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Dear Shih Fu,
This is the verse the Master gave me in Pacifica:
Your words are false and your
excuses many.
(When you) value your energy,
you can become a Buddha.
Still dreaming? Stop talking
and do no more false thinking.
Awakened? Originally there were
no words in it at all.
My name is Kuo Chen, Fruit of the Truth, because I have been a liar. My mouth karma is extremely heavy. Only after practicing "returning the light to shine within" and "seeking the completion of oneself" have I begun to recognize the depth of my bad habit of false speech. It permeates my bones.
The Bodhisattva accomplishes the
foremost honest and true speech...he ob-
tains the nondual speech of all Buddhas
in the three periods of time.
Avatamsaka Sutra
I wrote a half-dozen notes to Heng Ch'au over the past two weeks and each one was misunderstood. Each note back-fired and required more writing to clarify the meaning.
I realized that my hu fa doesn't believe what I say! It's my karma as a liar. I vowed to stop writing altogether, using the principle "originally there are no words."
Then, by continuing to return the light, I understood more. The answer is not to cut off the tongue, but to cut off the self and its defensive habit of lying.
"Master, why would someone tell a lie?" I asked.
"Because he wants to cover over his ugliness. He only wants others to see his long points and he hides his faults by telling lies," the Master replied. "Don't you think that's how it is?" I realized that the answer is not to lie to myself. I don't believe what I say either. I am not true within my mind.
"Your words are false and your excuses many." All day I do things with an eye open for self-benefit, for a way to slip around the true principles. Words fly by in my head without any charge of sincerity. I make excuses for myself endlessly and allow cheating behavior without shame. I don't hold myself to the principles I know to be true. Nothing that I write seems to count, it comes and goes like the wind on the Bolinas Lagoon that we're bowing beside. The road to the purification of liar's karma is to have faith in myself, to choose principle and value it over selfish greed for advantage and benefit. Practice principle and do not tolerate the slightest deviation. No excuse for selfish thoughts. Give away the good behavior as an offering to the Buddhas and transfer the merit to all beings everywhere. Send the defiled self and its bad habits back to emptiness where they came from.
No wonder my Ego is still in charge of my life; I don't have any virtuous practice that can transform it. I don't have any "inner power" of virtue to move the beings of my self-nature to change for the good.
When my faith in my true self is not dual, then my words will be believed. How to achieve it? "Value your energy and you can become a Buddha. Still dreaming? Stop talking and no more false thinking..." In other words, cultivate! Don't try to figure it out in words, it's the words that are the sickness. Concentrate instead on the real treasures, the wordless tools of the practices: the vajra sword, the bowing method, the pure, non-retreating Dharma Wheel. Return the light, in every thought sincerely repent. Hold faith that the powerful yang energy of the Dharma can transform my liar's tongue into "the non-dual speech of the Buddhas of the three periods of time."
And remember cultivation is about growing healthy, new, natural wisdom sprouts in the place of old, diseased habits. Guide the growth gently, with kindness, don't smash it. Use wisdom. Let it expand and contract naturally like the heart, like the tides. Force kills and distorts. It stops the Dharma.
Although he does not rely on the path
of language, nor does he attach to not
speaking..." -- Avatamsaka Sutra