General Dharma Lecture, June 30, 1981, Haein-sa
The period of time since I became Buddha is an incomprehensible number of eons.
This quote from the "The Life Span of the Tathagata" section of the Lotus Sutra is the crux of the entire Sutra.
This is difficult to understand at first. We tend to think that it has only been 2,500 years or so since the historical Buddha became enlightened, taught and entered nirvana. So how could he have said at the time after his enlightenment that it had already been an incomprehensible period since he had been enlightened? I think that we have to look at his life 2,500 years ago as an expedient, and that in fact it had been an unfathomable period of time since he had become Buddha. And you have to understand this to have a basic understanding of Buddhism.
When asked the purpose or goal of Buddhism, most people would reply with something like, "To achieve Buddhahood" However, this in fact is not the case. why? Because all sentient beings are already fundamentally Buddha. Thus the goal is not to achieve Buddhahood, but to discover that we are already Buddha.
Before enlightenment, of course, one doesn't know that. But after enlightenment, one realizes that we all have been Buddhas for a fathomless period of time. But if we have been Buddhas for incomprehensible eons, why do we have to discover Buddhahood again? So that we all may come to learn our fundamental nature. consequently we use such terms as "discover Buddha nature" over and over as an expedient towards this goal.
It is not just the Buddha who has been enlightened for a fathomless period of time, but all sentient beings, all forms of life, all rocks and boulders, all that exists and all that doesn't exist-everything has been enlightened for this incomprehensible period.
We usually call the world in which we currently live the world of hardship, suffering, illusion. But once you really look beneath the surface, you will discover that this is, and has been for a fathomless period of time, the world of paradise. So the purpose of Buddhism is not to turn you into a Buddha, but to have you become awakened to the fact that you have been Buddha for an incomprehensible period.
That is what you must realize. And at the same time you must come to the realization that there is no place in the ten directionsl that is not a Buddhafield, that is not the Pure Land, that is not paradise.
In other religions, people talk quite a bit about "saving" and "being saved" but in Buddhism, such concepts are irrelevant. In Buddhism, all you have to do is make the realization that you are fundamentally Buddha, and that every place is a Buddhafield, the Pure Land. Therefore, why would you have to have someone else save you? So in Buddhism, the concept of saving is absolutely irrelevant. This is what makes Buddhism unique from all other religions and philosophies in the world. No other system of thought has ever made such a claim.
The meaning of "Buddha" extends to "non-producing, non-extinguishing." To say that everything has been enlightened for an incomprehensible period is the same as saying that there is nothing that is not this "non-producing, non extinguishing-it applies to people, to animals, to plants, to minerals, to the sky, to everything that is, to everything that isn't, and to every place in the universe and beyond. Every thing and every place is "non-producing, non-extinguishing." So fundamentally every thing is Buddha, and every place a Buddhafield.
If so, then, why are we sentient beings in a world of suffering?
A person who closes his eyes cannot see the rising sun, no matter how brilliant it may be. To him everything is dark all the time. It's the same thing. If we open the Eye of the mind, we see the daylight, we see the entire universe. We see that there is nothing that is not Buddha and no place that is not paradise. If we just open the Eye!
But it is those who do not know this, those who have not opened this Eye, who think, "I am a sentient being" and "This is the world of hardship and suffering."
So the basic issue is this one of an open Eye or a closed Eye. If the Eye is open, you see the brilliant Light; but if the eye is closed, there is nothing but darkness. And who wants to live in a world of darkness? I would think that everyone would like to live in the world of Light, the world of Buddha, the Pure Land. So you must try as hard as you can to open this Eye of the mind. Then you will have solved everything. The big issue is not whether you're going to heaven or paradise. That's nonsense. The issue is to open that Eye of the mind and to resolve everything here and now.
The Lotus Sutra continues:
For the sake of instructing all beings, I say as an expedient that I shall pass into nirvana, even though I never die and always remain here to explain the Dharma.
What the Buddha was saying is that just as it had been a fathomless period since he was enlightened, he will remain enlightened for fathomless periods to come. He is eternal in his presence among us to explain the Dharma.
