Explanations by Master Cheng-Yan
Subject: We Do Not Recognize Our Pure Buddha-nature (眾生不識如來本性)
Date: January.26. 2016
“The father searched for his son in vain, while the son wandered from village to village. He arrived in the city where his father lived in his search for food and clothing. Now father and son were both in the same city, on the same land with the same scenery, yet the son did not recognize his father, for he could not see his original appearance.”
I think everyone is more or less clear on this. This sutra passage tells us that the young child left his father to lead a vagrant life. From then on, his father searched for him. As the days, months and years passed by, the father gradually grew old, yet he continued searching for his child. His son had left his home at a very young age. He was so focused on having a good time that once he left he could not find his way home. He drifted about, doing in all kinds of things and making all kinds of friends. During this time, he had nothing at all. For several decades, he lived an impoverished life and drifted about.
In order to survive, the son did whatever kind of work was available. If there was a task people asked him to do, he would do it. Isn’t this the same way we ordinary people go about our lives? We ordinary people spend our whole lives busily running around. Sometimes, we do our work very well and become very successful at what we do. Sometimes, we work so hard, yet never achieve any success. With a life like this, we busily run around just to make a living. In order to survive, we may do wholesome or unwholesome things. Driven to make a living, we are constantly moving and working. How often do we see people like this in the world?
Human life is replete with the Five Aggregates, form, feeling, perception, action, consciousness, and from the Five Aggregates arise all kinds of interpersonal conflicts afflictive emotions, leading us to be endlessly entangled. Then all the actions we take, the good and evil karma we give rise to, are stored in our karmic consciousness. Thus, we experience countless births and deaths and are thus one of the myriad sentient beings.
If we are clear on the principles of the Five Aggregates, we can naturally guard against wrongs and stop evil. Thus we must abide in principles, abide in the teachings and principles, to keep control of our physical conduct. The Buddha once told a parable about this. He said there was once a village where a group of children lived. The children there divided the land among themselves. They each had a share of the land and carved out boundaries in the dirt. Groups of them took some dirt and sand to build houses. They piled up dirt, “This is my home and that is your home. I have a storehouse over here, and over there I have…” They each exhausted their imaginations to build up their houses.
One of them saw what another was doing and said to him, “This isn’t right; you ought to move your boundary back a little. The land I have is not enough; I want another parcel.” The first person said, “My house is already built; Why should I yield my land to you?” They got into an argument.
As they pushed each other around, the houses they had built with dirt were completely wiped out. They could not tell what belonged to whom. As this was happening, an older man who happened to pass by decided to mediate between the children. “Hey children, come over here and listen to uncle.All of you, stand here. Think about it, you all came here to play. This is just a game! This thing you were all playing with, this land, who does it actually belong to?”
The children all shook their heads.“We don’t know whose it is. What did you use to build your houses? Dirt and sand. And now, where are the structures you built?”
They looked around carefully.“They were here, but they have been ruined.”The older man said, “That’s right. Aren’t you all good friends?”Everyone nodded their heads yes.
“You are good friends, but now you are fighting. What are you fighting for?”They all shook their heads. You do not know, do you?”He asked again, “You do not know, right? No, we do not.”
The old man said, “You are arguing over dirt, over land that does not even belong to you. Look at all the effort you put into creating these things. Look at what happened to them; as soon as you feel into a slight disagreement, these things were all destroyed. Even after they were gone,you continued arguing. Does that benefit you in any way?”“No”. “Now think, are you still good friends?”They looked at each other.
One of the older children said, “Yes, we are all still good friends.”At that, all the children quickly gathered.Holding each other’s hands, they drew together.“In the future, let us not [quarrel over] these useless things. They are not worth getting upset about.”
The Buddha stopped here and said, “Isn’t this the case? This is true of everyone. What exactly are the Five Aggregates? In daily living, what is the ‘form’ in our external conditions? Does everyone understand this clearly? They are illusory appearances, temporary unions that will completely disperse in the end. But every single person fights over these illusory appearances and labels. Our lives are also created in the same process, thus we are called the myriad sentient beings.”
Indeed, sentient beings are completely in a deluded state.So, as it says, “The son wandered from village to village.”This is like how we sentient beings wander among the four forms of birth and the Six Realms.
We have wandered about in this way because the Five Aggregates have led us, in countless lifetimes, to give rise to discursive thoughts.
