Explanations by Master Cheng-Yan
Subject: Realize the Four Noble Truths, Diligently Cultivate Blessings and Virtues (了悟四諦 勤修福德)
Date: July. 12, 2013
All causes and conditions related to our practice depend on our own inherent blessings and virtues. By planting roots of goodness in the fields of blessings, when the causes and conditions ripen, we will fulfill our vow to seek liberation from Samsara through the supreme Dharma.
I also want to share with everyone [the passage] we have previously mentioned,
“Their clear voices, profound and wondrous, fill those who hear with joy. Within Their own worlds, each proclaims the Right Dharma.”
This means when the Buddha expounds Dharma in this world, He uses His voice. The Buddha-Dharma must be obtained by listening to the teachings. There has to be someone who speaks and someone who listens, and they must have karmic causes and conditions between them. When the Buddha expounds the Right Dharma, He has to use various causes and conditions to teach according to sentient beings’ capabilities. The Buddha’s compassion is the cause; sentient beings’ needs are the conditions. So, when we start to learn the Buddha’s Way, we need to pay attention to causes and conditions. To have the cause, we must first learn to have great compassion. Then we can exercise our wisdom and respond to the conditions of sentient beings. So, only with wisdom can we teach according to capabilities. A person with suitable capabilities has inherent blessings and virtues. With the karmic causes of blessings and virtues, they awaken immediately upon finding the Dharma. That is a person who has cultivated blessings. However, cultivating and accumulating blessings and virtues take long periods of time. It is not the work of only one lifetime. We cannot cultivate enough blessings and virtues in just a short period of time; they must be accumulated. We cultivate blessings by giving continuously. By practicing to give and creating blessings, we are cultivating wisdom, and wisdom is virtue, hence “blessings and virtues”. When we give, are there will discursive and scattered thoughts in our minds? When we give, if we seek to obtain merits, or hope to obtain other people’s approval, these are discursive thoughts, which we bring to the cultivation of blessings. If we do so, we gain blessings without virtue. Because we have these discursive thoughts, we lack wisdom and Samadhi. So when we give without discursive thoughts, we gain virtues at the same time. Thus, we gain blessings and virtues.
We must keep planting roots of wisdom in our field of blessings and constantly cultivate them. This cannot only be done once. This field must be cultivated constantly. Besides creating blessings, we should deepen the roots of wisdom. This is the wisdom-root in the field of blessings. I often remind everyone to give unconditionally. Not only that, we also need to feel gratitude. This is the wisdom-root. To give without asking anything in return grows the wisdom-root in the field of blessings. This is cultivating blessings and wisdom.
We need to do this constantly for a very long period of time, until cause and conditions ripen.Remember that the cause is compassion and the conditions are sentient being’s need s and interest.We should be compassionate and interested in continuously giving.
We must nurture this habit.Interests and needs are not only about wanting or pursuing things.We can also be interested in giving.So, we must have the causes and conditions of blessings and virtues.
The Buddha, in His compassion, keeps returning to this Saha World.He possesses loving-kindness and compassion in His heart.This was His original intent, which he is now freely carrying out.He cannot bear to let sentient beings suffer.He hopes all beings can be freed of suffering and can return to their intrinsic Buddha-nature.This is the wondrous Dharma in the Buddha’s mind, which He wanted to teach to all sentient beings.Everyone of us must first have an interest and take joy in the Buddha-Dharma.
In order to do so, our minds must be purified; only then can we accept the great Dharma.
So, the cause of the Buddha and the conditions of sentient beings must be present.
Thus, the Buddha said He used various causes and conditions as analogies, all to clearly illuminate the Buddha-Dharma.Since we sentient beings want to learn the Buddha’s Way, we need to quickly vow to seek the supreme Dharma of liberation from Samsara.As Buddhist practitioners, we seek neither heavenly blessings nor worldly blessings when we give and dedicate ourselves.Not at all.
From the Buddha’s teachings, we are really learning to return to our intrinsic nature.
Please truly be mindful of this.When we listen to the teachings, we understand to “do nothing that is evil, do all that is good”.While “doing nothing that is evil,” we must not give rise to afflictions.Only then are we truly pure and can eliminate ignorance and refrain from evil deeds.This is a stage we need to reach.When we “do all that is good,” we truly must have no expectations.Only then can we be very pure.Only this can be called the True Dharma.
In the past, the Buddha taught the Agama Sutra.Skillful means are still used to encourage people to do good and avoid evil.The Buddha also taught, “When you do evil you will receive retributions” everyone became afraid and dared not do it.But now He says, “Do no evil, and do not give rise to afflictions,” which is different.Only by doing good deeds without expectations can we end the cycle of life and death and truly realize the state of the Buddha.
Then, although we come and go in this world, our minds can remain pure and tranquil.
No matter how defiled or turbid the world is, we can come to the world and remain calm, upholding our mission and following the path.Our will to practice will not be tainted by worldly corruption and turbidity.Then, we can come and go freely and end the cycle of life and death.This is the spiritual state of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.We must be mindful when listening to the sutras.Otherwise, how is the Lotus Sutra different from other sutras in the past?The differences are being defiled and having expectations compared to beings undefiled and having no expectations.These are very different.
When we are defiled, we interpret the law of Karka as doing good to obtain heavenly blessings.This is an expectation and still [creates] karmic retribution.Having no expectations, we remain undefiled by the world’s turbidities.Thus, we can reach the pure state of the Buddha. Everyone must be very mindful.
