Explanations by Master Cheng-Yan
Subject: With Clear Views We can Transform Suffering (淨澈明見度六道苦)
Date: October. 24. 2014
“The Buddha’s eyes are pure and see clearly. The Dharma, like water, can cleanse the mind of turbidity. Knowing and seeing that suffering is the destiny of those in the Six Realms, He guides them toward a safe, stable and joyful refuge.”
The Buddha’s eyes are pure; what He sees are the principles of all things in this world and in this universe. Everything is pure and clear to him. What we ordinary people see are simply the superficial appearances of things. We are unable to understand and penetrate the workings of their true, underlying principles. So, we learn the Buddha’s Way to attain the Buddha’s understanding and views.
The Buddha’s “understanding” [encompasses] the true principles of the universe and the truths of life. He understands our cyclic existence of birth and death, but we sentient beings can only understand how much we can attain in our current lifetime. This difference between the understanding of the Buddha and that of sentient beings is so great. Moreover, the true principles seen by the Buddha cannot be seen by us. Hidden within all things in the world are the subtle and intricate principles of matter. However, we ordinary people can only see the appearance of matter. The Buddha understands that “all things that arise have causes.” Why do things in the world happen this way? We only know to ask, “Why is this happening?” The Buddha can say, “This is what caused that to happen.” With His understanding and views, He hopes that all sentient beings can understand what He understands and see the true principles that He sees. This is His hope for sentient beings.
However, sentient beings are foolish and stubborn, therefore He had to use various teachings. Thus, He teaches them the Dharma. So, “The Dharma is like water.” He uses the Dharma like water to cleanse the turbidity from the minds of sentient beings. Therefore, He gave us many teachings to help us find a way to eliminate our ignorance and turbidity. The Buddha, with His understanding and views, can know the density of those in the Six Realms. He “knows and sees that suffering is the destiny of those in the Six Realms.” All Six Realms lead to suffering. Are heavenly beings living happily? After they have depleted their blessings, they will manifest the Five Forms of Decay and once again descend to the human realm, or even the animal or hell realm. These were people who did the most good and were rewarded by being born in heaven.
The strength of their goodness allowed them to enjoy heavenly comforts. However, their blessings will eventually run out. Once their [blessed] karma is depleted, they fall. So this is “knowing and seeing that suffering is the destiny of those in the Six Realms.” Therefore, the Buddha did all He could to teach according to beings’ capabilities and patiently guide these sentient beings. “He guides them toward a safe, stable and joyful refuge.” In this world, He analyzes things for everyone, one by one, so we can have a thorough understanding of the clear distinction between good and evil. If something is good, we need to orient our minds in that direction. He also wanted to tell us what is evil so we can be very vigilant against it. Otherwise, we will fall into the Three Evil Realms and face unbearable suffering.
The following passage in the sutra states, “Sariputra, you should know,with my Buddha-eyes I observe that living beings in the Six Realms are impoverished and lacking blessings and wisdom. They enter the treacherous path of cyclic existence and suffer unremittingly.”
Sariputra was foremost in wisdom among the Buddha’s disciples; this was widely acknowledged.If Sariputra could believe, then everyone else could believe as well.
Thus, the Buddha specifically called to Sariputra.In doing this, He was implying, “Sariputra. We should already believe that the Buddha sees with Buddha-eyes.”
He should know that the Buddha’s eyes and the Buddha’s views and understanding are different from those of ordinary people.Thus, Sariputra was [an example] to let everyone know that since he had come to an understanding of the Buddha’s Buddha-eyes, they should all, like him, be able to realize the Buddha’s view and understandings.
So here, the Buddha says “Sariputra, you should know to indicate that Sariputra should know that He observes everything with His Buddha-eyes.”
The Buddha is endowed with five kinds of eyes: physical eyes, heavenly eyes, wisdom-eyes, Dharma-eyes and Buddha-eyes.
What are the Buddha’s eyes?There are five aspects to His eyes.The first is His physical eyes.The Buddha’s physical eyes are the same as the ones we all have.When the Buddha was born into this world, He was entirely like us and also experienced birth, ageing, illness and death.These are the physical eyes of His body.
1.Physical Eyes:
These are the eyes of ordinary people.
When they encounter confusion and darkness or the obstruction of physical objects, they cannot see or understand.
