When Master Yaksan was reading a sutra, one of his students said to him, “Why do you read the sutras yourself whilst telling people not to read the sutras?” The master answered, “I am just covering my eyes.” The student asked, “May I use the sutras just as you do?” The master said, “You should see through even a cow’s hide.”
Student: “How can I see through a cow’s hide?”
Master: “You can do it if you can see through transparent glass.”
Commentary:
You can’t see through glass until you see through a cow’s hide.
“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.
A. The Buddha said that we sentient beings are suffering from the disease of being deluded by illusions that are forms and words. The disease here implies the habit, the addiction of being deluded by them, and remedies the Buddha’s and ancient masters’ dharma talks.
The core of the Buddha’s teaching, as mentioned previously, is to be free from being deluded by images and words. All the sutras and all dharma talks by ancient masters tell only two teachings: how to do away with, or escape from the addiction and how things appear and sound when we are freed from the habit. However, we tend to strengthen it rather than do away with it by being deluded by and attached to the words spoken by the Buddha and ancient masters. Then, it is said that remedies are worse than the disease itself.
When Master Yaksan was reading a sutra, one of his students said to him, “Why do you read the sutras yourself whilst telling people not to read the sutras?” The master answered, “I am just covering my eyes.” The student asked, “May I use the sutras just as you do?” The master said, “You should see through even a cow’s hide.”
Student: “What did the master mean by ‘see through even a cow’s hide’?”
Master: “If there happens to be even a single thing you can’t see through, you can’t read the sutras.”
Commentary:
Reading the sutras is struggling with black ink and white paper if one can’t see through them from cover to cover without touching them.
“Subhuti, what do you think—can the Realised One be seen by way of the thirty-two marks?” “No, World Honoured One, the Realised One cannot be seen by way of the thirty-two marks. Why? The thirty-two marks explained by the Realised One are not marks, they are just called the thirty-two marks.”
Commentary:
This scripture says that we should not dwell on the thirty-two marks, physical characteristics that the Buddha said as expedient means. The Avatamsaka Sutra also says, “If one is not attached to the Buddha even when seeing Him, he is the one who knows the Buddha and will see the dharma of the true-Self.”
However, it doesn’t mean that we should ignore them completely but means that we should see the Realised One, the true-Self amid and through them, just as we recognise air in and through winds.
Emptiness is forms, and forms are emptiness. Both are one, dependent on each other, and one contains the other, and so one can be recognised through the other.
The historical Buddha is to the true-Self as a wind is to air. We should be able to recognise the Realised One, the true-Self, the essence of the historical Buddha through seeing his physical body, or hearing his words, just as we can recognise air through winds that are its function.
Student: “How can we recognise the Realised One if He cannot be seen by way of the thirty-two marks?”
Master: “The thirty-two marks should not be the thirty-two marks.”
A. The core of the Buddha’s teaching, as mentioned previously, is non-duality, emptiness. In other words, everything is empty. When everything is empty, everything is oneness as emptiness. Saying that we should offer our illusions to the Buddha makes no sense at all and contradicts the Buddha’s teaching, because it is to divide oneness into three: offerer, illusions, and the Buddha. Breaking oneness into many is referred to as making illusions.
Don’t be deluded by the words ‘we should remove illusions’. Not only is it impossible to remove them, no matter how hard we may try as long as we think that illusions are real, but also we can’t do without them. Illusions are not illusions in essence, but they appear to be illusions because we cannot see them as they are. In Buddhism removing illusions doesn’t mean doing away with, or moving them from one place to somewhere else unseen and far away, but means to realise that they are not illusions but the functions of the true-Self by seeing them as they are. This is why an ancient master said, “Why are you anxious to discard such precious things?” when one of his students asked how he could remove illusions.
“Subhuti, what do you think — are there many particles of dust in a billion-world universe?” Subhuti said, “Very many, World Honoured One.” “Subhuti, all those particles of dust the Realised One says are not dust, they are just called dust. The universe that the Realised One says is not the universe, but it is just called the universe.”
Commentary:
This scripture shows another example of how to see things without dwelling on images and words. By these words, the Buddha means that when he says that everything is empty, even the universe and dusts in it cannot be an exception. To quote from the Avatamsaka Sutra, it says, “If we dwell on illusions, we, having the pure eye damaged, cannot see the Buddha forever, with foolish ideas increasing.” If we dwell on illusions, the words such as dust and universe spoken by the Buddha, we cannot see the true-Self, the real Buddha, no matter how long we may struggle to see it. To introduce one more scripture from the Avatamsaka Sutra, it says, “In seeing things, if there is no seeing, it is truly seeing, and then you can see everything. If there is seeing in seeing things, you cannot see anything.”
Student: “How is it if the universe is not the universe?”
Master: “Things you see and hear are not things.”
Student: “How is it when things are not things?”
Master: “Although your eyes and ears are full, there is nothing to be seen.”
A. As noted earlier, attaining enlightenment means escaping from the net of words. Reading a lot is making the net denser by accumulating words. If enlightenment were possible to attain through reading a lot, scholars who study Buddhism would get enlightened earlier than monastics. Enlightenment is beyond intellectual, or academic understanding.
This is why it is said that Buddha Dharma is transmitted out of doctrinal teaching. You can attain knowledge by reading a lot but can’t attain enlightenment by reading a lot, just as you cannot buy time with money although you can buy a clock with money.
A monastic asked Master Boja, “When stillness comes into being, wisdom is blocked, and when thinking changes, the true-Self is changed. How is it before stillness comes into being?” The master answered, “Blocked.” The monastic said, “What blocks when stillness has not come into being yet?” The master said, “You’ve not met the man.”
Student: “Why is wisdom blocked when stillness has not come into being?”
Master: “The words ‘stillness has not come into being’ blocks it.”
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