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Heng Sure
April 1, 1978
"Perhaps he presided over the way- place assemblies of great bodhisattvas, or the way-place assemblies of the Sound-hearers and Pratyeka Buddhas. Perhaps he presided over the way-place Assemblies of he wheel-turning sage- Kings, and lesser kings with their Retinues. Or perhaps he presided over The way-place assemblies of Kshatriyas, Brahamans, elders and laypeople, up too And including the way-place assemblies Of the gods, dragons, the eight-fold Spiritual pantheon, humans, non-humans And so forth."
Just as the spring rain in California valley moistens and brings to life all the many kinds of trees, herbs, grasses, and crops, each according to its roots, so too does the Budddha's dharma-rain bring to maturity the many kinds of root-natures of living beings, each according to its own capacity to hear and practice.
We transferred the merit of our day's work at sundown and hustled back to the skinny hamlet of San Simeon: two service stations, two horse ranches, sic motels. I'm filling the water jugs and watching the headlights glide by. Heng Ch'au fills the gas tank and washes the road dust from the world cross paths at the gas pumps. We take a moment to rest, to refuel, to recharge batteries, and move on.
Heng Ch'au
Saturday and Sunday
April 1,2, 1978
GOLD WHEEL TEMPLE: "L.A. Tune-Up"
The Master's teaching in LA is informal and open-ended. We sit on the floor of his room in the morning as people come and go. The topics vary as widely as do the people who draw near-from meditation to real estate, politics to earthquakes, Buddhism to babies. Our instructions come in bits and pieces.
Master: "If the cause ground is crooked, then the result is confused. Cultivators can't have any self."
Monks: "Shih Fu, we sometimes run into some really tough people."
Master: "Don't cut off conditions with anyone. Be good to people. Use kindness, compassion, joy and giving, even to the point of your hatred, jealousy, or obstruction comes, it will be severe."
Many people come in relating their troubles and worried.
Master: "I don't know how to teach and transform people, so every day I'm ashamed and repentant. If I could teach, then you people would have lost your afflictions long ago."
We ask about bowing and meditation states. There's a hint of seeking responses in our eagerness. The master steers us straight.
Master: "In cultivation, you've got to go towards the true in everything. One part true gets one part response; ten parts true get ten parts response. The response is not something you seek, it comes naturally by itself. Anything that comes from seeking isn't true."
The discussion turns to how to tell true from false.
Master: "In the world if you're true, people say you're false. If you're false, people say you're true. It's upside-down." (Laughter)
Someone asks about investing in real estate. The abbot cautions against over-extending oneself and then brings the topic back to cultivation.
"In everything I do, I go one firm step ahead at a time, and then I never have to retreat."
A layman relates climbing a hill once with the abbot. The layman raced ahead and was sweating and out of breath half way up. But the abbot arrived on top without even breathing hard.
Master: "I go slow, but long."
The topic turned to politics and corruption in government.
Master: "Without virtue, nothing survives. Without virtue, you will come to a bad end no matter how high you go."
Layman: "What's virtue?"
Master: "Being good to people. Even if you can't be good to them right on the spot, you can wait and when there's chance later on, be of benefit to them."
Monk: "Master, I'm really a cheat."
Master: "Don't be so serious. You say it too severely. If you can be a cheat, then you're there."
Monk: "Huh?"
Master: "Everyone cheats himself in order to cultivate. In fact, we are Buddhas, but we don't know it, so we cheat ourselves into having to cultivate in order to realize Buddhahood."
Nun: "There's an American self-made guru who says, 'everyone's a Buddha, so don't work so hard.'"
Master: "If you say 'I'm a Buddha already so I don't have to cultivate,' this is really cheating yourself. If you say this, it shows you haven't even made it to the starting line. Do you understand?"
Nun: "Not entirely."
Master: "It's like someone who wants to be a college professor but hasn't yet entered elementary school. He's not qualified to even talk about professorship, much less pretend to be one."
That's where all these self-made Buddhas are at.