By "here" he did not mean India or Korea or any one place in particular. By "here" he meant everywhere in the universe. Buddha takes endless forms, and there is no place where he does not manifest himself. And that is why he called this "the infinite universe," "the eternally abiding." There is nothing being produced and there is nothing being extinguished.
The past, present and future are all the eternally abiding, and so everything is non-producing, non-extinguishing. Call it whatever you want―the Pure Land Paradise, the Sea of Garlands, the Inexhaustible Dharma. But the Buddha speaks the Dharma through the past, the present and the future, eternally.
Are we talking just about the historical Buddha Sakyamuni? No, of course not. We are talking about everything in the universe, past, present, and future as well as about every place in the universe. Everything speaks of the inexhaustible Dharma, and everything is in inexhaustible transformation.
Even the boulder at the top of a peak is constantly speaking of this in a manner hundreds of times greater than the Buddha in the Buddha Hall. You may think it sounds funny to say that a boulder speaks the Dharma. What could the boulder possibly be saying? But when you open the Eye of the Mind, you are also opening the Ear of the Mind. And you will be able to hear the inexhaustible Dharma explanations of the boulder which seems to be just sitting there. In Buddhism this is called "inanimate Dharma talk."
Animate things can move and make noise, so you may regard them as having the potential of expounding the Dharma. But an inanimate rock, a boulder, a handful of earth―none of these moves or speaks, so you wonder how they can speak of the Dharma. If you come to understand Buddhism. However, you will come to listen to the boulder which expounds the eternal Dharma. Even all that which is invisible speaks incessantly of the Dharma.
So you see, everything in the universe speaks of the Dharma. Everything is in itself a Sutra, everything is a dimension of the Dharma. You have to understand this to understand Buddhism. And then you realize how futile it is to try to teach others, to try to "save" others.
So you have only to discover that the basis of everything, your original face, the fundamental landscape is the Pure Land, a Buddhafield, paradise. If you come to realize this Truth, then your search is over. There is nothing else to look for.
Some people misunderstand the implications of this, however. They think, "What a wonderful law. We all live in paradise, and we're all Buddha. So there's nothing to do. We don't have to study, or work, or make progress. We can do anything we want, can't we?!"
That is perhaps an initial reaction, but it the result of a lack of true understanding. Yes, we're fundamentally Buddha, we live in paradise, and the Great Light brightens the entire universe. But people with their Eye closed still can't see the Light. You are fundamentally Buddha; but if your Eye is closed, there is only darkness.
Think of a mirror covered with dust. The mirror itself is clean and clear, and it reflects light. But once covered with dust, it reflects nothing.
The fact that a dust-covered mirror cannot reflect anything is in itself a wonder.
To say that you are Buddha is not enough. It's wrong to think that since you are Buddha, you live in paradise and therefore there's nothing more to do. To think that there's no need to open the Eye means that you'll be a blind Buddha forever.
So you have to have confidence in one thing. Even if we are sitting here in the darkness with our Eye closed and unable to see the Great Light, we must move forth with the confidence that we are living in the Great Light and that if we strive hard enough we will be able to see the Great Light. No, you may not be able to become as perfect as the Buddha in this life, and you may not be able to see paradise all around you. But you must have the confidence that you are fundamentally Buddha, and that you do in fact live in paradise. The only flaw is that you haven't opened the Eye and haven't seen the Light.
If you become aware of the fact that you are surrounded on all sides by the Great Light, and if you open the Eye, then the Great Light is yours. Present reality is absolute. It is non-producing and non-extinguishing. And as I said before, Buddhism has the exclusive copyright on these words.
Because atomic physics and quantum theory are now proving what the Buddha had said so long ago, some may mistake this as a chance to brag about the superiority of Buddhist thought. This is not the point, however, and certainly not a Buddhist attitude. All we can do is take these developments and realize how close science is coming to Buddhist thought. what the Buddha said over 2,500 years ago is being proved by science today. The only difference is in the timing. And it's nice to see that science is beginning to agree with Buddhism on these things.
The fundamental nature of humanity is astoundingly great. It goes back fathomless time periods and it is immortal. But it is only because we have not opened the Eye that we cannot see this.
