Explanations by Master Cheng-Yan
Subject: Inheriting the Father’s Virtuous Mission (承父德業利益眾生)
Date:June.09. 2015
“Noble and unenlightened beings live together in the Five Destinies. The Tathagata responds to all in the Three Realms and serves as a father to all in the world. He treats all in the Three Realms with equal benevolence. He sees all of the four kinds of beings as His only son. As a father He passes on His virtuous mission to His children.”
The Buddha responds to and transforms the world. He is a noble being, a sage, and He comes on the vehicle of True Suchness to the human realm for the sake of the one great cause, which is to deliver sentient beings. This is why He comes to this world and lives among us ordinary people where the beings of the Five Destinies co-exist. You should all be clear about the Five Destinies, the heaven, human, hell, hungry ghost and animal realms. These are the Five Realms.
The good and bad karma we have created leads us to be reborn in one of the Five Realms. If we regularly practice the Ten Good Deeds, we do many good deeds and create blessings. If we do good deeds and create blessings, if we are replete with the Ten Good Deeds, of course, this will lead us to the highest realm among the Five Destinies, which is heaven, to enjoy the blessings there.
Ordinarily, people uphold their fundamental duties and carry out the things that need to be done. They simply go about their normal lives. There are many people like this; they are the ordinary people in this world. Aside from them, in this world there are people who live very difficult lives. If people are in a family which is poor and are also dealing with illnesses, disabilities, etc., they may feel like they are living in hell. As for those who lack basic life necessities, they are in the state of hungry ghosts. As for those who do not abide by human morals, do not feel gratitude or loyalty, they are like those who live in the animal realm; this can also be in seen in this world. Under the heavens and on top of the earth, all beings of the Five Realms live in the same world.
The goal of the Buddha, noble beings and sages in coming to this world is to teach and transform all beings. This is what noble beings do.
So, noble beings live together with the beings of the Five Destinies. “Noble and unenlightened beings live together in the Five Destinies.” So, no matter who we encounter, we must approach them with respect.
The Buddha told us that everyone can attain Buddhahood because everyone has an everlasting nature of True Suchness. It is just buried under our ignorance. So, we engage in spiritual practice and learn the Buddha’s Way to quickly break open one by one those layers of the dark coverings of ignorance. We remove layer after layer, until the layers of ignorance have been cleared up. Then the light of pure wisdom begins to manifest. This is our nature of True Suchness.
The nature of True Suchness is pure as crystal, and everyone has it. The Tathagata comes on the vehicle of True Suchness to transform all beings in this world.
So it is said, “The Tathagata responds to all in the Three Realms.” Everyone has the nature of True Suchness, and the Buddha regularly applies the principles of True Suchness while He interacts with people.
The Three Realms we speak of are the desire, form and formless realms in [the minds of] sentient beings.The formless realm is that of our thinking.If our thinking is pure, no “form” in our surroundings can entice us.Thus we are pure.
A pure mind is free of “desire”.So, free of desires, we are pure.This is how we transcend the Three Realms.The Buddha taught us in the hope that we will be able to transcend the desire realm in our minds, transcend the form realm in our mind and transcend the formless realm in our minds to become completely liberated.This is what the Buddha came to this world to teach us.
Within the Three Realms, the Buddha is known as the guiding teacher of the Three Realms and the kind father of the four kinds of beings.The burning house is an analogy for the Three Realms, and all the sentient beings in the Three Realms are the Buddha’s children, His disciples.
The Buddha loves sentient beings equally.So, “He treats all in the Three Realms with equal benevolence.”He does not discriminate between them.All sentient beings of the Three Realms are treated equally by the Buddha, thus He does not discriminate between them.
“He sees all of the four kinds of beings as His only son.”
He does not only treat humans equally, but all beings, womb-born, egg-born, moisture-born and transformation-born.The Buddha loves all of the four kinds of beings.Therefore He said, “All living, moving beings have Buddha-nature.”Not only does He care for humans, He cares for all creatures, down to the smallest living beings.Thus “He sees all of the four kinds of beings as His only son.”
All living beings are cherished by the Buddha.“As a father, He passes on His virtuous mission to His children.”The Buddha hopes we can be like Him and treat all sentient beings the same, with equal benevolence, loving and caring for them in the same way.
From the previous sutra passage, we learned that the elder in this world cared so deeply about his children and other family members that he devised ways to help them escape the burning house.The Buddha is just like him.
