Explanations by Master Cheng-Yan
Subject: Forever Eliminate the Dark Coverings of Ignorance (佛如長者 闇蔽永盡)
Date:June.08. 2015
“Earnestly cultivate good affinities and plant good seeds. When the seeds mature into fruits, we attain liberation. If we have not formed good affinities, we must quickly accomplish good things and diligently plant seeds to obtain good fruits. The Great Enlightened One has compassion and exercises wisdom. He is the guiding teacher of the Three Realms and father of the four kinds of beings.”
To learn the Buddha’s Way, we must first “cultivate good affinities” and regularly “plant good causes.” “When the seeds mature into fruits,” then “we attain liberation.” This is what we need to constantly say. The karmic law of cause and effect is the fundamental belief of spiritual practitioners; we must understand it very well and always engage in spiritual cultivation. What are we cultivating? Goodness. In our interpersonal relationships, we must form good affinities with everyone. As we form good karmic affinities, we are planting good karmic seeds. Positive causes and conditions will automatically yield positive karmic retributions. When causes and conditions mature, retributions will manifest.
So we said, “When the seeds mature into fruits, we attain liberation.”
In our daily lives, we often say, “Quickly give rise to goodness that has not arisen. Nurture any goodness that has already arisen. Prevent the evil that has not arisen from arising. Quickly eliminate the evil that has already arisen.”
Isn’t this what the Four Right Efforts teach? So, “If we have not formed good affinities, we must quickly accomplish good things.” We must form good affinities with everyone and “diligently plant seeds” in our daily living. Then, whatever situations we encounter, the results will naturally be positive.
In our daily living, as we interact with each other, if I express my gratitude towards you, you will also feel very happy. When we show gratitude to each other and both feel happy, this is a cycle of positive karmic conditions and the experience of positive karmic effects. This is what can happen in our daily living. So, the Buddha, “the Great Enlightened One, has compassion and exercises wisdom.” With His great awakening and His compassion, the Buddha comes to this world and exercises His wisdom to “open and reveal” to sentient beings so they can “realize and enter” [the Dharma]. By realizing the karmic law of cause and effect, they will do good deeds and benefit others, this is how they walk the Bodhisattva-path. Therefore, the Buddha is “the guiding teacher of the Three Realms” and “father of the four kinds of beings.” He loves all sentient beings in the world equally and has the same hope for everyone, that they earnestly accept the Buddha-Dharma. Not only should we accept the Dharma ourselves, we should turn the Dharma-wheel for others. Every day, we should work to understand the Dharma. Every day, we should transmit it with our actions. This is our responsibility.
In our modern society, we need to bring purity to people’s hearts and constantly share good things. By sharing good things, we are turning the Dharma-wheel.
Moreover, this elder knew that his wealth was infinite. He wanted to benefit all of his children by equally giving them great carts. The Buddha told Sariputra, “Excellent, excellent. It is as you say”.
In the previous sutra passage we discussed, the elder was a very wealthy man, so he gave his children an abundance of things. This is an analogy for benefiting sentient beings. The elder benefited all of his children, and the Buddha benefits all sentient beings. This “benefit” comes from the Four All-Embracing Virtues charitable giving, loving words, beneficial conduct and collaborative work. These are the fundamental teachings for us as we walk the Bodhisattva-path.
What the elder passed on to his children was a “benefit” to them.What the Buddha passes on to His disciples are “precepts that benefit all sentient beings”.This is what the Buddha taught.He passes on the wealth of the Dharma to us, so we should open our hearts and minds to accept the wealth of the Buddha-Dharma.Then we can benefit sentient beings every day.Everything we do should benefit sentient beings.
This is like [driving] the great cart, the cart drawn by the great white ox.Sariputra answered the Buddha’s question about the elder setting up the three kinds of carts but only giving them one cart in the end by saying, “[Regardless,] he saved their lives”.By escaping [the burning house] safely, they had already received so much.Furthermore, the elder gave them a great ox-cart.
For people in this world, their physical existence is their life; is there anything more valuable than that?Living a healthy life is a great blessing.This is what our biological father can give us.
But what the Buddha wants to give us is help with “keeping our wisdom-life intact”.Since we live in safety and have already accepted the Buddha-Dharma, our wisdom-life is naturally growing.The Buddha does not tell sentient beings anything false.The teachings that He gave are all True Dharma.
Sariputra conveyed this idea by saying that the elder did not commit the fault of being false.
This made the Buddha happy, so He praised Sariputra.
“Your response is very good. It is just as you say.” He told Sariputra in the following passage,
“Sariputra, the Tathagata is also like this”.