Next, “For people who have encountered suffering, and detest aging, illness and death, [all Buddhas] speak to them of Nirvana, the end of all suffering”.
This passage says that the Buddha expounded the Four Noble Truths for Hearers. Since the Buddha first began teaching, He was already adapting to all beings' conditions. Everyone knows that five bhiksus, including Ajnata Kaundinya, followed the Buddha into spiritual practice. They did so conditionally and did not know the cause of suffering. Therefore, they could not end their suffering. So after the Buddha attained enlightenment, He wanted to transform these five people first. Thus, the first turning of the Dharma- wheel was to talk about the principles of suffering. This was the True Dharma. However, when He began to teach about suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the path thereto, these five people had very different capabilities. The first to awaken was Ajnata Kaundinya.He understood the Buddha's teachings on the truth of worldly sufferings, that it is caused by the accumulation of causes and conditions.
With every thought, every word, every action, every convergence of causes and conditions in our relationships, all kinds of karma is created. This karma keeps accumulating. This is the karmic law of cause and effect.
Since we understand this law, what should we do? We must seek the principle of ending suffering. How can we end suffering? How can we end the resentments, enmities and afflictive emotions in people's relationships? We must follow the [Eightfold Right] Path. How do we walk on this path? By walking on this path, we can reach a state of safety and understanding. We can unlock our wisdom and comprehension.
We need to walk on this path and reach the end safely and smoothly. This is the Bodhi-path, the path of enlightenment. By taking this path of enlightenment, we can progress diligently. Once we gain this understanding, we will not form more negative affinities. How do we bear our past negative affinities? We need to face [retributions] to eliminate them, then move ahead without creating bad affinities.
This way, we can understand the Four Noble Truths. Ajnata Kaundinya understood, but what about the others? They only had a partial understanding; they were still unclear. After the second turning [of the Dharma- wheel] there were still people who did not understand, hence, a third turning. For these five people, the Buddha expounded the Four Noble Truths three times. This was the Three Turnings of the Dharma- wheel. He had to explain three times for five people. Therefore, we can see that the conditions sentient beings are interested in, which is what they are seeking in their hearts, all varied greatly. Moreover, there are so many beings in the world. The Buddha expounded the Agama Sutra with the skillful means of various analogies. If we realize that He had to turn the Dharma- wheel of the Four Noble Truths three times for five people, we can imagine the number of times needed for the vast number of people He wanted to teach. Surely, He had to use various worldly phenomena as analogies. For instance, the Buddha talked about a woman and her sick young child. After he could not get medical help and died, she brought the child to the Buddha and begged, “What can I do to bring my child back to life?” The Buddha answered, “Quickly go look for a household where no one has died and ask them for mustard seeds”.
Mustard seeds were very common in India, so this mother thought that they would be easy to find. For a whole day, she went door to door to beg. Every household had mustard seeds. She than asked, “Has anyone in your family ever died?”“Our ancestors, our parents and grandparents have passed away. How could we not have had anyone die?”
“That is impossible.” So after a full day, she still had not obtain mustard seeds from any household. When she went back to the Buddha she was extremely tired. She said, “Every household had mustard seeds but all have had family members die.”The Buddha then asked, “ How old were the ones who died?”“I found that elders were not the only ones who passed away; younger family members did as well.”
The Buddha said, “That is correct, Death does not discriminate based on age.It is a law of nature. We do not have control over life and death. It happened naturally. This is life, which is suffering.”
This woman become awakened.Her mind and spirit were liberated.In the future when someone else suffered, the Buddha related other stories. This is also Dharma. In various conditions, different analogies are used according to sentient beings capabilities. So, the Buddha taught accordingly. Out of His compassion, He taught according to sentient beings capabilities.
So, “for people who have encountered suffering, and detest aging, illness and death, [all Buddhas] speak to them of Nivana, the end of all suffering.”
So, the teachings of the Four Noble Truths must be used to guide them so they can understand that life is suffering. After knowing this, we must detest suffering.
People often ask, “Why is life like this?” in this world, we see so many people suffer from parting with their love ones, as well as birth, aging, illness and death. No matter how someone lives, they cannot escape the Eight Sufferings. With relationships and relatives come suffering, not to mention the other [types of suffering]. With just relationships and relatives, there is already much suffering. How do we end suffering? If we can stop giving rise to afflictions of greed, anger and ignorance, we can reach the state of Nirvana.
So, the Buddha says that only by transcending our environment can our minds be pure. This is the goal of our spiritual practice, to reach a state beyond creation and destruction. We just spoke of this earlier. The Buddha came and went in this world, but His Buddha-nature cannot be created or destroyed. Though He manifests in this world, in this evil world of Five Turbidities, His mind still remains pure and tranquil. It is not affected nor defiled by the world’s turbidities. His goal is to bring relief to suffering sentient beings but everyone should remember the ways to guide sentient beings’ needs.
[Before He said,] “If you do good you will be reborn in heaven or in wealth and luxury in the human realm. Now He talks about walking the Bodhisattvas-path without any attachments and with a pure heart, this is where the difference lies. Everyone, please mindfully contemplate the essence of this Dharma. So everyone, please always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV - Wisdom at Dawn program – Explanation by Master Chen-Yen)
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