Explanations by Master Cheng-Yan
Subject: The Tathagata’s Views are Like a Perfect Mirror (如來之見如大圓鏡)
Date: December.19. 2016
“If one thinks back to the times and happenings of the past few decades, they would be as clear as something right in front of one’s eyes. They can be remembered and recalled. The mind-nature across and throughout many lifetimes can be brought into our present thoughts. Yet ordinary people are sealed within a husk of ignorance, unable to see the Path.”
In life, [everything we experience] comes from our mind-nature. When we learn the Buddha’s teachings, we say that we are learning the teachings, but it would be better to say that it is the mind that learns the Buddha’s teachings. Only when our minds are willing to accept the Buddha-Dharma will the Buddha-Dharma be able to enter our minds. Otherwise, after we pass our life as we have, when this lifetime has passed, will that be the end of it? No, it will not.
People will say, “That’s right! This is not all there is. I believe in future lifetimes. I believe we have past lifetimes, this present lifetime and future lifetimes.” However, just in our daily lives, dealing with people, matters and objects is already difficult enough. How could we ever hope to understand our past and our future? We do not even know what will happen with things in the next few seconds! We do not know even if we will still be safe in the next second. We do not know at all. How could we possibly know the past or future? Nevertheless, we must always try to be mindful.
As we live in this present lifetime, if we make an effort and think back for a moment, we can recall the past. As long as something happened within the past several decades in our present lifetimes, it should still remain fresh in our memories. “[It] would be as clear as something right in front of one’s eyes.”
If we think back on the past, “[It] can be remembered and recalled.” It appears clearly before our eyes; it should come back very quickly to us. What is it that enables us to so quickly recall a state of mind we had several decades, or several years earlier?
What power allows us to do this? This is the mind-nature. Our memory, when we search it, can recall times from the past to the present. As for space, our environment, where did we live? Where did we come from? We can traverse time and space to recall these. We can look throughout time at the past, or across space to different places.
Like this, we go “across and throughout many lifetimes.” We are not simply trying to remember things happening in this present lifetime. What we are also looking back on are times much further back in the past. Just what were our causes and conditions? How long have these causes been accumulating? This is what it means to go “across and throughout [many lifetimes],” to look far back into the past, to times from the past into the present.
How long has it been? How many lifetimes, how many eras have we lived through? How many lifetimes have we continuously experienced? Now, we do not remember how anything was in the past. If we can return to our original nature, return to our pure intrinsic nature, we will gradually come to understand the karmic law of cause and effect.
I do not know if you have heard of the 18 Hells and of King Yama’s palace. The Black and White Ghosts of Impermanence escort people before Yama, the king of hell, where he asks them, “How many evil deeds and how many good deeds have you done in your life?”
Everyone wants to justify themselves by saying, “I never did any evil, and I have done a fair amount of good.”
However, in front of King Yama is a special mirror.In that mirror, images of your life, your past and everything you have ever done will appear like this one after another.
No matter how you argue with him, the evidence will be there before you.This means that all of the causes and conditions that we create [eventually] come to fruition.None of these seeds, even the smallest, are ever lost.
All are stored in the storehouse consciousness in our eighth consciousness.
Already, many afflictions and ignorance, as well as all of the evil we have ever done, are all stored in there.
If we do not engage in spiritual practice now, we will fundamentally never be able to see into our storehouse consciousness, in which are stored the many causes and conditions from past lifetimes that cause us to arrive in the world.In these circumstances beyond our control, we accumulate so much suffering.
In the history of Tzu Chi, in the Tzu Chi sutra treasury, countless tales of suffering are clearly recorded.Even with story after story, human suffering is impossible to describe!
Just take for instance one case in Chiay!A family there had accumulated so much garbage, so many filthy and dirty things, that as soon as one reached the door and stepped inside, the smell was so bad it was overwhelming!
The house belonged to two brothers, the care recipient and his younger brother, who both lived inside.The care recipient was mentally challenged, and it was impossible for him to work.The younger brother still had the ability to work, so he worked odd jobs for others.
Furthermore, the care recipient’s wife was also severely mentally challenged.They had three daughters and one son, and of those three daughters, only the second daughter was mentally normal.So, five of those in this family were all mentally challenged.
When we took the case, naturally our first thought was to clean their house for them, but the younger brother continually refused.
We eventually went through the village head, who managed to open up communications with him.After much difficulty, he talked the care recipient’s younger brother into finally becoming willing to accept our help in cleaning out their house.
