Explanations by Master Cheng-Yan
Subject: Solitary Realizers’ Deep Understanding of the Interdependent Arising of All Phenomena (獨覺深知諸法因緣)
Date:July.06. 2015
“A mind of wisdom abides in the Dharma, benefits all life and exercises patience. With earnestness and diligence, our armor of patience will be firm and solid. Mirror wisdom can reflect and extinguish deluded karma. That which help us be decisive about conditions is called discerning wisdom.”
We must understand wisdom, which also includes impartial wisdom. Learning the Dharma and practicing it is all about cultivating loving-kindness. To do so, our minds must abide in impartial wisdom. With the great wisdom and great loving-kindness, we can abide in the Dharma. This is how we can benefit sentient beings.
However, we also need to exercise patience because sentient beings are unyielding and difficult to train. With the Buddha’s loving-kindness and wisdom, He could benefit sentient beings, but He also had to exercise His patience.
Patience requires earnestness and diligence. “With earnestness and diligence, [His] armor of patience will be firm and solid.” The Sutra of 42 Sections also says that spiritual practitioners go among the people, and though we put our hearts into helping them, they will exhibit various habitual tendencies. To deal with people’s stubbornness and negative habitual tendencies, we must put on something like armor so that we will not be injured by them.
As for dealing with ourselves, our afflictions and ignorance are like an army of maras which endlessly appear in our minds. Therefore, we need to have the courage to subdue this army. This requires us to practice with “earnestness and diligence.”
We need to be diligent, which is like armor that offers protection, to earnestly protect ourselves from afflictions and ignorance in our surroundings and the ignorance and unwholesome thoughts that arise in our own minds. Spiritual practitioners need to pay careful attention to these things. If we are able to do that, “Mirror wisdom can reflect and extinguish deluded karma.”
Before, we spoke of a mind of impartial wisdom, and now it is a mirror of discerning wisdom. We all have this mirror in our minds. With that “earnestness and diligence” mentioned, we have already wiped this mirror clean. Cleaning the mirror of our minds will naturally reveal this mirror’s essence, which is bright and clear and can reflect its external conditions. If we can see clearly, we can discern things, so that we will not commit any wrongdoings, and we will not say anything that is false.
When we are very clear about what we do and about we say, we can “extinguish deluded karma.” Wisdom includes both impartial wisdom and discerning wisdom. When we can discern various conditions, we can clearly distinguish between right and wrong. By exercising our impartial wisdom, we can demonstrate our mission of benefiting sentient beings. We will be very decisive and certain. When something is right, we will just do it. If we can achieve this in our spiritual practice, we will not be afraid of making any mistakes as we engage in spiritual cultivation.
With great loving-kindness and great wisdom, we can abide in the Dharma and diligently cultivate our body and mind to eliminate various kinds of afflictions. Then the mirror of wisdom will naturally manifest. Therefore, everyone needs to be mindful and make this effort.
The previous sutra passage states, “Sariputra, if sentient beings who have inherent wisdom hear the Dharma from the World-Honored One, faithfully accept it, attentively and diligently practice and want to quickly escape the Three Realms, seeking Nirvana for themselves, they are following the Hearer Vehicle. They are like those children who left the burning house to seek the sheep-cart.” The following sutra passage states, “If sentient beings who have inherent wisdom hear the Dharma from the World-Honored One, faithfully accept it, attentively and diligently practice, seek natural wisdom, take joy in solitude and tranquility and deeply understand the interdependent arising of all phenomena, they are following the Pratyekabuddha Vehicle. They are like those children who left the burning house of seek the deer-cart.”
The first group left the burning house to seek the sheep-cart.This group left the burning house to seek the deer-cart.
In the prior text, Hearers sought the sheep-carts.
Here it discusses Pratyekabuddhas, also known as Solitary Realizers.
They are born in an era when there is no Buddha, but have planted roots of goodness in past lives.
Hearers seek the sheep-cart.That is why they attentively and diligently practice.Now we are discussing Pratyekabuddhas.Pratyekabuddhas are also called Solitary Realizers.Practitioners called Partyekabuddhas are also called Solitary Realizers.
Solitary Realizers and Pratyekabuddhas describe the same kind of spiritual practitioner.
“They are born in an era when there is no Buddha.”
Pratyekabuddhas, or Solitary Realizers, are not necessarily born in the era of a Buddha.They may be born in an era when there is no Buddha so they have to rely on the roots of goodness they planted in their past lives.
Perhaps in a past life they lived in the same era as a Buddha.Perhaps they have engaged in spiritual practice for many lifetimes, so when they return to the world this time, they still have those roots of goodness.Even if born when there is no Buddha, they are able to realize on their own that all things in the world follow the principles of formation, existence, decay and disappearance.So, they seek to learn more.They “seek natural wisdom”.
