Hongren’s Instructions, Contd. - Dharma Talk on September 12, 2022 by Gilbert Gutierrez
Rick Cabrera
Hongren’s Instructions, Contd. - Dharma Talk on September 12, 2022 by Gilbert Gutierrez
Many thanks to Lay Hui Tan for transcribing this lecture and to Rick Cabrera for editing it.
Lecture audio: https://riversidechan.org/lectures/Dharma_Talk_20220912.mp3
Lecture video: https://youtu.be/6ClsytOcGPw
Lecture material: https://riversidechan.org/lectures/Dharma_Talk_20220912.pdf
Treatise on the Essentials of Cultivating the Mind (dailyzen.com)
Treatise on the Essentials of Cultivating the Mind Part 2 (dailyzen.com)
Essentials of Cultivating the Mind Part 3 (dailyzen.com)
Notes:
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Please join your palms, bow.
The Four great vows:
I vow to deliver innumerable sentient beings.
I vow to cut off endless vexations.
I vowed to master limitless approaches to Dharma.
I vow to attain Supreme Buddhahood.
Welcome to you all. We are going to continue on with Master Hongren and his instructions on the practice of Chan. The most important thing that he has been talking about and his refrain is by maintaining the awareness of the true mind. Today, you will hear him talking about this “maintaining the awareness of the true mind” and this is really Chan. It is really the instructions of all the patriarchs. It is the instructions of all the Buddhas of all the sutras, is: maintaining this awareness. This is something that I stress in terms of meditation, is that we have to have awareness.
Now this is the awareness of the true mind. It is not thinking and unfortunately because I had to travel out of the area and just getting back, I didn't prepare things I wanted to prepare in terms of diagrams for you. But what I wanted to do is show you that awareness is very big in all directions. It is awareness; it is not thinking. It is not thinking of whatever is appearing. It is just knowing that it is appearing. This is what we call a state of equipoise or state of equanimity.
In a state of equanimity, everything is appearing perfectly and one is aware of it without having to turn the mind's eye towards it. Now when we practice and we use this awareness, this is the same awareness that they are saying is maintaining this awareness of the true mind. The true mind is not what we believe to be an ego, personality, your life in being; it is mind itself. It is that which is real. It is not a false sense of being. It is the self-nature of mind and the self-nature of mind is that it has an awareness by virtue of the fact that it is the mind-ground itself. It is the perception of the mind-ground.
There are not two things, there is one. It is not easy for us to think this way because we live in a state of samsara, which is a dualistic world. In this dualistic world, there is subject and object. There are these three dimensions that we seem to be traveling in spatially and temporally timelines as well. There is what might appear to be a two dimensional in terms of time going like this traveling from one point. But if we cannot establish the point from where the time began, as being a real point from which to depart from, then the whole concept of time breaks down. This is something that Nagarjuna did in the Madhyamika School, and was looking at it and he refuted the idea of time as being existed, as well as space. We look at this and it begins to make us double check in terms of where we are at and what we are doing. Double check in terms of whether we are in a real place or not. That is what is important here is that when we are looking at things, we have to use the perception of mind itself. This is the awareness of the mind, of the true mind and we are not confused. We do not possess anything. We should not have any confusion about the world as well. This is what Master Hongren is emphasizing.
Except to understand that this is how we meditate, is that we maintain the awareness that is there. There is a contemplation that happens. The contemplation is not thinking; it is directly looking at the method. The method is a thought, but since one is only looking at one thought, it becomes meaningless. If it is a Huatou, it is meaningless so whatever we are looking at, is just understood to be there. Just to keep the center of the consciousness clear of any kinds of thoughts that could be clinged to. I might start back where I was left off the last time but I think it still is perhaps, very, very useful for you. The third question is:
“Why is maintaining the True Mind the basic principle of the entire Buddhist canon?”
Buddhist canon means anything that was ever written about Buddhadharma, and they are saying why is it maintained that this is the basic principle if we maintain this true mind and the answer is:
“Throughout the canon, the Tathagata preaches extensively about all types of transgression and good fortune, causes and conditions, and rewards and retributions. He also draws upon various things of this world, mountains, rivers, the earth, plants, trees etc to make innumerable metaphors. He also manifests innumerable supernormal powers and various kinds of transformations. All these are just the Buddha's ways of teaching foolish sentient beings. Since they have various kinds of desires and myriad of psychological differences, the Tathagata draws them into a permanent bliss according to their mental tendencies.”
He is showing the manner in which the Buddha is teaching. What I wanted to do is emphasize by showing you this, how you study the Dharma. All of this is about how you study and making sure that you are clear about how you read things such as this because this is very, very deep, and if we just read it very quickly, we lose all of what it really means. But here for the saying, “...the Buddhist way of teaching foolish sentient beings”, is that when we are attached to the idea that we are separate and apart from others, or that this mind that we are using as a Buddha, therefore if I have consciousness, I am a Buddha. It isn't that I am a Buddha, this body cannot be a Buddha. That which is using this mind is the Buddha-mind, but it does not have a name. Whether we call it the Buddha or Gilbert or whatever, it isn't in this way. There is no duality there. But if you use the name, “Hey, Gilbert” and Gilbert turns around, that is the Buddha-mind that is turning around. This is a part that is a little bit tricky, a little bit esoteric, but it is something that you need to look at and try to figure out how that works.
When he is talking about foolish sentient beings, he is talking about people that are stuck in samsara and making choices based on the idea that they are separate and apart and that there is an ego present. That is why he says the Tathagata brought them into permanent bliss according to their mental tendencies. In other words, there are various levels at which one can expose Buddhadharma to others.