So, we mobilized more than 60 Faith Corp members.When they saw the toilet, they wondered how anyone could have lived there.
As they cleaned, they all kept wondering, “How could anyone possibly live in conditions like these?”
So, they carefully taught the family [to clean].
“Come! Come help us clean!”When those who were cleaning in other rooms began moving the beds, they found nothing but trash under them.There were also many cockroaches and rats.You could hear the startled cries of volunteers.That family suffering was unbearable.
To clear out all those things, it took six loads with a garbage truck.After everything had been cleared out, then the real cleaning began.They scrubbed, cleaned and swept from the ceiling to the walls to the floor, until everything shone like a mirror.There had even been tile underneath after all!After the tilework had been cleaned and polished, everything became bright and shiny.
The Tzu Chi volunteers then took refurbished beds from the recycling station and brought them there for them to use and arranged everything nicely for them.After refurnishing the place with recycled goods, it made for a very comfortable home.See, this is how the world is.These are “ordinary people who are sealed within a husk of ignorance, unable to see the Path.”
Think about it; if the home of our mind the house in our minds, is like that house, then how will “our mind-nature” ever be “brought across and throughout lifetimes and into our present thoughts”?
This would be impossible. If we were to totally clear out all these things so that the home of our mind became totally clean, then our original nature would instantaneously reveal itself in our thoughts. You should all understand this analogy. By sweeping clean all ignorance and afflictions, our mind-nature naturally becomes pure, and our original nature of True Suchness manifests. This can all happen in a single thought. What a pity that with one thought of ignorance, life after life we continue to transmigrate as unenlightened beings. We are sealed within our own husks of ignorance. We cannot see the Path. We do not even know how to walk the path that is ahead of us walk the path that is ahead of us. So, we must put our effort into being mindful. This lifetime we have now is precious, as are these conditions that enable us to listen to the Dharma together. So, we should make good use of this opportunity, make good use of every moment of every day. We must cultivate contemplation and always abide in the Dharma, never allowing it to leak away. Furthermore, in this way, with the Buddha-Dharma as our guide we can understand the distant past through an analogy. This should not be difficult. If we can eliminate the filth of afflictions and ignorance, then naturally we will gradually come to understand this principle.
The road should be right in front of us. We just need to not let the husk of ignorance seal us up. Once we break it open, we see the road has been right in front of us. So, we must work hard and always be mindful.
The previous passage states, “Fellow bhiksus, suppose this person takes all the lands he has passed through, whether inked or not, and grinds them into dust, and one particle of dust represents one kalpa. The time since that Buddha entered Parinirvana is greater than that number by countless and boundless billions and trillions of asankyas of kalpas”.
This is a very long time ago, a very long time in the past! If he uses the ink to mark a spot, then crosses 1000 lands before marking another small spot, the lands he will pass will be many indeed. Whether marked by a drop of ink or not, if these thousands of lands he passed through were all taken together and ground into powder, were ground into dust, then imagine the time that this [represents]; it would be immeasurable indeed! It would be countless and boundless billions and trillions of asankyas of kalpas, a very long time. There is no analogy for this exact number.
The next passage continues on to say, “I, with the power of the Tathagata’s understanding and views, observe those things long ago and far away as if they are here today. At that time the World-Honored One, wishing to restate His meaning, spoke this verse”.
Sakyamuni Buddha said, “I, with the power of the Tathagata’s understanding and views…”. By using the pure awakened wisdom of undefiled True Suchness to view things that happened long ago in the past, to view the causes and conditions back then, He could see them as if viewing things today, very clearly.
This is what the Buddha told us. He verified things that happened so long ago. He had already encountered countless Buddhas as He sought the Dharma while transforming others.
So, “At that time the World-Honored One, wishing to restate His meaning, “spoke this verse”.
“‘I, with the power of the Tathagata’s understanding and view…’”. This is His mind-consciousness; mind-consciousness is “understanding”. Eye-consciousness is called “views”. “This is the power of the understanding and views that the Buddha Himself had realized”. This shows what the Tathagata is able to see with His wisdom.
This is saying that when our minds and our eyes observe external states, what arises care called understanding and views.
The Buddha used the “understanding and views [He] Himself realized”. These are not the understanding and views of we ordinary people, but the understanding and views of one who has already become awakened. We unenlightened beings only reach our eighth consciousness. Karmic seeds all go to the eighth consciousness.
