Issue 291

Ananda said to the Buddha, “World Honored One, I am the Buddha’s favorite cousin. It is because my mind loved the Buddha that I was led to leave the home-life. It is my mind that not only makes offerings to the Tathagata, but also, in passing through lands as many as the grains of sand in the Ganges River to serve all Buddhas and good, wise advisors, and in martialing great courage to practice every difficult aspect of the dharma, I always use this mind. Even if I am slandering the dharma and eternally withdrawing my good roots, it would also be because of this mind. If this is not my mind, then I have no mind, and I am the same as a clod of earth or a piece of wood. Without this awareness and knowing, nothing would exist. Why does the Tathagata say this is not my mind? I am startled and frightened and not one member of the great assembly is without doubt. I only hope that the World Honored One will regard us with great compassion and instruct those who have not yet awakened.”

After listening to the Buddha’s explanation, Ananda still didn’t understand. He still wanted to debate the issue. Ananda said to the Buddha, “World Honored One, I am the Buddha’s favorite cousin.” He said, “I am the Buddha’s youngest and most favored cousin, and the Buddha loves me dearly. As I stand before the Buddha I am like a child.” The word “favorite” means that the Buddha let him have his own way. He didn’t try to control him. Ananda could do whatever he pleased. It is because my mind loved the Buddha that I was led to leave the home-life. Ananda says that it was his mind that loved the Buddha’s thirty-two hallmarks. The Buddha’s face is like the clear full moon, and like a thousand suns emitting light. His hallmarks are exquisite. “So the Buddha told me to leave home, and as soon as he suggested it I agreed, because I loved his adorning hallmarks and characteristics.” Ananda hadn’t forgotten that the causes and conditions for his leaving home were his seeing the Buddha’s thirty-two hallmarks.
It is my mind that not only makes offerings to the Tathagata – my mind makes offerings not only to you, World Honored One – but also, in passing through lands as many as the grains of sand in the Ganges river to serve all Buddhas and good, wise advisors – ‘But also’ are super abbreviation words. It means from here to there, with immeasurable and boundless numbers. When Ananda says “serve,” he means “I go to attend on all Buddhas, to make offerings to all Buddhas, to bow to all Buddhas, and I do the same for teachers of vast knowledge and experience. And in martialing great courage to practice every difficult aspect of the dharma, I always use this mind. I do all the things other people cannot do. People fear suffering, but I am not afraid to suffer. I look after Buddhas and tend to their every need, sacrificing everything. I bear what others cannot bear and practice what others cannot practice. The reason I am able to develop merit and virtue by making offerings to the Triple Jewel is because I use this mind.

Even if I am slandering the dharma and eternally withdrawing my good roots, it would also be because of this mind. Even if you say that I am slandering the Dharma to speak this way – even if I were to retreat and cut off my good roots to the point that there were none left, I would still be using this mind. This sentence can alternately be said to mean that Ananda is supposing that if he ever were to slander the Dharma, he still thinks it would be his mind that would be doing it.

If this is not my mind, then I have no mind, and I am the same as a clod of earth or a piece of wood. Without this awareness and knowing, nothing would exist. Ananda is really flustered to be speaking in this way. “I’ve become someone without a mind. I’m no different from dirt or wood. I have no mind. If I am separate from this conscious mind that makes discriminations, then what else is there? There isn’t anything at all. My present ability to hear the sutra and listen to Dharma is a function solely of this mind. Beyond that I have nothing.

“Why does the Tathagata say this is not my mind? I am startled and frightened and not one member of the great assembly is without doubt. Now I am really alarmed. You’ve talked me right out of my mind. And not only myself, but the multitudes of this great assembly, I believe everyone has doubts regarding this.

“I only hope that the World Honored One will regard us with great compassion and instruct those who have not yet awakened.“I can only hope that the World Honored One can bestow great compassion, as compassion can pull people out of suffering. “Please rescue each of us from our distress,” Ananda says, “and teach those of us who have not understood this doctrine so that we can understand.”

Ananda said, “we are all in unbearable pain now! Why? Though my fear is painful, the assembly’s doubt is even more painful”. By “doubts” is meant that they had not understood the doctrine and had questions about it.

Why did Ananda say that the great assembly had doubts, but that he himself was alarmed? It’s that all the others in the assembly were onlookers and so they had not thought to take the situation personally and put themselves in his place. They simply took note of the principles. But Ananda was being addressed personally, so when Shakyamuni Buddha said he didn’t have a mind he was shocked. “No mind? That’s too much. Next thing you know I won’t have a life either.” Hence Ananda was alarmed and fearful.

Ananda says that everyone else who was listening to his dialogue with the Buddha had doubts about what they heard, but in fact that too was a deduction Ananda made with his conscious mind. “Probably they haven’t understood either,” he thought. He didn’t realize that the great Bodhisattvas who were present, although they hadn’t said anything, had long since understood. Within his small frame of reference Ananda was deducing things about those whose frame of reference was much greater. Actually, however, I believe that members of the assembly such as Manjushri Bodhisattva, Gwan Yin Bodhisattva, and Great Strength Bodhisattva, couldn’t have had any doubts. That is what I said.

