Hearing swallows, Master Hyunsa said on the high seat, “They speak of the essence of everything and preached the core of the Dharma well” and descend from the seat.
Student: “How can I hear the core of the Dharma the swallows preached?” Master: “You can hear it when you don’t speak.” Student: “Why can’t I hear it when I don’t speak?” Master: “Because you still speak.”
Commentary: The reason why you don’t discern what reaches your ears is that you mistake your speaking for being silent.
Part 17-9 “For example, Subhuti, it is like a person whose body is large.” Subhuti said, “World Honoured One, the large body that you, the Realised One said is not a large body but just called a large body.”
Commentary: As with part 17-8 that says ‘all things’ are not all things; therefore, they are called ‘all things’, none of the things that are depicted with words are real, but illusionary. In essence there is nothing but Emptiness. All things that we think are not only real but also different and separate from each other, are no more than illusions created through being divided by words, imaginary lines, by our imagination.
All things we can express with words are illusions, and the essence of them is Emptiness. This is why it is said that everything is the Buddha. From this perspective, a large body is not a large body, but it is just called a large body, and a small body is not a small body, but it is just called a small body. Then, there is no distinction between a large body and a small body. This is why it is said that we should be able to put a huge mountain into a mustard seed. Seen in this way, there is no difference amongst all things in the universe. At that time everything becomes Oneness. The purpose of Buddhism is to realise that everything is the same and one.
Student: “Sir, if you are not a human being but just called a human being, what are you?” Master: “Even the Buddha cannot know it.”
A. ‘Mind is the source, and all things are illusions’ is a well-known sentence that indicates the core of Buddhism. However, the sentence that you ask me to interpret might seem contradictory to the Buddha’s teaching, but is telling us how to accept the core of the Buddha’s words, without being deluded by words.
To rephrase the sentence, it is true that mind is the source, however it is not source but no more than an illusion if we accept mind as a word without realising what mind is. All things, according to the Buddha’s teaching, are illusions, although they are not illusions but the functions of the true-Self if we can see them as they are without being deluded by forms and names. This is why it is said that Mara’s talk becomes the function of the true-Self before the Buddha, the Buddha’s talk becomes Mara’s talk before sentient beings.
Hearing swallows, Master Hyunsa said on the high seat, “They speak of the essence of everything and preached the core of the Dharma well” and descend from the seat.
Student: “How can we hear the core of the Dharma the swallows preached?” Master: “You can hear it when you don’t speak.”
Commentary: Only your words are heard when you speak.
Part 17-8 “Subhuti, ‘all things’ are not all things; therefore, they are called ‘all things.’”
Commentary: This scripture means that all things are not things at all in essence but just names, imaginary labels and that the Buddha used all things as expedient means for the purpose of revealing the true-Self. This is why ancient masters would say that everything is a rabbit-horn.
We should realise what the Buddha tried to show to us beyond words, through words that are imaginary labels. Ancient masters would say that words are not the true-Self but that the true-Self is not separate from words. This implies that form is Emptiness and Emptiness is form, and that illusions are enlightenment and vice versa. Form is not different and separate from Emptiness, but one.
In short, all things are one as the true-Self, but they appear to be many and different from one another because we divide it into many by words, imaginary labels and because we, being deluded by the words, see them as distinct and separate from each other.
Student: “How is it when we realise that all things are not things but just called all things?” Master: “Who can ask whom what?”
I am very sorry for your loss. Who in the world could avoid the sadness you are going through now? However, from the Buddhist perspective, your mother is and will be with you all the time just as she used to be. I advise you to pay more attention to how to feel your mother who is with you, rather than think that she disappeared for good. Once a monk asked his master, “Sir, what is the Buddha?” The master answered, “How dare you disregard the Buddha before you?” This means that the master blamed the monk for trying to see the Buddha without recognising the Buddha who is right before him all the time.
Remember that your mother is always with you just as the Buddha who passed away two thousand and five hundred years ago is always with you.
Dongshan Liangjie once invited head monastic Tai to have fruit with him and asked, “There is something that holds the sky above and the ground beneath. It is as black as lacquer. It is always in activity but cannot be received within activity. Tell me, where is the fault?” The head monastic said, “The fault is activity.” Dongshan shouted and then had the attendant take the fruit away.
Student: “What was the head monastic’s fault?” Master: “When Dongshan pointed to the moon, he looked at his finger instead of the moon.” Student: “What would you have said if you had been the head monastic?” Master: “I would have said, ‘I have neither eyes nor ears’.”
Commentary: Seeing and hearing are the source of all faults.
Part 17-7 Therefore, the Realised One says that all things are Buddha’s teachings.
Commentary: As noted earlier a couple of times, everything is both the Buddha and his teaching, just as a dancer and her dance is one. This is why all things are referred to as the Sutra as well.
As the Avatamsaka Sutra says, “The Buddha makes his appearance in worldly things all around the world. There is no one who cannot see His body. He leads sentient beings to nirvana with a variety of expedients whilst showering the rain of dharma on sentient beings with a voice like a thunder”, all things that we can see and hear are the Buddha. There is nothing that is not the Buddha. We are being showered with his teaching all the time and no one can stop facing Him even for a moment.
However, as the Avatamsaka Sutra says, “It is because sentient beings’ karma is heavy that they, not having seen the Buddha for hundreds of kalpas, have suffering in the ocean of birth and death”, we can’t recognise the Buddha because of our heavy karma that we have been deluded by illusions and attached to them for kalpas.
So, whilst they appear to be separate things from one another when we can’t see things as they are, they appear to be one and the same when we can see them as they are.
If we do appreciate the scripture ‘all things are Buddha’s teachings’, each of these words should appear to be the Buddha.
Student: “If all things are the Buddha’s teachings, how should I hear the sounds of birds?” Master: “You should see them as the Buddha above all.”
A. The Buddha said that everything is imaginary like dreams and not real. Even scientists say that all things are different from each other and that there are not two things that are the same, adding that we just imagine there are things that are the same. When we say, for example, “I have three cups that are the same”, the three cups, although appearing the same in colour, size, price and weight, are actually different from each other, for example, in the number of molecules and the time when each of them was produced. However, we use numbers as if there are many things that are the same; ten pencils and one hundred cups, imagining that they are the same.
In the same way, an ordinary life is also a kind of imaginary concept, not an absolutely concrete concept, and what it is like varies depending on beholders’ perspectives. This is why what seems to be an ordinary life to you can appear to be extraordinary, or special to others. For example, the life that the middle-class people in developed countries such as the United States, Great Britain and Japan think of as an ordinary life can be quite different from the life that the middle-class people of extremely poor countries regard as an ordinary life.
The root of the ordinary and the special is Emptiness.
One day a monk asked Master Woonmun, “What is the Buddha?” He answered, “He is a rude man.” The monk said, “What is his Dharma talk?” The master said, “It’s a talk about something.” The monk asked, “What is the right eye that can see it?” The master said, “Wide.”
Student: “What is the something the Buddha talked about?”
Master: “Woonmun talked about it as well.”
Commentary:
The Buddha and all ancient masters talked about nothing but themselves.
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