Questions arise about the best method to practice.
Master: "In Buddhism, don't know too much. It's best to concentrate on one dharma door. Children who cry should cry. Those who laugh should laugh. Concentrate on one and don't scatter. Bowers to the Buddha should bow. Mantra reciters should recite their mantras."
Monk: "Master, on one hand you say we should not be so serious and uptight, and then you also say not to be the least bit sloppy or casual. How should it be then?"
Master: "If you can handle it and be relaxed, okay. Hold on as tight as you need to hold on, to climb to the top of the pole."
We relate that we use the 42 hands like weapons in our minds, to defend and protect ourselves in tense situations.
Master: "No. Buddhists never harm any being. You should always use them to teach and transform, to save and take across all living beings."
I had a dream on the pilgrimage that wherever the master was, Amitabha Buddha was also there, and that was the pure land. When someone told us the city of ten thousand Buddhas has been called the western land of ultimate bliss, I lit up. Maybe it was more than a dream.
America is a land of freedom. People here want to be independent and self-reliant. They want room to realize their true self and develop their potential. Buddhism has now come to the west. This is the biggest even in US history, even though it's small now. Why? Because through Buddhism, countless numbers of people will find the ultimate liberation and fulfillment they seek. You could say the real American Revolution began when the dharma came to this country. For while there was a political and external independence established over two centuries ago, the internal and spiritual independence is just beginning.
Paradoxically, the very things we thought would give us freedom and meaning came to enslave us. Material abundance and affluence, the best and biggest, the newest and fastest, all tied us down and put a shadow on our spirit like the industrial smog cloud that hangs over Gary, Indiana. We found liberation wasn't outside. But before Buddhism appeared, there was no map for the journey within. The frontier is now open.
The city of ten thousand Buddhas is the new home of world Buddhism. Soon, the dharma will be all but a faint shadow and relic in Asia. The signs of imminent decay are everywhere. As an older retired man said about the city and Buddhism in America,
"I'm glad to see this. This is what we need. It will make the country strong."
Not only will America be enriched, but the strength and vitality of this spiritual renaissance will spread throughout the entire world and eventually return to reawaken Asia itself. Somehow, it's appropriate and auspicious for Buddhism to make American its new home: the highest teaching of peace and freedom in the strongest country of peace and freedom; the oldest truths in the youngest land. It's a healthy balance of wisdom and youth that can only be good for the world.
Heng Sure and I are talkers, word people. Suddenly we are beginning to sound not so smart. Our speech is jerky and uncertain, no longer smooth and confident. It feels uncomfortable but real; vulnerable but trusting to the path and a good teacher. Maybe one has to lost control to find the truth.
When the Ven. Abbot speaks dharma, the entire room fills with light. It pours into and through everyone. So strong, pure and inexhaustible. The audience radiates and glows, burning bright and soaking up every word of dharma.
"The Tathagata's great wisdom light purifies the entire mundane world. Having purified the world, He then gives instruction in the Buddhadharma." -- Avatamsaka Sutra
After the lecture someone asks, "Can the Buddha get rid of all the afflictions in the world?"
Master: "Yes, but they would return in an instant. This world would end, another world would appear."
Why? Because everything is created from the mind alone.
The Saha world is produced from the turbid emotions and heavy karma of living beings. The pure land is produced from pure karma. When the mind is pure, then everywhere is the pure land.
The Avatamsaka says,
"All the world is a transformation which is upheld by karmic retribution. All the different bodies are illusions Arising from the strength of what we do. And all living beings come from the many Kinds of mixed up defilements in the mind." -- "Ten Practices"
I don't understand it completely. The understanding comes with the practice. It's not something the intellect can know. We all go away from these lectures challenged and stimulated to cultivate harder.
At the end of the day a young monk says to the abbott, "That's such good talk. I've never heard anything so straight and true."
Master: "The things I teach are understood only by small, stupid people. If you're a smart one, you wont get it. I myself am inarticulate and I look like a dummy, so the bright ones overlook what I teach."