Episode 876 – The Buddha Was Like the Great Medicine-King
>> The great trichiliocosm is an analogy for the worlds of all things and all beings. Mountains, rivers and so on are an analogy for the worlds of the Four States and Five Skandhas. The world is comprised of nothing other than mountains, rivers and so on. Sentient beings are composed of nothing other than the Five Skandhas.
>> Dense clouds are spread extensively, covering all in the great trichiliocosm. All at once, they rain down equally, so their moisture permeates all universally. [Lotus Sutra, Chapter 5 – Medicinal Plants]
「卉木叢林及諸藥草，小根小莖小枝小葉，中根中莖中枝中葉，大根大莖大枝大葉」《法華經藥草喻品第五》In the forests of grasses and trees and all kinds of medicinal plants, there are those with small roots, small stems, small branches and small leaves, those with average roots, average stems, average branches and average leaves, and those with great roots, great stems, great branches and great leaves. [Lotus Sutra, Chapter 5 – Medicinal Plants]
>> In the forests of vegetation and trees and all kinds of medicinal plants: The Buddha is like the Great Medicine-king, who skillfully cures illnesses. He knows well the properties of medicine and can skillfully apply these to use medicinal plants to treat illnesses. This is like how virtuous Dharma is used to treat evil. The flawless Dharma that treats evil is proper and effective. Thus it is likened to medicinal plants.
“The great trichiliocosm is an analogy for the worlds of all things and all beings.
Mountains, rivers and so on are an analogy for the worlds of the Four States and Five Skandhas.
The world is comprised of nothing other than mountains, rivers and so on.
Sentient beings are composed of nothing other than the Five Skandhas.”
Does everyone understand this? The worlds of the great trichiliocosm, as we have previously explained, refer to how one thousand small chiliocosms make up one medium chiliocosm and a thousand medium chiliocosms make up one great chiliocosm [Three thousand great chiliocosms] is one great trichiliocosm. So, this refers to an incalculable number.
We might ask, in our solar system alone, how many planets and worlds are there? An astronomer once told me, in this way, “We cannot say; it is unknowable. The number of celestial bodies is incalculable. Every celestial body is its own world.”
The Buddha has already awakened to this. At the moment He became enlightened, He already comprehended the entire universe with its countless [worlds]. Of course, we in the human realm reside on the world of planet Earth. Nonetheless, this expresses how great and how vast the Buddha’s enlightened state of mind is. The Buddha came to teach us so that we could understand the vastness of His spiritual state, not to mention [the principles of] our own small world.
This planet Earth, the world of our human realm, has people, animals and other living things, which all take different forms and appearances.
What we can normally see are elephants, oxen and so on. There are also some small animals, like ants and small insects, which we can still see with the naked eye. The Buddha also wished to tell us about that which our eyes cannot see. In this world, all the tiny bacteria, microorganisms and so on are encompassed by the Buddha’s mind. This is the “world of all things and all beings”. This is all contained in the great trichiliocosm.
“Mountains, rivers and so on are an analogy for the worlds of the Four States and Five Skandhas”. These “mountains, rivers and so on” are an analogy for this body we are intimately familiar with. The Four States of our body are “birth, aging, illness and death”. The Four States of our mind are “arising, abiding, changing and ceasing”. Furthermore, beyond our body and mind the world also undergoes “formation, existence, decay and disappearance”. This happens within this world of all things and all beings. So, the mountains, rivers and so on [refer to] how, from the [microcosm] of our own bodies to everything in the world beyond our bodies, everything is inseparable from the “Four States”.
The many principles in the world, whether principles of matter or life, are all contained within the great trichiliocosm, within this planet on which we live. There are still so many profound principles. Among us ordinary people, who can fathom them all? Only the Buddha, the Enlightened One, can do so. What He awakened to, whether the principles of matter or life, all return to the principles of the mind.
These principles are invisible and hard to predict. But just to live in this world is easy. If we live life according to the principles of natural survival, then we can live quite simply. It is the mind that is complicated. The principles of the mind are hard to predict. “One ignorant thought creates the Three Subtleties; external states lead to the Six Coarse Marks”. Our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind follow [the sense objects of] form, sound, smell, taste, touch and thought. When we connect to these states, we give rise to discursive thoughts; our mind gives rise to discursive thoughts, so we begin to create good and evil karma.
Evil [karma comes from] greed, anger, ignorance, arrogance and doubt. In this world, starting from the human mind, from greed, anger, ignorance, arrogance and doubt, the whole world ends up facing manmade calamities and natural disasters. In particular, in our modern age, technology has become so advanced. With the positive aspects of this, we must be grateful that advancements in technology have helped us discover many things and to see things quickly.
