Explanations by Master Cheng-Yan
Subject: Reaching the Fruit of Enlightenment from the Seed (從因來果成正覺)
Date: December.12. 2016
“He journeys on the path of True Suchness and, from the seed, comes to the fruit of achieving perfect enlightenment. As One Worthy of Offerings, He benefits sentient beings. His Three Kinds of Wisdom are perfect in their wondrousness. He is the Completely Awakened One, with wisdom as deep as the ocean. With the insights of past lives, the heavenly eye and ending all Leaks, He is Perfect in Wisdom and Action, and His Threefold Karma is pure. He has perfected myriad practices and is replete with blessings and wisdom.”
We begin again with the Chapter on the Parable of the Conjured City, where Sakyamuni Buddha began to relate the causes and conditions that led to His attainment of Buddhahood, how all Buddhas share the same path and how every Buddha is endowed with ten epithets. The ten epithets represent the ten virtues the Buddha is replete with.
Every Buddha has accomplished these, and if we are to attain Buddhahood in the future, we too must be replete with all of these virtues and these epithets. This is the process of spiritual practice. To attain the fruit from the seed of spiritual practice, we must journey on the path of the Tathagata.
Everyone intrinsically possesses Buddha-nature. Everyone has the nature of True Suchness. Just how do we attain Buddhahood? We must awaken our nature of True Suchness. Our nature True Suchness is the pure and undefiled true principles. So, by journeying upon this true principle, from the seed we come to the fruit. In the course of our spiritual practice, how do we practice? If we practice the Small Vehicle, we attain the fruit of the Hearers. If we practice the Middle Vehicle, we attain the fruit of Solitary Realizers. So, what we should practice is the Bodhisattva-practice. We must cultivate the Bodhisattva-seeds to attain the Bodhisattva-fruits.
What is the ultimate result of cultivating the Bodhisattva-path? Being a Bodhisattva is the seed; attaining Buddhahood is the fruit. So, the process of cultivating the Bodhisattva-seed results in perfect enlightenment. “He journeys on the path of Tathagata and, from the seed, comes to the fruit of achieving perfect enlightenment.” He has attained Buddhahood.
Having attained perfect enlightenment, He became One Worthy of Offerings, one worthy of the world’s offerings. This is in order to benefit sentient beings. By His drawing near to sentient beings, they could make offerings to the Buddha, offerings of reverence and offerings of conduct. When respect arises in sentient beings, they can accept the Dharma, and put the teachings into practice. This is how He benefits sentient beings.
“His Three Kinds of Wisdom are perfect in their wondrousness.” By listening to the Buddha-Dharma, we can attain wisdom of all Dharma, wisdom of enlightenment, as well as all-encompassing wisdom. These Three Kinds of Wisdom are perfect. In the Chapter on Skillful Means we thoroughly explained each of these Three Kinds of Wisdom. This means that to attain Buddhahood, while planting causes on the Bodhisattva-path, we must go among the myriads of sentient beings and create blessings. Among sentient beings, we can comprehend the law of karma, comprehend the Four Noble Truths and countless other principles like these. This all comes from practicing the Bodhisattva-path. This is how our Three Kinds of Wisdom can become perfect in their wondrousness. Even the most subtle principles become clear. A Completely Awakened One has wisdom, wisdom as deep as the ocean. When we become Completely Awakened Ones, our Three Insights and Six Spiritual Powers will naturally be unlocked, our wisdom will be like an ocean. This requires us to continually cultivate causes. Through sentient beings, we cultivate until we attain the thorough understanding of the insights of the heavenly eye, the ending of all Leaks, previous lives and so on, these very subtle [insights]. This is the course of spiritual practice.
Next is Perfect in Wisdom and Action. To be Perfect in Wisdom and Action, we must purify our Threefold Karma.
Wisdom and action means we must always be very clear and our understanding must be complete. Perfecting all of this begins with us purifying our Threefold Karma, our Threefold Karma of body, speech and mind. At the same time, by “perfecting myriad practices” we become “replete with blessings and wisdom.”
In our practice, when interacting with others the speech that we use must serve to educate, serve to purify people’s minds, serve to inspire them to transform delusion into awakening. In our speech, everything we say should be Dharma to teach and transform sentient beings.
In our actions, all that we do should serve to benefit others. Whenever we go among people, all that we do should serve to benefit the world.
In our minds, in our thoughts, we should constantly eliminate afflictions; every thought we give rise to should benefit other sentient beings. Then we are replete with myriad practices. We must continue to come back to the world, lifetime after lifetime, making our bodies and minds completely pure and free of defilements. This is the process of spiritual practice, journeying upon the path of Tathagata from the seed until the fruit, until attaining perfect enlightenment. This is how we should practice.
