Issue 269

Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from ‘The Driving Force of Subjective Wisdom’ seminar on Spring of 1988

To explain the meaning of this section of the sutra, we can utilize two lines from the Analects:

Seek not quick results,
look not for small gains.
Seeking quick results brings no success;
Looking for small gains,
you will not attain great accomplishments.

What is the reason why we people cannot realize Buddhahood? It is because of our habitual fault to ‘seek quick results’. This penchant to ‘seek quick results’ is false thinking. Using this false thinking as a mirage state, we end up forgetting our ‘permanent-dwelling true mind, the bright substance of the pure nature,’ and our inherent wisdom fails to manifest. Why is this so? It is because we seek quick results. Let us take schooling as an example. If you have not finished primary school and you want to get in the university, it will not work since surely you will not be able to keep up with the course work. If you are greedy for a piece of candy and forget about your future state in life, then you are looking for a small gain and failing great accomplishments. Like a young child greedy for candy, you ignore your future and hence, you do not have long-term vision.

When studying the Buddhadharma and learning to be a better person, in everything, we must not seek for quick results or small gains. If we want to attain great achievements, we must apply our effort. Applying effort is not putting on a show or flaunting advertisements to announce ‘what I have done’. Applying effort takes no form or appearance. Whether walking, standing, sitting, or reclining we should practice what we learn. Stay focused in whatever we are studying. For example, I want to learn how to write Chinese calligraphy. Whether I am walking, standing, sitting or reclining, my mind is always thinking of the calligraphy characters. This is contemplative thinking. In due time, you will succeed. If you say, you won’t apply effort but wish to write well, that’s impossible. This is just an example from which you can deduce in similar situations. Whatever you do, stay focused in thought after thought, whether walking, standing, sitting or reclining. If you are able to free your mind from false thinking and afflictions, and your mind stays clear and pure, then that is applying effort!

Whatever dharma-door you cultivate, you must stay focused. This holds true whether you choose to investigate Chan, to study the teachings, or to be mindful of the Buddha. When you stay focused, your practice will be efficacious. When you are scatter-brained, you will achieve nothing. Whatever you do, do not be greedy for quick results. Hence, “Seek not quick results; seeking quick results brings no success.” You want everything quick, but you still cannot end birth and death. ‘Look not for small gains.’ Do not be greedy for small achievements. If you are greedy for small achievements, then you won’t attain great accomplishments. Now that I have explained to you this section of the sutra today, if you understand the meaning, then you have gained a foothold.

End of ‘The Driving Force of Subjective Wisdom’ seminar

“Now you wish to investigate the unsurpassed Bodhi and actually discover your nature. You should answer my questions with a straightforward mind, because that is exactly the way the Tathagatas of the ten directions escaped birth and death. Their minds were all straightforward, and since their minds and words were consistently that way, from the beginning, through the intermediary stages to the end, they were never deviated.

And thus the Buddha instructs Ananda, “Now you wish to investigate the unsurpassed Bodhi and actually discover your nature.” That is, ‘how to realize Bodhi’. Do you want to know it? “You should answer my questions with a straightforward mind.” You should use your straightforward mind. Do not use the devious mind, do not use the evasive mind.”Don’t think about it,” he says, “don’t use false thinking to try to figure out how to answer me correctly. Don’t approach it as if you were in combat with me and must figure out what maneuver you should make to defeat me, as if this were the martial arts where one must decide how to counter attack.” If you think like that, you’re wrong. You must use your straightforward mind. Whatever I ask you, you should answer with a straightforward mind.

The Vimilakirti Sutra says, “The straightforward mind is the Way Place.” Why is the straightforward mind the Way Place? At the point when you have not yet formulated your first thought, that is your true mind, your Way-mind. This is the state of “primary thought,” the primary truth that exists prior to the spoken word. As soon as you begin thinking that is to say, as soon as you strike up false thinking, it is no longer your true mind at work. It is your conscious mind which is full of “second thoughts.” Instead of speaking up directly, and using your true mind to express yourself, you start thinking about it: “Ah, I shouldn’t say that; if I say that I’ll be wrong. I should say this!” With this thought, your turn towards another direction and want to change. This is the second thought, which is the human mind.