After much difficulty, we have established this karmic affinity with the Buddha.Perhaps in our mix of good and evil [karma], we have done some good deeds as well.“He arrived in the city where his father lived in his search for food and clothing” means he came to the city where the father lived, to seek clothing and food.
In this kind of place, we can seek the Dharma.What we are seeking now is the clothing of dignity and spiritual nourishment.
Yesterday, we discussed the Eightfold Right Path and the 37 Practices to Enlightenment.This means we have already gradually drawn near the Buddha-Dharma.We take the Path as our nourishment to nurture our wisdom-life.We take the precepts as our clothing; they clothe us in dignity and help us guard against wrongs and stop evils so that everything we do with our bodies keeps us on the path of being a good person.In this way, we slowly draw near and walk on the path laid out in the Buddha-Dharma.
Thus, “We arrive in the city of the Buddha in our search for food and clothing. Now father and son were both in the same city.”The son had already entered the city where his father lived.
Yet, even “on the same land with the same scenery” although they were in the same city, the son still did not recognize his father.This was because, “He could not see his original appearance.”
We all know that we intrinsically have a nature of True Suchness.Yet, we are still unable to be one with our nature of True Suchness.This is because we still possess ignorance, still possess afflictions; there is still a layer which separates us.So, we still cannot truly recognize our “father,” nor can we see our original appearance.This is why we sentient beings are still wandering.
The pervious sutra passage states, “At the time, the poor son wintered from village to village, passing through many kingdoms and cities, until finally he arrived in the city where his father had settled.”
At that time, the poor son was wandering about, searching.In order to make a living, he kept walking, all the while unwittingly drawing near to where his father was.
The following sutra passage states,
“The father thought constantly of his son. They had been parted for more than 50 years, yet he had never spoken of the matter to anyone. He only thought of it himself, and it filled his heart with regret and hate”.
The father thought constantly of his son; he thought of him day and night. The father’s heart never left his son, and he had remained in this same land but his son [had left] when an ignorant thought arose in his mind. This is an analogy for “all of the Five Skandhas stirring”.
The Five Aggregates are the Five Skandhas. Once the Five Skandhas stir, an ignorant thought creates the Three Subtleties, and we end up replete with 50 Evils.
When we see a certain “form”, we give rise to discursive thoughts and begin to commit the Ten Evils. Each aggregate gives rise to the Ten Evils, so the Five Aggregates give rise to 50 evils.
“Replete with 50 evils, the son was parted from the father for more than 50 years as the son drifted to far-off lands. They had not seen one another since”.
“Replete with the 50 evils, the son was parted from the father for more than 50 years”. This was the distance between father and son. The Buddha was already in an enlightened state, while sentient beings were still deluded. Thus, they wandered through the four forms of birth and the Five Destinies. In “more than 50 years”. “50” refers to the heaven, human, hell, hungry ghost and animal realms. “More than” refers to the asura realm. Therefore, we say “more than 50 years”. Because we “drifted to far-off lands”, we moved farther and farther away, so it was harder for us to see the Buddha.
In fact, the Buddha is the father in this story. In this parable, as the son became more undisciplined, he wandered farther away. Yet, the father’s [heart] never left his son, and he always remained in the same place, the original state of True Suchness. The Buddha, for the sake of sentient beings, came and went in the Three Realms to transform them. The sentient beings in the Three Realms, because of the Five Aggregates, keep creating many afflictions and karmic forces, and thus they continue to wander. The Buddha could not do anything about this.
“Yet he had never spoken of the matter to anymore”. This is analogy for what happened after the Buddha’s enlightenment, when He was in the state of Avatamsaka. Upon attaining enlightenment, He was in a “tranquil and clear” state. But when it came to His awakened state, at that time He still could not “tell the great Bodhisattvas” about the state of Buddhahood because those Bodhisattvas still could not yet experience that enlightened state, to say nothing of heavenly beings and humans.
Later on, the Buddha still expounded the Dharma for the whole world. But He could not teach it to the practitioners of the Two Vehicles. Neither Hearers nor Solitary Realizers were able to realize it.
Yet he had never spoken of the matter to anyone: This is like how, at the Avatamsaka assembly, the Buddha did not tell the great Bodhisattvas that these practitioners of the Two Vehicles were in fact children of the Great Vehicle.