I hope that as we all follow the process of coming to the fruit from the seed, we will attain these virtues and thus the epithets. This is what we must clearly understand. So, the beginning of the Chapter on the Parable of the Conjured City starts by introducing the story of Great Unhindered Wisdom Superior Buddha. So, the Buddha, in the previous passage, was talking about this.
“The Buddha told the many bhiksus that immeasurable, boundless, inconceivable asankyas of kalpas in the past…” This is a boundless, immeasurable [amount of time]. We spoke about this before. It was 3000 dust-inked kalpas ago. Just how long is this? It is impossible for us to understand.
So, it is said to be “inconceivable asankyas of kalpas in the past.” This is a very long time. “There was once a Buddha with the name. Great Unhindered Wisdom Superior Tathagata.” He journeyed on the path of True Suchness from the seed until the fruit, reaching perfect enlightenment. This happened very long ago in the past. It was an incalculably long time ago; this continued until He attained Buddhahood.
“One Worthy of Offerings” means this Tathagata was replete [with all epithets]. “One Worthy of Offerings, Completely Awakened One, One Perfect in Wisdom and Action, Well-Gone One, Knower of the World, Unsurpassed Guide, Tamer, Teacher of Heavenly Beings and Humans and Buddha, the World-Honored One.”
He is One Worthy of Offerings because He wants to benefit all sentient beings; the Buddha would draw near sentient beings in order to give them the opportunity to realize the principles of the Buddha-Dharma. So, to become One Worthy of Offerings, we cannot merely benefit sentient beings. In order to benefit sentient beings, we must also put in hard work on ourselves. What is the work we must put in? Eliminating all evil. As we engage in spiritual practice, we must eliminate all evil.
We eliminate all evil and practice all theta is good. This sounds very simple. But when it comes to evil, there are both great and small evils. There are some so small they cannot be seen. Truly, in the thoughts we give rise to, there are still subtle afflictions. We only think of benefiting ourselves; not only do we not benefit others, we may even cause them harm. Although we cannot see these subtle thoughts, these afflictions are also evil.
These subtle evils in our thinking must all be eliminated. So it says, “He has eliminated all evil.” We must engage in spiritual practice until our minds become so clean that we are worthy of receiving the offerings of humans and heavenly beings. If we can eliminate all this evil, we can then be called One Worthy of Offerings. At this time, when our virtues are complete, we are worthy of receiving offerings from both humans and heavenly beings. As for offerings, there are material offerings, offerings of reverence and offerings of conduct. When we reach the level offerings of conduct, this means we have begun spiritual practice, for we are now benefiting sentient beings. This is the true goal of One World of Offerings.
It is when we reach this level that we become worthy of receiving offerings from both humans and heavenly beings.
A “Completely Awakened One is replete with the wisdom of all Dharma. Of all the teachings, there are none He does not understand.” Not only have we ourselves eliminated all evil, but our practice is replete with the wisdom of all Dharma.
Then there will be nothing in all the world that we do not understand. With that kind of wisdom, there are no principles throughout the universe that are not clearly understood. One Perfect in Wisdom and Action. Here, “wisdom” refers to the Three Insights.
One Perfect in Wisdom and Action: Wisdom refers to the Three Insights. Perfect in action refers to His karma of body, speech and mind being truly pure. From the power of His own vows, He is able skillfully cultivate all practices to the point of perfection.
We just spoke of the Three Insights. These are the insight of the heavenly eye, insight into previous lives and insight into ending all Leaks. This means we must universally take all [practices of] goodness into our hearts and express it in all of our actions. Our “karma of body, speech and mind” must be “truly pure.” We must be completely and truly pure. “From the power of [our] own vows,” as we begin to form aspirations and make vows, we “skillfully cultivate all practices.” Over our course of spiritual practice, we cultivate all practices of goodness to the point of perfection.
Next is Well-Gone One. “Well” refers to skillful ability. “Gone” refers to going somewhere else. Being Well-Gone means coming and going freely, leaving the land of delusion and going toward the land of wisdom, the state of noble beings. Thus, “He skillfully leaves the land of delusion and goes toward the land of wisdom.”
This is what it means to be a Well-Gone One, beings able to come and go freely. As unenlightened beings, our comings and goings are beyond our control. This is the meaning of being unenlightened. But on reaching the awakened state of the Buddha, one can respond to the needs of sentient beings by manifesting in the world and transforming people. We can come and go freely, at peace with cyclic existence. This is what it means to be to be the Well-Gone One.
“Knower of the World” means “all worldly and world-transcending phenomena and all phenomena of cause and effect” are understood by Him. This means understanding all things in the world.