So, the Buddha said, “Sariputra the Tathagata is also like this.”The Tathagata is just like this elder.“I serve as a father to all in the world.”The Tathagata is like a parent.
“[I] take all fear, weakness, vexation, anxiety and worry, al the dark coverings of ignorance and eliminate them forever, so nothings remains.”
All of sentient beings’ fear, panic, weakness, anxiety and worry about gain and loss, all these dark coverings of ignorance, are completely eliminated [by the Tathagata].
Similar, when the children stayed in the burning house to enjoy their games, their father used various methods to draw them out, saying, “Do not keep playing in there. Do not remain in that confusion. Leave that place right away and come out now.”
The Tathagata, in the same way, uses various methods to draw out the children inside, who are all the sentient beings of the Three Realms.
Our fears, weaknesses and worries are like the fire.When the fire starts blazing around the house, the Buddha slowly draws us out to help us escape the burning house of the Three Realms.The same things are happening in our minds.
Our mind is our spiritual home; in everyone’s minds, there is also a great house.In this house in our minds, our spiritual home, these [negative emotions] are like sparks of fire that can start a blaze.If we are able to accept the Buddha-Dharma, that is like acquiring the cart drawn by the great white ox.Then we will be able to travel smoothly and steadily advance on this path as humans in the Three Realms.
Not only must we transform ourselves, we must also transform others.This is our goal as Buddhist practitioners.
If we can transcend the ignorance in our minds, naturally we will be able to gradually realize the principles of the Buddha and apply them in our daily living.By slowly putting an end to our ignorance forever, it will no longer remain in our minds.This is why we must learn the Buddha’s teachings and comprehend the principles He taught.
The next sutra passage states, “[The Tathagata] perfects infinite views and understanding, powers and fearlessness, great spiritual powers and powers of wisdom.”“He is replete with the wisdom of skillful means and the Paramitas. He has great loving-kindness and compassion, and is never indolent or tired. He always seeks out good deeds to benefit all and thus is born in the decaying, burning house of the Three Realms.”
This house in the Three realms is already old and decaying. Here, the “Three Realms” refer to the Three Realms that exist in our minds. For a very long time, our habitual tendencies have been with us. For countless lifetimes these habitual tendencies have already polluted our minds. Thus, this is “the decaying…Three Realms”. Already, the home in our minds is decaying, like the burning house with fires on all sides. This is because, lifetime after lifetime, we have accumulated layers of habitual tendencies. Having had these habitual tendencies for a long time, we say our mind is “decaying”. It has already deteriorated.
All of our minds have reached this point, so we must accept the Dharma right away. The Dharma taught by the Buddha is like water. We must cleanse our minds right away, so we need Dharma-water in our hearts to wash away the impurities within our minds. Then our minds will be pure again. This is what we must immediately do in our minds.
When the Buddha came to this world to teach sentient beings, He needed to exercise His power. So, He manifested a body to exercise this power. This body that exercised the teachings was the legacy of conduct that the Buddha passed down when He came to the world. The way He lived is a teaching for us. This is the way life can truly be lived in the world. Over the course of His life, the Tathagata lived the same way that we do. He was born to parents and grew up in this world. He spent time in the world first enjoying luxury then contemplating [suffering]. Then, for the sake of saving people and in the hope that we can treat everyone equally, he abandoned his life in the palace. In this way, he no longer enjoyed those objects of desire. He had transcended the desires in his mind. With his body, he demonstrated how one can leave the pleasures of the palace.
He demonstrated that, to engage in spiritual practice, we must go through an arduous process of delving into the principles of life. He collected the methods of spiritual cultivation. He thoroughly analyzed how people suffered, how thoughts stirred in their minds, etc. all these principles were accumulated within the Buddha’s ocean of enlightenment. Through spiritual practice, he became awakened and achieved supreme and perfect enlightenment.
While interacting with people, everything he learned as a spiritual practitioner was absorbed into his views and understanding. After he grasped the principles of the world, he absorbed them into his ocean of enlightened wisdom. Having understood everything, He “attained supreme, perfect enlightenment and was replete with unsurpassed, extraordinary wisdom”. Then, “For all sentient beings, He turns the wondrous Dharma-wheel”.
This is what makes Him the Tathagata. The Tathagata “is perfectly at ease. Thus He has the powers and fearlessness”.
