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Glossary letter A
Glossary letter B
Glossary letter C
Glossary letter D
Glossary letter E
Glossary letter F
Glossary letter G
Glossary letter H
Glossary letter I
Glossary letter J
Glossary letter K
Glossary letter L
Glossary letter M
Glossary letter N
Glossary letter O
Glossary letter P
Glossary letter Q
Glossary letter R
Glossary letter S
Glossary letter T
Glossary letter U
Glossary letter V
Glossary letter S1
Glossary letter T1
Glossary letter W
Glossary letter X
Glossary letter Y
Glossary letter Z
Heart Sutra 1
Heart Sutra 2
Heart Sutra 3
Heart Sutra 4
Heart Sutra 5
Heart Sutra 6
Heart Sutra 7
Heart Sutra 8
Heart Sutra 9
Heart Sutra Tibetan
Diamond Sutra 1
Diamond Sutra 2
Faith in Mind
Ksitigarbha Sutra 1
Ksitigarbha Sutra 2
Ksitigarbha Sutra 3
Ksitigarbha Sutra 4
Ksitigarbha Sutra 5
Ksitigarbha Sutra 6
Ksitigarbha Sutra 7
Ksitigarbha Sutra 8
Ksitigarbha Sutra 9
Ksitigarbha Sutra 10
Ksitigarbha Sutra 11
Ksitigarbha Sutra 12
Ksitigarbha Sutra 13
Pali English Glossary
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| What is mind? Mind is knowing without form. What is form? Form is shape without the capacity for knowing. Uninstructed worldlings view their physical body (form), actually a collection of elements, as their self or ego and therefore cannot leave the ocean of birth and death. Deeply confused about truth, they feel oppressed because of wrong views. The only correct way to put it is to say "this body is my body; the mind is my real self." The knowing consciousness is the master; the body, only a slave. Let us consider, for example, someone who, though interested in attending this lecture, initially did not want to make the effort because of feeling tired. But then he/she had the following thought: "Hearing the commentary on that sutra will increase my wisdom and reduce my defilement; I must go and listen to the Dharma." Having persuaded him/herself, he/she got on the bus and came here to hear this Dharma. Where did the initiative originate? Clearly, it originated in the mind; the mind is the master and the body is the slave. Unfortunately, a person of mundane concerns is very confused, mistaking the slave for the master, and consequently there is birth and death., To perceive the brilliant Dharma is to enlighten the mind to itself; originally the mind had neither birth nor death. Although the body dies and vanishes, the mind is imperishable and indestructible: Understanding this experientially marks the end of the cyclic pattern of existence, the exit from the ocean of suffering. Mind is seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and knowing. The six natures or capacities for seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and knowing are the nature of the mind. The Buddha spoke Dharma on numberless occasions for forty-nine years. All of his teachings were expedient means, and all his explanations and discourses were delivered for the purpose of helping sentient beings to be freed from attachment and delusion and to return to the Truth. He dealt predominantly with two dharmas: Form and mind. According to the teaching later formulated as the Small Vehicle, form and mind are two. The practitioner should know the mind while not abandoning the form (body). Where does mind dwell? According to physiology the heart is also the mind (the organ) but efforts to prove it have been inconclusive so far. According to some religions, the mind resides in the brain; however, all attempts to find some proof to support such theory proved, again, negative. Whenever people tried to find the very source, to pinpoint the exact site where the mind is, the results were nil in each case. Since mind is neither form nor name, in the context of BuddhaDharma it is expediently termed "Emptiness" or "Void" (Sunyata in Sanskrit). On that particular day, represented for us by the eighth of December, while he was absorbed in deep samadhi, the Buddha attained complete enlightenment. Noticing the bright morning star in the eastern sky, he observed that the nature of seeing can be a kind of connecting: He realized his own nature of seeing is boundless, and his first statement following his enlightenment was: "Wonderful, wonderful! All sentient beings have the same wisdom and virtue as the Tathagata, but because of the obstacle of illusion and grasping they cannot attain." The expression "sentient beings" means produced by, composed of many, not being just a separate "one". The human body, for example, appears to be of one piece, yet it is composed of many concealed parts, such as the heart, liver, kidneys, spleen, the lungs, the pores, even some parasites. This means that a person, even though being an entity, is also sentient beings. To reiterate, the Buddha's view was that all sentient beings have the same virtue and the same wisdom as the Tathagata - the pure, luminous