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Mountain View Road
Mendocino County
September 3, 1979

Dear Shih Fu, 

	The Bodhisattva never uses the causes, 
	conditions, methods, or karma
	of desire to trouble any being.
			-- Avatamsaka Sutra
			Ten Practices Chapter

Yesterday afternoon, as I bowed, I contemplated Universal Worthy Bodhisattva's fourth vow, "to repent of karmic obstacles." I repented of the heavy offenses I have created by talking frivolously. Frivolous, misleading speech disturbs people. It is born of emotion and comes from the desire to be famous and special, #1, and unique. It's the same as the desire for flavor in food. Plain, simple, food has never been good enough for me. I've always sought flavor and tasty, exotic combinations, sensational seasonings. It's a desire and it obstructs my cultivation. Truly: 

       All desires are one desire.

My desires for fame and flavor have caused others to bring forth emotion, to move their minds, to lose mindfulness, to break off pure practices and to seek flavor and desire. Today, I repented of my desire-born offenses of frivolous speech. The repentance verse says,

I have defiled the Sangha's pure dwelling and broken up the pure practices of others.

And I realized suddenly that the beings I have troubled by my frivolous speech live both outside and inside my mind. The reason I can't concentrate and lose mindfulness is right here! I speak misleading, loose and emotional talk inside my mind! I still allow myself to feel excessively happy, angry, sorrowful, and fearful. I still attach to love and hate and desire. These seven emotions confuse me and stir up the waters of my originally still, pure mind. I trouble the living beings of my own nature. All along I've assumed that merely holding my tongue and not talking on San Bu Yi Bai would reform my bad-speech karma. But I still have not put down emotion and false speech inside. The Master spoke it for me back in Los Angeles twenty-six months ago:

You're not talking outside? Good! Don't talk inside, either. If you're quiet outside but fighting in your mind, it's just the same as if you fought with other people, isn't it?

I've been deaf to this lesson all along, even with great help. Last month at Sea Ranch, I had a lesson in awareness. Bowing along after lunch I was really getting into a thought of repentance. I got rhapsodic and emotional about it. Tears of joy flowed. I felt waves of shame and sadness for my past selfishness and ignorance. My repentance was a sloppy, tear-jerker from a T.V. soap opera. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a big water-balloon flew from a passing car and smacked the ground behind me. My robe and sash were soaked. I was dumb-founded. Here I was being so sincere. How come I got a water balloon?

If I had looked at it with a straight mind, I would have understood. The water balloon spoke Dharma for me. I was indulging in emotion and attaching to states. The Buddhadharma is not that way. National Master Ch’ing Liang vowed, 

My nature will never be defiled
by states of love and emotion.

The Buddha’s eighteen special dharma – 4) no thoughts of (anything being) different, and 5) unfailing concentration – describe the proper state.

Even though I was using effort, it was deviant vigor. Emotion moves the mind and disturbs living beings. It does not lead to “the unsurpassed place of level equality” which the bhodisattva in Second Practice promises to attain.

National Master Ch’ing Liang speaks directly in the Hua Yen Su Ch’ao Prologue. 

When emotion is produces, 
wisdom is cut off.

But, I wasn’t able to return the light and apply the teaching to myself until today. We have reached the end of our twenty-seven month journey beside the Pacific Ocean. This week we turn East on the Boonville-Mt. View Road and head for the city of Ten Thousand Buddhas. Today I vowed to leave behind my emotional desires. I vow to cut off my seeking for fame and flavor and specialness and the offenses of false speech that they create. I want to return to proper mindfulness and still concentration. I want to “dwell in the unsurpassed place of level equality” with no thoughts of difference. I want to benefit all beings with this work.

  1. I vow never again to use words, gestures, expressions, or postures out of the causes, conditions, methods or karma of emotion or desire.
  2. I vow to speak only Buddahdharma, true principle, and words in service to the Triple Jewel according to the rules of the Bodhisattva’s Second Ground of Wisdom.
  3. I vow never again to seek the desires of fame or flavor. I vow to transform my nature by cultivating these ten hearts:
    1. A true and real heart
    2. A straightforward, direct heart
    3. An unmixed, undefiled heart
    4. An upright, proper heart
    5. A level and equal heart
    6. A clear and cool heart
    7. A humble and respectful heart
    8. A heart of faith and joy in the profound, unsurpassed, subtle and wonderful Dharma
    9. An able-to-endure heart
    10. A heart of Great Kindness, Great Compassion, Great Joy, and Great Giving

Disciple Kuo Chen
(Heng Sure)
bows in respect