You may be saying to yourself something like, "What is this monk talking about? My eyes are wide open, they're as clear and bright as day itself, and hes telling me I'm blind. What's going on here?"
But you're talking about the visual sensation from your eyes. And you may have great eyesight, good enough to see the eye of a needle in the dark. But those eyes are of no use. What I'm saying is that you have to open your Internal Eye, your Eye of Wisdom, your Eye of Intuition, the Eye of the Mind. I`m talking about opening this Eye so that you can see the Great Light pervading everything evenly throughout the universe. I'm talking about a perfectly clean mirror that reflects everything quietly, very, very quietly.
How can you clean the mirror of dust, how can you open the Eye? The easiest and fastest way is through meditation, and through use of the koan. And if you make the breakthrough with your koan, the Eye of the mind will open up. It will sparkle and glimmer. There's a saying that if you try really hard once, you'll even surpass the level of the Buddha, that your Eye will open.
Yet there is another method of opening the Eye. Something is covering the Eye, just as dust covers a mirror. If you discover what that something is, and remove it, then you'll be able to see, won't you?
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The Three Poisons
Your Eyes are covered by what we call in Buddhism the "Three poisons― greed, anger and foolish thinking. And because we are filled with greed and desire, with anger and rage, with all kinds of foolish thoughts, we cannot see that we are fundamentally Buddha. We do not understand that we are living in paradise right now. So we talk about the world of hardship and toil and pain, and spend our time wondering if we're going to go to hell or not.
But if you remove these three poisons completely from your mind, then there is no way that the Eye will not open up; and it will open up completely.
Which is the worst of the three poisons? Greed. It is because of greed, craving and desire that anger and folly arise. So by eliminating this greed, you can eliminate the causes of anger and foolishness and let the Eye open by itself.
Where does this greed come from? From "me, myself and I." From the cravings of the self. "Me! I don't care what happens to others! I have to look out for myself!" That is where all of the greed comes from. And following this greed, these cravings for the self, come anger and foolishness. You see, living a self-centered existence naturally implies at least infringing upon, if not actually harming others. And by doing so, your Eye will never open. Your world only becomes darker and darker.
How do we rid ourselves of this self-centered greed and these cravings for only ourselves so that the Eye will open? Simply by forgetting your own greed and your own cravings, and by living for other sentient beings.
Most people spend their entire lives thinking only of themselves, doing things only for themselves. to get the Eye to open, however, you have to reverse this completely. Forget yourself. Think and worry about others, and let all your actions be centered around others. Center all of your thoughts and actions around helping others. That should be your general standard for behavior. If you do this, the three poisons will naturally melt away by themselves. The layer of dust on the mirror will become thinner and thinner, and the Eye will become brighter and brighter. When the three poisons have melted away completely, the Eye will open wide, and you will see the Great Light. If the dust is removed, is there anything to prevent a mirror from reflecting, anything to keep the Eye from opening wide?
And when you see the Great Light, you will come to see that you have been Buddha for fathomless ages and that the entire universe is paradise. And for the rest of eternity you will be free-flowing, unlimited and unobstructed.
If someone asks me, "What is Buddhism?" I usually reply that Buddhism is living in a world turned inside-out or upside-down, living in a world that has been reversed. In today's world, people lead self-centered lives, and in the process they do unimaginable harm to other forms of life. In Buddhism, however, you dispense with the self and its endless cravings, and live for other beings. So it's the reverse of contemporary life as we know it.
I can imagine what you're thinking. You're thinking that if you live this way that you may starve to death in the process. Well even if you did starve to death in the process, you would have starved for others, and your heart would have brightened. You would come to the absolute realization that you are fundamentally Buddha!
So now you're probably thinking to yourself, "Well, that's easier said than done. So why don't you be the first one to go out and starve to death?" You must realize, however, that seventy or eighty years is really not a long time to live. Even if you were to live 100 years, could you come to possess everything in the whole world? The Buddha attained Buddhahood an incomprehensible number of eons ago and will remain as Buddha for an incomprehensible number of eons to come. He had no house and he had no possessions, yet the whole universe was his home and everything in the universe was his. How could you ever calculate that?