The Buddha’s physical eyes are the same as those of ordinary people.If night falls, or if something is obstructions the light, He cannot see with His physical eyes either.After the sun sets, the Buddha has to say, “Please light the lamps.”This is how His physical eyes work.
The Buddha’s body and five sense organs work much like ours.Thus, He also experienced birth and aging, With aging comes illness and pain.In conclusion, His body was the same as ours.
Second, the Buddha has eyes that can see more clearly than the eyes of ordinary people, These are His heavenly eyes.
2.Heavenly Eyes:
These are the eyes of heavenly beings.
Near or far, day or night, they can see and understand.
Heavenly eyes are what heavenly beings have.Heavenly eyes can see near or far, day or night.No matter how far away something is, they can see it because of their superior eyesight.Day or night makes no difference.They can see just as well.For them, looking at things at night is the same as looking at things during the day.These are heavenly eyes.The third eyes are His wisdom-eyes.
3.Wisdom-Eyes:
These are the eyes of Hearers.
They attain their views and understanding by seeing through illusory appearances and recognizing true emptiness.
“Wisdom-eyes” are the [eyes of] Hearers.Heareres have already listened to and understood the Buddha’s teachings so they do not see with their [physical] eyes, but with their mind’s eye.The Buddha taught [Heareres] the Buddha-Dharma to help eliminate their confusion and attachments.Once their ignorance and afflictions are gone, their mind’s eye opens.Therefore, wisdom-eyes allow Hearers to see through illusory appearances and recognize true emptiness in their views and understanding.
In the final analysis, all things are empty.This state of mind of Hearers is called having wisdom-eyes.The fourth eyes are Dharma-eyes.
4.Dharma-Eyes:
These are the eyes of Bodhisattvas, which can penetrate the understanding and views of all worldly and world-transcending.
Dharma-paths to absolute truth.
Dharma-eyes are[possessed by] Bodhisattvas.Not only do Bodhisattvas penetrate all illusory appearances in life, they have also attained the understanding and views of all worldly and world-transcending.Because they accepted the Buddha’s teachings and became awakened, they penetrated the world’s principles of the true and the illusory. Not only have they realize true emptiness, that all things are empty and not worthy of attachment, Bodhisattvas have also penetrated wondrous existence. Wondrous existence is the cycle of the karmic law of cause and effect. This “cause” is something we must work to understand. If we cannot understand the “cause”, our minds will constantly become confused and form both good and bad karmic connections. If we create negative affinities everywhere we go, how will we create positive connections? We must try to eliminate negative affinities so that we can create good ones. And only good connections can be the causes that turn evil into goodness.
Bodhisattvas know this: not only do they understand this, they also have the understanding the views of the Dharma-paths to absolute truth. This makes them Bodhisattvas. They walk the Bodhisattva-path so they can approach the Buddha’s state of great understanding and great realization. They follow the Dharma by putting its principles into action.
Seeing suffering, they recognize their blessings, and feel [a desire to help] suffering beings. This makes them Bodhisattvas. They clearly know that the world is suffering, but they are willing, just like Guanyin Bodhisattva, to return to this world on the ship of compassion to transform sentient beings. Because of their Dharma-eyes, they see the suffering of the world, or the suffering of cyclic existence in the Six Realms. This is because of their Dharma-eyes.
The Buddha is endowed with Dharma-eyes. His fifth kind of eyes are the Buddha-eyes. These encompass all of these five kinds of eyes. The Buddha-eyes are the most penetrating and can see the ultimate reality of the universe. These have already penetrated the universe.
Dharma-eyes can [only] penetrate worldly and world-transcending principles, but Buddha-eyes can fully penetrate the ultimate truth of the universe.
“As for world and world-transcending phenomena, there is nothing They do not know, nothing They cannot see. All things are always illuminated. In the Buddha’s eyes”.
Thus the true appearance of all things in the universe and the Six Realms is seen and understood with Buddha-eyes. Therefore, the Buddha’s enlightenment, His perfectly clear and enlightened nature, is like a great clear mirror. All the myriad forms in the world were taken into His enlightened mind at once. This happens with Buddha-eyes. Buddha-eyes can see and understand the principles of all things in the universe at once. Ordinary people are not anywhere close to having Buddha-eyes. So, we must be very mindful. As ordinary people, our physical eyes are poor. Why can’t we see things clearly? Because we are ordinary people. There will be a time when our Six Roots will deteriorate. However, we must put our effort into cultivating heavenly eyes, Dharma-eyes, wisdom-eyes and the Buddha-eyes that the Buddha has. Therefore, we must be mindful.
