Explanations by Master Cheng-Yan
Subject: The Buddha’s Virtue is Perfect and Complete (佛德圓滿無上大覺)
Date: September.06. 2016
“The Buddha’s virtue is perfect; His all-encompassing wisdom is complete. His reward-body was dignified with the Marks and Characteristics. When He taught the Dharma, He was replete with the Four Unobstructed Wisdoms. His mind’s virtue was perfect as He observed every kind of capability.”
We often say we must be grateful to the Buddha. Through spiritual practice, the Buddha had already perfected His virtue, in particular perfecting “all-encompassing wisdom.” He was replete with all these. The Buddha’s virtue was something that He cultivated over a long period of time by benefiting people over a long time. He spent an incalculable number of kalpas giving of Himself for sentient beings. He did this for an incalculable length of time.
We often say that [being able to] give to others is a blessing. From forming our aspirations to starting to do good deeds, what we attain is virtue. This is how we simultaneously cultivate both blessings and virtue. For our spiritual practice, this is the direction we should head in. In this present lifetime, every person we encounter can help us cultivate blessings and virtue and develop our wisdom. Every matter and every person can help us to perfect our wisdom and virtue. This is why we must constantly be grateful.
The Buddha’s virtue is perfect, and He is replete in all-encompassing wisdom. He was also replete with a [dignified] appearance; His physical appearance was wonderful. Thus, it says “His reward-body was dignified with the Marks and Characteristics.” Both His outer appearance and inner wisdom, as manifested in His conduct, led people to feel inexpressible love and respect. This was His dignified magnificence.
Moreover, when among sentient beings, He always taught according to capabilities. When He taught the Dharma, He was replete with the Four Unobstructed Wisdoms. These are the wisdom of unobstructed Dharma, the wisdom of unobstructed rhetoric, the wisdom of unobstructed meaning and the wisdom of unobstructed joyful eloquence.
The Buddha taught the Dharma without obstruction. Everything He taught contained profound meaning, yet He accommodated sentient beings’ capabilities so that they could understand what they heard. Regardless of which dialect or language was spoken in a certain place, the Buddha completely understood them all. His speech was also very elegant. This is the “wisdom of unobstructed rhetoric.”
Moreover, the Buddha was earnest in teaching and transforming others. He never tired of teaching. He took joy in teaching the Dharma, making transformative connections with sentient beings everywhere He went. He did not just make connections by begging alms; He also transformed the afflictions and ignorance of sentient beings into thoughts of goodness. This was also making transformative connections. How could He connect with sentient beings to create the causes and conditions that would enable them to listen to the Buddha-Dharma? He had to deeply engage with people. This shows that He perfected His Buddha-virtues and was replete with all-encompassing wisdom. So, He had the wisdom of unobstructed Dharma, of unobstructed meaning, of unobstructed rhetoric, and most importantly, of unobstructed joyful eloquence, which He used to transform sentient beings.
Earlier we said, “The Buddha’s virtue is perfect.” The Buddha’s virtue was perfect and complete, His body was dignified, and in His teaching of the Dharma, His Four Unobstructed Wisdoms were perfect. There was also His “mind.” His mind’s virtue was also perfect and complete.
He taught the Dharma for a lifetime, entirely for the sake of earth’s sentient beings. Thus, the virtue of His mind was His single-minded intent as He observed every kind of capability of the world’s sentient beings. The Buddha was like a cloud when He came to this world in His reward-body.
His one purpose in coming to this world was, of course, to let fall the Dharma-rain. If there are clouds but no rain, that is not enough. This would be like us coming to this world without accomplishing anything. We must accomplish something in this world. For this world, we definitely must contribute our learning and virtues; is we learn we can attain virtues.
Where can we go to learn? Actually, we learn by going among people. Among people, there are many principles that cannot be learned from books. The principles of being a good person must be [learned] through interacting with others. So, the Buddha taught us how to go among people and be a successful person in society, one not influenced by others’ afflictions who can lead others to follow the correct path, to do the right things and to become benefactors in this world. Then, we will have true learning and virtues.
People say, “Without experience wisdom cannot grow.” So, the Buddha continually came to this world and went among people to teach sentient beings. He learned tirelessly and taught freely and continuously; He never lost His patience.This is how He continually come to this world. This is how He cultivated and perfected His virtue, the perfect and complete Buddha-virtues. Thus He attained all-encompassing wisdom. It was because He spent this long period of time training this learning and virtue to perfection, continually creating these blessed affinities among people.
We must all have faith that the Buddha’s responding to the world had great use. It was to give teachings to the people. Like the clouds and rain, His responding to the world served a great purpose, which was to teach the Dharma to this world.
So, the previous passage says this, “[I am] like a great cloud that fully moistens all withered and dried out sentient beings so that all will be enabled to escape suffering and attain peace, stability and joy, both the joys of the world and the joy of Nirvana.”