Unfortunately, the default program is the lowest common denominator, just cross your legs and hope for the best. But we should have the availability of this esoteric or this more profound dharma. If we can understand it, great! If we can't, perhaps one day we will but if you never hear it, then you don't have a chance. It is important for you to have this ability to have a chance to be able to hear this profound Dharma that Master Hongren is presenting. He says:
“Understand clearly that the Buddha-nature embodied within sentient beings is inherently pure…”
Now this is the part that is kind of tricky because he says, “The Buddha-nature embodied within sentient beings”. It doesn't say the Buddha nature of sentient beings, it is something that is there; kind of like your DNA but does that DNA define you as an individual or as a continuum? It is kind of an interesting thing here because he is looking at this and saying, “I don't want to say that you will become enlightened. What I'm saying is that there is a Buddha-nature within all of those appearances that we call consciousness, but it is actually the Buddha-mind. But if you think about it in the wrong way, then it becomes your consciousness”. That is why we were talking about that many times that “Sages return consciousness to mind; fools turn mind into consciousness”. We continue:
“…like a sun underlaid by clouds”.
This is interesting. Listen to the way he says this because he doesn't say a sky that has clouds in the sky. What word is he using here that is peculiar? He is saying, like a sun underlaid by clouds. It is like the light behind me here. If that was the sun, then the clouds would be here and samsara would be underneath here. So he is using the Buddha perception to say, ‘not that we are looking at the sky and seeing that the sky is cloudy and we can't see space because of it.’ He is using it in the opposite way to say turn the mind's eye inward and look from the perception of the mind itself looking down onto samsara. Underlaid are these clouds that make it unclear, we cannot see what is there. What do you think is underneath all those clouds? What do you think? Anybody? What do you think is underneath the clouds? If you are looking up from above looking down? This of course is a trick Chan question but what do you think? What is underneath those clouds? It is like the diagram that I showed you, where one half of the sphere is the knowing aspect of mind and then there is the Dharmakaya and then things appear then we turn it this way, right? Now we are looking from here and underneath here, there are clouds around, but it is all mind. You are looking at the mind. We perceive clouds, because our minds are obstructed, but all of it is mind perfectly appearing. We are seeing it all. It is underlaid. The mind is underlaid here, mind looking at mind. We don't have to worry about where the dust goes because it is all part of mind. It is a very interesting use of words here. If you go too quickly, you will miss it. You will miss that incredibly, like the clue that he is giving there.
“By just distinctly maintaining awareness of the True Mind, the clouds of false thoughts will go away, and the sun of wisdom will appear.”
Of course, because if this is the mind, and this is the mind and they are both mirrors and the light is going to appear right there, the moon will appear. It is because it has always been there.
“Why make any further study of knowledge based on the senses which only leads to suffering of samsara?”
This is a part we have to be careful about because otherwise, you interpret it and say, “Master Hongren said we don't have to study” but he didn't say that. He is saying that why make further study of knowledge based on fantasy which only leads to suffering in samsara? So the knowledge, “I'm very, very smart. I can make a lot of money and it makes my senses happy because I can buy things that taste good or I can dress up this way or I can live this way and whatever”. Never knowing that I am still stuck in the cycle of samsara because I am trying to appease the senses of this illusory sentient being when we believe that it is real. He is saying, “Don't study in this way because if you study in this way, and you are trying to look for the Buddha-mind, you cannot do it in this way”.
“All concepts, as well as affairs of the three periods of time, should be understood according to the metaphor of polishing a mirror. When the dust is gone, Nature naturally becomes manifest. That which is learned by the ignorant mind is completely useless.”
It is interesting because as I practice, I find that I really don't practice to maintain this library of Gilbert for Gilbert’s sake. It is useless for me to do that. If I did that, what good is it? In another few years Gilbert will not be here. It is all going to be gone. It is just completely gone. There is nothing I can do. I mentioned that as a metaphor, grabbing a handful of sand and trying to hold on to it. Eventually, it will all go away. You are not going to be able to hold it. Master Hongren is reorienting you towards the Buddha-nature and the self-nature of mind, and not trying to cling to the idea of a life in being which is transitory, which changes. It is conditioned and he is pointing towards the unconditioned. Matter of fact, I think he is coming up to say that in a moment, that learning by the ignorant mind is completely useless.
“True learning is that which is learned by the inactive or unconditioned, wu wei (无为) mind, which never ceases correct mindfulness.”
That is an awful lot, what is being said here. This is where we have to slow down again because if we don't slow down, we just miss it. If you just read this, you would go, “That was very good. What does it mean? I don't know”. Let's slow down. He is saying true learning is that which is learned. I put here, “How so?” How is it learned? By that inactive or unconditioned wu wei mind. So this wu wei mind is, we could say, the no-thinking mind, the emptiness of mind. It is unconditioned which never ceases correct mindfulness. Again, maintaining this awareness is also maintaining the correct mindfulness. As we are doing this and we are saying, ‘this true learning isn't learned by you; it is by the inactive or unconditioned wu wei mind.’ We continue and he says:
“Although this is called “true learning'', ultimately, there is nothing to be learned.”
Why is it that there is nothing to be learned? Does that make sense to you? There is nothing to be learned. Why would there be nothing to be learned? Anybody? Nobody wants to talk about these very deep and profound things. By the way, you got the message. I wanted you to answer the question.