“Unsurpassed Guide” means “He has exhausted all karma of delusion, and there is nothing more for Him to eliminate.” All affections and ignorance have already been completely eliminated. Even if He wished to eliminate something else, there is nothing left to eliminate. He was completely pure and undefiled, without the slightest trace of defilement, without the slightest trace of afflictions. This is a tranquil and clear state. So, “There is nothing more for Him to eliminate.” He is already completely pure.
“Tamer” means “The Buddha can tame all people that can be transformed and guide them into cultivating the path.” He can tame all sentient beings. Sentient beings are not only human beings, but all living beings. All living beings have their own habitual natures. An enlightened practitioner understands all of them and can find the right causes and conditions to transform them so none go undelivered. So, one by one they can be “guided into cultivating the path. This is what it means to deliver and transform sentient beings. This is the Tamer.
Next is “Teacher of Heavenly Beings and Humans.” “Heavenly beings and humans in the Six Destinies can all take the Buddha as their teacher.” The means the Buddha teaches sentient beings. He is the “guiding teacher of the Three Realms” and the “kind father of the four kinds of beings.” There are none in the Three Realms who do not take the Buddha as their teacher. In accordance with sentient beings’ capabilities, He transforms them one after another.
“Buddha” means “He is replete with wisdom and has perfected the Three Elements of Enlightenment. Thus He is called the Buddha. The World-Honored One” means “the Buddha possesses all virtues and is thus honored by all the world.” So, He is called the World-Honored One. He is singularly honored in the world.
These are the virtues of the Buddha. It is only because we are in the world that we are able to truly listen to the Dharma. Listening to the Dharma gives us direction. It tells that us we too are equal to the Buddha, that we have the nature of True Suchness. The starting point is for us to know this.
Once we know, we must further act according to the principles. So, journeying on such causes, from the cause, we come to the fruit. This is what we were just saying. This cause, this seed, originates in our hearts. From the seed we come to the fruit. If we continue to comprehend this, then as we come and go among the people, we will never go off track.
In all our behavior, we will never off track. We will continually plant good seeds, for lifetime after lifetime. [We do this] even if, like Great Unhindered Wisdom Superior Buddha’s era, such as a long time has passed. Though the Kalpas may be as many as the dust particles of the great chiliocosm, though such a long time may pass, we continue in our resolution and determination, withstanding the tests of time.
We begin by understanding that we have the intrinsic nature of True Suchness. Then from that very first thought, starting from listening to the Buddha-Dharma, we must stay on this track, cultivating good causes in every lifetime, for lifetime after lifetime. The more good seeds we form in our interactions, the more these conditions accumulate and the closer we will come to attaining Buddhahood. This is called journeying on the path of the Tathagata from seed to fruit.
By continually, incessantly, lifetime after lifetime forming good affinities and attaining the fruits, those fruits will continually turn into causes and those causes will then turn into conditions and those conditions will again turn into fruits. The retribution from these is the attainment of Buddhahood.
On one hand, we keep getting rid of ignorance, while on the other, we keep forming good affinities with others. Through these good affinities, we come to realize the true principles the true principles nurture our wisdom-life. This kind of cycle requires a very long period of time.
So, just “from the seed comes the fruits of achieving perfect enlightenment, thereby returning us to our intrinsic nature of True Suchness, our becoming one with the universe. Nevertheless, we still must return to the world in order to benefit sentient beings. Although we may have thoroughly awakened, there are many sentient beings in the world who are not awakened.
So, we still must be willing to journey on the cause in order to realize the fruit, by responding to the world and by benefiting sentient beings. These are such subtle and wondrous principles! They are truly subtle and wondrous, and by coming and going like this, our understanding of the principles will reach the point where it is perfect and complete; this is so subtle and wondrous.
This is what we are learning, not only “refraining from all evil” and “practicing all that is good.” It is not as simple as that. This is only the start for unenlightened beings. “Refraining from evil and doing all that is good” is the start of learning the Buddha’s teachings. This is our starting point. We know that we have Buddha-nature and that we should engage in spiritual practice. We begin to engage in spiritual practice by “refraining from all evil, doing all that is good. As we continually come and go, come and go, the goodness we are practicing begins to deepen. This is what we should truly try to understand and begin to investigate. One Worthy of Offerings, One Perfect in wisdom and Action, Well Gone One, Knower of the World, Unsurpassed Guide, Tamer, Teacher of Heavenly beings and Humans and Buddha, the World-Honored One.
These words roll off the tongue, yet we should try and understand them. What each of these epithets represents is being replete with all harmonious virtues. Only when our actions are in harmony with all virtues will we be replete with both blessings and wisdom. This is not so easy. So, with this not so easy thing to do, we must continue to advance forward on the path. As long as our minds are resolute and our direction does not deviate, it will not be difficult to go from the seed to the fruit of attaining perfect enlightenment. So, let us always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV – Wisdom at Dawn program – Explanation by Master Chen-Yen)
首頁 