When it comes to the state of Buddhahood, if we do not walk the Bodhi-path of the Great Vehicle, we will absolutely not be able to realize it. Thus, as it says, “He had never spoken of the matter to anyone”. But all of us are “in fact the children of the Great Vehicle”. Everyone is the seed of this Dharma, the seed of the Great Vehicle Dharma; we have always been so. Yet He still could not tell the practitioners of the Two Vehicles that “[Buddha-nature] is intrinsic to everyone. When we are still in the process of learning, we would still be unable to understand the core of the Great Vehicle Dharma. At the center of the seed of the Great Vehicle is the original intent of the Buddha; having realized [the truths] of all things in the universe, He wanted to tell everyone, yet He was still unable to do so.
Thus it says, “Yet he had never spoken of the matter to anyone”. He could not talk about this yet. So, “You have a part in the Great Vehicle” was something He was still unable to tell people. We all have the Great Vehicle within us, the potential for attaining Buddhahood. “He had never told any of them this”. These things had gone unmentioned so far.
The Chapter on Skillful Means and the Chapter on Parables constantly mentioned the Great Dharma of the One Vehicle. This is truly the seed of Buddhahood. The Buddha had yet to directly express His original intent to us.
Though He had not talked about it, it was always on His mind. Every time He expounded the Dharma, even when He gave the Agama, the Vaipulya and Prajna teachings, the Avatamsaka state was on His mind.
He still intended to share it with everyone “He only thought of it himself” means sentient beings still could not understand it; the Buddha could not explain it in a way they could understand, so this “filled his heart with regret and hate.” When it came to regret, He regretted that, “He did not diligently teach them in the past so that they had left without beings taught.”
He had not thoroughly taught this in the past. When teachers are unable to teach their students, sometimes they are filled with self-reproach. The Buddha also had the same kind of thoughts of having “not diligently taught them in the past so that they had left without being taught.” These children were unable to be taught, and they had run away at a young age.
The Buddha has repeatedly returned to this world; is He really the one at fault? It is we sentient beings who must reflect on ourselves.
There is a saying, “Teachers will show the way, the students must walk the path.” But virtuous teachers reproach themselves because they have a strong sense of responsibility. So, we should say, “The disciples lack spiritual aspirations, so they will not diligently advance without pause.”
Now Subhuti understood the reason that the Buddha lamented. Actually, [in the analogy] the child lacked spiritual aspirations and thus did not diligently advance. His disciples were the same way. So, they were compared to the son who had left at a young age. This is why it says that, “This was the cause for the Buddha’s regret.”
The disciples laced spiritual aspirations, so they were unable to advance without pause. Instead they confusedly left and could not return. This was the cause for the Buddha’s regret Here, the word “hate” means remorse, for the Buddha’s heart is free of hate.
“It filled his heart with regret and hate” really means that the Buddha had a deep sense of regret. Here, the world “hate” means remorse and regret because there is no hate in the Buddha’s heart. All His thoughts, as He was in an enlightened state, were free of hate. There was only remorse and regret; there was no hate. With hate comes animosity. When the sutras mention “regret and hate, they mean remorse and regret.” That is how the Buddha felt about sentient beings.
Since Beginningless Time, the Tathagata has always cared for sentient beings like a father who misses his children has great capabilities within them and that everyone intrinsically has Buddha-nature. His thoughts were always with sentient beings. Thus it says, “The father thought constantly of his son.”
The Buddha knew that all sentient beings have Buddha-nature, yet they are stubborn and hard to transform. However, the Buddha never gave up on them. So, He “thought constantly of His [children].”
These children had retreated form the Great from their nature of True Suchness Constantly covered by afflictions, they drifted about among the Five Destinies and in the asura realm. Along with the Five Destinies, there is also the asura realm. So, in this way, sentient beings continually drift through [these Six Realms].
All beings with feelings and consciousness are collectively called the myriad sentient beings. The origin of the “myriad sentient beings is found in the Five Aggregates.” Because of them, they have passed through myriad lifetimes. So, “They are also called myriad sentient beings.” The Buddha works within the Ten Dharma-realms. Setting aside the Buddha realm, there are nine Dharma-realms; these beings are the “myriad sentient beings.”
Sentient beings drift about in cyclic existence. So, the Buddha repeatedly returned to this world, painstakingly, in the hope that they would gradually come to seek the Dharma and enter the city. He hope we will not leave once we enter this city. This depends on whether we put our hearts into constantly safeguarding this city. Our father is living in this city, so we need to immediately meet with him are realize our original appearance. To do this, we must always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV – Wisdom at Dawn program – Explanation by Master Chen-Yen)
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