virtue of Dharma-dhatu. However, the sentient beings are confused, do not return to their Original Nature and do not purify the Dharma-kaya and therefore they are called sentient beings, or different from buddhas. The Buddha saw a star in the eastern sky following his enlightenment, and the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara practiced the three kinds of wisdom of the instructed ones, meditated on sound and attained the stage of Bodhi. When all conditions are generated by one's own mind, that is the Original Mind. The ordinary person of mundane concerns looks at an object and considers that seeing, and from that moment on adheres to the view that a table is a table, a person is a person; taking the object of seeing he/she fails to realize its subject. The view prevents him/her from being able to abandon both subject and object (meaning duality); how can he/she ever understand original seeing? He/she twists the process of experience to fit his/her own concept of reality, intensifying the delusion. To perceive one's Original Nature as shapeless and formless is to perceive the true Void. People's potentials are dissimilar. Whoever can understand his/her Original Nature is clear-eyed; the one who takes the object of seeing and grasps the form is caught in turbidity. Practitioners of the method promulgated by the Small Vehicle perceive mind as mind, form as form, and conceive them as distinct and different. That method focuses on observing the observer. The connection with one's own nature is apparently not taken into consideration. Seeing is the nature of the eye; hearing is the nature of the ear organ; smelling is the nature of the nose organ, tasting is the nature of the tongue organ; touching is the nature of the body and knowing is the nature of the mind. If the practice is based on this point of view, only partial Void can be attained, although it can also be termed "enlightenment" according to Buddhist understanding. Followers of Theravada hold that clothing, nourishment and lodging are deemed to result from conditioning causes and are not the concern of full-time practitioners. These have surpassed the worldlings and therefore are viewed as holy by the devotees sharing the same tradition. The Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva attained enlightenment by perceiving his Original Nature; he abandoned the duality inherent in subject and object, whereupon he attained the Middle Way perfectly and completely. That is the pure, radiant Dharma-kaya, quite different from the accomplishments in the tradition of the Small Vehicle. At one point in history one thousand two hundred and fifty-five disciples of the Buddha became Arhats: Nonetheless, their attainment was not exhaustive regarding the Ultimate Truth, but merely the end of the birth and death allotment. The study and practice of the bodhisattva Path was their opportunity for expanding their practice by following the example of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva. Comprehension of the immaterial substance of Reality marks the intermediate level of the bodhisattva career, sometimes referred to as the first gate of Mahayana and of the Middle Vehicle. It is considered to be a higher doctrinal accomplishment than that of the Small Vehicle. In the intermediate level the Void of the five skandhas is attained and, accordingly, obstinate view is abandoned. The immaterial substance of Reality is perceived, but the perception of five skandhas as the superb existence is still lacking. It is not actually necessary to abandon the body after the attainment of the Void. Everyone has form (body) and knowing; having attained the Void does not mean one has to endeavor to abandon the body. Void means simply the absence of grasping. True existence is Emptiness not of this world. The complete, perfect meaning of true existence is Void not of this world; containing neither partial existence nor partial Void, it is the Middle Way, also known as the Ultimate Reality. In short, a mind that does not discriminate by means of craving and clinging is the mind that understands the meaning of "not of this world"; though non-existent, it is the True Existence. There is no void, yet it is the supramundane, recondite Emptiness. The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, in his great wisdom, does not allow his mind to discriminate: Seeing is seeing, hearing is bearing, smelling is smelling, tasting is tasting, knowing is knowing, understanding is understanding; the six organs do not dwell on the six types of data. Enlightened by means of perceiving the sound of the tide, he comprehended the nature of hearing as non-abiding; mind freed of grasping attains the wonderful Dharma of the Inconceivable: That is the "True Existence in the supramundane Void." By Master Tan Hsu |
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