The Sixth Patriarchs Sutra

7:30pm Pacific time

January 18, 2013 lecture

as outlined by a Buddhist monk
at 1777 Murchison Drive, Burlingame, California 94010, open to public (phone 650-6925912) (Listen live or recorded audio explanations at www.wondrousdharma.org)

Q&A Disengage sense objects = empty people and empty phenomena Chapter 6 Repentance and reform the 3 refuges of our own nature
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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: 2/486

All Buddhas Doubly Perfect Honored Ones know the Dharmas are eternally without a nature. The Buddha seed arises from conditions; thus they speak of the One Vehicle. This Dharma abides in the Dharmas position dwelling forever in worldly marks. Having understood this in the Bodhimanda,the Guiding Master teaches it expediently. (The Wonderful Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra)
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Q&A
Question: Why is it recommended that we make new vows or

renew vows on the day of enlightenment of Buddha Shakyamuni which is on the 8th day of the 12th lunar month?
Answer:

Because on that day, the Buddha began speaking the Dharma; the first Sutra spoken was the The Great Means Expansive Buddha Flower Adornment Sutra over 21 days

and because we have benefited from the Buddhas Dharma, we want to repay our gratitude by making vows to cultivate on that day. 3

Q&A
Question: Why is disengaging from sense objects by the method of

the organ of the ear the same as the prajna principle to empty people and empty dharmas?
Answer:

Why do we want to disengage from sense objects?

Because we want to empty the objects of awareness from our mind because our present awareness is distorted .

Q&A
I (Bodhisattva Maitreya) focused on a practice of contemplating that everything in the ten directions exists only in consciousness. My mind gained perfect understanding and I understood the true nature of reality.

Bodhisttva Guanyin: My awareness and the objects of my

awareness were emptied, and when that process of emptying my awareness was wholly complete

Q&A

then even that emptying and what had been emptied vanished.

Coming into being and ceasing to be themselves ceased to be. Then the ultimate stillness was revealed.

Q&A
The purpose of disengaging sense objects are to empty my awareness of objects because the objects are like the second moon; our original understanding is like the moon, the second moon comes about because we ignorantly press our eyeball and now we see two moons.

When a person with the eye disease sees the illusory circles of colored light around the lamp, the circles seem to him to be external objects, but in fact what the person sees is a consequence of the disease. The disease places a distorting strain on his visual awareness; it is not the colored light that places the strain 7

Q&A

all that you can see now the mountains, the rivers, the many lands, and the various forms of life are the result of a disease that has existed in your visual awareness since time without beginning

Both the individual karma and the shared karma have come into being because of distortions in awareness that have existed since time without beginning.
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Q&A
Our present awareness is not the awareness that is aware of its defect. To restate: your visual awareness of me now, and of yourself and of the ten classes of beings that can be seen in the world, is a defective awareness. It is not the awareness that is aware of the defect.

The true nature of the essence of visual awareness is not defective, and therefore it is not what is ordinarily referred to as visual awareness.(visual awareness is being distorted 9 by karma.)

Q&A

Why do we want to empty people and empty dharmas?

Venerable Subhuti said, I understand that all is empty and also

that what understands emptiness and the emptiness that is understood are empty as well

To return the cognitive faculty to purity so that all phenomena are understood to be empty: that is the best method.
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Q&A

The purpose of disengaging sense objects are to empty my awareness of objects and my ordinary awareness;

another way of saying empty people and empty dharmas because sense objects are people and dharmas.

Both disengaging sense objects or to say, empty people and empty dharmas arrive at the original true mind
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Q&A

Nevertheless all being with outflows and all the lands in the ten directions, are fundamentally the enlightened, wondrous, luminous mind that understands and has no outflows. The conditions necessary for them all to arise are the illusory diseased distortions in visual awareness, in awareness of sounds, and in all the other types of awareness.

When these conditions are present in combinations, the beings and lands come into being; when these conditions are not present, the beings and lands ceased to be.
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Q&A
When you remain entirely untouched (stillness of mind) by conditions, whether or not they are present in combination, you bring an end all the causes of coming into being and ceasing to be.

At that moment, you will awaken to perfect enlightenment, which is your true nature and which neither comes into being or cease to be.

It is the pure, fundamental mind, the fundamental everlasting enlightenment. (Shurangama Sutra)

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Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, our physical body is an inn; it cannot be returned to.
Comments

Do not take refuge with your physical body by being a slave to your body because the physical body is just our possession like an inn but not our true permanent body/self. When Bodhisattva Guanyin was practicing the profound prajna, he illuminated the five skandhas and saw that they are all empty and he crossed beyond all suffering and difficulty. 14

Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Sutra:

The three bodies of the Buddha exist within the self-nature of worldly people, but because they are confused, they do not see the nature within them and so seek the three bodies of the Tathagata outside themselves. They do not see that the three bodies of the Buddha are within their own bodies.
Comments

Before you understand this principle, you need a good knowing one to help guide you across by pointing to your own nature.

After you understand, you take your own nature across.

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Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Ultimately you have to take yourself across;

you have to walk the path because Buddhas merely show the Path.

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Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Sutra:

Listen to what I say, for it can cause you to see the three bodies of your own self-nature within your own body. The three bodies of the Buddha arise from your own self-nature and are not obtained from outside.
Comments

The precious pearl is within us; turn your light of attention inwards. Recognize your original mind and you will see your Buddhanature.
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Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Our original mind is pure without anything at all; in confusion everything comes from it.