Sariputra said it very well; the Tathagata is also like this.
“I serve as a father to all the world and take all fear, weakness, vexation, anxiety and worry, all the dark coverings of ignorance, and eliminate them forever, so nothing remains.”
This was the Buddha beginning to come back from talking about the elder to how the Tathagata Himself was like this.
The Tathagata is “a father to all the world”.The Tathagata is the father of the four kinds of beings and guiding teacher of the Three Realms.He is both a teacher and a father.
So in the human realm, [He eliminates] “all fear, weakness, vexation, anxiety and worry”.
In the Three Realms sentient beings may be filled with panic and fear.Perhaps, as they experience birth, aging, illness, death, etc., they feel anxiety, sadness, pain and vexation.As they interact with people, matters and objects they are under “the dark coverings of ignorance,” living that kind of life.
The Buddha, the Tathagata, wants to help eliminate sentient beings’ “dark coverings of ignorance” completely.He wants to help them completely eliminate their ignorance.
The title “Tathagata” refers to the nature of True Suchness, the Buddha-nature we all intrinsically have.After the Buddha attained enlightenment and realized the nature of True Suchness, He was completely awakened.The great awakened Tathagata “journeys on the path of True Suchness, and from this cause, He comes to the effect, attaining perfect enlightenment.”
Because we all have the nature of True Suchness, if we regularly create positive karmic causes, we are [practicing the path of] True Suchness; the path of True Suchness is laid out true principles.When we actualize true principles in our actions, we unceasingly cultivate positive causes and go among people to benefit them and engage in spiritual practice.
When we give, we do not seek anything in return nor do we add to our afflictions.When it is the right thing to do, we just do it.“From good causes, we come to good effects.”
Look at the Buddha.For countless kalpas, He has engaged in spiritual practice with countless Buddhas throughout this process.He was practicing to give up His physical life for the sake of sentient beings.He gave of Himself without any expectations.This is how “from this cause, He comes to the effect”.
For a long time, He gave to others.For a long, He has been eliminating His afflictions and ignorance.As a result, He attained perfect enlightenment and is thus called the Tathagata, one who “journeys on the path of True Suchness, and from this cause, He come to the effect, attaining perfect enlightenment.”This is the characteristic of a Tathagata.
If we want to attain Buddhahood, we must persevere for a long time as we continuously undergo this cycle of positive cause and effect and continuously give to help others.
“Also, one who journeys on the path True Suchness to come to the Three Realms in order to transform others is called Tathagata”.
One who follows the principles of the Tathagata and returns to the Three Realms to transform others is called Tathagata. One who journeys on the path of True Suchness to come to the human realm and transform sentient beings is called Tathagata. The Tathagata is the pure nature that we all intrinsically have. We often say that we all intrinsically have this; it is just that we have yet to resolve our afflictions, so we remain in the ignorant state of unenlightened beings.
Every day we must earnestly do good deeds and benefit others without asking for anything in return. In daily living, we must be understanding and constantly grateful and content; that is also part of our spiritual practice.
So, He “serve as a father to all in the world”. The Buddha is father to all beings in the world. All in the world includes all beings in the Three Realms. There is an analogy for this in a previous passage. “In a certain kingdom’s city or settlement, there was an elder who possessed limitless wealth. His house was spacious and large and had only one door”. But inside of this door was a group of very ignorant children, who were attached to their games. When he saw fire arising on all sides, the father could not bear to [leave them there], so out of his compassion, he used kind words to guide them.
With these kind words, he tried to lead them out of the house, so they would not stay inside. But the children still were greedily attached to remaining in the house. No matter what the father said to them, they would not leave. So, he used all kinds of methods and set up the three cars to entice them. In the previous sutra text, this was explained very clearly. The Three Realms analogous to the burning house. The burning house refers to “all in the world”. This world is also called “the world of sentient beings”. It includes time, space and the relationships between sentient beings. On top of this, the emotions of sentient beings create much confusion and afflictions that constantly accumulate. This ignorance covers the mind and gives rise to all kinds of “fear, weakness, vexation, anxiety and worry”.
“All fear, weakness, vexation, anxiety and worry: Aging, illness and death are weakness. Suffering and afflictions and vexations. Anxiety exists in our minds, while worries relate to matters.”
Since we are in the human realm, we inevitably experience aging, illness and death. These are called “weakness”. We gradually grow weaker. In our old age, our bodies are frail, and all of our strength gradually disappears. There will inevitably be a day when we lose what we have. We may lose what we love most, or we may lose our own life.
