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April, 1979
near Stinson Beach, California
Dear Shih Fu,
Daily our resolve deepens. Each obstacle and demon we face leaves us stronger and happier in the Way. Yesterday I wrestled with a doubt demon all day. The demon was my own false thoughts, not outside. I borrowed strength from my vows and light from my teacher to subdue this demon. Today the world looks different. The world didn't change, my mind did.
The weight and dust of all the doubts and false thoughts lifted like the dark clouds at the end of a coastal storm. What I saw was very simple. For endless miles everything was clear and calm, empty and still. For two years I've been a monk but the only monastery I've lived in is my own mind .
"The straight mind is the Bodhimanda." The Master said this in Hong Kong as we climbed the steep hill to visit the simple Way-place, Western Bliss Gardens. It stuck with me. Today I found myself returning there like home. Western Bliss Gardens made a strong impression. Rough wood and stone, quiet, sunlight coming through the trees and open windows. Nothing in excess or decorative. It was like a simple shelter in the wilderness meant only to keep out the elements and to realize the Way within.
My own monastery, my mind, should be this unadorned and basic. What really matters? Just being a real person and getting rid of all coverings of jealousy, arrogance, stinginess, and affliction is my work. The greatest good I could do right now is to clean up my Way-place--and truly purify my mind. Leave behind all false thinking and be "one of the Way with no mind." No thought for the past, present or the future. No mark of a self or others, of living beings or a lifespan. I should work hard, live simply and close to nature and give no one hassles or obstruction. Just be "pure peaceful and happy" was the Buddha's instruction. "Do good. Do no evil. Offer up your conduct according to the teaching, and purify your mind."
I feel like I'm starting from scratch: building a pure Bodhimanda in a wilderness. Trying in each step to be true within the true. In every thought subduing my greed, anger and stupidity, and returning to principle. Sweeping out all marks and throwing away all dharmas. "Constantly brush it clean and let no dust alight."
The foundation work is the bowing with a single mind. Bowing levels the gilded palace I've caged myself in. Living close to nature is holding pure precepts and guarding my mind from error. It's so clear that there is nothing outside; it's all made from the mind.
If one wishes to know all Buddhas of
the three periods of time,
Contemplate the nature of the Dharma Realm:
Everything is made from the mind alone.
We read some lines from the Avatamsaka the night
before, that
really went to my heart. I thought, "This is so good and
true. I should be
this way. But I am not like this. Where do I begin? " The
next day I had
this vision and realized that all Buddhas of the past,
present and future
are just made from the mind alone. I should begin right
where I am: purify
my own ground of enlightenment, rectify my own mind. This
is the
Bodhimanda, no-where else.
These were the verses we read from the Avatamsaka Sutra:
He fulfills the level equality of all
Buddhas of the past
He accomplishes the level equality of
all Buddhas of the past
He peacefully dwells in the level equality
of all Buddhas of the present.
He practices the states of all Buddhas
of the past.
He lives in the states of all Buddhas
of the future.
He is the same with the states of all
Buddhas of the present.
He obtains the good roots of all Buddhas
of the past, present and future.
He perfects the seed-nature of the
Buddhas of the three periods of time.
He dwells in what is practiced by all
Buddhas of the past, present, and future.
He accords with the states of all Buddhas
of the three periods of time.
Peace in the Way
Disciple Kuo T'ing
(Heng Ch'au)
bows in respect
P.S.: When the Master visited us last month he said, "Tomorrow is Kuan Yin's day. We're holding a session. We'll be tying up the boundaries tonight (big smile). You've got greedy thoughts about attending, don't you? Well, don't worry. For you, here doing Three Steps, One Bow, every day is a Kuan Yin Session; every day you're at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas."
A straight mind is the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. When the mind is straight no matter where you are, you're at the City. When the mind is crooked, then even if you were at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, it would only be the Old State Hospital.
Bodhisattvas are made from people.
Buddhas come from what people cultivate.
A straight mind's the Bodhimanda,
practice understands;
A straight mind's the Buddha City,
every Buddha's made by hand.