Our original mind is wise without attachment to good or evil.

Our original mind is in samadhi; the unmoving thusness that unites with Reality.

Recognize the original mind and you will see the original nature.

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Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Sutra:

What is the clear, pure Dharma-body Buddha? The worldly persons nature is basically clear and pure, and the ten thousand dharmas are produced from it. The thought of evil produces evil actions and the thought of good produces good actions. Thus all dharmas exist within the self-nature.
Comments

The actual appearance of Reality is without appearance; there isnt anything at all. If people wish to understand the nature of the Dharma Realm, everything is made by the mind alone. 19

Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Basically the Buddha nature within us is without any attributes, (true emptiness)

but from within it because of confusion, everything both good and evil manifest within it (wonderful existence) and

it is explained in the Ten Suchness applicable to each of the 10 Dharma Realms.

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Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

As to that foremost, rare, and hard to understand Dharma accomplished by the Buddha, only the Buddhas and the Buddha can exhaust the Real Appearance of all dharmas; that is to say, with regard to all dharmas: the suchness of the appearance, the suchness of the nature, the suchness of the substance, the suchness of the power, the suchness of the function, the suchness of the causes, the suchness of the conditions, the suchness of the effects, the suchness of the retributionss and the suchness of the ultimate equality from beginning to end.(The Dharma Flower Sutra
Chapter 2 Expedient Device)

The Great Master Sixth Patriarch gives the analogy of the clouds in the sky to depict the suchness of people

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Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Sutra:

This is like the sky which is always clear, and the sun and moon which are always bright, so that if they are obscured by floating clouds it is bright above the clouds and dark below them. But if the wind suddenly blows and scatters the clouds, there is brightness above and below, and the myriad forms appear. The worldly persons nature constantly drifts like those clouds in the sky.
Comments

The worldly person sometimes manifest his good nature and sometimes manifest his evil nature. When we do more good, we ascend; the inverse applies equally.
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Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, intelligence is like the sun and wisdom is like the moon. Intelligence and wisdom are constantly bright, but if you are attached to external states, the floating clouds of false thought cover the self-nature so that it cannot shine.
Comments

The pure mind is like the moon in water; The quiet mind like a cloudless sky; True blessings: the mind stopped, thoughts cut off; True fields of blessing: all desires ended.
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Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Sutra:

If you meet a Good Knowing Advisor, if you listen to the true and right Dharma and cast out your own confusion and falseness, then inside and out there will be penetrating brightness, and within the self-nature all the ten thousand dharmas will appear. That is how it is with those who see their own nature. It is called the clear, pure Dharma-body of the Buddha.
Comments

A good knowing advisor does the job of the Buddha; it takes good roots to meet one.
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Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Sutra:

If you meet a Good Knowing Advisor, if you listen to the true and right Dharma and cast out your own confusion and falseness, then inside and out there will be penetrating brightness, and within the self-nature all the ten thousand dharmas will appear. That is how it is with those who see their own nature. It is called the clear, pure Dharma-body of the Buddha.
Comments

First you listen to the good knowing one; then you practice by removing our confusion and falseness (the false self). When there is no more confusion, the clear, pure Dharma body 25 of the Buddha within us remains.

Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, when your own mind takes refuge with your self-nature, it takes refuge with the true Buddha. To take refuge is to rid your self-nature of egotism and unwholesome thoughts as well as of jealousy, obsequiousness, deceitfulness, contempt, pride, conceit, and deviant views, and all other unwholesome tendencies whenever they arise.
Comments

Our own mind takes refuge with our inherent Buddha nature, the mahaprajnaparamita within us.
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Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Sutra:

Good Knowing Advisors, when your own mind takes refuge with your self-nature, it takes refuge with the true Buddha. To take refuge is to rid your self-nature of egotism and unwholesome thoughts as well as of jealousy, obsequiousness, deceitfulness, contempt, pride, conceit, and deviant views, and all other unwholesome tendencies whenever they arise.
Comments

Taking refuge is the intent to turnaround from being unwholesome to wholesome and it begins with our thoughts. The original self nature is without the self; turning around comes when the false self comparing with others is put down. 27

Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Sutra:

To take refuge is to be always aware of your own transgressions and never to speak of other peoples good or bad traits. Always to be humble and polite is to have penetrated to the self-nature without any obstacle. That is taking refuge.
Comments

A common habit is to look and compare with others, resulting in our mind not being able to return to the original stillness. I see yet do not see.
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Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Sutra:

To take refuge is to be always aware of your own transgressions and never to speak of other peoples good or bad traits. Always to be humble and polite is to have penetrated to the self-nature without any obstacle. That is taking refuge.
Comments

There is tendency to attach to the notion that our practice is superior and being condescending towards others thats why the Great Master reminds us to be humble and polite to others.
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Chapter 6 Repentance and reform

Sutra:

What is the perfect, full Reward-body of the Buddha? Just as one lamp can disperse the darkness of a thousand years, one thought of wisdom can destroy ten thousand years of delusion.
Comments

The perfect full Reward body is the greater transformation body that comes from our wisdom nature. Wisdom is the reversal of delusion; it begins with our mind.
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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 their endless night. Because our hearts are one, this world of pain turns into paradise; 31 May all become compassionate and wise (2x)

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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