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November 8, 1978
Davenport, California
Dear Shih Fu,
There is an ineffable feeling of completeness and security in the life of the left-home monk. Having given up private home and personal relationships, the left-home person is at home in the world at large. His companions are all beings everywhere. His refuge is peaceful dwelling with the Supreme Knight, the Buddha, the wisdom-lore and the Enlightened Ones of the Sutras, and the selfless, pre, “field of blessings” Sangha members. Has there ever been any greater happiness and peace than this?
Several weeks ago I witnessed a wonderful story unfold which I’ve called “The Monk and the Militants”. We were bowing in Santa Cruz when a reporter for the local college paper came up to interview Heng Ch’au. She was interested in our work and our vows. She was surprised that all our needs come from free-will offerings.
The next day, after lunch, we bowed across Branciforte Creek and the reporter appeared again. She looked apologetic and flustered. Another student stood beside her, a hostile statement on her face.
“I feel embarrassed to ask you these questions, but I have to ask anyhow,” the reporter said. The questions were all about politics and economics. They were pointed questions, and the language was angry, resentful, full of jargon and political rhetoric. It was clear that the reporter had been under attack by political classmates at school. They had pegged Buddhisn as parasitical and exclusive and San Bu Yi Bai as an elitist only to members of a rich, white minority in society.
The militants did not pick their opponent well. Heng Ch’au’s answer left the students speechless: the reporter speechless with delight, her angry friend speechless with dismay. Heng Ch’au is not politically ignorant or naïve. Rather he is experienced at the political-consciousness parlor game. Before he left home to become a monk he was a Doctoral candidate in the highly competitive History Department at the University of Wisconsin. He cut his political teeth during the redhot sixties, the era of marches, sit-ins and consciousness-raising confrontations. It was precisely his disenchantment with the ineffectiveness and the narrow scope of the political answer to the world’s problems that lead to the discovery of the Buddhism. In the Buddhadharma he found real solutions to the suffering that all people undergo. He left the home-life to study and practice Dharma full-time as a monk.
Here are the questions and answers given that day as the monk met the challenge militants:
Q: What is the radical and class background of the members of the Sino-America Buddhist Association?
A: We come form the class of all living beings. SABA is truly international. The Buddhadharma cuts across all divisions of class, race, sex, age, nationality, ethnic and economic backgrounds. It is the direct mind-to-mind language, the teaching of all beings, the teaching of the heart. It is the true classless origin of human beings. No one in SABA thinks in those divisive categories any longer.
Q: How can you avoid the reality of “those categories?”
A: It’s all made of the mind. If you want to see the world as rich and poor, black and white, have and have not, then that’s how it is. But if you take a step two inches to the left or two inches to the right or look over your shoulder, then it all look s different. If you are open to all possibilities, if you turn your head all the way around, then you approach the Buddhist view. Buddhism is the teaching of the mind and all its states. Both have no beginning and have no end.
Q: How can you feel comfortable taking the time to pilgrimage like this? Third world people have more primary concerns, like filling their bellies. Your pilgrimage is possible only in a country where everyone gets to eat his fill. Only then are you able to sit around and think of transcendental bliss.
A: No one who understands people could say that the only concern of any person or group of people s filling their bellies. That’s just a handy label that rabble-rousers use to identify “the Third World” as they call it. In fact, Third World people are people, not bellies and mouths. They think of birth and death, where they came from and where they are going. All people think about it. We just returned from a trip through Asia and we visited some back-water places, where the Third World lives. People there met the Buddhadharma with an overwhelmingly positive response, as strong and as enthusiastic as anywhere is the U.S.A. Why? Because Buddhism is the language of the heart. Everyone recognizes it. It transcends the simple concern for full belly. Buddhism is our original home. The rest is superficial.
Q: How are you adding to the world’s production? Living like soft parasites in a safe monastery, how are you helping anyone?
A: People at Gold Mountain Monastery and the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, and at the International Institute for the Translation of Buddhist Texts are deeply concerned with the suffering of beings everywhere. We believe that we must,
Truly recognize your own mistakes, And don’t discuss the faults of others. Others’ faults are just my own; Being of one substance with everyone is great compassion.
But we don’t just talk about it. So we eat just one meal a day. Some of the monks eat just one bowl of food per day. Why? Because there are people in the world who do not get enough to eat every day. We add to the production by not being greedy and by decreasing consumption.
We do not solicit anything. All that we have and use are offerings given freely. We do not use money for food. We get our vegetables from what the markets throw away, or we grow it in our fields. We live on the scraps of the U.S.A. Any money that is offered is used to build Way-places and to print books. No one holds private property, it all belongs to the church. Our clothes are not bought. We recycle the clothes that other people no longer want. We are not concerned with stylish appearances. There are no water-beds at our way places. Most of the monks and nuns and even some of the lay people never lay down—they sleep sitting in meditation posture. We don’t turn on heaters in our monasteries, no matter what season it is. We do not lead personal lives. The monks and nuns are celibate, they believe in eliminating all selfish desires. Now this is genuine revolution. Our Three Great Principles are these:
Freezing to death, we do not climb on condition. Starving to death, we do not beg. Dying of poverty, we do not scheme. We accord with conditions but do not change. Unchanging, we accord with conditions. These are our Three Great Principles. We give up our lives to do the Buddha’s work. We rectify our lives to do the Sangha’s work. Our business is illuminating principles, So that our principles are revealed in our practice. In this way we carry out The pulse of the Patriarchs’ heart transmission.
When we follow these principles, we truly help the Third World and all living beings. The answer to the world’s suffering is not simply to give the Third World what the U.S. has. Rather we must turn our abundant blessings into merit and virtue through hard work and cultivation of our own natures. It’s sad that
To receive suffering is to end suffering. To cash in blessings is to exhaust blessings.
The Buddhadharma teaches that the reason the world is in a mess is because our minds are in a mess. If we want to clean up the world, we must first purify our minds. We do not tell other people to wash their dirty clothes. Buddhists do their own dirty laundry. All of the problems in the world come from selfishness and the desire for self-benefit. The heart of Buddhism teaches us to have no self.
Now if you have no more questions, I’ll get back to work bowing,” said Heng Ch’au and that ended the interview.
In this way, they tend toward true, real principles and gain entry into the profound place that is without wrangling.