Take your 100 years and all the riches of the world that you could accumulate in that period of time, and compare all of that to eternity, to the Dharma of the entire universe and beyond, to the free-flowing, unobstructed life of the universe. It wouldn't amount to a speck of dust.
So abandon your speck of dust and live only for others, strive only for others. And you will enter that land of realizing that you had attained Buddhahood incomprehensible eons ago; you will discover your true self, your original, fundamental self. It's a process of sacrificing the comforts and cravings of this temporal self to discover the self of incomprehensible eons. That's not a bad deal, is it? If you're going to do business, you should do it in a big way. To live and die for less than a speck of dust is like struggling with a knife.
In one of the Buddhas previous lives, as Mahasattva, he came across a starving tigress who had given birth to several cubs and who was too exhausted to move for food. What did he do? He fed himself to her so that she and the cubs could live. That seems unimaginable to us. Of course, he was doing it for the tigress, but if we look closely, we can see that there was a great amount of greed involved in this act. But a very different kind of greed. It was selfless greed. By giving up this body of his, a body as valuable as foam on the sea, he was able to, in that instant, become freely flowing, unobstructed, infinite.
As Prince Siddhartha, he left home with a similar greed, a greed to solve the problem of suffering for all. Had he not left home, he would have become a great king. But to him, such dreams had become worthless. So he decided to give up trifling treasures for the greatest treasure of all.
More recently in history, Shun-chih came out of Manchuria and tought for 18 years to found the Ch'ing dynasty, the largest dynasty in China's history, one that included Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet and Indochina. After all his conquests, however, he began to reflect deeply on the meaning of it all, and he came to the realization that, in comparison to achieving eternal enlightenment, all of his accomplishments did not amount to even a speck of dust. So he threw away his empire like an old shoe.
He went to Gold Mountain Temple where he collected wood and made fires for cooking and heating. Think of it. Someone who had been the leader of such a vast empire, a hero of heroes; and there he was in a temple burning wood to keep the monks warm as a form of study. Could such a person not achieve real success?
When he left the palace to enter the temple, he bemoaned, "I am originally a mendicant monk from the west, a monk in training. How did I ever fall into such a wayward position as an emperor?" He considered being an emperor and having all the riches of the world as forms of debasement, and he rid himself of it all.
This, too, can be seen as that other form of greed I mentioned. His life as warrior and conqueror and emperor was worthless, and he saw nothing more precious than opening the Eye and becoming free-flowing and unobstructed throughout the universe.
It was a greed that harmed no one, a greed for Supreme Enlightenment.
Let me mention a talk I had with someone during the Korean War. A certain professor Min who had taught at Seoul National University came to see me, and while we were talking he asked, "How can you monks be so selfish? You abandon your families, society and the nation, and go live in the mountains where you meditate all the time, doing as you please. If that's not being selfish, I don't know what is."
I swiftly replied, "It's not the monks who are being selfish. It's you who are selfish!"
"How can you say such a thing? I live in society, I care for my parents and siblings, and I do everything that's expected of me. How can you consider that as being selfish?"
"Okay, I want to know one thing, and please tell the truth. You've lived a full 50 years. Have you ever thought of anyone else besides yourself, your parents, your spouse and your own family?"
"Now that you mention it, I guess I really never did anything for anyone other than my own."
I found myself explaining what is a common misconception, even among Buddhist laity today.
"Yes, monks desert their families, but they desert a small family for a great family, the family of all living creatures. We leave our own small families so that we may see and regard all living creatures equally. The very basis of Buddhism is to break personal shackles and to live for all sentient beings. So in comparison, wouldn't you say that you were being selfish if, during 50 years, you never even thought of anyone else except yourself and your own family?"
"That is a very progressive interpretation."
"That is not my interpretation. It is something that pervades all of the Tri-pitaka Koreana at Haein-sa: "Live for others." The very first of the Bodhisattva's Six Perfections2 is generosity. To help everyone you can, psychologically and materially, is benevolence, generosity. Everything in the Tri-pitaka speaks of living for others..."
Silence.
"So leaving home for the monks life is not something one does for comfort and ease. It's leaving something small for something greater and more precious. That's why we are supposed to be possessionless. So that we can open the Eye and embrace all forms of life."