However, the Buddha transcended the eighth to reach the ninth consciousness; these are the understanding and views of a Buddha. “This is the power of the understanding and views that the Buddha Himself had realized”. This shows what the Tathagata, through His wisdom, is able to see. With his Buddha-wisdom, He transcends what ordinary people [can see]; this is what the Buddha-wisdom of awakened nature is able to see.
“The power of [His] understanding and views: This is the Tathagata’s great perfect mirror wisdom. The Buddha’s wisdom is extremely profound. In the ocean of ksetras from the past until now, He can equally reveal all”.
The wisdom of the Buddha is profound. From the past until now, it has been such a long period of time. A ksetra is a realm. He passed through so many realms, through lifetime after lifetime of realms, so many that they were like a great ocean. Yet He could reveal them all in a single thought.
He could [reveal] absolutely everything as [clearly] as if it was happening today. This is like how our mind-nature manifests. When Buddha-wisdom manifests, when pure enlightened wisdom manifests, we can understand things from the past to present as if they were things happening today.
The principle is the same; we will understand them quite clearly. Ordinary people, after a while, may say, “Oh, why don’t I have any impression of that? I don’t remember that.” But the Buddha’s memory is transcendent. With that kind of perspective, He can remember back many, many lifetimes, can still recall incalculable numbers of things and causes and conditions.
This is just like “great perfect mirror wisdom. It clearly reflects all phenomena, thus there is nothing He does not know. This refers to the perfect and enlightening wisdom that all Buddhas intrinsically possess. It responds to all matters but leaves no trace. [As it is] non-ceasing and non-arising, it neither moves nor changes. It is the everlasting fruition.”
The mirror can reflect these things, but if they are moved away from the mirror, they will no longer be reflected in it at all. This mirror is forever undefiled, pure and without afflictions. This is great perfect mirror wisdom. This mirror is everlasting; it is the nature of True Suchness. So, “[As it is] non-ceasing and non-arising, it neither moves nor changes. It is the everlasting fruition.”
This is something all of us possess, but right now, we are still practicing in the causal ground. The Buddha has already attained Buddhahood, and that fruition is everlasting. His mirror, with that fruition, had become so completely clear. This has already manifested. It has been polished [through spiritual practice].
This is just like that house where so many people polished and swept. As a result, it began to shine.
In the same way, He “observes those things long ago and far away as if they are here today.”
[I] observe those things long ago and far away as if they are here today: He observes the past as if it is today. The Buddha had the power of knowing past lives. One thought can reach 10,000 years; one thought arises in an instant.
The mirror of the Tathagata’s mind is like this. Although it reflects both good and evil, in regard to good and evil, the Buddha can distinguish everything every clearly. So, He came to the world to teach the Dharma to sentient beings, to let us know that suffering comes from creating so many negative causes that result in negative retributions, in facing negative effects.
The Buddha had to know of these evil things, while also teaching us how to do good. These were the Buddha’s understanding and views.
“He observe those things long ago and far away as if they are here today.” Now everything is understood. Things of the past have become perfectly clear. So, “He observes the past as if it is today.”
When thinking of past things, they are as clear as if right in front of Him. This is Buddha-wisdom “the Buddha’s power of knowing past live.” He can remember so far back that He can go. In a thought, He can go back 10,000years. Not only could He go back 10,000 years, He could go back countless kalpas in the past. This is an instant, in the span of a thought He could go back countless kalpas, countless thousands of years, all in the space of a single thought.
This shows that the Tathagata’s “Three Understandings can illuminate from afar. He revealed these past happenings He mentioned clearly and unmistakably. Next He spoke of the causes and conditions of previous lives.”
The Three Understandings are the Three Insights, insight of the heavenly eye, into previous lives and into the ending of all Leaks. In a Buddha, these three are called the Three Understandings. He thoroughly understood that the “Three Understandings can illuminate from afar. He revealed these past happenings He mentioned. He revealed past causes and conditions, revealed past events, clearly and unmistakably. Next He spoke of the causes and conditions of previous lives.”
These were causes and conditions far in the past, and the Buddha gradually taught them now. So, in the Buddha’s mind He thoroughly understood the past.
With so many principles, for the sake of the profound Dharma and meaning, “At that time the World-Honored One, wishing to restate His meaning,” continued on in verse.
Dear Bodhisattvas, we must be meticulous and mindful as we learn the Buddha’s teachings. When we use our minds clearly, the Dharma will manifest clearly before us. So, let us always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV – Wisdom at Dawn program – Explanation by Master Chen-Yen)
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