Tori: Why is there nothing to learn because any concept that we're learning, there is the opposite of that so it is still within that dualism and it doesn't matter. Whatever, if it is the concept, it is kind of like the mirror, you have to keep it polished and keep it clean, which is true that we are practicing Buddhism. But at the same time it is to understand that there is no mirror in the first place. So any concept will create that dualism, is like that dualistic nature.
Gilbert: Are we practicing Buddhism, or is Buddhism practicing us? Very interesting, right?
Tori: Cannot be answered.
Gilbert: That is why I wanted you to ask the questions because I can see a potential in you and you are listening, that is good. You are fearless to answer the question. But you see, who is playing who? If we are illusory, then how can the mechanical puppet learn anything? There is nothing to be learned except for the fact that human beings are the mechanical puppet pulled around by karma, but yet this karma also belongs to mind. Then is it really that it learns as much as it awakens from the dream? Awakening from the dream means that it no longer clings to this life in being so you are correct. It is good that you are there but all I did was just push you just a little bit, more to say ‘who is playing who?’ It is good, hang in there you are doing well so I give you an A so far.
We continue on. That is why it said there is nothing to be learned and then he says why is this a perfect time for him to ask that question? Why is this but now we are looking at it and saying why is there nothing to be learned? Because the Buddha-mind doesn't need to learn anything. It is whatever is there; it knows.
“Because the self and Nirvana are both non-substantial; they are neither different nor the same.”
This is very, very tough. We have got to look at this because you run into it and then you ask, “What does that mean the self and Nirvana are both non substantial?” What is substantial is the unconditioned mind. But Nirvana and the self they belong to this side; they belong to the samsaric side. They’re not the projection on the mind, on the mirror mind. They are neither different nor the same because we do not say that they have the same component. We could say that they are the same in one way and different in another way. The Nirvana being that one realizes and awakens to it and the other one is the self and saying one can be awakened from the self from the ideas itself, but still they are saying in the sense that they are projections on the mind. Even this concept of Nirvana is not the Buddha-mind.
“Therefore, the essential principle of the words, “nothing to be learned” is true.”
Nothing to be learned is true because everything is mind. One of the things kind of interesting about mind is as one gets more and more realizations, what before it used to confound us that we didn't understand why people did this. ‘Why did he do that to me? I can't believe he did that to me.’ Whatever it is, and then you go, “I understand because this person is this way”. As a result of this, you become clearer and clearer about this in terms of understanding because you step away from the idea of yourself and start looking at it from a different viewpoint. So it says:
“One must maintain the clear awareness of the True Mind without generating false thoughts or the illusion of personal possession.”
This is also very, very important because one, it is maintaining the clear awareness of the true mind. What is the true mind? What is appearing in the moment is the true mind; it is not separate from the self, noumena, or nirvana. It is perfectly appearing. The awareness is there to know precisely why appearances are happening. ‘Why did I have this thought? Why did I have this emotional fear or emotional desire or whatever it is that is coming up?’ Mind knows because you put it there from all of these karmic conditions that are there that are coming up. We see clearly that it is there and if we maintain this mind in this way so that we see everything in this way. Then it says, “without generating false thoughts”. What are false thoughts? Thoughts where you go, “I'm going to get even with that person, or I'm going to tell him the next time I see him, or I really would like a raspberry donut right now”. Your body is telling you, “Gilbert, trust me. Don't eat a raspberry donut right now. You don't need one, okay?. Who told you you are supposed to have one?” That is a false thought, right? But we listen to it all the time. We are listening to it, why? If we listened to our body, it would say, “Gilbert, enough with those; you don't need that”. I'm not even getting into cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, whatever, that is out there; you name it, gambling or whatever that is there. There are all sorts of gambling one can take.
In any case, then it says, “the illusion of personal possession”. This is an interesting one because what are the things that we believe are our possessions? What is the major one that we believe is our personal possession? Sentha I can see you, you know it. What is it?
Sentha: The body?
Gilbert: The body, yes! The body. This is my body, not your body. My body may want to be close to this person or may not want to be close to him or whatever. But your body is your first number one personal possession. You want to do this and do that to it and fix it up and all sorts of things. It is your number one and then things that belong to you. It is very, very interesting because we don't understand that. There is a very well known story or should be well known at least in my opinion, about Master NanQuan and ZhaoZhou. Do you have a picture of NanQuan with the cat, Sentha?
Sentha: This is the one that you shared with Michael. Let me share it.
Gilbert: This is a very interesting story. Two monks came to NanQuan and they were fighting over this cat that is in the picture there. If you look, you will see that NanQuan has in his right hand a sword and he wants to show the duality of the cat because both of the monks wanted to keep the cat.
When they wanted to keep the cat, one said, “I brought him into the temple.”
The other one said, “But he sleeps with me at night. He is my cat”.
The other said, “He is my cat”.
So the Master then cut the cat in half.
I know there are a lot of cat lovers that would probably be horrified by this. There are a lot of non cat lovers that would probably go, “And?” Because he cut the cat in half is what makes the story whether he did or not, and between you and me, I don't think he did cut it in half. I think he just went like he was going to cut the cat in half, at least I give him the benefit of the doubt. But in any case, he cut the cat in half, “There you are” to one and, “There is the other half there”. I don't know which one got the better half or whether he split them down the middle or kind of around the belly or whatever. But he gave it to them and they took their cat.
This whole idea of possession is where one says, “It’s yours, you have the cat”.
The other says, “ Well no, not really. You don't have the cat. It is not what I expected. I mean, I don't want this half of a cat”.