If we are to open the Eye, we have to rid ourselves of harmful greed. And in ridding ourselves of this greed, we must first rid ourselves of selfishness. I say it all the time. The true Buddhist offering is helping others with a pure, untainted heart. It is not bringing things to the Buddha in the temple, bowing left and right, and leaving a "blessings fee" making true Buddhist offerings is the way to achieve eternal life, the way to possess everything in the universe for e
ver and ever. The merits in helping others are indeed great, incomprehensibly greater than bringing offerings to the temple.
Let me give you an example.
In Japan, there is a religion called "The Heavenly way" and the founder of it was a tremendously wealthy woman named Nakayama Miki. Through her own study, she came to open the Eye of the mind, and she realized that the wealth she had accumulated was nothing compared to a much greater way of life. So she spoke to her husband.
"All these years, I've just been your wife. But from now on I am your teacher! I am enlightened, and I am God. So listen to me."
"Are you crazy? What's the matter with you? What are you up to?"
"Let's sell everything that we have . We must sell it all to find out how much it is really worth to us. We must share what we have with others. And then we'll be really and truly rich, rich beyond compare."
So they sold everything that they had, and shared it with others. They went about looking for what they could do for others, and scrounging for their meals in the process. And Nakayama Miki went into the books as one of Japans greatest women. She and her husband became rich, truly rich people by sharing with others the insignificant wealth that they had possessed but were willing to give up.
How many of you here today would be willing to sell your homes, your property, or your land for riches much greater? If there were one of you here who would sell everything you had to share with the poor, I would follow you around day and night with my mokt'ak, chanting for you. If there were one.
But even if you can't bring yourself to that, there are other ways to help others as a basic approach to your life. And you must understand that to help others is really to help yourself. But to think only of yourself, to be greedy for yourself, is a form of suicide.
If you really want to help others and make it a way of life, then the Eye will open and you will truly see the sun in the blue sky. I'm not asking anything of you that will be too difficult to do. What we need today in Korean Buddhism is for both the Sangha and the laity to have a change of heart, to have a change of direction to one of helping others.
First of all, the monks and nuns have to rid themselves completely of this way of life centered around temple offerings in exchange for "blessings" otherwise Buddhism itself will disappear from this nation. And the lay Buddhists have the same responsibility. There must be an end to this trend of running off to the temple with offerings every time your child has a headache. This type of thinking is not that of a true follower of the Buddha. Monks and lay Buddhists alike are supposed to all be followers of the Buddha. So to continue with these wayward practices is to invite ruination.
One of the great frustrations is that there is not even a special college for members of the Sangha despite the fact that we know the tremendous value of education. Farmers will even sell their fields to get the money to send their kids to school. Children's education is considered the greatest asset of all.
We have to continually educate the Sangha, and that is one of our top priorities. How can monks or nuns go out and teach Buddhism when they don't even understand it themselves? I sometimes think of even going out and selling the temple roof tiles to get them educated. Education has become something which we cannot stress too much for the survival and development of Buddhism.
Let me conclude now by summarizing what I have covered today.
Our fundamental nature is Buddha nature, and this has been true for endless eons. And we are living in a Buddhafield right here, right now. So why is everything darkness, and why do we run through life helter-skelter? Because we have not opened the Eyes of the mind. And we can open these Eyes either through unrelenting study with a koan or by living a life of total altruism.
It doesn't matter whether you sell rice cakes or wine or meat for a living. No matter what you do, work on your koan all the time and you will make the breakthrough. And if you work with your koan and help others at the same time, suddenly one day the Eye will open, and you will understand what the Buddha meant when he said that it had been incomprehensible eons since he had become Buddha. And from that moment on you will become a teacher for both the world of people and the world of gods, and you will dwell in the Inexhaustible Great Buddha Dharma for ever and ever.
That would be an occasion not just to dance, but an occasion to have a great feast. So let's all work towards having such a grand event!
* Notes
1. The eight conventional directions, plus above and below; the figurative interpretation is "everywhere in the universe."
2. The Six Perfections, or daily codes of behavior for Mahayana Buddhists, are generosity, morality, patience, vigor, concentration, and wisdom.