Because of His views and understanding, the Tathagata has powers and fearlessness. He has seen and understood so much. He knows the truths of all things in the universe; nothing was unknown to Him. With His understanding of things, He is at ease. Because the Buddha’s powers, understanding and views are very complete, He has “great spiritual powers and powers of wisdom. He is replete with the wisdom of skillful means and the Paramitas”. These are “the powers exercised by the Buddha. His powers and the power of His wisdom are very complete.
“The powers exercised by the Buddha are inconceivable. They are “spiritual” because they are unfathomable. He inherently treats everyone equally, with compassion and wisdom. The power of His vows is inconceivable. To create favorable assisting conditions, He never ceases in His efforts”.
What was the extent of His wisdom? We have no way of fathoming it. The power of the Buddha’s wisdom is truly inconceivable. He has the wisdom to understand the truths of all things in the universe.
So, we call these His “spiritual powers”. “Spiritual” refers to His spirit and not a strange supernatural power. This power comes from our spirit. The Buddha’s spirit and ideals are unfathomable; we cannot understand them. Not only is His power unfathomable, His spirit and ideals are also hard to fathom. The Buddha “inherently treats everyone equally”. He applies His spiritual powers equally towards all sentient beings. This shows His compassion.
Every single one of the four kinds of beings is equal in the eyes of the Buddha He cherishes all beings with equal benevolence.
I hope we can learn from the Buddha how to treat all living beings with equal benevolence. The Buddha has compassion and wisdom, and when the power of His vows are added to that , of course. [His state] is inconceivable. With the kind of spirit and ideals that He has, and the power of His wisdom and compassion, of course [His state] is inconceivable. By adding the power of His vows, He creates favorable assisting conditions for all and never ceases in His efforts or takes a break.
Why is it said that He creates favorable assisting conditions? Because sentient beings inherently have Buddha-nature, the Buddha comes to the world only for the sake of providing them with assisting conditions.By means of His wisdom, compassion and the power of His vows. He comes to this world to live among all beings Living here together with us, He “opened and revealed” teachings so sentient beings must accept them so we can “realize and enter.”
Therefore, He came to this world to create favorable assisting conditions for us to attain Buddhahood. “Everyone intrinsically has Buddha-nature.”This is what He came to tell us, to “open and reveal” to us, so we can go from the state of ordinary beings to the other shore, the state of noble beings to the other shore, the state of noble beings. This is done with wisdom and the paramitas.
By transforming us with skillful wisdom, He crates favorable assisting conditions for us. Thus He is also our virtuous friend. As both our teacher and father, He guides and teaches us solely in the hope that we will be able to cross from this shore to the other shore. He does this with wisdom, “with the wisdom of skillful means and paramitas.”
With “power of wisdom” one can “have faith in and accept Right Dharma.” “With fierce determination, one cultivates purifying practices in body and mind.”
We are also endowed with these powers of wisdom. However, we must have faith in the Buddha’s teachings. We must believe and accept the principles and the Right Dharma He taught. “With fierce determination…in body and mind, when we can accept the Buddha’s teachings, we can eliminate our ignorance, layer by layer” we can eliminate our ignorance, layer by layer. In this way, by reducing each layer of ignorance we can develop our wisdom-life more.
Therefore, as we clear away layers of ignorance, our wisdom-life will continue to grow.Our powers of wisdom, vows and compassion will empower our body and mind to cultivate purifying practice.
When we give without expectations, our minds become very pure. Purifying practices. Purifying practices bring purity. Although we live among people in this evil world of Five Turbidities, by walking the Bodhisattva-path, we purify our minds.
So, we must accept the Buddha’s teaching. To His disciples, the Buddha is like “a father passes on His virtuous mission to His children.” The legacy our father wants to leave us is teaching us how to manage our “mission.” Since our vows are go to into the world, we must remain among the people and love them as the Buddha loves His children.
I constantly tell everyone, “We must take the Buddha’s mind as our mind, for He has passed on His virtuous mission to us.” If the Buddha is in our minds, we will carry on His virtuous actions by doing good deeds and benefiting others while also cultivating purifying practice. This helps our minds constantly remain pure, free of desire, forms and afflictions. If we can achieve this state, we can transcend the Three Realms. We can leave behind the burning house in our minds and all our fears, etc. Our afflictions and dark coverings will all be left behind.
So, as we learn the Buddha’s Way, we must always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV – Wisdom at Dawn program – Explanation by Master Chen-Yen)
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