The point is how we look at things and how we try to cling to things and how we have these personal possessions then we suffer from that. So it is very interesting in this way. At that point, ZhaoZhou also came back to the monastery. He went into the Master’s quarters, and they were telling him, “You just can't believe what just happened right now”. They told him the whole story and ZhaoZhou listened to the story very carefully. Then he put his slippers on the top of his head and walked out of the room. A very, very famous story. The Master said as he was seeing ZhaoZhou leaving the room that if he was there, he could have saved the cat.
The whole idea is that we are upside-down in all of this because we just simply don't understand. We don't have an idea of that even when we try to hold on to these personal possessions. They are transitory, very quickly gone. If we live our life like this, we repeat samsara. We just keep coming back to it and coming back to it and so we see things in this way. Sometimes I see a lot of articles about how to be a better person and how to do things and those kinds of articles are good and they feel goody and talk about things. But they don't present something to get you out of here. How many times are there that the Masters present something that is the key to the door? That is the key to just a better samsara but it doesn't get you out. Wouldn't you rather want to hear something that gets you out or not and makes this place feel better? Once you are out, you come back in and then you work on the Pure Land and raise everything there because you understand how to do that. Do you understand how to deal with what Master Hongren had said “the foolish sentient beings”? But only if you listen and you practice in the right way. That is what he is trying to tell you here about these possessions and illusions. So then it says:
“Therefore the Nirvana Sutra says to understand the Buddha but does not actually preach the Dharma is called having sufficiently listened to the Buddhist preaches.”
This isn't saying that he doesn't preach or teach the Dharma, is that when you understand and you say there is nothing to teach. It is just simply the awakening. We awaken, then we realize there was nothing to preach or teach, then we understand the Buddha never taught or preached. But he just did that for foolish sentient beings, to have them stick around long enough to realize that. There are two levels of these teachings. It's just a basic level ABCs and if all the time you listen and you practice and it is just ABCs. ABCs that is all you are good at.
I remember when I was a little kid and I really wanted to go to school. I was like four years old and my mom took me to this kindergarten teacher and said, “Look at Gilbert. He is very smart. He can say his ABCs. Tell the teacher you know the ABC”. So there I was, “ABCD…”. That was good but that was before kindergarten. After kindergarten I put that down. I don't want to do that. It will be foolish for me now. “Are you an attorney?”, “Yes”. “Okay, show me what you know”, “A, B, C, D E”. That would be stupid!
Why do you want to stay at that level? You have to move on and you have to present the Dharma in a way calculated to make the people move higher up to challenge them. Not to just keep teaching them the same thing but the challenge. I'm sorry I'm getting on my soapbox again because this is what Hongren was doing. He was presenting in the same way as Master Linchi. Huineng was the same way. They're all telling you this is the Way, this is the profoundness. They are not holding anything back. Who holds it back? Why? Why would people want to hold this precious Dharma back? Either they don't understand it, don't get it, or don't realize how precious it is. We should never hold it back. Shifu used to say that if somebody asked you what pork tasted like and you didn't know, you never ate pork but you smelled the cooking. At least you could tell the people what it smelled like when it was cooked. He was saying you don't have to wait until you are enlightened to tell people, at least that you have awakened to it. It may not be much but it is better than nothing.
I am becoming more and more insistent in my later years just simply because awareness of the finite amount of breaths that we all have. I want to get you guys to do this. I see people like David and Robert, you guys are a little bit more on in years. I want to give this Dharma to you so that you really can work and you haven't wasted a chance. We see people a little bit younger and those will be the teachers in the future. We don't waste this at all. That is what it is when he was saying that there was no preaching here because it is just simply awakening to this. But we have to do that. We can't just keep teaching the same things over and over again and thinking we are going to have a very accomplished class of Buddha practitioners.
One of the things that I have been really surprised by, maybe in my own negativity, is that there are a lot of people that have never read sutras, ever… ever. In the last retreat, there was a person that didn't even know what a sutra was. It made me want to cry. It made me want to say, “Sit down with me for an hour or 10 years. Let me explain this to you and share this with you”. I really want to do that. It just comes from the heart that you want to share this with other people. That is what I want you to do, is not that I'm teaching you. I am giving you what you are going to present to other people. That is just how it works. Now back to the regularly scheduled program. Sorry about that.
“Question: Why is maintaining awareness of the mind the patriarch of all of the Buddhas past, present, and future?”
I am saying that by maintaining the awareness of the mind, one sees clearly that the Buddhas appear right then in this awareness of the mind. Why, because this mind that you are using to maintain this awareness is not other than the Buddha-mind. Once you awaken to that, it changes the whole game because now you know you are a part of the Buddha Clan. Not your body but that intrinsic understanding that is within you, that is the Buddha. You can then use this body for its maximum effectiveness for the time you have left here. Some of you have more time than others but it doesn't matter; you can use it the best that you can. That is the part that when we see that, then we understand and what he is saying here is why maintaining awareness of mind, the patriarch, the Buddha. We call the Adi Buddha, which is this Primordial Buddha, sometimes they say Samantabhadra is a Primordial Buddha, PuXian PuSa (普贤菩萨), Vajradhara, you have heard that name before.
On Vajradhara and as the Primordial Buddha, the Dharmakaya, all of these are just trying to show you this is the essence of the Buddha and this essence is the wellspring from which everything comes from. That is why they call it the Tathagatagarbha. From the Tathagatagarbha, I don't subscribe to the saying because, “There is this little tiny Buddha that is in you that is going to become a full Buddha later on”. You come out of the box to full Buddha. All right, you don't need anything else. You have the Buddha-mind. The only thing is that you mess it up. You don't know how to use it but you have the complete faculties of the Buddha already.
