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.”
“What do you think, Subhuti—is there any doctrine that the Realised One has preached?” Subhuti said to the Buddha, “World Honoured One, there is no doctrine that the Realised One has preached.”
Commentary:
The Buddha preached these words to stop people from being attached to the words of his teachings whilst they try not to dwell on anything according to his teaching.
If there is no doctrine preached by the Realised One, how should we see this sutra we are reading now?
An ancient master called Dongan left very succinct words regarding how to read the sutras. He said that if we understand the true-Self depending on the words in the sutras, we will be the enemy of the Buddha and that 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 everything around us is the grand sutra that is open all the time.
Student: “If there is no doctrine that the Realised One has preached, what is the Buddha’s teaching?”
Master: “His teaching is not words.”
Student: “What is his teaching if it is not words?”
A. Proneness to divide, to name, to define, to exaggerate, or to modify the true-Self, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of human beings because we have been addicted to the habit of following words and forms all our lives.
The truth is that the true-Self is formless. Only try to see and hear things without attaching any words and any images, no matter how holy and wonderful they may appear and sound. This is why ancient masters would tell their students to kill the Buddha if they met him. Once you adhere to the truth that the true-Self is formless, the Buddha reveals himself naturally.
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 comes into being?”
Master: “What comes into being, or doesn’t is not stillness but an illusion.”
Commentary:
Stillness is true stillness when it is not a word.
Then Subhuti said to the Buddha. “World Honoured One, what is this sutra to be called? How should we uphold it?” The Buddha said to Subhuti, “This sutra is named Diamond Prajnaparamita; you should uphold it by this name. Why? Subhuti, the prajnaparamita explained by the Buddha is not prajnaparamita but just called prajnaparamita.”
Commentary:
‘This sutra’ here is liable to be literally interpreted as the dharma talk preached by the Buddha in Jeta Grove in Sravasti, and prajnaparamita as perfect grand wisdom, but both of them imply the true-Self that revealed itself through the dharma talk.
The core of the Buddha’s teaching we should bear in mind is that everything is non-duality, oneness. No matter what words the Buddha used, the purpose of using them was to reveal the non-dual true-Self. When we hear ‘this sutra’ ‘Prajnaparamita’ and ‘Diamond Prajnaparamita’, it may sound as if each of them had its own form and characteristics, but they are actually no more than words that are imaginary labels created as expedient means by the Buddha, to reveal the true-Self so that sentient beings might recognise it. This is why the Buddha said that the prajnaparamita explained by the Buddha is not prajnaparamita but just called prajnaparamita.
So, an ancient master said, “Everyone has his own sutra, but no one can read it because it is formless and nameless. One who can read it will enter nirvana free from birth and death and neither try to go Bodhisattva’s way nor try to attain Buddhahood.”
Student: “How should we uphold the Diamond Prajnaparamita?”
A. In fact, it is impossible to speak ill of the Buddha, firstly because the Buddha is the formless, boundless, nameless and changeless state free from illusions, or a person who has realised that he is the Buddha, and secondly because the Buddha regards everything as empty. The Buddha cannot be an object to find fault with because it is formless and nameless. No matter what abuses someone fires at the Buddha, he cannot defame the Buddha since abuses are not abuses but the functions of the true-Self to him, because he is never deluded by words.
He who speaks ill of the Buddha, deluded by an illusion of the Buddha, is making futile effort to defame the formless Buddha. Those who are swayed when hearing the Buddha spoken ill of are also unaware that the Buddha is formless and impossible to speak ill of. However, seen from the perspective of the enlightened, the accuser is also part of the Buddha.
This is why we should not have our minds swayed in the Buddha’s teaching even if we hear the Buddha spoken ill of, or well of.
Choshin said, “People say that the Buddha transmitted the dharma to Mahakasyapa in secret and shared his seat with him. The people attending the talk should have spat in the Buddha’s face. Because they didn’t do that, their offspring are still in calamity now.”
Student: “What is the error that these ancient people made?” Master: “They misled their offspring into believing that the Buddha did what he hadn’t done.” Student: “What was it that the Buddha did?” Master: “He transmitted the dharma to Mahakasyapa in secret and shared his seat with him.”
Commentary: People don’t know what the Buddha’s gift is like, because they dropped and broke it into pieces when the Buddha handed it to them.
“Furthermore, Subhuti, wherever this Sutra is expounded, even a four-line verse, the place is worthy of the offerings of all heavenly beings, human and asuras as if it were a stupa and shrine of Buddha.”
“This is to say nothing of he who accepts, keeps, reads aloud and recites it in its entirety. Subhuti! You should understand this. Such a person will achieve the supreme and rarest dharma. The place where this Sutra is, is where the Buddha and his venerable disciples are.”
Commentary:
The core of this part is what this Sutra is and how to accept, keep, read aloud and recite it.
As mentioned previously, there is nothing that is not empty, which implies that there is nothing that is not the Buddha, or the Pure land. Everything, including ourselves, is the Buddha. Then, whatever reaches your eyes and ears is the Buddha and his Dharma talk, and this Sutra is the Buddha. In this state there is no difference between this Sutra and you. You and this Sutra are just the Buddha, and Sutra is another name of the Buddha. Then, wherever you are is no other than where this Sutra is, which is the Pure land.
To conclude, even if we, deluded by words, pile up hundreds of volumes of Sutras in a place, they are not Sutras but no more than bundles of paper, and even if we read aloud and recite them all our lives, it is no better than singing our favourite songs repeatedly unless we see them as part of the true-Self. Put in other words, to be aware that whatever is seen is the Sutra and whatever is heard is a four-line verse, is to know what this Sutra is and how to accept, keep, read aloud and recite it.
This is why ancient masters would say that all Sutras are Mara’s talks if we are deluded by words in them. On the contrary, mundane texts such as a daily paper and a weekly, or monthly magazine are as good as Sutras when you see them as part of the true-Self, just as the Lotus Sutra says. This is why ancient masters would say that right teaching, when told by a wrong person, becomes wrong teaching, and wrong teaching, when told by a right person, becomes right teaching.
A. ‘A pure practitioner’ implies an enlightened practitioner who is free from being deluded by illusions. He knows better than to be deluded by the word ‘Nirvana’ and to try to enter it. To such a person, everything that reaches his eyes and ears is the Buddha, and where he is, is already Nirvana.
‘A monk who violated the precepts’ means an unenlightened monk who is deluded by illusions. To such a person, where he is, is already the hell.
In fact, not only are Nirvana and hell not separated from each other but one, but also not separate from where we are as well. Where we are now is Nirvana to those who can see things as they are, but hell to those who are deluded by illusions. This is why a pure practitioner cannot enter Nirvana, and a monk who violated precepts doesn’t enter hell’. What matters here is whether you are in Nirvana, or hell.
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