Issue 268

Although Venerable Ananda had put aside his emotional love for his family, he gave into emotional love for the Buddha’s appearance. These two types of emotional love are the same. Merely seeing the Buddha’s adorned appearance prompted Ananda to leave the home-life. He failed to see the Buddha’s wisdom, awakening, and Way-virtue. Instead of studying the wisdom of the Buddha’s Way-virtue and awakening, Ananda just wanted to emulate the Buddha’s appearance. Why was he that way? Probably in his past lives, Ananda was very attached to appearances so he focused on the superficial aspect of things. Although he committed his memory the sutras that the Buddha spoke, he didn’t pay much attention to what was said. He paid more attention to the Buddha’s appearance, so much so that seeing the Buddha on any given day was enough to make him happy. This sentiment is the same as the emotional love for the family; there is no difference. Hence, he had no concentration power.

Why didn’t he have concentration power? It was because his love and desire were overpowering. Anyone who wants to obtain genuine samadhi power, must first cast love aside. “I don’t love anything,” you say. “I despise whoever I see. Stay away from me! I want to be alone. I want to cultivate by myself.” This is also wrong. You wouldn’t attain samadhi by despising people. You must neither hate nor love. Regard other people as oneself. See everyone as equal. If you are one with other people and equal to other people, who is there to love or to hate? None.

“I can’t do that,” you say. “That’s hard work.” If you can work hard, then you can obtain what is genuine. If you don’t work hard, you won’t obtain it. If you want to obtain it then you should follow and practice what I said, and don’t be distracted by your own thoughts. In the absence of hate and love, then “the ordinary mind is the Way’. This mind tallies with the Way.

Because Ananda rejoice in the Buddha’s adorned appearance, he renounced the deep and heavy worldly emotional love. He let the hair fall from his head and followed the Buddha. When the Buddha was in the world, those becoming monastics under him did not have to shave their heads with razors. The Buddha simply said, “Good man! You are now renouncing worldly life and leaving home. Let your beard and hair fall out by itself. Let yourself be robed in the kashaya.” As soon as the Buddha uttered these words, the bhikshu’s hair and beard would fall out. Why? It is the working of the Buddha’s spiritual penetrations. With those words spoken by the Buddha, the bhikshu became replete with the precept substance and robed in the precept sash. It’s unlike the present time when bhikshus need to undergo the ritual of receiving the precepts.

After the Buddha entered Nirvana, people leaving the home-life needed a razor to shave their beard and hair, and they needed to receive the precepts at a precept-platform. In China, originally it required a three-year period to receive the precepts. But three years eventually proved too long, so a scientific method was adopted to speed up the process so that one could receive the precepts in fifty-three days. Now some places transmit the precepts in eighteen days, and there are even places that will do it in a week. Then there are places that are very casual, very lax, to the point that precept-transmission is done in just three days. There are places in Hong Kong’s Ta Yu Mountain where precept-transmission is performed every three days. However, a three-day precept-platform is not in accord with Dharma. After the Buddha entered Nirvana, all left-home people must go through the full process of precept transmission.

The Buddha said, “Very good, Ananda. You should all know that since the time without a beginning, all living beings continually undergo birth and death, simply because they do not know of the permanent-dwelling true mind, the bright substance of the pure nature. Instead, they engage in false thinking, which is not true, and so the wheel keeps turning.

The Buddha said, “Very good, Ananda.” The Buddha had heard Ananda say he left the home-life after seeing the Buddha’s thirty-two marks and eighty kinds of minor fine characteristics, the Buddha praised Ananda, saying, “Very good.” In what way is Ananda good? The Buddha said, “You really are a great hero. You were able to renounce the mundane and left the home-life. You are the best. Even so, I still need to ask you.” In the preceding text, it stated ‘sharing the familial relationship’. What the Buddha meant to say is, “When you asked me, I should have immediately answered you, but not to mention that we were from the same family. Even if other people had come to ask me, I would still be very pleased to answer their questions. Now, the first question I ask of you is, “What is your reason to leave the home-life?” Therefore, Ananda replied, “I saw the fine characteristics and brightness of the Buddha’s appearance, and gave rise to admiration and great longing. And I often thought to myself, the adorned appearance of the Buddha is not brought on by desire and love.” Ananda probably had thought it over many times before he decided to leave the home-life. After he left the home-life, he only studied to become extensively knowledgeable.

The Buddha encourages Ananda, “You are good indeed! You have made the resolve to become a bhikshu.” Then he addresses the entire assembly — the great bhikshus, great Arhats, great Bodhisattvas, and all the people present, “You should all know that since the time without beginning, all living beings continually undergo birth and death. From the initial moment when you were a human being up to now, you have been through an endless continual succession of birth and death, which never ceases. The piles of bones you have left behind are mountain-high! You cycle through birth and death, death and birth continually without end. Propelled by your karmic conditions and karmic obstacles, you are clueless of where you come from and where you will go. You don’t know how you got here and you don’t know where you will go after you die!

Why is there birth and death? Because you do not understand, you do not know the permanent-dwelling true mind, which neither moves nor wavers, neither produces nor extinguishes, neither is defiled nor is pure, neither increases nor decreases. Since it does not move or waver, it is a “permanent-dwelling.” Since it does not increase or decrease, it is the “true mind.” Merely knowing the true mind is not enough; you must also recognize the bright substance of the pure nature. This is your own self-nature, your Dharma-nature. It is clear and pure, and its brilliance pervades and illuminates everything everywhere. But if you aren’t aware of it; you’ve forgotten it. It is like a bright pearl hidden in your clothing.

In the Dharma Flower Sutra, it recorded a youth who went to his wealthy relative’s home. While he was drunk and asleep, his wealthy relative had to leave the house to take care of some business. Before leaving, he was concerned that the youth may become a penniless vagrant out in the streets, so he secretly sewed a wish-fulfilling pearl inside the youth’s clothing. After the youth awoke, he left, and as predicted, ended up a vagabond. Because he did not know he had a priceless pearl sewn in his clothing, he could not make good use of it. The bright substance of our pure permanent-dwelling nature, our true mind, is like the youth’s priceless pearl. However, not being aware of it, you can’t make good use of it.

Instead, you engage in false thinking, which is not true. You use the conscious mind, which is subject to production and extinction. This conscious mind manipulates you, turning you upside-down and confused, spinning you around and pulling you into the mire. Your false thinking is not true; yet, you always use your false mind to do things, so you keep transmigrating in the cycle of birth and death to no end. Wheel turning means to spin around and around never stopping. The wheel keeps turning in a perpetual cycle of birth and death, not knowing when it will end!

Why do you undergo transmigration? It is because you have false thoughts. If you entirely cast out your false thinking and do not produce any false thoughts, your cycle through birth and death will stop. The reason why we have not stopped our cycle of birth and death is due to our false thinking doing things. False thinking is a mind consciousness that will drag you into a quagmire from which you cannot get out. This is the Buddha’s explanation to Ananda regarding why one continually undergo birth and death. It is because one does not recognize the true mind. If one can recognize one’s true mind, then it will be easy to end birth and death.