Part 13-5
“Subhuti, suppose good men and good women give as many lives as the grains of sand in the Ganges River in charity. If someone accepts and holds even a four-line verse of this Sutra and explains it to others, his blessings would be much more.”
Commentary:
The same words were already mentioned in part 8-1, part 11-2 and part 12 repeatedly. We should appreciate why the Buddha put so much emphasis on these words. In fact, it is because accepting and holding even a four-line verse of this Sutra and explaining it to others is not easy that he said the same words over and over. Ancient masters would say that there are poison and the best food mixed together in the sutras. This implies that whether the sutras are either good or harmful depends on how we read them and that they can be more harmful than helpful when we don’t read them correctly.
An ancient master called Dongan left very succinct words regarding how to read the sutras. He said, “If we understand the true-Self depending on the words in the sutras, we will be the enemy of the Buddha.” And added, “If we either miss or misunderstand even a single word in the sutras, the sutras will become Mara’s talk.” In other words, we should not dwell on words when reading the sutras just as the Buddha told us not to dwell on anything. When we don’t dwell on words when reading the sutras, words are not words anymore. When words are not words, each single word is the function of the true-Self. In other words, when words are not words, we are above depending on words, and when each single word is the function of the true-Self, one word contains all the other words. When one word contains all the other words, we cannot miss or misunderstand even a single word because reading one word is reading all. When we face the true-Self in each word like this, it is said that we can bring dead characters back to life and that we know how to read the sutras.
When we can see and hear without dwelling on anything, we come to realise that the sutra the Buddha meant is not a material sutra but the true-Self and that everything around us is the grand sutra that is open all the time. The reason why he repeated the same words was that he wanted to show this very sutra to people in person and to show the way to explain a four-line verse to others.
Student: “What is this sutra?”
Master: “You can’t put it down.”
Student: “What is a four-line verse?”
Master: “It can’t be written down.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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