the sixth patriarch's sutra july 27, 2012 lecture

7/31/2019 The Sixth Patriarch's Sutra July 27, 2012 Lecture

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The Sixth Patriarchs Sutra7:30pm Pacific timeJuly 27, 2012 lecture

as outlined by a Buddhist monkat 1777 Murchison Drive, Burlingame, California 94010, open to public(phone 650-6925912)

(Listen live or recorded audio explanations at

www.wondrousdharma.org)

Q&A Repaying the kindness of parents

Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

[Subscribe to the free Dharma newsletter atwww.wondrousdharma.org]


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Verse for opening a sutra

Na Mwo Fundamental Teacher Shakyamuni Buddha (3x)

Homage to the Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra (3x)

The unsurpassed, deep, profound, subtle, wonderful Dharma,

In a hundred thousand million eons, is difficult to encounter,

Now that Ive come to receive and hold it, within my sight and

hearing, I vow to fathom the Thus Come Ones true and actual meaning.

Exhortation to uphold the Dharma:

The Buddha Many Jewels has made a profound and solemn vow: Whenmy jeweled stupa manifests in the presence of the Buddha because theDharma Flower Sutra is heard, if there is anyone who wishes me toshow my body to the four assemblies, then the division body of theBuddha who is speaking Dharma in the worlds of the ten directions

must all return and gather together in one place. Afterward my bodywill appear.(the Wonderful Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra)


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Q&A

Question:

How do I repay the kindness of my mother who passed on in

2007?

Answer:

A specific filial ritual to reflect upon and to repay the kindness of

parents who are either alive or departed from the world is

to recite the Buddha speaks of Ullambana Sutra by

invoking the virtue of the Sangha (monastics) through making

offerings and

the mantra specifically on repaying the kindness of parent

on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month of the year.3


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Q&A

In that Sutra, the Buddha explained about reverence for thevirtue of the Sangha (monastics) that will enable a person to be

able to

take across the sufferings of and improved upon the lives of

parents of nine generations of the past.

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Q&A

The filial thought of wanting to repay the kindness of parents

itself is a virtue and

when it is translated into filial conduct and other virtuous acts

then

become the basis for helping the parents through dedicationof the merit and virtue to the parents.

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Q&A

The effectiveness of recitation of the mantra hinges upon being

able to focus your attention on the mantra rather than letting the

mind being scattered and

the sincerity of wanting to repay the kindness of parents that

evokes the response.

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Q&A

When a living parent who is about to die, the children can assist

the parent to be mindful of the Buddha by assisting him to recite

and be mindful of the Buddha.

During the period of forty nine days after departure, the children

can do wholesome deeds such as reciting the Sutra of Past

Vows of Bodhisattva Earth Store and the name of the Buddha

or doing wholesome deeds to help others and dedicate themerit of these virtuous acts to the deceased.

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Q&A

Being on a vegetarian diet is itself both a virtue of compassionand a virtue of being filial.

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Sutra:

If your speech is good, but your mind is not, then

concentration and wisdom are useless because they are

not equal. If mind and speech are both good, the inner and

outer are alike, and concentration and wisdom are equal.

Comments:

When your mind is having angry thoughts that contradicts what

you say, for example, then there is no concentration and

wisdom.

When you speak whatever is in your mind without delusion,

then mind and speech are both good. 9


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Sutra:

Self-enlightenment, cultivation, and practice are not a

matter for debate.

Comments:

Whenever you begin to debate, the mind is stirred and no

longer in concentration.

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Sutra:

If you debate which comes first, then you are like a

confused man who does not cut off ideas of victory and

defeat, but magnifies the notion of self and dharmas, anddoes not disassociate himself from the four marks.

Comments:

In debate, thoughts of victory and defeat

Stand in contradiction to the Way;

Giving rise to the mind of four marks,

How can one obtain samadhi?

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Sutra: Good Knowing Advisors, what are concentration and

wisdom like? They are like a lamp and its light. With the

lamp, there is light. Without the lamp, there is darkness.

The lamp is the substance of the light and the light is thefunction of the lamp. Although there are two names, there

is one fundamental substance. The dharma of

concentration and wisdom is also thus.

Comments:

Concentration is the substance of wisdom. When there wisdom,there is concentration.