The embryo is all of the appearances that are arising in the mind in accordance with causes and conditions because that Pratityasamutpada is not other than the Buddha. That is how things work through this. It is not through the machinations of some Supreme Being that says, you are going to fall down the step; you are going to win the spelling bee; you are going to get a raise; you are going to get fired. It doesn't work in that way. There is nobody that is doing that. What is happening is in accordance with causes and conditions but what is really good about those causes and conditions is we still have an ability to develop merit and transfer that merit to other people because that works too within the causes and conditions. That is very, very powerful. Why? Because everything is created by the mind so we can generate the thoughts of deliverance to others. What is the deliverance? It’s the awakening of the Buddha-mind within all sentient beings. That is very, very powerful. In terms of this, maintaining the awareness of the mind. It is the power of the Buddha-mind that one is generating and one is tapping into.
One sees that from the past, present, and future because that is the way the mind works. The mind is not stuck in samsara; it is in harmony with samsara. But it is far beyond samsara in its expanse. Who knows how many samsara worlds there are? If they talk about 50 billion Buddha worlds, can you imagine how many samsara worlds are out there? We don't know that; we can't even think about it. We just think that is just made up stuff. We are make stuff up. That is why we don't understand it because we are made up and when we are made up, we confine ourselves to this world and the potentialities within the world. But when you understand everything is created by the mind, then you begin to think outside the box of this mind. You begin to think of what you can do with this body. You think outside of samsara itself, but you nevertheless have one foot in samsara to be able to deliver sentient beings to fulfill those vows. This is how it works. We really don't understand that.
We are just hoping that the Buddha will come and save us. What are they going to say?
They will say, “You can come”.
You go, “Really? Let me pack my bag”.
“Don't bother packing your bag”.
“What do you mean?”
“ Because you can't go?”
“What?”
Well, because ‘you’ are going to be gone like that. In another blink of the Buddha's eyes, you are going to be gone. The Buddha will still be there but you have to set aside the body. It doesn't mean that you should stop eating and wait for the Buddha bus to pick you up. It is quite the contrary, one works harder mindful that this body is finite. ShiFu used to say ‘we only have a finite amount of breaths to take,’ and that hit me so hard because I'm looking at it and going, “I want to make this one count. I want to make this one count”. Since I have been talking, I'm hoping that I've made the breaths count. I'm not getting too far in this; it is already almost an hour of going but let me see if I can get through some of this a little bit. So he says:
“All the Buddhas of the past, present, and future are generated within one's own consciousness.”
Very interesting. Now we look at this and we say one's own consciousness, what is consciousness and one's own consciousness? So we continue:
“When you do not generate false thoughts, the Buddhas are generated within your consciousness.”
He is kind of almost teasing with this and saying what is his consciousness?
“When your illusions of personal possession have been extinguished, the Buddhas are generated within your consciousness. You will only achieve Buddhahood by maintaining awareness of the True Mind. Therefore maintaining awareness of the mind is the patriarch of all the Buddhas of past, present, and future.”
What is this awareness that we maintain? The awareness is very interesting because it is just mind; it is just the knowing of things that are arising in mind. The consciousness is, we could say, in the center stage and it will generate the Buddhas. Are those illusions? Are they temporary? If we see that as some kind of a manifestation, yes, but the potentiality of the Buddha-mind, no because that is unconditioned. It is indescribable. But if we'd go around drawing pictures of Buddhas, it is only an artist's rendition of what we think the Buddha is. In your heart, is where you'll find the Buddha. Then, he said:
‘If one were to expand upon the four previous topics, how can we ever explain them completely?”
That is so true.
“My only desire is that you discern the fundamental mind for yourselves.”
That is me. My only desire is that you understand the true nature of mind for yourself, that you awaken to it. That is what he is talking about.
“Therefore, I sincerely tell you: Make effort! Make effort!”
He is telling you. He already taught me how to do it by maintaining the awareness of the mind. So then he says “Make effort! Make effort!” Then he continues:
“I base my teaching on the Lotus Sutra in which the Buddha says: “I have presented you with a great cart and a treasure of valuables, including bright jewels and wondrous medicines. Even so, you do not take them. What extreme suffering! Alas, alas!”. If you can cease generating false thoughts and the illusion of personal possessions, then all various types of merit will become perfect and complete. Do not try to search outside yourself, which only leads to the suffering of samsara.
Maintain the same state of mind in every moment of thought, in every phase of mental activity. Do not enjoy the present while planting seeds of future suffering; by doing so, you can only deceive yourself and others and cannot escape from the realm of birth and death.”
I, at this moment, eat my jelly doughnut. It tastes so good. I'm enjoying it and then my blood sugar spikes and maybe it goes up too high because I ate too many donuts. Then I have to suffer the effects of having so many sugars. You put in whatever you want in place of that jelly doughnut, and it is the same. Then we just go through it again and again. That is what is said by doing so you only deceive your ‘self.’ What self? The self-nature of mind and others. You cannot escape from the realm of birth and death.
“Make effort! Make effort! Although it may seem futile now, your present efforts constitute the causes of your future enlightenment.”
That is the thing that we don't understand. It is like the Chinese have a saying that ‘a journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step.’ We just keep stepping, stepping, stepping, stepping, stepping. We don't have to look how long it is going to take. How long is it before we get to Disneyland? No, we don't have that kind of a thought. We just simply put one foot in front of the other and work in this way although it seems like why even bother? Master Linchi said ‘don't be bedazzled by all of those masters and think that you are so unworthy. Those masters are so great and they can accomplish all of these things.’ Forget that. Just do it yourself. Your present efforts constitute the causes for your future enlightenment. You want to become enlightened, you want to become awakened, then do the things that you need to do, to do that. If not, then just be ready for the next cycle of samsara. Pack up your bag because for sure you are going to be on the next train back here to Samsara Ville or you have the choice that you can practice well and get out of here.