For example, at the same time we all gather for the “morning assembly”, despite being in different countries, everyone is diligently advancing together. This is possible due to technological advancements. While I am speaking here [in Taiwan], they are practicing diligently over there, at exactly the same time as we are here. They can hear me and see my image on the screen. The Buddha spoke of the spiritual powers of “heavenly eye”, “heavenly ear”, “transporting oneself”, etc. So, we must be grateful for this; this is a virtuous use of technology.
Yet if even one thought deviates slightly, then we can create a disturbance in everyone’s minds. In the past, there was a period of time when people said that the end of the world was imminent. Many people went crazy over it. Some people killed themselves, some people…, a lot, causing great unrest in people’s minds. This is an example of our advanced technology being used in deviant ways, which truly causes profound harm to people.
So, the “Four States”, in this world today, have already made people’s minds unhealthy. If our minds are not healthy, then our families, society and the whole world will fall into chaos. If we live our lives in a pure and simple way, how could great calamities arise? They only occur because of the mind. Our minds set karmic forces in motion; karmic forces are very worrisome. Every day, we are so worried. Just how are we to turn our afflictions into positive thoughts? How can we turn turbidity into purity and evil into goodness? This seems very difficult.
We are all comprised of the “Five Aggregates”: form, feeling, perception, action, consciousness. These are also known as the Five Skandhas. When we connect to external states, we connect with these many forms and appearances. Then we take those forms and appearances into our minds. So, naturally, our body and mind will not be settled or at peace, thus we create many afflictions in our minds. These are the Four States and Five Skandhas. This characterizes our interpersonal relationships and our world. In our world, in this time, this space and our interpersonal relations, we experience many instances of disharmony. Yet, all of this is contained within the great trichiliocosm.
So, the world is comprised of nothing else. There is really nothing else. To put it more simply, originally the world was very pure. The tangible world was made up of mountains, rivers, canyons, forests, plains, the great ocean and so on. It was comprised of things like this. This is the world; all the tangible things that make up the world are like this, quite simple. However, “Sentient beings are composed of nothing other than the Five Skandhas”.
Sentient beings endure the “suffering of the raging Five Skandhas”. When the Skandha of “form” agitates our minds, the feelings we experience follow the instability and ways of life in this era. [With this way of life,] in a world of advanced technology, if our minds deviate even slightly, our “feelings” [will be affected]; every person’s “feelings” are different, thus every person’s behavior will be different. So, everyone’s form, feeling, perception, action and consciousness are different. Due to all this, we create constant chaos and turbidity in our world.
Thus, we are “composed of nothing other than the Five Skandhas”. This is the principle of sentient beings. The Buddha has worked extremely hard since Beginningless Time, constantly trying to help us understand the principles, the principles of all things in the universe. Most important is how we adjust our minds. If our minds can remain undefiled by false, illusory external states, then we can live in peace and be at ease.
The previous sutra passage says, “Dense clouds are spread extensively, covering all in the great trichiliocosm. All at once, they rain down equally, so their moisture permeates all universally”.
Next, it goes on to say, “In the forests of vegetation and trees and all kinds of medicinal plants, there are those with small roots, small stems, small branches and small leaves, those with average roots, average stems, average branches and average leaves, and those with great roots, great stems, great branches and great leaves”.
This describes a forest in this world; the first humans also came from such forests. The Buddha too spoke first of forests, mountains, rivers and canyons. The Buddha is like a Great Medicine-king. He saw how sentient beings all experienced illness. This had already started. In this world of “formation, existence, decay and disappearance”, everything continually changes amidst the aggregate of action. In life we undergo “birth, aging, illness, death”. Our time and our lives are painfully short. But, with our intangible mental state, we are continually accumulating karma. This is also a kind of illness.
The Buddha wanted to tell us that this body of ours only lasts a few decades, yet we remain in a state of confusion, continuing to create karma and transmigrate without any control. This is what the Buddha wanted us to know. This is the great illness of our physical bodies. Our body is our great liability; because we have this body, our world has become so unbalanced. The human mind which creates manmade calamities can only exist within a body. Only with the principles of the body can we have the principles of the mind. With there is illness in our mind, we allow our bodies to create so much suffering in this world.
卉木叢林及諸藥草：佛如大醫王善治病，曉了藥性，善能應用者為藥草治病。如善法治惡，無漏善治惡法義勝，故喻藥草。In the forests of vegetation and trees and all kinds of medicinal plants: The Buddha is like the Great Medicine-king, who skillfully cures illnesses. He knows well the properties of medicine and can skillfully apply these to use medicinal plants to treat illnesses. This is like how virtuous Dharma is used to treat evil. The flawless Dharma that treats evil is proper and effective. Thus it is likened to medicinal plants.