We talked about this before, [how He was like] a great cloud starting to let the rain fall. The great cloud represents the Buddha’s reward-body in this world. His reward-body could accomplish a great function, so it could “fully moisten all.” Its great function was to moisten the parched ground of sentient beings’ minds and enable the ground of their minds to attain nourishment.
When the Buddha-Dharma moistens our minds, naturally, we are “enabled to escape suffering” and attain peace, stability and joy. Our minds will be very stable. We come to the world not because of karma but journeying on the Tathagata’s teaching, journeying on the Dharma.
Thus we have attained “peace, stability and joy.” We can repeatedly come to this world to teach and transform sentient beings, always without suffering. Thus we have attained peace, stability and joy. Even when we transform sentient beings, among the myriads of sentient beings who are full of the Five Turbidities, in this world of such ignorance and suffering, we Bodhisattvas can still play freely and happily.
As we talked about yesterday, the Buddha experienced samara in a different way than ordinary people. He was happy to come for sentient beings’ sake. He had the joy of peace and stability. When He went among people, He also had “the joy of Nirvana.” He no longer suffered the distress of cyclic existence when He was in this world. His mind was very clear, entirely without greed, anger or ignorance. He was completely in peace and joy.
Then the next sutra passage states, “All you heavenly beings and humans must single-mindedly and attentively listen. You should all come here to observe the supremely honored one. I am the World-Honored One; none can equal me. To bring peace and stability to sentient beings, I have appeared in the world.”
He reminded everyone again. At the Dharma-assembly, it was not only the Sangha. There were also disciples from the outside, lay practitioners who upheld the Buddha-Dharma. Among the lay practitioners, there were also Bodhisattvas of great capabilities. So, “All you heavenly beings and humans must single-mindedly and attentively listen.”
The Buddha again reminded them to concentrate and single-mindedly listen to the Dharma, to put effort into listening and not indulge in discursive thoughts. This teaching was very important, so everyone needed to listen very mindfully. “You should all come here to observe the supremely honored one.”
The Buddha wanted them to know that in listening to the Dharma, they should also honor the teacher, for only by honoring the teacher would they respect the Path. This was the teaching of the Buddha. This verse is reiterating the long-form prose.
There is also a passage like this in the prose. “You heavenly beings, humans and asuras. You should all come here to listen to the Dharma.” Not only were there heavenly beings and humans among the assembly, there were also asuras. Asuras have very bad habitual tendencies. They envy the virtuous and talented and are easily angered. People like this can also listen to the Dharma.
Some say, “I listen to the Dharma, but there is no way that I can practice it because of my habitual tendencies.” There are also people who say things like this “You have studied the Buddha-Dharma so deeply, why is your temper still so bad?” “That is just how I am. I will change.” Although their tempers are very bad, they nevertheless have the Buddha-Dharma, so they too are capable of gradual change. They have dull capabilities, but they can change gradually. There were many people like this at Vulture Peak, at the Lotus Dharma-assembly.
So, this was another type among the heavenly beings and humans who all came to see the supremely honored one. Why were they there? To listen to the Dharma. When we listen to the Dharma we must make vows. “I vow to deliver countless sentient beings. I vow to eliminate endless afflictions. I vow to learn infinite Dharma-doors. I vow to attain unsurpassed Buddhahood.” These are the Four Great Vows. This is the greatest purpose in coming to listen to the Dharma.
The Four Great Vows: We vow to deliver, vow to eliminate, vow to learn and vow to attain. These are the Four Great Vows made by Bodhisattvas. All practitioners of the Great Vehicle should keep these in mind and put them into practice.
The Buddha hoped everyone would come and listen to the Dharma. After they established faith, they needed to make great vows. So, there is faith, vows and practice. We must give rise to faith. At the same time, we must make vows. After making vows, we must put them into practice. People who do this are called Bodhisattvas. These are people with great capabilities. After accepting the Buddha-Dharma, their faith is established; they have faith in themselves and are willing to make these great vows.
So, these are the vows Bodhisattvas make. “All practitioners of the Great Vehicle should keep these in mind.” If we are practitioners of the Great Vehicle, we must diligently advance. We need to have these vows and [the Four Infinite Minds]; we must always keep them in our hearts.
So, “All you heavenly beings and humans must single-mindedly and attentively listen.” Thus, He said, “All you heavenly beings and humans should come together with one mind and listen attentively to what I have to say. He called on heavenly beings, humans and others to come to listen to the Dharma.”
This included everyone in the assembly, and not only those in the Buddha’s lifetime. Even sentient beings of the future should also be included in this. So, we “should come together with one mind.” All sentient beings should come together with one mind. Everyone’s mind should be the same should be equal; at the same time, everyone needs to accept the same Dharma, which is the One Vehicle Dharma. So, with a common intent to attain Buddhahood, they should come to listen to the Dharma.