Your primary thought is the Way-mind. It is the Way Place. Hence the primary thought is also called ‘The ultimate truth’. When you speak before you give rise to a thought, this is the ultimate truth. After you give rise to a thought and speak, you fall into the second thought. This ‘straightforward mind is the Way place’ means do not use your human mind to think and answer. You must use your straightforward mind. Whatever I ask, you must respond immediately and don’t over think it. Otherwise, it is not the straightforward mind!

When you speak, use your straightforward mind to answer my question. Why? Because that is exactly the way the Tathagatas of the ten directions escaped birth and death. There is a verse about the Chinese character Xin (心), “mind,” which goes:

Three small dots like a cluster of stars,
And a hook shaped like a crescent moon.
Beget animals with fur and horns,
Yet perfection of Buddhahood
comes from it too.

The ten Dharma realms are not beyond a single thought of the mind. Your thoughts can send you not only into the animal realm, but into Buddhahood as well. Not only are Buddhas made from the mind, ghosts are creations of the mind, and so are gods, Arhats, and Bodhisattvas.

For instance, you are now studying the Buddhadharma, investigating the Shurangama Sutra without fear of whatever difficulties may arise. This is because you repeatedly planted a single indestructible seed of thought into the field of your mind in countless former lives. Hence you have this resolve: “I must study the Shurangama Sutra! I’m not afraid of any suffering or hardship. No matter what, I will go there to study!” A Bodhi-seed has taken root so that now you are studying the Buddhadharma. Of course this single thought of the true mind has been helped along by the conscious mind, which thought over and over, “Should I study the Buddhadharma or not?” You kept debating the issue back and forth until finally you cut through it. “Oh, I will go anyway!” Whether you to decide whether to come and listen to the Sutra lecture is the same issue.

It is because the Tathagatas from the ten directions all uses the straightforward mind to realize Buddhahood. The devious mind would never accomplish this. Hence, Escaped birth and death and their minds were all straightforward. The Tathagatas all uses the straightforward mind to accomplish the Way, and severed the continuous transmigration of birth and death. They use solely the straightforward mind to realize Buddhahood.

Their minds and words were consistently that way:Because they use the straightforward mind. The Chinese characters ru shi (如是) “that way” refer specifically to the straightforward mind and do not have the same meaning as when they occurred in the opening sentence of the Sutra where ru shi means “thus” in “Thus I have heard.” From the beginning, through the intermediary stages to the end. “The end” refers to wonderful enlightenment, the achievement of Buddhahood. “The beginning” refers to the stage of Dry Wisdom, also called the Vajra Initial Resolve. This is the beginning of a Bodhisavatta cultivating the fifty-five positions. “The intermediary stages” are the long period of cultivation between the stage of Dry Wisdom and the achievement of Buddhahood, through the various stages of Bodhisattvahood – the Ten Faiths, Ten Dwellings, Ten Conducts, Ten Transferences, Four Aiding Conducts, up to the Ten Grounds, then to Equal Enlightenment, and Wonderful Enlightenment. Through all that time the Buddhas of the past were never deviated and used only their straightforward minds. And so they became Buddhas.

The Buddha was concerned that Ananda would not use his straightforward mind to answer the questions, but would answer in round-about ways, making it impossible to arrive at any true principles. So the Buddha first wanted to explain to him clearly that he should give uninhibited answers and not be murky about it. “Now I am speaking essential Dharma-doors for you,” said the Buddha, “I’m explaining how to actually discover your nature, the initial doctrines concerning the realization of Buddhahood, so you can’t be casual or do a lot of modifying when you answer me. You must use your straightforward mind to answer me.”