[They] seek natural wisdom:
They seek solitary realization for themselves.Only benefiting and protecting themselves, they do not seek the collective good.They observe the changes in material objects and awaked to the truth of non-arising.
Because Solitary Realizers have realized the impermanence of the world, they want to find ways to enhance their understanding of the principle of the impermanence of all things in the world.Therefore, “They seek solitary realization for themselves, only benefiting and protecting themselves. Only benefiting and protecting themselves” means that in their spiritual cultivation, they only seek to awaken themselves and “do not seek the collective good.”
The only seek understanding for themselves, and do not care whether others understand.
So, Solitary Realizers only care about benefiting and protecting themselves.“They do not seek the collective good.”
As Bodhisattvas, we must do more than this.
Whenever we learn something beneficial, we must earnestly practice it and then share it with others.
This is what Bodhisattvas do.
However, Pratyekabuddhas “do not seek the collective good. They observe the changes in material objects and awaken to the truth of non-arising.”They have this ability; they can perceive the world around them and mindfully and carefully contemplate it.They are cautious and meticulous in their thinking.So they can realize, by observing tangible things, that all things are ultimately empty in nature.
They “awaken to the truth of non-arising”; this emptiness is non-arising.Their disposition is to focus on “learning”.They need a quiet place in order to learn.They do not like crowded, lively places.“They do not enjoy bustle and noise.”They do not like being in a crowd, so they “seek and study on their own and have no aspirations to benefit others.”
They seek the Dharma by themselves to figure out the principles behind the working of thing and behind the human cycle of birth and death.They seek to learn and practice on their own without any desire to benefit sentient beings.
So, they “take joy in solitude and tranquility and deeply understand interdependent arising. [They] are following the Pratyekabuddha Vehicle.”
Because they take joy in solitude, they like places that are tranquil.They understand that all phenomena arise from causes and conditions.Because their hearts are pure and their minds are tranquil, they are able to understand this Dharma, that all things arise interdependently.
Hearers only reach the state of understanding suffering, causation, cessation and the Path.They know the body is composed of the four elements, and they understand the Four Noble Truths.
But Solitary Realizers mindfully realize that even though the human body is a union of the four elements, there must be causes and conditions behind the life they lead and the thoughts they have in this world. There are causes and conditions behind all the relationships in their lives. Why is one person born in a nation that is highly developed and wealthy while another person is born into a very poor and harsh place of much ignorance?
“Why couldn’t I have been born to those parents, and was instead born into this kind of life?” this is all due to causes and conditions. Pratyekabuddhas mindfully learn the interdependent arising of all phenomena. As for causes and conditions, everyone knows the. Twelve Links of interdependent. Arising ignorance gives rise to volitional formation, volitional formation to consciousness, consciousness to name and form, name and form to the six entrances, and so on. There are a total of 12 links. They end with aging, illness and death. The convergence of these causes and conditions brings us into this life. Then in this world we endlessly create positive and negative conditions and good and bad karma. In our lives we never stop reproducing these so life after life, we remain in the Six Realms. All this is due to the Twelve Links.
“The Twelve Links of interdependent Arising: Ignorance gives rise to volitional formation, volitional formation to consciousness, consciousness to name and form, name and form to the six entrances, six entrances to contact, contact to sensation, sensation to craving, craving to grasping, grasping to becoming, becoming to birth, birth to aging and death.”
Solitary Realizers seek realizations by themselves. They seek their own awakening and purity so that they can attain a deep realization of the Twelve Links of Interdependent Arising. This is the Pratyekabuddha Vehicle. When it comes to the capacities of Solitary Realizers, for hundreds of kalpas already, for a very long period of time, they have been listening to the Dharma.
“Pratyekabuddhas have all gone through hundreds of kalpas of listening to the Dharma. They are also called Solitary Realizers. They contemplate the Twelve Links on the path to becoming Pratyekabuddhas.
We constantly say that we need to listen more to teachings and let them permeate us. Some people wonder, “How can that person be so smart? Once he reads those words, he completely understands them. Oh, that person was well-read in a previous life”. We used to hear this answer often as an explanation. Within the Buddhist teachings, we also recognize that Solitary Realizers must have spent many kalpas in their past lives listening to the teachings. Life after life they diligently practiced and also abided in the Dharma. So, when they return to the world and connect with external conditions, they are able to attain realizations. Thus they are also called Realizers of Conditions, they awaken by connecting to external conditions. These practitioners are truly exceptional because they have been listening to the Dharma for many lifetimes. They understand that just listening to the Dharma, just relying on what other people said, is not enough. They have to put it into practice and be mindful.