Wisdom is the function of concentration; concentration

produces wisdom. 12


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Those who seek the place of the World Honored One,

saying, We will become Buddhas, vigorously practicing

concentration, these are the superior herbs.

But herbs cannot compare with trees.

Large trees are those who dwell in Chan (stillness)

attaining spiritual powers, who hear the dharma of

emptiness and rejoice within their minds, emittingcountless lights crossing over all beings, they are called

the large trees.

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Sutra:

The Master instructed the assembly: Good Knowing

Advisors, the Single Conduct Samadhi is the constant

practice of maintaining a direct, straightforward mind in allplaces, whether one is walking, standing, sitting, or lying

down. As the Vimalakirti Sutra says, The straight mind is

the Bodhimandala; the straight mind is the Pure

Land.

Comments:

You should answer my question straightforwardly,because that is the path that the Thus Come One

everywhere throughout the ten directions have taken as

they freed themselves from death and rebirth. (Shurangama

Sutra) 14


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Sutra:

Do not speak of straightness with the mouth only, while

the mind and practice are crooked, nor speak of the Single

Conduct Samadhi without maintaining a straight mind.Simply practice keeping a straight mind and have no

attachment to any dharma.

Comments:

Their minds and their words were straightforward, and

therefore, at every point in their progress from the firststage to the last, they were in the least evasive. (ShurangamaSutra)

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Sutra:

The confused person is attached to the marks of dharmas,

while holding to the Single Conduct Samadhi and saying, I

sit unmoving and falseness does not arise in my mind.

That is the Single Conduct Samadhi. Such an

interpretation serves to make him insensate and obstructs

the causes and conditions for attaining the Way.

Comments:

Single Conduct Samadhi has the feature of wisdom of not being

attached.

It is not Single Conduct Samadhi when you are deluded with

attachments. 16


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Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, the Way must penetrate and

flow. How can it be impeded? If the mind does not dwell in

dharmas, the Way will penetrate and flow. The mind thatdwells in dharmas is in self-bondage. To say that sitting

unmoving is correct is to be like Shariputra who sat quietly

in the forest but was scolded by Vimalakirti.

Comments:

No-thought means to view all dharmas with a mindundefiled by attachment. The function pervades

everywhere but is nowhere attached.

Whose mind? Your own mind, so liberate your mind. 17


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Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, the Way must penetrate and

flow. How can it be impeded? If the mind does not dwell in

dharmas, the Way will penetrate and flow. The mind thatdwells in dharmas is in self-bondage. To say that sitting

unmoving is correct is to be like Shariputra who sat quietly

in the forest but was scolded by Vimalakirti.

Comments:

Chan is not in the sitting but the state of your mind.

Walking, standing, sitting, reclining, never be apart from your

original mind.18


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A case to illustrate missing the point of the teaching:

Whatever he was asked about Zen, Master Gutei simply stuck

up his finger. He had a boy attendant whom a visitor asked, "What kind of

teaching does your master give?"

The boy held up one finger too. Hearing of this, Gutei cut off the

boy's finger with a knife.

As the boy ran away, screaming with pain, Gutei called to him.

When the boy turned his head, Gutei stuck up one finger. The

boy was suddenly enlightened. When Gutei was about to die, he said to the assembled monks,

"I received this one-finger Zen from Tenry. I've used it all my

life but have not exhausted it." Having said this, he entered

nirvana. 19


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Sutra: Good Knowing Advisors, there are those who teach

people to sit looking at the mind and contemplating

stillness, without moving or arising. They claim that it has

merit. Confused men, not understanding, easily becomeattached and go insane. There are many such people.

Therefore you should know that teaching of this kind is a

great error.

Comments:

A reminder on the importance of cultivating the mind.

Contemplating stillness is bondage.

Not thinking of a hundred things and constantly causing your

thought to be cut off is called Dharma-bondage and is an 20


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Practice is not to contemplate stillness:

Chih Heng replied, He always instructs us to dwell with

the mind contemplating stillness and to sit up all the time

without lying down.

The Master said, To dwell with the mind contemplating

stillness is sickness, not Dhyana. Constant sitting restrainthe body. How can it be beneficial? Listen to my verse:

When living, sit, dont lie. When dead, lie down, dont sit.