When we talk about eyes, we are also talking about our minds. Humans and heavenly beings use their eyesight, and as for Hearers and Bodhisattvas, they use the perspective of their minds. Indeed, our perspective is what we can see with our minds, now what we see with our physical eyes. This is what we call our perspective.
Among the five kinds of eyes, Buddha-eyes are the most penetrating. “He observed that living beings in the Six Realms were impoverished, lacking blessing, wisdom”.
In looking at sentient beings of the Six Realms through Buddha-eyes, they seem truly impoverished. I have always said, no matter how much money people have, if having one they feel they lack nine, they will always live in poverty. If they do not create blessings, it does not matter how much money they have. However, ordinary people cannot see this. The Buddha believes that within the Six Realms, even heavenly beings who enjoy pleasure without creating blessings will be among the impoverished. So it is said, “[He] observed that living beings in the Six Realms were impoverished and lacking blessings and wisdom”.
Looking at things from the Buddha’s state, even heavenly beings are far from [being with] blessings and wisdom. Therefore, heavenly beings must take refuge with the Buddha and listen to the Dharma.
“[He] observed that sentient beings in the Six Realms were impoverished and lacking blessings and wisdom: He saw that the Six Realms were the paths of sentient beings who created and then followed their karma. The [Six] Destinies: The Six Realms. The suffering and hardship from poverty are as deep and vast as the ocean. The act of giving is a solid boat that can cross the sea of poverty.”
Therefore, “He saw the Six Realms. We have just spoken about the Six Realms, the heaven human animal, hell, hungry, animal and asura realms. These are all part of the Six Realms. The realm sentient beings transmigrate into is determined by the karma they have created. That is their destiny.
If we create negative causes, then we will suffer greatly in this world. But will this torment end in this world? it will not in one lifetime. Perhaps we may transmigrate into the animal realm or into the hell realm. If we come into this world, face suffering and still do not awaken, we will create karma as we suffer. When this suffering is endlessly multiplied, there is even more suffering. This is the destiny of those in the Six Realms.
With even the weakest causes and conditions, we may encounter a virtuous friend who can transform us.
So, we must always remember to “nurture any goodness that has already arisen. Encourage future goodness to quickly arise. Eliminate any evil that has already arisen. Prevent future evil from arising.”
Think about it, this world is full of poverty and is lacking ethics, blessings and wisdom. So, we must put our hearts into create blessings in this world. Furthermore, we want to create great blessings. We must give unconditionally and without any attachments, according to the Three Spheres of Emptiness. Only with the great love that comes from a broad mind and pure thoughts can we truly create blessings.
The suffering from poverty is deep and expansive. Truly, these difficulties are deep and expansive like the sea. So, the Buddha, to transform suffering beings, built a very durable vessel. As stated in the Sutra of Infinite Meanings, in order to transform sentient beings and deliver them across the sea of afflictions, He must build many kings of vessels. Small vessels, medium vessels and large vessels. Each vessel, regardless of size, must be built to be durable so when it sails across this sea of afflictions, it will not be capsized by a slight wave.
Learning the Dharma is like being on the water. Aboard the ship, we must be very cautious and pull together in times of trouble. As we sail on this ship together, how so we ensure a safe voyage across this boundless sea of afflictions? The more ignorant things we ordinary people do, the stronger the waves of affliction will be. We see the sea growing wider and wider; when will we reach the other side? So, everyone, we must be mindful, and work to calm the sea, then we will quickly see the other side. As long as we are mindful we can take the Dharma to heart and follow the path and course laid out by the Buddha. Only then can we reach a safe, stable and joyful refuge.
So, I always say that doing this work make us feel fortunate. Indeed, we feel happy and fulfilled. It might be hard work, but if we shift our mindset, we feel very happy. When a task is accomplished, we will feel happy. This is called Dharma-joy.
From the viewpoint of the Buddha, sentient beings who live in the Six Realms are truly impoverished. However, let us quickly set aside our greed and quickly point ourselves in the direction of walking the Bodhisattva-path. If we can do this, we will feel very peaceful. Therefore, we must always be mndful.
(Source: Da Ai TV – Wisdom at Dawn program – Explanation by Master Chen-Yen)
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