So, Solitary Realizers are unlike Hearers, who only seek to quickly understand. That is not all they do. These practitioners rely on their own strength to uphold the Dharma. After understanding the Dharma, aside from practicing to benefit themselves, they also cultivate purity in their minds. Afflictions cannot penetrate their minds because they diligently practice and wear the armor of patience. They have already subdued the army of mara’s in their minds, so they are not troubled by their afflictions. These people are called Realizers of Conditions, Solitary Realizers or Pratyekabuddhas.
They rely on their own efforts to uphold the Dharma. They are people who put the Dharma into practice.
“Pratyekabudhas have a deep understanding and resolve to seek the truth. They are unlike Hearers, who only seek to quickly understand. These practitioners rely on their own strength to uphold the Dharma. They rarely listen to others’ teachings and mostly deduce the meaning themselves. They are likened to [those who seek] the deer-cart”.
“They rarely listen to others’ teachings. They have listened to the teachings for hundreds, if not thousands, of lifetimes. Upon seeing external conditions, they understand everything very clearly. Since they understand true emptiness, there are no afflictions in their minds. They have gradually eliminated their delusions, so they will not create more karma. Because these have been completely eliminated, they do not have to listen to that many teachings. They can “deduce the meanings themselves”. From one principle, they can understand everything. When I say that all material things exist because of the convergence of the four elements, I am not just talking about flowers and grasses. The union of the four elements brings about flowers, grasses, trees, the floor we are sitting on, the roof above our heads and the roads we are walking every day. This is true for everything we come in contact with “By grasping one truth, we understand all truths. We have fully understood the workings of the four elements and the Twelve Links of Interdependent Arising.
So, Pratyekabuddhas have a clear understanding of all of this. For hundreds and thousands of kalpas, they have been learning and have been permeated by the Path and by virtues. This comes from listening, contemplating and practicing. Thus they are able to awaken and understand everything.
This is analogous to the deer-cart. Sheep only focus on eating grass and going their own way. They do not look back to take care of other sheep. As for deer, as they eat the grass, they turn their heads to look around. This way of learning Dharma is about understanding the conditions before them and the past principles [that led to the present]. So, they are like deer. Therefore, we say, “They have the loving-kindness [of deer].”
They have the loving-kindness of deer who turns their [to look after the others]. They are more advanced than Hearers, but not yet at the level of Bodhisattvas. Thus they are considered the Middle Vehicle.
They have begun to understand the principles, so they have no conflicts over matters, with people or with the world. They have great loving-kindness and compassion. Therefore, “They are more advanced than Hearers.” They are at a more advanced stage. However, “They are not yet at the level Bodhisattvas.” Compared to Bodhisattvas, they are still very different. Therefore, they are Middle Vehicle practitioners.
Pratyekabuddhas are born in an era when there is no Buddha. “They observe the changes of seasons, the conditions that lead to their realization.” They observe condition like floating flower petals and falling leaves.”
All they need to do is see these conditions. In the autumn, the leaves have fallen. Just by looking at our surroundings, we can already tell it is autumn. By observing this, “They awaken to the natural laws of heaven and earth.”
Just from observing our conditions, we can tell whether it is spring, summer, autumn or winter. This is the level they have attained.People like that are Solitary Realizers, also known as Pratyekabuddhas. “They are like those children who left burning house to seek the deer-cart.”
In this way, they only seek to awaken themselves. They “take joy in solitude and tranquility, and deeply understand the interdependent arising of all phenomena.” These people are Pratyekabuddhas. “They are like those children who left the burning house to seek the deer-cart.”
This is their process of spiritual practice. Everyone, there is a sequence to learning the Buddha’s Way. The Hearers who lived in the Buddha’s lifetime relied on the Buddha’s spoken teachings to understand the principles of the Dharma. The listeners had varying capabilities. Some listened to and understood the Dharma. Some listened and seemed to understand, but also seemed not to understand. After listening to the Dharma, it is very hard to retain it, because we have Leaks. We hear it, then forget it very quickly. After listening to the Dharma, our behavior may still contradict the Dharma. People who can truly listen to the Dharma, take it to heart and practice according to it are very few in number.
Without diligent practice, the mirror of their wisdom would not be clear. If that mirror is blurry, the various teachings would not be clear to them. So, when we engage in spiritual practice, we must abide in the Dharma. We must awaken our wisdom and cultivate loving-kindness. With the power of wisdom, we abide in the Dharma and benefit sentient beings.
In order to go among people, we need patience so we with not be harmed by external conditions or by our own afflictions. So, we must always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV – Wisdom at Dawn program – Explanation by Master Chen-Yen)
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