“Do not let time pass in vain while only wasting energy. The sutra says: “Fully sentient beings will reside forever in hell as if pleasantly relaxing in the garden. There are no modes of existence worse than their present state”. We sentient beings fit this description having no idea how horribly terrifying the world really is”
We have forgotten the lifetimes where we suffered, we starved, we drowned whatever we did, or whatever we did to others. We don't remember how terrifying this world is. But if you look at this world from different places, maybe 1000 miles away, maybe just down the road from you where people are starving, people have cancer, people are dying from horrific things. We don't think that way until it happens to us. We don't understand that.
“We never had the least intention of leaving. How awful!”
How awful that we made a choice to stay here. Of course, I make the choice to stay here, but only for the purposes of delivering sentient beings. But I don't make a choice to stay on vacation here. It is not a great place to vacation. I think the positive thing is that causes and conditions never fail. If you practice sincerely, for sure you can awaken. Awakening is liberation. When Gilbert is Gilbert, he suffers quite a bit when he is not Gilbert. I'm not immune to adversities but I can handle them a lot better than other times. I know even if it is a good time right now, that joy will not last. Sometimes something will happen but I also know that when I have bad times, that too will pass. It is a matter of liberation from the idea of the Samsara. That is not a bad deal. I hope you can understand that and practice in the proper way. That will be it for tonight. Amituofo. Thank you all. I will entertain questions. Anyi, have you seen that picture before? I didn't know what it said up at the top.
Anyi: Yes, I took a picture of it. I would translate it.
Gilbert: I am just curious about that. You know what it would say, our resident professor of art history and Buddhist art history.
Anyi: It just so happened I have a question today. I was transcribing a lecture a few months ago and one participant asked the question - using awareness to meditate. You commented on this person who said it is a state of mind by saying that it is not a state of mind, it is mind, and then you said the difference is between life and death. I was shaken by it, but I could not really understand what you were talking about. I wonder if you can elaborate on that.
Gilbert: It is really a great question and it is one of those where I mentioned listening to something like that, is like a turning phrase, because it kind of shocks you to your bones and you want to do something about it. It is like this matter of life and death so you want to know what is the difference when we talk about state of mind versus awareness. Awareness of the mind is like turning the mind's eye inward. We already have this mind. We have that mind that has never been born, never been created. Our bodies are born and created. They are conditioned in accordance with causes and conditions here, but the Buddha's body is everything. Dharmakaya is everything. It is my body, your body, the trees, everything that appears everywhere; birth, death, food, shelter, everything is in there.
People are always talking about, “It is so wonderful. I could feel this, I met one with this or that, and they are talking about Unified Mind like some great state”.
I'm going, “What about being unified with who?”
It is in this way too. We have to see it this way when we are talking about unified mind. This is not a mean, like the end point.
The thing is that when I say it is a matter of life and death, it is because if you can maintain awareness of the mind just like Master Hongren says, ‘you will be liberated from here.’ If you do not and you continue to buy into the body and the body's possessions, then you will die and you will be born, and you will die again until you figure it out. That is why Master Hongren said, “How awful! How awful!” We just keep doing it. We just go through the line, we die and then right away we come back around to get back in the same line.
They go, “What line is this?”
This is a line to come back to samsara.
“Oh, I want to go there”.
Then you get back in line.
“I don't remember why I want to go back. I don't remember that. But if this is the line I will be in the line”.
Master Hongren is looking at it going, “Don't get in that line. It is a meat grinder. You are getting in, you are going to be bored. Good thing, but you are going to die”. You don't know how you are going to die. You don't know what is going to happen; maybe good, maybe bad. But it is a matter of life and death; life and then death, life and then death. It just keeps going.
But when the mind is liberated, it sees that from a different perspective. From not outside of it, but remote from it. That is not in the midst of it and clouded. It is like the clouds. You are here and if you are in samsara, you can't see anything. But the mind moves out and sees all the things that are happening and understands it and then begins to see those things. It is a good question. That state of mind is something where we are believing that there is somebody that is maintaining these kinds of thoughts.
If we go to the Surangama Sutra, Ananda was horribly confused about that. We are even at the end of the first volume and he thought that it was that, what saw from his heart. All of these things that were happening and he saw the Buddha body and everything until the Buddha yelled at him, “Ananda, that is not your mind! It doesn't belong to this body! It doesn't belong to you”! That is the Buddha body! It is different because when we look at things from the idea inside samsara, we cling to this idea of an ego, a personality, or life in being. When we cling to it, then for sure it is a matter of life and death. We will just keep coming back. But awakening to that, it gives us a choice. We come back on our own terms to fulfill our vows but we are not stuck here in this samsaric world blindly. We are here and we are aware, and that is a big difference because we can choose to come back or not come back. When we come back we choose to fulfill our vows and that is a difference too.
Hopefully that helps you with that question. That is a good question because it is not a state of mind. State of mind is something transitory, it is just temporarily there. Mind is mind. It sees things very clearly, it can see a state of mind but it is aware that that is a conditioned state of mind. The Buddha-mind is not conditioned. It can see conditioned appearances within it. But it in itself, is not an unconditioned state of mind.
