Issue 284

And in these realms all the great Bodhisattvas, each remaining in his own country, put their palms together and listened: ‘All’ means countless. In every country, in every world, there are many Bodhisattvas, each remaining in his own country, with palms together and listen to Shakyamuni Buddha speak dharma and explain the Shurangama Sutra.

After the Buddha had reduced the countless worlds of fine motes of dust into a single world, in which all the respective worlds remained in perfect order, so that everyone could see. The great Bodhisattvas in each of these worlds thirstily gazed at the Buddha with uplifted faces. Like Ananda, they were inexpressibly thirsty, wanting to drink the Dharma-water of Shakyamuni Buddha.

All of you have probably experienced a severe thirst. When you are hungry, after a while the hunger seems to subside a bit and is not so severe, but if you are thirsty, perhaps because of eating something salty, not having any water to drink is very difficult to bear. Why were the Bodhisattvas so inexpressibly thirsty? They had eaten too much of the salt of affliction. Ananda, who had concentrated exclusively on being greatly learned and had neglected his samadhi-power, had eaten too much of the salt of being greatly learned. They wanted the water of samadhi to quench their thirst, to irrigate them, so they thirstily gazed upward. In explaining this, my own throat feels dry. But my dryness comes from talking, whereas the great Bodhisattva’s dryness came from not having obtained the Dharma. This water of samadhi can nurture and nourish them. Now they all want to listen to Shakyamuni Buddha speak the ineffable principle and wonderful dharma of the Shurangama’s Great Samadhi.

Some of you aren’t clear about this and say, “I don’t understand what I’m reading.” If you know that you don’t understand that itself is understanding. If you truly didn’t understand, you wouldn’t even be aware of your lack of understanding. You would sit there and not know whether you understood. Now you are aware that you do not understand very much of the sutra you are reading, and that means you have some understanding. If you have the hope of understanding, the day will come when you understand and be clear about the sutra. If you understood thoroughly right now, that would be something else again. In that case, this Dharma Master would be left with nothing to eat. If you understood the sutra before I even finished explaining it, what use would there be for me in the future? I’d be useless! You tell me, why do you still come to listen to the dharma? You have to bow and listen to the dharma master and sitting in this place for two hours is also very hard! However, for you to understand the sutra immediately isn’t possible.

It’s also impossible to understand everything there is to know about the affairs of the world in a single day. Some time is required. As you read more, you will quite naturally come to understand. Why don’t you understand? Because you haven’t read much.

The Buddha said to Ananda, “All living beings, from beginningless time onward and in all kinds of upside-down ways, have created seeds of karma which naturally run their course, like the aksha cluster.

The Buddha said to Ananda. Just as I am now explaining to those who are reading this, the Buddha explained to Ananda. But I’m not the Buddha and you are not Ananda. I am just explaining this recorded history about Ananda for you.

“All living beings, from beginningless time onward: all living beings include those born from eggs, from wombs, from moisture, or transformation; those with form, without form, with thought, or without thought; those not entirely with thought, and those not entirely without thought. When the Buddha spoke sutras, he himself couldn’t completely explain the doctrines. He said, “From beginningless time onward” – from time without any starting-point. When would you say that was?

If you were trying to be logical, you would say this passage doesn’t make sense. But in fact, there is no way to state when people came into being. What is the beginning? By way of explanation, just take a single family. You say, “I am my father’s son.” Whose son is your father? Your father is your grandfather’s son. Whose son is your grandfather? You keep tracing your family tree until you can’t trace it any further. “My family has a genealogical tree and record of our very first founding father,” you say. But who was his founding father? Trace that. Find out. You cannot find it.

It is said that people evolved from monkeys. What did monkeys evolve from? If monkeys can turn into people, how do you know that people can’t turn into monkeys? Furthermore, how do you know that all people evolved from monkeys? Couldn’t any have evolved from pigs? or from dogs? or from cows? If monkeys can evolve into people, then all other living beings can evolve in the same way. All can undergo mutual transference. So, you trace back and forth and you find there isn’t any beginning. You can’t trace the origin!

Now, with scientific, philosophical, and archaeological discoveries, people know how many thousands of years ago things occurred, how many tens of thousands of years ago things occurred. They know where the remains of human bones from ten thousand years ago or a million years ago are found. So what? Is that proof of something? You cannot say it is. It doesn’t prove anything. If that’s not evidence of anything, then why do countries invest so much money in research and experimentation? That’s the foolishness of this world. Having nothing to do, people look for something to do! If they hadn’t done these muddled things, so how can there be consumers in this word? How could this world’s resources have become so depleted, and money wasted away? If you truly understand, what can you say is real in this world? What is real? Find something real and bring it here for me to look at! Everyone is born in a stupor and dies in a dream. “But they govern the country! And they did this and that etc…” you say. They’re muddled people doing muddled things. They think themselves intelligent, but actually they are just cheating themselves.

All living beings, from beginningless time onward are unable to find the origin. One need speaks of nothing more than one person’s life and his genealogy which has no beginning or end. As to our lives, when would you say they began?

“Mine began at my birth in this life,” you say.

If it really did begin just that short time ago, then there’s no problem. It is just to be feared that it did not begin such a short time ago. That is why there is a problem.

What about from beginningless time onward? And in all kinds of upside-down ways: That foolishness I spoke of before is just to be upside-down, and to be born in a stupor and die in a dream. You say, “I’ve got to give this body some good things to eat and some nice clothes to wear.” And then what? Ultimately, then what? As I said before, you’re just putting finery on a toilet. What’s so great about it? That’s to be upside-down. To invent something to do when there is nothing to do is to act “in all kinds of upside-down ways.” It’s to fail to recognize one’s pure basic substance and to apply one’s effort to false thinking instead, “Ah,” you say, “So-and-so is really fine.” So, what if he is really fine? Or you say, “So-and-so is really rotten.” So, what if he is really rotten? If you investigate a little more deeply, you’ll find that these kinds of things do not exist. What is fine and what is rotten?

It is discrimination through the eyes of living beings that divides things into fine and rotten, good and bad, right and wrong. In the Treasury of the Thus Come One there are no such questions. There isn’t anything at all in the Treasury of the Thus Come One. It is absolutely clean. Our eyes may see the mountains, the rivers, the earth, and vegetation – all myriad of things – but they are simply manifestations of consciousness. When you really understand the dharma of no production and no extinction, then there basically isn’t anything at all. But this doctrine is not easy to comprehend. We must come to understand its meaning gradually.