Thus, “Listen attentively to what I have to say.” This was what the Buddha said, “Come, all of you listen with a single mind to hear what I have to say.” This was the Buddha speaking “He called on heavenly beings, humans and others to come to listen to the Dharma.” This was Him calling everyone to come together and listen to the Dharma with the same faith.
So, “You should all come here to observe the supremely honored one. It is rare to meet a Buddha in the world and rare to hear the True Dharma.” If they were fortunate enough to live in a time when they could directly encounter a Buddha, then they should cherish their good fortune.
“Everyone should come at once to this assembly to see the Buddha.” This was what the Buddha said to them. For a Buddha to come to this world and to manifest as a human in this world is something very rare. Countless kalpas must pass before a Buddha can appear in this world. So, the Buddha encouraged everyone to come at once to this assembly to see the Buddha and listen to the Buddha teach the Dharma.
The Buddha again said, “I am the World-Honored One; none can equal me.” In order to strengthen everyone’s faith, and by way of self-introduction, the Buddha said, “I am the World-Honored One; none can equal me.” He had awakened to the true principles of all things in the universe. He thoroughly understood all things. So, “I am honored in all worlds. Of all other sages apart from me, none can equal me.”
All others in the Ten Dharma-realms are sentient beings except for the Buddha. How could they compare to the Buddha? Not even the Bodhisattvas had reached perfect and complete virtue. Their blessings and virtues were not yet perfect. So, the Buddha said that no one else was His equal. Although everyone intrinsically has Buddha-nature, we remain unenlightened beings. So, we must engage practice at once to quickly accept the Dharma that we are missing. Then we can be perfect and complete in the Dharma and perfect and complete in our virtues.
Thus, the Buddha appeared in the world to “bring peace and stability to sentient beings. I have appeared in the world.” The Buddha came to the world to bring peace and stability to sentient beings. This was why He appeared in the world. It says, “Bodhisattvas enter the world for the sake of sentient beings who create all kinds of deluded karma and are thus oppressed by the suffering of samsara and will sink into the evil destinies.” “Bodhisattvas thus open and reveal many teachings, eliminating everything unwholesome and guiding beings to virtuous places, thus enabling sentient beings’ minds to attain peace and stability.”
This is talking about Bodhisattvas. The Buddha continually taught Bodhisattvas to go among the people without delay. Why did He do this? Because sentient beings create all kinds of deluded karma. “Deluded” refers to ignorance. With the karma of ignorance, “They are oppressed by the suffering of samsara.” Because sentient beings create much deluded karma, their karma brings them to be reborn in the world. The more the world becomes and evil world of Five Turbidities, the more suffering there is. Therefore, there is more and more oppressive suffering.
So, besides the Buddha Himself manifesting in response to the world, what He needed even more was for Bodhisattvas to form aspirations and make vows to go among the people. So, “Bodhisattvas thus open and reveal many teachings.” If Bodhisattvas can go among people and respond to sentient beings’ capabilities and the afflictions of their spirit, if there are people with aspirations like this, who can go among people and use various methods to guide ignorant sentient beings, then they can “eliminate everything unwholesome.” So, we often say that to purify people’s minds, we must earnestly pass on the Dharma. Only in this way can people’s minds be purified. To purify means to eliminate unwholesomeness. Eliminating unwholesomeness means eliminating evil thoughts. It means turning evil thoughts into wholesome ones. This is “eliminating everything unwholesome and guide beings to virtuous places, helping people know they should do good deeds and bring them to a place with other good people to do good deeds together.
This is why we need Bodhisattvas, to help the Buddha transform sentient beings, “thus enabling sentient beings minds to attain peace and stability.” In times like these, it is difficult for sentient beings’ minds to attain peace and stability. Therefore, in this evil world of Five Turbidities, we are in even greater need of the Buddha-Dharma.
Because people’s minds have become dried out, it is easy for them to become angry. As soon as they get angry, ignorance arises, and then they cannot suppress it. Like sparks starting a prairie fire, with just a little bit of ignorance, if things around us do not go as we wish, we take this into our hearts as afflictions. These afflictions again incite ignorance. This ignorance is then spread in the world and results in suffering for the world.
Chi Hui narrated his [recent] experiences with the many refugees from Syria who have fled to Jordan. There were many seriously wounded people in the refugee camps. There were the miserable conditions he had seen; it was like a living hell. [Syria] was originally a very [well-off] country, but due to just an eruption of ignorance, an entire country has been smashed to pieces. This is the era of the evil world of Five Turbidities. How can the Dharma-rain universally moisten us, so we sentient beings can eliminate the turbidity of our ignorance and afflictions? Only the Buddha-Dharma can purify people’s hearts. So, we must always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV – Wisdom at Dawn program – Explanation by Master Chen-Yen)
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