Reality or Phantom
Verse for opening Sutra:
The unsurpassed, deep, profound, subtle, wonderful Dharma,
In hundreds of thousands of millions of Kalpa, is difficult to encounter
I now see and hear it, receive and uphold it,
And I vow to fathom the Ththagata’s true and actual meaning
Shortly after the purification ceremony, the Rinpoche started to talk about the universe.
According to the Aggnanna Sutra and Avatamsaka Sutra (Flower Garland Sutra), all worlds are measured in a unit of mahākalpa (big Kalpa or eons):
Vivartakalpa ,Vivartasthāyikalpa,Saṃvartakalpa and aṃvartasthāyikalpa
Which means
Existence, Habitation, Destruction and Empty.
All worlds go through these four stages, and everything is formed by tiny dusts, and eventually break down to tiny dusts, and it goes on and on for uncountable Kalpas. ( Translation of Diamond Sutra from: http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/prajparagen2.pdf)
Sakymuni Buddha once asked:
“Subhåti, if a good man or good woman were to pulverize three thousand great thousand world systems into motes of fine dust, what do you think, would that mass of fine dust be large? “
Subhåti answered yes, and Buddha replied:
“The mass of fine dust motes is spoken of by
the Buddha as no mass of fine dust motes. Therefore it is
called a mass of fine dust motes.”
Briefly, what it is saying, in this context is that the world is made of motes of fine dust, and on its form Skanda, it is a lot. However, the Buddha knows that it will eventually break down, and cease to exist, so it exists from the form Skanda point of view, but it does not exist on its ultimate truth. And laymen and laywomen do not understand this principle, and they are attached to these motes of fine dust, and thus they have Dukkha when the items they are attached to are damaged or broken. (Suffering of Inpermanence) And they will seek for other objects, usually more difficult to acquire than the previous, and they will go through more suffering before they acquire that item, and gain a short moment of happiness, then they will start to worry about losing them, or things around it, and it is called suffering upon suffering or Samsara. And through the process of acquiring certain item, we create bad Karma knowingly or unknowingly, and cause bad seeds of Karma to fruit, which will bring more suffering, this is called the suffering of everything composite. And there we can see two of the roots of our problems are ignorance and desire, the other one that is not shown is anger.
Rinpoche also explained that Buddha are often referred as: Ththagata, Arahat, The blessed one, unsurpassed, teacher of the gods and human, leader of persons to be tamed, perfect in knowledge and conduct, perfectly self-enlightened, knower of the world and well-gone (Sugata). The Buddha is completely mindful of what is happening at all times, and thus by chanting these names of Buddha and contemplating the image of Buddha shines the universe with his light of wisdom and the Dharma he blessed us with, we gain peace and wisdom. That is one of the methods of meditation.
We should use this wisdom of the Buddha, to use the Dharma, we learnt to know that our body and mind works just like the universe, our brain is made of millions of neurons, and they are in charge of all the functioning, thoughts and processes in us, which forms the sixth Guna: mind. The mind is in charge and processes the five Guna (base for the senses, or Chinese calls it dust): Eyes, Ears, Nose, Tongue and Body. Which corresponds to our six senses: form, sound, smell, taste, touch and idea. Behind the mind, there are Manas-Vijñāna, which is the root of the mind. It weights and chooses what to take and give to the mind. It has preference, and it is what makes us to have an attachment, love, hatrate and keep us in the Samsara. And behind that, there is Tathāgatagarbha, which is empty, can be seen as Anatman, it is the Buddha in us. It is not changing, it is peaceful. And it also serves as a storage for our Karma seeds. And we should practice in such a way that we can see beyond the Manas-Vijnana sense, and see the Buddha in ourselves. To know what it is like to have Anatman, to find the true peace. And in turn, to control the Manas-Vijnana, to choose unbiased, like one of the name of the Buddha: Perfect in knowledge and conduct. And then we can control our mind, and the other five senses. Sakyamuni Buddha sat under the Bodhoditree, and the first thing he said after the englightment is that: All beings have Buddha-dhātu (Property of Buddha), but because of all the illusions and attachment, they cannot gain Attachment.
If we can all see and understand that, we will know that all phenomena are just illusions, different people have a different perspective because we have diffrent Karmas manefesting at all times with different stimulus (cause and condition) and make our Manas-Vijanana to choose what to believe, what to perceive and how to react. If we can slay these illusions and wrong views, we will achieve what is called Anuttarā-Samyak-Saṃbodhi: The Ultimate, Uncompared unbiased perception, also translated as highest perfect awakening, that is also known as enlightenment. And thus, the verse from Diamond Sutra:
All conditioned dharmas
Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows,
Like dew drops and a lightning flash:
Contemplate them thus.
Verse for transfer of Merit (The four stanzas from Fo Guang Shan)
May kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity pervade the entire universe.
May all people and heavenly beings benefit from our blessings and friendship.
May our ethical practice of Ch’an and Pureland help us achieve universal forbearance.
May we undertake the great Mahayana vows in humility and gratitude.
( A lot of the things mentioned are my own translation, and my mere understanding of the concepts, there are a lot of mistakes, and I hope that everyone can comment on and help me correct that)