So, “The Buddha is like the Great Medicine-king, who skillfully cures illnesses. He knows well the properties of medicine”. The Buddha knows how to cure our illnesses. He understands our symptoms, and He understands where our illnesses came from. However, we sentient beings [do not accept it]. The Buddha has already prepared the medicine; He knew which medicine to use for which illness. However, are we willing to accept these teachings and these principles and put our hearts into experiencing them? Sometimes, the Dharma is right in front of us. These principles are put right in front of us, yet unfortunately we misunderstand them or intentionally confuse the meaning. If people are like this, they twist the principles and turn them into something else. Then these are not the true principles. Yet this is exactly what happens when illnesses enter our minds and cause trouble.
The Buddha came to this world to establish the means to save sentient beings. This was such a great task, but He could not change how little time He had. The Buddha’s lifespan was only 80 years, and after subtracting His youth and His process of spiritual practice, He could actually teach the Dharma for only about half of His life. For 49 years He taught the Dharma, only half of His life. Although the Buddha was the Great Medicine-king, the amount of time that He spent in this world was only these few short years. It was only during this time that He could teach. So, the Dharma remaining in the world depended on those who later compiled it.
Now we have an expansive treasury of teachings. Although there are many people who cannot understand what the sutras tell us, at least there are these written words left to us. So, we should be very grateful that over these 2000-plus years this road has been paved and the Buddha’s Dharma-lineage has been carried on. Although this is not 100 percent the principles that came directly from the Buddha’s mouth, although many teachings were added thanks to the understanding of great sages and benefactors.
I also hope that we can do the same. If something is a good teaching, when we have that initial awakening, or that initial enlightenment, [and realize]. “Ah, so the principles are like this!” we can take it to heart. Then we can write these down one by one. This is like when everyone takes notes for the “morning Dharma lectures”. What we like and understand, we can further digest and express; this will be even clearer than the spoken words. When we write things down like this, they can be left for people of later times, to pave a road for them to walk on. This is what is known as “the path”.
To only have one doctor is not enough. Now, we have many doctors, and we even have assistant doctors, nurses and others who come to help. We even have pharmacists; when a doctor prescribes medicine, the pharmacist must know how to prepare it. In the same way, we must be mindful and constantly take the Dharma to heart. When we understand it, we must write it down. If something is achievable, if the principles can enter people’s hearts, then we must be mindful of it.
So, “The Buddha is like the Great Medicine-king, who skillfully cures illnesses. He knows well the properties of medicine and can skillfully apply these to use medicinal plants to treat illnesses”. If one can understand these medicinal plants, their function and properties, one will know which medicines can be used to treat the illnesses of human beings. The Buddha had to understand the composition of these plants and trees, and their medicinal applications.
In the past, when children had a cough, people would say: “Pick some Chinese fever vine.” I do not know the official medicinal name for the “Chinese fever vine”. In the past, people used the “Chameleon plant” and other herbs to cook a broth, and these were used to cure illnesses. Medicine in ancient times involved knowing how to pick herbs and cook them into a drink to cure illnesses. In the past, when we worked in the fields, there was “nut grass” that we would pick to sell to a pharmacy. Out of all the weeds, the one that most worried us was nut grass. We had to slowly dig it out, and once we dug it out, we would wash it and take it to the pharmacy to sell. This weed also served as medicine.
So, in the end, “We can skillfully apply these to use medicinal plants to treat illnesses”. Thus, “In the forests of vegetation and trees and all kinds of medicinal plants,” all the vegetation, trees, medicinal plants, etc., can be used to cure illnesses. This shows that the Great Medicine-king not only knew illnesses, He also knew how to make use of medicinal herbs. “This is like how virtuous Dharma is used to treat evil. The flawless Dharma that treats evil is proper and effective”. We must apply the flawless, virtuous Dharma, which is precepts, Samadhi and wisdom. With precepts, Samadhi and wisdom, we will be firm in practicing all virtuous Dharma and will have an abundance of principles. How can we help spread these in order to treat unwholesome ways?
Unwholesome phenomena must be treated with the flawless, virtuous Dharma. If some people have a set of twisted principles, how can we bring them back to what is right? How can we turn their misconceptions back to the right [understanding]? As we walk on the great, direct Bodhi-path, how can we make use of these medicinal plants?
We ourselves may know [these principles], but we may still be helpless. What is so worrisome is that the people of this world have unsettled minds. We worry that people’s minds will be in chaos or that their minds will suffer illnesses. When people’s minds are ill, this causes “illness” in the family, the society and the country. This is what worries us the most. However, to worry is useless. I hope that we can try our best not to come into contact with unwholesome ways. We must stay away from unwholesome phenomena. We must be focused on the path towards goodness. What is the virtuous Dharma that we must use? The flawless, virtuous Dharma is what we must use to deal with unwholesome ways and to help the whole world be harmonious. So, we must all bring our hearts together to accept the Dharma. Therefore, we must always be mindful!