Episode 314 – By Listening, We Learn the Buddha’s Intent
>> As the Buddha’s disciples, we should faithfully accept the Buddha’s teachings. We must believe in our [nature of] True Suchness, that we intrinsically have a Bodhi-mind. Only by walking the Bodhisattva-path can we return to the state of the Tathagata.
>> “Sariputra, if a disciple of mine calls himself an Arhat or Pratyekabuddha, but does not want to hear or know of the fact that all Buddhas, the Tathagatas, only teach the Bodhisattva-path….”
>> Arhats: They have the power of wisdom and ending. Understanding the ultimate truth is the virtue of wisdom. Eliminating all afflictions is the virtue of ending. This is the true Bodhi-path. Those who truly attained the fruit of Arhatship, upon hearing the teachings today, can immediately and faithfully accept it and seek the Bodhi[-path]. Those who do not want to hear and know this but claim to be Arhats and Pratyekabuddhas are nothing more than overbearingly arrogant people.
>> Pratyekabuddhas: They have the wisdom to awaken. Once they listen, they immediately understand. They seek the wisdom of nature and joyfully awaken themselves to attain Nirvana. They deeply understand the causes and conditions of all things. This is the Pratyekabuddha Vehicle.
>> They do not want to hear or know that [the Buddha] teaches the Bodhisattva-path, the One Buddha Vehicle. Thus they do not understand the Buddha’s intent, and hear it without faithfully accepting it. So, they give rise to overbearing arrogance.
Every day, our lives grow shorter as we undergo continuous infinitesimal changes. So, “like a fish in a dwindling pond, what joy have we?” However, we must consider that, as the Buddha’s disciples, we must faithfully practice the teachings. The teachings of the Buddha are nothing but great wisdom. If we are mindful, [then we can]. “See one corner and know the other three.” This means that when I tell you how to make a table, how to cut and shape the corners to be square, I do not need to teach you four methods, I only need to teach you one. From shaping one corner you will know how to shape the other three corners. This is how teachers in this world instruct pupils.
But the Buddha works very hard. Even if there are only four corners, He uses eight or twelve different methods to patiently and repeatedly teach us. Regardless of people’s capabilities, He tirelessly finds suitable teachings. This is the patience He has for sentient beings. The teachers of this world can only teach us for a period of time, not for lifetimes. The Buddha teaches us, lifetime after lifetime. We must always be grateful for His grace and therefore love and respect ourselves. Only when we respect ourselves
will we earnestly cherish and seize each day to develop our wisdom-life. So, we must have self-respect. I always say, “Having self-respect is a way to repay grace.” We need to repay the grace of the Buddha, our parents and all sentient beings. All Buddhist practitioners, whether lay or monastic, must cherish their wisdom-life, have self-respect and repay grace. We are all Buddha-children and “as the Buddha’s disciples, we should faithfully accept the Buddha’s teachings.”
As the Buddha’s disciples, we should faithfully accept the Buddha’s teachings. We must believe in our [nature of] True Suchness, that we intrinsically have a Bodhi-mind. Only by walking the Bodhisattva-path can we return to the state of the Tathagata.
The Buddha teaches us to have more faith in ourselves. “We must believe in our nature of True Suchness, that we intrinsically have a Bodhi-mind.” We must believe that we are intrinsically endowed with a nature of True Suchness. To return to our true nature, we must walk from the path of ordinary people toward the path of enlightenment, which is the Bodhi-path. The Bodhi-path is a path in our minds. As long as we are willing to return to our nature of True Suchness, The Buddha teaches us to earnestly walk this path.
In this world there are tens of thousands of paths. We must not take the wrong one. If we deviate from it even slightly, we will end up on an evil path. Evil path, evil understanding and views will give rise to countless afflictions, karma and wrongdoings, and so on. So, we must take good care of this Bodhi-path. The Bodhi-path in our minds comes from the same source as our nature of True Suchness. Therefore, we definitely must find the Bodhi-path
in order to return to our nature of True Suchness. To follow the Bodhi-path, we must practice the Bodhisattva-path. So, only by walking the Bodhisattva-path can we return to the state of the Tathagata. We must clearly understand this.
Time continues to pass in infinitesimal increments. We must not waste time. We should know that if we have a lapse in our spiritual practice, we may become indolent.
In the Buddha’s time, one day while He was with the Sangha at Jeta Grove, four bhiksus sat outside of the abode and chatted under a tree. Each person named the thing they wanted to pursue most. One of them said, “What I am most interested in and most want to pursue is the colorful state of spring. When all the flowers and trees bloom wildly, nature looks beautiful. I really enjoy traveling through this kind of environment.” In his life, that was the state he loved most, that made him the most happy.