In summary, we live life in “anxiety, worry and fear”. We worry about interpersonal relationships, about manmade calamities and natural disasters. We have many fears. Even when we have things, [they never truly belong to us]. This really worries us. These afflictions in our daily living, the various weakness that we naturally suffer and the afflictions of aging, illness and death are all suffering which cause us to be very worried.
Afflictions in our minds are “anxiety”. Afflictions arising from matters are “worries”. We are very troubled, because birth, aging, illness and death, worries about gain and loss, etc,all cause us to be worried. So, “All the dark coverings of ignorance [must be] eliminated forever, so nothing remains”. Ignorance creates many afflictions. What is ignorance? It is a dark and dull state.
“Ignorance: A state of mind that is dark and dull. It cannot reflect the light of all Dharma, matters and principles. It is also called delusion. Those who are ignorant cannot understand the Dharma.”
Dark and dull refers to those with relatively limited capacities. Their minds “cannot reflect the light of all Dharma, matters and principles”. Sometimes, when we are driving in cold weather and there are many people in our car, the body heat from so many people causes the windshield to fog up because of the cold air outside and the warm air inside. We have to immediately wipe the windshield clear so that we can see the road ahead.
Our mind is the same. If there is a gap between our minds and things going on around us, and we cannot get what we want, our minds will become filled with afflictions. If our minds are not in harmony with our external conditions, then our minds “cannot reflect the light of all Dharma, matters and principles”. Our minds will always be in conflict with our external conditions, causing us to lose the clarity of our radiant mirror.
If we do not earnestly polish it, it will lose this “light.” “It is also called delusion;” this refers to ignorance. Ignorance is a state that is dark and dull. A state that is dark and dull is one of delusion, so this is another name for ignorance.
[Those who are deluded] cannot understand the Dharma. Because we are ignorant, we cannot understand all Dharma.
The passage continues, “All the dark coverings [are] eliminated forever, so nothing remains.” How can something dark and dull become very clear and sharp? The text explains that “all the dark coverings of ignorance” are things that are obscuring our minds. No matter what, our pure intrinsic is still there, but it is covered by ignorance.
All the dark coverings: because of ignorance we are covered in darkness. We are in the dark on all matters and principles, hindered from being free of delusion by all kinds of contaminants, which lead us to create karma.
Indeed, inside each of our hearts, our pure and clear nature of True Suchness is still there. It is just that it has been covered by ignorance, so we are in the dark on matters and principles and develop a habitual nature of ignorance. In this way, we are “hindered from being free of delusion by all kinds of contaminants.”
“Being free of delusion,” we would be in a state of clarity. When we are not deluded or lost, our minds are very clear. But when we are hindered by ignorance, we are “hindered from being free of delusion.” It is obstructing us. This causes our undefiled minds to be cover [by darkness].
All the dark coverings of ignorance [are] eliminated forever, so nothing remains: The roots of delusion, karma and suffering are the dark coverings of ignorance. By eliminating them forever, so nothing remains, one has eliminated all evil and accomplished all merits and virtues. This explains the Buddha’s “virtue of ending.”
Ignorance is also called delusion. As for “delusion, karma and suffering, having ignorance means we are deluded. Out of delusion, we create karma. Because we create karma, we suffer. This is the root [ignorance]. Root [ignorance] is the dark coverings. Because we are in a state of delusion, we create karma, which causes us to suffer.
In the human realm, the Buddha tells us that all in the world experience suffering. The truth of “suffering” is that it comes from “causation.” We accumulated delusions and karma; delusions lead to karma which leads to suffering. This is root ignorance. If we can be mindful in accepting the Buddha-Dharma and using it to cleanse our minds, then [ignorance] will naturally be “eliminated forever, so nothing remains.”Then we will have “eliminated all evil and accomplished all merit and virtues.” This is the state of Buddhahood. This shows that the Buddha has already eliminated all “delusions and karma.
Therefore, the Buddha has already been freed from the suffering in the human realm. He understands the principle that suffering comes from delusions and the karma we create. He explains this to us so that we can earnestly engage in spiritual practice and earnestly eliminate ignorance and afflictions. Most importantly, if we eliminate ignorance and afflictions, we naturally achieve “the virtue of ending.” “The virtue of ending” comes from completely eliminating all ignorance, so our minds can be pure and clear. When we learn the Buddha’s Way, we must be mindful and put in a lot of effort. Everything results from ignorance and afflictions covering our minds. That is why we create carious karma and must deal with so many complications in the world. Over time, we have created karma in this space, so we end up facing painful retributions as we interact with people. This is why we must always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV – Wisdom at Dawn program – Explanation by Master Chen-Yen)
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