until today” refers to the Lotus Dharma-assembly. After He finished expounding the Sutra of Infinite Meanings, He entered Samadhi. In the Introductory Chapter, He radiated light, leading Bodhisattvas to engage in a dialogue. Then He bestowed a prediction of Buddhahood upon Sariputra, etc. This entire process was a reminder to everyone that we all intrinsically have Buddha-nature “[It was] to benefit all of us.” This helped everyone understand that all of this was very extraordinary. In the Buddha’s teaching, He exercised His wisdom to, stage by stage, sequentially teach according to our capabilities.
The Buddha sat upon His seat, composed in body and mind, having quickly attained peaceful stability. The sound of the Buddha’s teachings enabled all to hear. Universally worthy to receive offerings from humans and heavenly beings alike, the Tathagata on His seat has enabled us to be replete with the grace of cultivating ourselves and transforming others.
So, “The Buddha sat upon His seat.” Sitting on the Dharma-throne, He was “composed in body and mind.” In this state, He “quickly attained peaceful stability.” He looked very peaceful and stable in the state of Samadhi
“The sound of the Buddha’s teachings enabled all to hear. The sound of the Buddha’s teachings,” His more than 40 years of earnest teaching, was all so that sentient beings could hear. This was not only heard in the human world, but by both heavenly beings and humans. Buddhist sutras state that heavenly beings often asked the Buddha for teachings. So, His teachings were not only heard by humans, but also by heavenly beings. Thus He was “worthy to receive offerings.” After these heavenly beings accepted the teachings they made offerings of conduct.
“The Tathagata on His seat has enabled us to be replete with the grace of cultivating ourselves and transforming others. Now that I have formed aspirations, I benefit myself by earnestly engaging in spiritual practice; I am even willing to go out and transform others.” This is the grace of the Buddha’s teaching
He taught and transformed us out of compassion and to benefit all of us. The Agama teachings suited limited capabilities; they were a guarantee and biased toward emptiness. This was the. World-Honored One’s compassion for us. This was how the Buddha treated His disciples. During the Vaipulya and the Prajna periods, He criticized and weeded this out. These were the World-Honored One’s methods of teaching and transforming.
“He taught and transformed us out of compassion and to benefit all of us. The Agama teachings suited limited capabilities; they were a guarantee and biased toward emptiness. This was the. World-Honored One’s compassion for us.” This was how the Buddha treated His disciples. “During the Vaipulya and the Prajna periods, He criticized and weeded this out.” These were the World-Honored One’s methods of teaching and transforming. From the limited teachings to the great teachings, the Buddha [taught us all] by exercising. His wisdom and love “Such compassion, such teaching and transforming and such benefit are all great grace and virtue. No words can describe how to repay this.”
Such compassion, such teaching and transforming and such benefit are all great grace and virtue. No words can describe how to repay this.
The Buddha, in His mindfulness and patience, spent countless past kalpas endlessly giving of Himself out of love [Even] having attained Buddhahood, it was the same. The Tathagata is simply replete with compassion, so He could not bear for sentient beings to transmigrate through the Five or Six Realms. For the Buddha to deliver all sentient beings on His own will take a very long time; truly this is very hard work. He needs more people to give rise to compassion and likewise teach and transform sentient beings and benefit them. This is the only way the suffering can be saved.
So, it is with great grace and virtue that the Buddha taught us “[This is His] great grace and virtue. No words can describe how to repay this.” Indeed, how can we say that we have a way for to repay His grace? So, we engage in spiritual practice and repay Him by going among people. This is the way to repay the Buddha’s grace.
Even over countless millions of kalpas, who can ever repay this? When we first attained the small fruits, we thought we had lived up to the teachings and sufficiently repaid the Buddha’s grace. But from our assessment today, how can we repay it in a single life or kalpa? Even over countless kalpas, who can repay this?
“Even over countless trillions of kalpas, who can ever repay this?” Who is able to repay this grace? “When we first attained the small fruits, we thought we had lived up to the teachings and sufficiently repaid the Buddha’s grace.” In the past we thought that by working hard to transform ourselves, we were living up to the Buddha’s teachings. “But from our assessment today,” now that we have measured, evaluated and compared, how can we repay it in a single life or kalpa? Life after life, the Buddha saved and delivered sentient beings. Only by helping Him deliver sentient beings are we truly requiting the Buddha’s grace. We cannot do this for just one lifetime, or for one kalpa; it must be over countless kalpas. This is how we repay the Buddha’s grace. This is what we call “repaying the Buddha’s grace.”
“Who can ever repay this?” Who can possibly be able to do this? Indeed! We should ask, “Who can possibly do this?” We have to ask this of ourselves. “The Buddha’s grace is boundless and incomparable. It is the grace of guiding us to enter the Tathagata’s room.” We have already encountered the teachings, which is like entering the Tathagata’s room. We ourselves are at ease. Not only are we at ease, but in this room we feel very happy, having attained Dharma-joy. With this Dharma, we can help people; thus we attain Dharma-joy. This allows us to feel at ease.
Take Zimbabwe for example. The locals were affected by the disaster and are very impoverished themselves, yet they still feel at ease and are still able to help others. This is the “grace of liberating us and relieving suffering.” Then, with the “grace of the warmth provided by clothing of gentleness and patience,” we are able to give to others and teach people in this way. Once we have helped them, we will feel very happy.
There are many things that appear to be difficult or filled with suffering, as if in a state of hell. If we are brave enough to go there and do what we can to help others, in the end we will feel peaceful and at ease. So, let us always be mindful.