The second bhiksu said, “What I enjoy most is being with my very close friends or spending all day with loved ones. This is what makes me happiest. Having a good time together, either singing or dancing, is the way I want to spend my days.”
The third bhiksu said, “What I envy most are fame and fortune. I want to have a lot of money and many treasures so that I can enjoy pleasures whenever I want. A pleasurable life is what I desire most.” The fourth bhiksu said, “I keep thinking of the past. Having my beautiful wife and concubines by my side at all times would be the most enjoyable thing in life.” Having spoken so much about pleasures, they were all entranced by those states.
At that moment, the Buddha looked outside and saw these four bhiksus. He said, “Ask them to come inside.” The Buddha sighed, “In your pasts, you pursued and were mesmerized by things because of your delusion. After you became monastics, your minds dwelled and lingered on the past or went in pursuit of the future. This world is impermanent and time continuously passes. In this world, life is painfully short. Furthermore, fame and fortune are temporary and pursing them will create a lot of karma. As for beautiful wives and concubines, we will all [eventually age, grow ill and die] and our bodies are unclean. Sadly, even after becoming monastics, you are idling away your time, not learning teachings and not trying to find your nature of True Suchness. The paths ahead of you are all evil branches. You have not even formed aspirations, so you can no longer see pure intrinsic nature.”
As the Buddha rebuked them, those nearby benefitted immensely. As He taught these four bhiksus, of the bystanders who heard what He said, many were also awakened.
Indeed, life is very short. Why are we still fixated on the past? Why are we still in pursuit of a future? This is a deluded life. So, are we living in this state of confusion? The Buddha already said, “In the era of chaos and the kalpa of turbidity, sentient beings are heavily defiled.” From this short story, we know that even during the Buddha’s time, people’s minds were already turbid. This was true even within the Buddha’s Sangha, let alone for the lay people at that time.
So, in the kalpa of turbidity, sentient beings are heavily defiled. In the kalpa of turbidity, all is in chaos and people’s minds are confused. So, sentient beings continue to give rise to a defiled state of mind, one of greed, jealousy and so on. So, they develop roots of unwholesomeness.
Because sentient beings lack roots of goodness, the Buddha has to give Three Vehicles teachings. Based on the One Vehicle, He taught the Three Vehicles. Not only that, He gave 84,000 teachings to address sentient beings’ 84,000 turbidities. To treat them, He had to come up with all of these teachings, not to mention the Three Vehicles. But actually, the Three Vehicles are only for certain spiritual practitioners. Those spiritual practitioners include the Hearers and Solitary Realizers in the Sangha. Hearers were taught the Four Noble Truths, Solitary Realizers were taught the Twelve Links of Cyclic Existence, and Bodhisattvas received the Six Paramitas. The Three Vehicles teachings actually all lead to the Bodhisattva Way, which is the only way to return to the Bodhi-path, which enables us to return to our Tathagata-minds. This is what the Buddha worked hard to teach us.
Presently, the sutra also states that the Buddha said,
“Sariputra, if a disciple of mine calls himself an Arhat or Pratyekabuddha, but does not want to hear or know of the fact that all Buddhas, the Tathagatas, only teach the Bodhisattva-path….”
This makes things always very clear. The Buddha once again reminded Sariputra, which was reminding everyone to listen attentively. Some of His disciples might believe, “I am already an Arhat. I thoroughly understand the Four Noble Truths, the truth of suffering, its causation, its cessation and the Path.” Because they attained the fruits of Arhatship, they thought [highly of themselves]. Or they might think, “Not only do I understand the Four Noble Truths, but the Twelve Links of Cyclic Existence are as familiar to me as the palm of my hand. I also clearly understand the karmic conditions for coming to and leaving this world. Fragmentary and transformational samsara are also very familiar to me.” They believed they were Pratyekabuddhas.
Those who thought they had understood were “those who do not want to hear or know of the fact that all Buddhas, the Tathagatas, only teach the Bodhisattva-path….” These people did not know that all Buddhas, not just Sakyamuni Buddha, but other Buddhas as well, shared the same path. They come to this evil world of the Five Turbidities, and begin to teach the Dharma to sentient beings all for one purpose, to teach the Bodhisattva-path. Teaching the Bodhisattva-path is their one great cause. They teach everyone to walk the Bodhisattva-path, the road back to our nature of True Suchness. After we transform ourselves and others, we can achieve perfect transformative practice.
If we all think that we have attained the fruit of Arhatship or become Pratyekabuddhas, but do not want to hear or know why all Buddhas come to this world, if we do not listen attentively and learn this, then we will be at a loss.
