the sixth patriarch's sutra august 24, 2012 lecture

7/31/2019 The Sixth Patriarch's Sutra August 24, 2012 Lecture

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The Sixth Patriarchs Sutra7:30pm Pacific timeAugust 24, 2012 lecture

as outlined by a Buddhist monkat 1777 Murchison Drive, Burlingame, California 94010, open to public(phone 650-6925912)

(Listen live or recorded audio explanations at

www.wondrousdharma.org)

Q&A Dreams and reality of lifes dream

Chapter 4 Concentration and wisdom

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Verse for opening a sutra

Na Mwo Fundamental Teacher Shakyamuni Buddha (3x)

Homage to the Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra (3x)

The unsurpassed, deep, profound, subtle, wonderful Dharma,

In a hundred thousand million eons, is difficult to encounter,

Now that Ive come to receive and hold it, within my sight and

hearing, I vow to fathom the Thus Come Ones true and actual meaning.

Exhortation to uphold the Dharma: 7/1218Hero of the world, doubly perfect honored one, we only pray that you will

expound and proclaim the Dharma and through the power of yourgreat compassion and pity cross over suffering and tormented livingbeings. (the Wonderful Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra)


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Q&A

Question:

How can you say that life is like a dream when the people in the

dreams dont relate to me, being distant whereas the people I

encounter daily can be related?

Answer:

Affinities are created through frequency of contacts and ourdaily lives seemed real only because of feeling and emotion.

Good affinities gradually develop into emotional love whilst bad

affinities develop into emotional hate; yet these emotions can

alternate when situation changes.

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Q&A

Emotions is what makes us turn in the cycle of birth and death

as we create the karmic actions for desire for love and anger

out of displeasure this is the nature of conditioned living.

Putting down emotions by understanding kindness, compassionand pity for living beings

through wisdom of understanding the nature of reality of this

dharma realm.

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Q&A

Kindness is to make people happy and compassion is to lessen

the suffering of people, without getting emotionally attached to

the these acts because

we understand that the self, the living beings and the worldare just a gathering of causes and conditions seeing through

liking and disliking and

we want to avoid creating a cause for the continuation of the

cause for our continued rebirth which hinges on our ability to

cease the distinction making mind 5


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Q&A

The overriding principle in life is the pursuit of bodhi because

we understand the every cause has no cause in the first placeand.

.the cause is confusion in not recognizing the

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Q&A

1) wisdom that there is no reality in the world because the

myriad phenomena has no nature of their own but are just thefunctioning of complex mental activities

2) compassion of being one with all living beings and the

environment because the myriad phenomena came from the

mind and everything will eventually return to the original mind

when confusion ceases.

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Q&A

The bottom line is dont pass this life in vain now that we

encounter the Buddhas Dharma

we need to put it into practice by overturning the mentality ofbusiness as usual through understanding the nature of the

Dharma Realm.

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Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, why is no-thought established

as the doctrine? Because there are confused people who

speak of seeing their own nature, and yet they produce

thought with regard to states. Their thoughts cause deviant

views to arise, and from that all defilement and false

thinking are created.Comments:

Speaking of seeing your own self nature, yet when we

encounter states all manner of defiled false thinking arise.

This principle of no thought reminds us to guard our minds.

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Sutra:

Originally, not one single dharma can be obtained in the

self-nature. If there is something to attain, or false talk of

misfortune and blessing, that is just defilement and deviant

views. Therefore, this Dharma-door establishes no-thought

as its doctrine.

Comments:

Originally, there is not a single thing or dharma; is there

anything to obtain?

The no thought doctrine is about returning to the original mind;

the original mind is empty and clear of dharmas and non-dual.10


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Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, No means no what? Thought

means thought of what? No means no two marks, no

thought of defilement. Thought means thought of theoriginal nature of True Suchness. True Suchness is the

substance of thought and thought is the function of True

Suchness.

Comments:

No means without; without thoughts of discrimination of purityand defilement.

Thought is the Thus Come Ones Matrix; the source orBuddha-nature from which everything comes about.11


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Reality is the product of thought; thought is reality.

Mind is the myriad phenomena of Reality; the myriad

phenomena are just the mind.

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Sutra:

The True Suchness self-nature gives rise to thought. It is

not the eye, ear, nose, or tongue which can think. The True

Suchness possesses a nature and therefore gives rise tothought. Without True Suchness, the eye, ear, forms, and

sounds immediately go bad.

Comments:

Mind gives rise to thought.

The five sense faculties cannot function without the mind.

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Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, the True Suchness self-nature

gives rise to thought, and the six faculties, although they

see, hear, feel, and know, are not defiled by the tenthousand states. Your true nature is eternally independent.

Comments:

The Buddha-nature gives rise to thought and the myriad

phenomena.

Yet the Buddha-nature is not defiled by or attached to the

myriad phenomena because this true nature is eternally

abiding. 14


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Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, the True Suchness self-nature

gives rise to thought, and the six faculties, although they

see, hear, feel, and know, are not defiled by the tenthousand states. Your true nature is eternally independent.

Therefore, the Vimalakirti Sutra says, If one is well able to

discriminate all dharma marks, then, in the primary

meaning, one does not move.

Comments:

Basically, one does not move whilst in the midst of the

appearances or states of the mind.