Sentha: Gilbert, could I just echo something from the retreat that you said? You said, “awareness is not a state of mind” and that was a turning phrase for several people. I just wanted to share that, that you said that awareness is not a state of mind. Thank you.
Gilbert: It was special for a lot of people there that hadn't heard that before. That was something that kind of shook them up because it made them think, ‘what is it and it is not an it, so it is good.
Jonah: Thanks. I appreciate the Dharma talk and I don't know that I have questions per se but I could formulate questions. But what struck me is when you said something about this is so precious or is so important and I agree with that. I feel like I grasped that in some way. If we are getting it, really getting it, is becoming it, is growing into it. It is not just parroting it back or like a monkey see, monkey do, or maybe there are a lot of different levels of getting it or hearing,, or seeing or applying, or understanding. But I guess I'm having some reflections on how hard the world can be just in the way that there seems to be a lot of people that are fairly worldly, or don't want to listen, or how hard it is for human beings to listen. But from another perspective, I guess there are just a lot of different perspectives on things. There is no one truth. People also want it and they are hungry for it when it is presented in a way that they can grasp it and work with it. I guess I'm trying to work with ‘what is it?’ What can I offer in the limited precious time that I have to offer and kind of getting the message of only encouraging people to uplift them, to understand them, to see what's important and being very careful and gentle about how I critique people based on how they can take it or not. I don't know if you want me to give you questions or if you want to say something more.
Gilbert: I get what you said. It was also somebody in the chat room who had said how to maintain awareness of the mind at all times. This is from Julia from Taiwan, but it is essentially the same question: what can you do? You can look at Samantabhadra directions and one of them was to follow the Buddha's study. You study but you don't have to go around like Chicken Little saying that the sky is falling because you will only scare people. You present the Dharma to people in accordance with their ability to understand and you also serve as the representative as a Buddhist practitioner by body, speech, and mind at all times. If you can't walk the walk, but you can talk it, that is not enough. You have to walk it. You have to be a good representative of a proper person through body, speech, and mind at all times. Then the people will look at you and say that you are somebody trustworthy.
“Why are you this way?”
And you say, “Because I practice Chan”.
“What is Chan?”
“It is just a way to harmonize with people and to see things.”
You don't have to go and say like if you are not a Chan practitioner, you are never getting out of here because they don't just parrot a lot of different religions that say that. We don't see things in that way, we see it from a long term thing. But you just become a better person, you become a non selfish person. In doing that, your heart will begin to show you the way as you become a non selfish person, and you spot that ego when it is coming up. It will tell you what to do, not the ego, but mind will tell you what to do and it will tell you, “I need to study this or what am I lacking? How can I improve in this way? How can I improve as a sentient being?” We don't try to improve to be a polished sentient being but in accordance with Buddhadharma. That is a natural outcome of practicing, is that we adhere to the Eightfold Path, and the 37 Factors of Enlightenment, and Six Paramitas, and the Five Precepts. All of those things naturally come up and are reflected in the present moment by virtue of our practice.
This is how you practice and this is how you treat others. You treat them in a way of understanding. You got part of it right because you can't look down at them, or say nothing or whatever. You are never going to get anywhere in that way. It is like people knocking on the door and saying, “Jesus loves you”.
“No, I'm sorry.”
“But don't you understand if you don't accept Jesus Christ in your heart, you are going to be damned to hell”?
That is not really persuasive and it is one based on fear. We shouldn't be practicing in that way. When Master Hongren says, “How awful!” he is not doing it from the idea of fear as much as compassion and pity that we make these foolish choices. But you are right that we, in the presentation of the Dharma to others, aren't in accordance with their ability to understand. So maintaining the awareness in the present moment is seeing what is arising at any given moment. From that arising, we choose wisdom to react to it via body, speech, and mind and it will work for you. Hang in there and you will catch on to this fairly quickly.
Harry: Hi Gilbert. I just wanted to share something. Today I went to Tibet House in New York and I went to a book launch of this book but it is hard to see. It is by Rinpoche Khentrul, it is called The Power of Mind. It is on Lojong and I just thought you would like the frontest piece. It says, “When we look at what it is that binds mind, mind binds mind. What is it that freezes mind? Mind freezes mind” so I thought it’ll kind of put you off and say. Also, in this particular pep is, “You turn everything that you encounter; whether it is joy or mishap into the path”. And so one thing that he said in his talk that stayed with me I thought I'd share is he said that, “Dislike is the food of suffering”.
Gilbert: Yes we are singing the same tune today. Thanks for that. It is very interesting. I think Sogyal Rinpoche once defined a mantra. They asked him what is a mantra and he said, “That which protects mind from mind”. I absolutely love that definition because you go, “What?” But it is true. Once you understand that, whatever mantra you say is so incredibly powerful. It could break down the castles of Mara, and shake all the worlds everywhere by just understanding that. I mean, it is just incredible. So what was said is a very good beginning in that book. It just echoes what I have been saying all along so it is not by accident you ran into this today. Definitely thank you for sharing that. Tori, you are back with a question?
Tori: First of all, I just want to express how much I appreciate that. I have seen the three videos previous to this meeting and also in the retreat and you will always tie things back to compassion. I just really appreciate that because I feel like a lot of these concepts, I get intellectually caught up in them. That is my own ego and when I can tie things back to compassion, I kind of get out of that intellectualization, so thank you for that. Today it is just hitting me very hard. I don't know who wrote the book and that is something new. I don't know what is going on but the worst thing is saying that we have very limited time so make effort, make effort and yes, it hits me really hard because it depends on the time of the month with like cycles and stuff. I sometimes just feel very tired. Whenever I sit down, especially on the cushion, I just get tired. I feel like there is very limited time within a month that I would feel energetic enough that I would feel that I'm actually meditating in a productive way. Other times I think I am good with maintaining the body, being still but I just feel the drowsiness and I don't feel it is productive. That is my biggest struggle. I don't know if there are some other ways. I know that if I look up for a little while, it helps me to become clear minded. But even then when I'm really really tired, it still doesn't work.