So, we must know the qualities of an Arhat. An Arhat has “the power of wisdom and ending.” He has the wisdom to end all afflictions. This is the virtue of ending. If we have truly attained the fruit of Arhatship, we must first achieve the state where we eliminate all afflictions after learning the truth. Then we achieve this virtue. We go among others but are not defiled by people and matters. Only then do we have virtue of wisdom. Only then are we Arhats. The true Bodhi-path also allows us to eliminate all afflictions. Only by experiencing the true Bodhi-path and by walking it can we truly be Arhats.
Arhats: They have the power of wisdom and ending. Understanding the ultimate truth is the virtue of wisdom. Eliminating all afflictions is the virtue of ending. This is the true Bodhi-path. Those who truly attained the fruit of Arhatship, upon hearing the teachings today, can immediately and faithfully accept it and seek the Bodhi[-path]. Those who do not want to hear and know this but claim to be Arhats and Pratyekabuddhas are nothing more than overbearingly arrogant people.
If we have truly attained Arhatship, as we listen to this teaching, we realize that the Buddha is opening the provisional to reveal the true. The Buddha clearly said that in the past He only gave provisional teachings, and now He was going to teach the true path. Those who have attained the fruit of Arhatship, the moment they hear this teaching, should faithfully accept it. They will certainly be able to earnestly listen and faithfully accept it. If we think, “I know everything,” then we will not listen carefully. If we do not learn this, but claim to be Arhats, thinking we have already attained. Arhatship or become Pratyekabuddhas, then don’t we have overbearing arrogance? Those people do not know the Buddha’s goal in coming to this world. Can a person who does not want to learn be called an Arhat?
What are the qualities of a Pratyekabuddha? A Pratyekabuddha has “the wisdom to awaken.”
Pratyekabuddhas: They have the wisdom to awaken. Once they listen, they immediately understand. They seek the wisdom of nature and joyfully awaken themselves to attain Nirvana. They deeply understand the causes and conditions of all things. This is the Pratyekabuddha Vehicle.
Pratyekabuddhas also go by another name. They are called Solitary Realizers. In times when there are no Buddhas present, they can, through their pure intrinsic nature, still realize the principle of impermanence. But what is the origin of these principles? And how do they connect to their wisdom-life? They still did not understand, so they remained in the state of. Solitary Realizers and Pratyekabuddhas.
When the Buddha manifested in this world, some accepted His teachings and understood that the world is impermanent. How does realizing impermanence resonate with their wisdom-life? After comprehending impermanence, how do they purify themselves and develop their wisdom-life? The answer was even clearer in the Buddha’s era. “Once they listen, they immediately understand.” After listening to the Buddha’s teachings, they should understand.
The Buddha gave teachings so that people could realize the world is impermanent and that we should promptly return to our pure intrinsic nature. So, He created many means to teach us. This is the Buddha’s compassion. Pratyekabuddhas can understand, so they “seek the wisdom of nature.” Thus Pratyekabuddhas
can naturally attain great wisdom from nature. Natural wisdom, teacherless wisdom, all-encompassing wisdom, etc., are all natural to us. But true Pratyekabuddhas were progressing, they sought “the wisdom of nature and joyfully awakened themselves to attain Nirvana.” But they still only wanted to awaken themselves and were in the state of Solitary Realizers. They knew about the many causes and conditions, so they did not dare to create more causes or form more conditions. Thus they only sought to purify and liberate themselves
“did not want to hear or know” [that Buddhas] “only teach the Bodhisattva-path.” They did not realize the Buddha only wanted to teach the One Buddha Vehicle. He did not just teach them to become Arhats or Pratyekabuddhas. These are not the only teachings, so everyone must keep progressing forward. Those who remain in the same state, unwilling to make progress, are those who “do not want to hear or know.” They do not understand the Buddha’s intent.
They do not want to hear or know that [the Buddha] teaches the Bodhisattva-path, the One Buddha Vehicle. Thus they do not understand the Buddha’s intent, and hear it without faithfully accepting it. So, they give rise to overbearing arrogance.
Dear Bodhisattvas, there were overbearingly arrogant people in the Buddha’s time. The Buddha put a lot of work into guiding them and gave so many teachings. He personally taught them at the Lotus Dharma-assembly, and yet there were still people who left. Among those who remained and listened, there were those who heard but did not believe and who did not feel the joy of faith. Think about this, it is so sad!
So everyone, we must learn the Buddha’s teachings. The Buddha compassionately inspired us and opened our minds to help us all return to the Bodhi-path and enter the state of the Tathagata. How can we not have self-respect? How can we not earnestly safeguard our spiritual aspirations? Thus, we must always love and awaken ourselves. We must always be mindful.