Then the World Honored One gave instruction to Ananda and the great assembly, wishing to cause their minds to enter the state of patience with the non-existence of beings and phenomena.

Then the World Honored One: at the time that Ananda asked the Buddha to instruct those who had not yet awakened, Shakyamuni Buddha pitied his young cousin and felt a loving protectiveness for him. So, he gave instruction to Ananda and the great assembly, wishing to cause their minds to enter the state of patience with the non-existence of beings and phenomena. What is meant by the “patience with the non-existence of beings and phenomena”? There are three kinds of patience: patience with beings; patience with phenomena; and patience with the non-existence of beings and phenomena. At this point, I will briefly explain again the ‘patience with the non-existence of beings and phenomena’.

Patience with the non-existence of beings and phenomena: No phenomena comes to being and no phenomena ceases to be. When you attain patience with the non-existence of beings and phenomena, you see that in each of the four sagely and six ordinary Dharma realms not even the minutest phenomena arises and not even the minutest phenomena are destroyed. The four sagely dharma realms are beyond the realm of desire, the realm of form and the realm of formlessness, while the six ordinary realms are within the three realms but in none of them is there any production or extinction; and yet the fundamental substance of every phenomena is in a state of unmoving suchness.

Because they are in a state of unmoving suchness, there is neither production nor extinction. Before you understand you think: “Oh no, so there’s no production or extinction, and all the myriad phenomena vanish!” A fear rises in your heart; you can’t bear the idea of it. But if you actually experience the state of non-production and non-extinction, in fact it will not seem at all unusual and you will be able to bear it, because you attain patience with the non-existence of beings and phenomena. Then you will have gained a mutual response with the Way. A mutual response occurs when you are about to attain enlightenment but have not yet done so.

When the mutual response occurs, the only thing you can do is cherish it in your heart. You yourself know, but you cannot go around telling people about it. It is inexpressible. That is what is called patience with the non-existence of beings and phenomena. When you can see that the mountains, the rivers, the earth, and all that grows forth from them are things within your self-nature; that the three realms are only the mind, and that the myriad phenomena are only consciousness; once you attain that state, then everything, every phenomenon, is devoid of production and extinction. Everything you see – the mountains, the rivers, the earth, the plants – are all one true appearance. That is patience with the non-existence of beings and phenomena. Before you have truly realized and truly obtained this state, you must be patient. You must be able to bear it. Now the Buddha spoke to the assembly, wishing to cause everyone there and all living beings to attain the state of patience with the non-existence of beings and phenomena.

From the lion’s seat he rubbed Ananda’s crown and said to him, “The Tathagata has often said that all phenomena that arise are only manifestations of the mind. All causes and effects, the worlds as many as fine motes of dust, come into being because of the mind.

From the lion’s seat he rubbed Ananda’s crown and said to him: The Buddha wished to cause all living beings to enter the patience with the non-existence of beings and phenomena, so he sat on the lion’s seat, rubbed Ananda’s crown with his hand and said to him. ‘The lion’s seat’ does not mean that the Buddha mounted a lion and sat on it, or that his seat was carved in the shape of a lion. The Buddha’s speaking dharma is like the roar of a lion, and so the place where the Buddha sits is called the lion’s seat. He rubbed Ananda’s crown. The Buddha rubbed the top of Ananda’s head with his hand. In Buddhism, rubbing the crown is a gesture which represents the power of the utmost compassionate love to attract living beings and draw them in.

And said to him, “The Tathagata has often said that all phenomena that arise are only manifestations of the mind. I, the Tathagata, have often said in the past that every single phenomenon, whether worldly or transcendental, is manifested entirely from within our minds.

All causes and effects: cause upon cause, effect after effect, all that occur in this world and throughout the worlds as many as fine motes of dust come into being because of the mind.” They are all brought because of our minds. So the ancients of China had a saying:

If a man recognizes his mind
There’s not an inch of dirt left on earth.

If you can recognize your own mind, then there’s not even an inch of dirt left on earth. What is there? Where did it go? That’s the Ch’an school’s way of expressing the irony of the ineffable. Unfortunately, we have not recognized our minds, and so the great earth is still a big mound of dirt.

“Ananda, when all the things in the world, including blades of grass and strands of silk thread, are examined at their fundamental source, each is seen to have substance and a nature, even empty space has a name and an appearance. How much the less could the clear, wonderful, pure bright mind, the essence of all thoughts, itself be without a substance?”

The Buddha called Ananda’s name again, “Ananda, when all the things in the world, including blades of grass and strands of silk thread, are examined at their fundamental source, each is seen to have substance and a nature” Absolutely everything in the world, including the mountains, the rivers, the earth, vegetation, and all the myriad appearances, even down to blades of grass or fine strands of silk thread, if you try to seek out their fundamental source, each has its own substance and nature. The character「詰」means examined.

Even empty space has a name and an appearance, How much the less could the clear, wonderful, pure bright mind, the essence of all thoughts, itself be without a substance: Even empty space, which still has the name “empty space” and has the appearance of empty space, all have a substance and a nature How much the less could the wonderful pure mind have no substance? It, too, certainly has substance.