The Sixth Patriarchs Sutra

7:30pm Pacific time

August 17, 2012 lecture

as outlined by a Buddhist monk
at 1777 Murchison Drive, Burlingame, California 94010, open to public (phone 650-6925912) (Listen live or recorded audio explanations at www.wondrousdharma.org)

Q&A Ultimately there is nothing at all Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

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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:

His single focus is to speak the Dharma according to causal conditions; his wish is to realize the Buddha Way and lead living beings to do the same. This then is his greatest benefit: the offering of peace and comfort. (the Wonderful Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra)
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Q&A
Question:

The original mind is without the 3 poisons; the difficulty is to put down the 3 poisons. How do we put down the 3 poisons then?
Answer:

The gradual method is to use precepts, samadhi and wisdom to overturn greed, anger and delusion respectively.

The sudden method is to realize that ultimately there is not single thing, that is
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Q&A
ultimately this universe never really existed; it was all an illusions of the mind.

Sudden teaching is about embracing in a single thought that every thing is consciousness and therefore they are illusory and without a nature or reality of its own

this universe is just the mind And thus does space arise within the great enlightenment, appearing like a solitary bubble in the sea and when the bubble of confusion burst, did this universe exist? 4

Q&A
The awakening of Patriarch Dhyana Master Fa Yen (proclaiming the Dharma) to illustrate the importance of investigating into the reality of this universe

The Master studied under Dhyana Master Bai Yun. One day, Bai Yun said to him, There are several Chan cultivators who have come from Mount Lu, and all of them have reached a certain level of awakening.

You ask them to talk they are able to talk.

If I cite different public records of the Chan school, they are able to understand them.

Q&A
If I ask them to judge certain situations, they are well able to do that, too, nonetheless, they havent arrived there yet!

At that point the Master was filled with doubt. He thought, Since these people have awakened and are capable of understanding and discoursing on the Dharma, why is it that they still havent arrived there yet?

Q&A
He looked intently into the matter for several days, and then all of a sudden he had a great awakening.

He went and reported this to Bai Yun. Bai Yun was so pleased that he pranced up and down.

Afterwards the Master commented, Because of this matter I broke out in full sweat. ..

Q&A
Then I understood that originally it was like pure breeze blowing through.

The interpretation by the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua is: Basically nothing was going on.

One shouldnt become attached to any appearance. Its like a light breeze and the bright moon originally there is nothing.

Q&A
The Sudden Teaching is just this:

Basically there is not a single thing,

How can the dust alight?

Q&A
The importance of this teaching principle is expressed in the first two of the ten vows of Bodhisattva Guanyin:

First, I vow to quickly know all dharmas, which essentially is to know that everything is ultimately empty.

Second, I vow to quickly attain the wisdom eye, which implies the wisdom of putting down attachment because of the knowledge that everything is ultimately empty.

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Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

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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Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

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 it all 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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Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

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 from thought 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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Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, to be separate from all outward marks is called no-mark. The ability to be separate from marks is the purity of the Dharmas substance. It is to take no-mark as the substance.
Comments:

No-mark means being free from any attachments to outward appearances of the environment. To see all appearances as no appearance.
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Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, the non-defilement of the mind in all states is called no-thought. In your thoughts you should always be separate from states; do not give rise to thought about them.
Comments:

The mind not holding on to any matters on hand is no thought; move on.

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Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

Sutra:

If you merely do not think of the hundred things, and so completely rid yourself of thought, then as the last thought ceases, you die and undergo rebirth in another place. That is a great mistake, of which students of the Way should take heed.
Comments:

On the one hand, we are not attached to dharmas, on the other hand we should not completely rid yourself of any thought. The teaching of the Buddha is the teaching of the Middle Way.
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Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

Sutra:

To misinterpret the Dharma and make a mistake yourself might be acceptable, but to exhort others to do the same is unacceptable. In your own confusion you do not see, and, moreover you slander the Buddhas Sutras. Therefore nothought is established as the doctrine.
Comments:

It is not in the word no thought; it is in the meaning of the teaching. It is a mistake to take no thought literally as being completely without thought. The teaching is the teaching of the Middle Way; neither clinging 17 to extremes.

Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, why is no-thought established as the doctrine? Because there are confused people who speak of seeing their own nature, and yet they produce thought with regard to states. Their thoughts cause deviant views to arise, and from that all defilement and false thinking are created.
Comments:

Speaking of seeing your own self nature, yet when we encounter states all manner of defiled false thinking arise. This principle of no thought reminds us to guard our minds.
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Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

Sutra:

Originally, not one single dharma can be obtained in the self-nature. If there is something to attain, or false talk of misfortune and blessing, that is just defilement and deviant views. Therefore, this Dharma-door establishes no-thought as its doctrine.
Comments:

Originally, there is not a single thing or dharma; is there anything to obtain? The no thought doctrine is about returning to the original mind; 19 the original mind is empty and clear of dharmas and non-dual.

Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, No means no what? Thought means thought of what? No means no two marks, no thought of defilement. Thought means thought of the original nature of True Suchness. True Suchness is the substance of thought and thought is the function of True Suchness.
Comments:

No means without; without thoughts of discrimination of purity and defilement. Thought is the Thus Come Ones Matrix; the source or Buddha-nature from which everything comes about.
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Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

Reality is the product of thought; thought is reality.

Mind is the myriad phenomena of Reality; the myriad phenomena are just the mind.

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Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

Sutra:

The True Suchness self-nature gives rise to thought. It is not the eye, ear, nose, or tongue which can think. The True Suchness possesses a nature and therefore gives rise to thought. Without True Suchness, the eye, ear, forms, and sounds immediately go bad.
Comments:

Mind gives rise to thought. The five sense faculties cannot function without the mind.
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Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, the True Suchness self-nature gives rise to thought, and the six faculties, although they see, hear, feel, and know, are not defiled by the ten thousand states. Your true nature is eternally independent.
Comments:

The Buddha-nature gives rise to thought and the myriad phenomena. Yet the Buddha-nature is not defiled by or attached to the myriad phenomena because this true nature is eternally abiding.

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Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, the True Suchness self-nature gives rise to thought, and the six faculties, although they see, hear, feel, and know, are not defiled by the ten thousand states. Your true nature is eternally independent. Therefore, the Vimalakirti Sutra says, If one is well able to discriminate all dharma marks, then, in the primary meaning, one does not move.
Comments:

Basically, one does not move whilst in the midst of the appearances or states of the mind.
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Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

Why do you move or react to sense objects?

It is because you are attached to sense objects and a self.

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Chapter 5 Sitting in Chan

Sutra:

The Master instructed the assembly: The door of sitting in Chan consists fundamentally of attaching oneself neither to the mind nor to purity; it is not non-movement.

Comments:

Chan is about the mind not being attached to objects of afflictions and not being attached to views. Chan is not unmoving per se, that is Chan is not just 26 concentration devoid of wisdom of being without attachments.

Chapter 5 Sitting in Chan

Sutra:

One might speak of becoming attached to the mind, and yet the mind is fundamentally false. You should know that the mind is like an illusion, and therefore there is nothing to which you can become attached.
Comments:

If you grasp your own mind, whats not illusion then becomes illusory.(Shurangama Sutra) Becoming attached to the mind is to be attached to the mind that is dependent on perceived objects; there is no reality in the 27 perceived objects, they are illusions of the mind itself.

Chapter 5 Sitting in Chan

Sutra:

One might say that to practice Chan is to attach oneself to purity, yet the nature of people is basically pure.
Comments:

Why do we need to purify the mind that originally is without a single defilement?

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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 their endless night. Because our hearts are one, this world of pain turns into paradise; 29 May all become compassionate and wise (2x)

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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