How can a set of stinking bones

Be used for training? 21


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Practice is not to contemplate stillness:

When living, sit, dont lie.

When dead, lie down, dont sit. How can a set of stinking bones

Be used for training?

Dont be fixated.

When it is time to sit, sit.

When it is time to lie down, lie down. It is not about sitting or lying down.

Its about your mind not attached anywhere.

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Sutra:

The Master instructed the assembly: Good Knowing

Advisors, the right teaching is basically without a division

into sudden and gradual. Peoples natures themselvesare sharp or dull.

Comments:

The teaching is neither sudden or gradual; it is how quick or

slow you understand the principles.

Sudden understanding comes from our gradual cultivation in

the past.

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Sutra:

When the confused person who gradually cultivates and

the enlightened person who suddenly connects each

recognize the original mind and see the original nature,they are no different. Therefore, the terms sudden and

gradual are shown to be false names.

Comments:

The enlightenment of those who gradually become enlightened

and those who suddenly get enlightened is the same; when

your merit and virtue is full you become enlightened.

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Great Master Huang Po:

In the attainment of no-mind, some are quicker than others.

There are some who attain to a state of no-mind all at once byjust listening to a discourse on the Dharma (true mind), while

there are others who attain to it only after going through all the

grades of Bodhisattvaship such as the ten stages of faith, the

ten dwellings and the ten conducts and the ten transferences.

More or less time may be required in the attainment of no-mind,

but once attained it puts an end to all discipline, to allrealization; and yet there is really nothing attained. It is truth

and not falsehood.

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Great Master Huang Po:

Whether this no-mind is attained in one thought orattainedafter going through the ten stages, its practical working is the

same and there is no question of one being deeper or shallower

than the other.

Only the one has passed through long ages of hard discipline.

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Sutra:

When the confused person who gradually cultivates and

the enlightened person who suddenly connects each

recognize the original mind and see the original nature,they are no different. Therefore, the terms sudden and

gradual are shown to be false names.

Comments:

The enlightenment of those who gradually become enlightened

and those who suddenly get enlightened is the same; whenyour merit and virtue is full you become enlightened.

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Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, this Dharma-door of mine, from

the past onwards, has been established from the first with

no-thought as its doctrine, no-mark as its substance, andno-dwelling as its basis. No-mark means to be apart from

marks while in the midst of marks.

Comments:

Essentially, the word no indicates to empty or let go

To be apart from marks while in the midst of marks is to be like

a lotus coming out from the filth of the mud remaining

unstained.

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Sutra:

No- thought means to be without thought while in the

midst of thought. No-dwelling is the basic nature of human

beings.

Comments:

To be without thought while in the midst of thought means not

to hold onto past thoughts and not to be fixated.

We become humans because we dwell on phenomena;

returning to the original mind is to empty phenomena in the

mind.

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Sutra:

In the world of good and evil, attractiveness and ugliness,

friendliness and hostility, when faced with language which

is offensive, critical, or argumentative, you should treat itall as empty and have no thought of revenge.

Comments:

In the world of dualities, all manner of speech should be viewed

as empty and

in doing so, one empties the self by emptying the sense

organs.

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Sutra:

In every thought, do not think of former states. If past,

present, and future thoughts succeed one another without

interruption, it is bondage. Not to dwell in dharmas fromthought to thought is to be free from bondage. That is to

take no dwelling as the basis.

Comments:

Thoughts should not pertain to past events and past thoughts.

Being free from dharmas is to be free from thinking of matters

that is over.

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Dedication of merit

May every living beings,

Our minds as one and radiant with light

Share the fruits of peace, with hearts of goodness

luminous and bright. If people hear and see, how hands and hearts can find in

giving unity

May their minds awake, to great compassion, wisdom

and to joy. May kindness find reward; may all who sorrow leave their

grief and pain;

May this boundless light break the darkness of theirendless night.

Because our hearts are one, this world of pain turns intoparadise;

May all become compassionate and wise (2x)


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Dedication of merit

I vow that merit made from this deed will become,

Adornments for the Pure Land of Bu-ddhas. Repaying the four kinds of kindness above,

And aiding those in three paths below.

May all who see and hear of this deed Bring forth the resolve to reborn

In the Land of Ultimate Bliss.

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the sixth patriarch's sutra july 27, 2012 lecture

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