I think don't meditate for too long in the beginning. Just make your meditation perfect. As you start to get drowsy, you can back off or come off your cushion so you don't start developing a practice of drowsiness. Sometimes you can take a 10 minute nap. Master Shengyen used to teach people how to take a rest and he said that if you sleep for 10 minutes, you can wake up refreshed as you can last for several hours. If you really are very very sleepy, sometimes just sleeping before you meditate for even 10 minutes. You have to become adept at that or set your cell phone for 10 minutes. I do that during the day at lunchtime. Sometimes I will just sleep for 10 minutes and then I will get up and I will feel much more refreshed, then you can sit to meditate and your mind will be refreshed long enough. You can sit at least 20 minutes, 30 minutes and you will be fine. You just have to break the pattern of the expectation of drowsiness. Sometimes it is not easy, and I have gone through that myself and I actually had to get up at 4am in the morning to meditate because then I said, “Now that I have slept for most of the night, my mind should not be drowsy”. At 4am, especially in the wintertime, you are pretty cool so you don't fall asleep too readily.
Gilbert: Sometimes you just have to change the manner in which you do it, like the lighting in the room is not too dark, whatever is there just to break that habit. It is kind of a bit of a habit and you understand that. It is frustrating to go through that but you will go through that, but the best way to do that is by perfecting your method of meditation. I don't sit with a lazy mind. Don't sit with a mind that is scattered. Right as soon as you sit on that cushion, you should already be on your method, and that will work little by little. Try that and come back next week. We will see how it is going. It is a very good question. I welcome beginner questions as well as deep questions. Those things are very important.
Yan Liu: I have a very beginner question. If the ones in hell, I forgot the original words in the book, enjoy being there and they don't know if there is a better place other than hell. In that case, I'm thinking if they should be delivered. Do they need to be delivered?
Gilbert: Even more so they need to be delivered because their lives are more full of suffering than others. It was very interesting. There was one time when Master Shengyen at a retreat was talking and he was saying, “What do you think if we had a butcher that came to a retreat? Could we let the butcher come to practice with us?”.
The people said no because the butcher is always killing, killing, killing, killing all of the animals all the time. He kills and kills. How can we let him practice?
Then ShiFu went, “Gilbert what do you think?”
I said, “Shifu, of all the people that need to come to retreat, who more than a butcher should come to the retreat? Wouldn't he be most deserving of coming and to help him. In this way the hell dwellers are there because of their ignorance.”
Master Hongren was talking about that they enjoy, meaning not that they really enjoy, they enjoy the present moment that winds them into hell. But it is because of their ignorance that they enjoy it but they don't really enjoy it that much. It is kind of an interesting thing about butchers, there are very few lifetime butchers. Most of the time when people go to some place, a slaughterhouse or something, they don't last very long because it just weighs too heavy on them. But when he is talking about the people enjoying hell, what he is saying is like, let's say somebody likes to beat up people and steal money from them or to rape them. Master Hongren says that person must really love hell because that is where they are ending up next. They do all these things via ignorance, not understanding what is going to happen to them. To me, I see people like this and what happens to them. The consequences are very, very great. We cannot ignore that kind of thing because the karma is so incredibly strong that when we see things like this, it is very, very bad. That is why he is saying that they enjoy hell not because they enjoy hell. Believe me, they are not enjoying hell but they are enjoying the situations which lead them to hell because of their ignorance, that is the explanation of that.
Those are the questions that kind of clear up because this master is kind of presuming that you know some of the stuff. But Master Hongren, the Fifth Patriarch, was one of the first ones that really did detailed work on the Dharma and writing so his records are very incredible in terms of what he was saying. The more I read this, the more I was just so amazed at how he was writing. I must have picked up a good translation of what he was doing because I was able to feel his heart in the work and sometimes it is very hard to do that interpretation. We have people here that do interpretation like Esther and Wei Xiang. It is not easy to do interpretation and to translate things with the heart. Sometimes the translations are literal, but they are horrible because they make no sense because the person doesn't have their own training or practice to convey that message. They only just translate words and it isn't in that way. We are really blessed to have some people here that are serious in that. Will Lee is another one but I haven't seen him for a bit now.
I will see where we go next week. I may do a little bit of a wrap up of this. It is definitely taking me time to get through this but it is worth it because I really hope you see how detailed it is in terms of reading things that you should not just read it and just go over it so quickly. You have to understand that there are three methods of conveyance of information. The first one is basic, and it is just telling you things. The second one is profound, which is you are starting to understand more. The third is esoteric, and this is not from the esoteric school. It is just the secret or hidden meaning that is there. It is not really hidden and it is not really secret, but it requires us to have an advanced practice to be able to understand what is not certain words. When I say advanced practice, it is an intellectual practice. It is a practice of using our heart to see things and that is different because the heart we are using is the mind's own perception.
We will pick it up next week. Thank you all for coming. I appreciate it. Bring more people, that is how we pass this on. We did pick up maybe a couple from the retreat I had a week ago. I'm glad to see you here. Very happy to see you here and asking questions. That is very, very good, that is important. We will see you next week. Take care. Amituofo.