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Why do you move or react to sense objects?

It is because you are attached to sense objects and a self.

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Chapter 5 Sitting in Chan

Sutra:

The Master instructed the assembly: The door of sitting in

Chan consists fundamentally of attaching oneself neither

to the mind nor to purity; it is not non-movement.

Comments:

Chan is about the mind not being attached to objects ofafflictions and not being attached to views.

Chan is not unmoving per se, that is Chan is not just

concentration devoid of wisdom of being without attachments.17


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Sutra:

One might speak of becoming attached to the mind, and

yet the mind is fundamentally false. You should know that

the mind is like an illusion, and therefore there is nothingto which you can become attached.

Comments:

If you grasp your own mind, whats not illusion then

becomes illusory.(Shurangama Sutra)

Becoming attached to the mind is to be attached to the mind

that is dependent on perceived objects; there is no reality in the

perceived objects, they are illusions of the mind itself. 18


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Sutra:

One might say that to practice Chan is to attach oneself

to purity, yet the nature of people is basically pure.

Comments:

Why do we need to purify the mind that originally is without asingle defilement?

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Sutra:

It is because of false thinking that the True Suchness is

obscured. Simply have no false thinking, and the nature

will be pure of itself.

Comments:

Venerable Elder Master Xu Yun has ceased his mad mind; we

have to cease our mad mind.

The mad mind originated from the parable of Yajnadatta in the

Shurangama Sutra.

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Sutra:

If an attachment to purity arises in your mind, a deluded

idea of purity will result. What is delusory does not exist,

and the attachment is false.

Comments:

Attachment to purity is delusion because purity in its original

nature is without anything at all.

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Sutra:

Purity has no form or mark and yet there are those who

set up the mark of purity as an achievement. Those with

this view obstruct their own original nature and becomebound by purity.

Comments:

Purity in its original nature is without anything.

Those who become attached to the notion of being pure in

effect has created something and thereby will not be able to

see their original pure nature.

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Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, one who cultivates non-movement

does not notice whether other people are right or wrong,

good or bad, or whether they have other faults. That is thenon-movement of the self-nature.

Comments:

How can the mind be said to be unmoving when it keeps on

generating thoughts of right and wrong, good or evil or being

critical of others?

The mind is unmoving only when it sees through dualities of

rights and wrongs and so on by turning our light of attentioninwards.

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Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, although the body of the confused

person may not move, as soon as he opens his mouth he

speaks of what is right and wrong about others, of theirgood points and shortcomings, and so he turns his back

on the Way.

Comments:

The incessant thought of a person flows down to his speech.

Such behavior does not accord with the Way as not only the

mind but the speech karma in no longer in its original unmoving

and non dual nature. 24


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Sutra:

Attachment to the mind and attachment to purity are

obstructions to the Way.

Comments:

Attachment to a view of a self and views of purity impedes thecultivator from seeing his original Buddha nature because

a Buddha is one without a mark of a self and one who is thus,

thus unmoving.

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Sutra:

The Master instructed the assembly, Good Knowing

Advisors, what is meant by sitting in Chan?

Comments:

Is sitting in Chan about sitting down and crossing the leg?

No, it is about the practice of quieting the mind.

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Sutra:


Advisors, what is meant by sitting in Chan? In this

unobstructed and unimpeded Dharma-door, the mindsthoughts do not arise with respect to any good or evil

external state. That is what sitting is. To see the unmoving

self-nature inwardly is Chan.

Comments:

A cultivator is said to be sitting in Chan when the mind is nolonger thinking of good or evil of others whilst the light of

attention of the mind is focused inwards.

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Sutra:


Advisors, what is meant by sitting in Chan? In this

unobstructed and unimpeded Dharma-door, the mindsthoughts do not arise with respect to any good or evil

external state. That is what sitting is. To see the unmoving

self-nature inwardly is Chan.

Comments:

Chan means stillness; the self nature is in unmoving thusness.

The unmoving thusness is the mind that sit and it does not go

running after external 28


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To be in the state of sitting Chan is made possible when

we see that everything is just our mind that is essentially

empty and still and

everything is just consciousness and has no reality.

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Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, what is meant by Chan

concentration? Being separate from external marks is

Chan. Not being confused inwardly is concentration.

Comments:

Chan means unmoving and it is facilitated by cutting off sights

and sounds and all other sense objects.

Concentration is when the mind is no longer confused, no

longer scattered.

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Dedication of merit

May every living beings,

Our minds as one and radiant with light

Share the fruits of peace, with hearts of goodness

luminous and bright. If people hear and see, how hands and hearts can find in

giving unity

May their minds awake, to great compassion, wisdom

and to joy. May kindness find reward; may all who sorrow leave their

grief and pain;

May this boundless light break the darkness of theirendless night.

Because our hearts are one, this world of pain turns intoparadise;

May all become compassionate and wise (2x)


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Dedication of merit

I vow that merit made from this deed will become,

Adornments for the Pure Land of Bu-ddhas. Repaying the four kinds of kindness above,

And aiding those in three paths below.

May all who see and hear of this deed Bring forth the resolve to reborn

In the Land of Ultimate Bliss.

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the sixth patriarch's sutra august 24, 2012 lecture

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