Panna Padipa - Blogs of BWB & CA

圣开法师答

问：

请示师傅，要怎样修治散乱的心？

答：

要修散乱的心，就要修不散乱。现在你们把眼睛闭上，手合掌，师傅现在就教你们修。这个时候你心里面什么都不想，散乱心就没有了。（数分钟）
好，现在眼睛睁开，师傅教你们的就是修禅定。你把这个杂乱妄想的心收回来，置心一处，无事不办，把这个心定在不动的地方，不动就是定，定了以后，智慧也就会生出来了。

但是修禅定最要紧的是要有觉，有很多人学佛修行，念佛参禅一辈子，他没有智慧，原因就是没有觉。所以我们把这个心定在一处以后，我们还要有一种觉观，觉照。觉就是你这个心不动，有一微尘飞过你都知道，那么这个定就差不多了。

谈到觉，假使你不但觉了自己的心，他方世界开了一朵花，都好像在你的手里边一样，看得清清楚楚，那么你就成佛了。

所以这个修法是很不简单，师傅这么简单就跟你们讲了，大家要珍惜。

Source: Xin Fu Wen Hua, Volume 30, April 2007 Series
Following Q&A by Missionary Chen Ming An, a dharma successor of Venerable Shen Kai (founder of Wei Fo Zhong, Buddhahood Sect/Buddha-Only Sect)

http://www.dailyzen.com/zen/zen_reading34.asp

The Mind Ground - T'aego

At the behest of the King, T'aego gave a brief outline of the basic principles of Zen:

There is something bright and clear, without falsity, without biases, tranquil and unmoving, possessed of vast consciousness, fundamentally without birth and death and discrimination, without names and forms and words. It engulfs space and covers all of heaven and earth, all of form and sound, and is equipped to function.

If we speak of its essence, it is so vast it embraces everything, so that nothing is outside of it. If we speak about its function... even great sages cannot get to the end of it.

This one thing is always with each and every person. Whether you move or not, whenever you encounter circumstances and objects, it is always very obvious and clear, clear everywhere, revealed in everything. It is quietly shining in all activities. As an expedient, it is called Mind. It is also called the Path, and the king of the myriad dharmas, and Buddha. Buddha said that whether walking, sitting or lying down, we are always within it.

Even Yao and Shun said: "Holding faithfully to the mean, without contrived activity, everything under heaven is well ordered." Weren't Yao and Shun sages? Weren't the buddhas and enlightened teachers special people? They simply managed to illuminate This Mind.

Therefore, since antiquity, the buddhas and enlightened teachers have never established words and texts as sacred: they just transmitted Mind with Mind, without any other separate teaching. If there is some other teaching outside This Mind, this is a deluded theory, not the words of the Buddha. Thus, when we use the name Mind, it is not the ordinary person's mind that falsely engenders discrimination: rather, it is the silent and motionless Mind in each person.

People cannot preserve this inherent Mind for themselves. Unwittingly they make false moves and are suddenly thrown into confusion by the wind of objects: they are buried in sensory experiences, which arise and disappear again and again. They falsely create the karmic suffering of endless birth and death. Therefore, the buddhas and enlightened teachers and sages appeared in the world by the power of their past bodhisattva vows. They use great compassion and directly point out that the human mind is inherently enlightened, and they enable people to awaken to the mind-buddha.

Your majesty must contemplate his own inherent mind. During lulls in the myriad functions of state, Your Majesty should sit upright in the palace, without thinking of good and evil at all, just like a golden statue of Buddha. Then the false thinking of birth and destruction is totally obliterated and the obliterating is obliterated, in an instant the mindground is quiet and motionless, with nothing to rest on. Body and mind are suddenly empty: it's like leaning on the void. All that appears here is total clarity and illumination.

At this moment you should look carefully at your original face before your father and mother were born. As soon as it is brought up, you awaken to it: then like a person drinking water, you know yourself whether it is cool or warm. It cannot be described or explained to anyone else. It's just a luminous awareness covering heaven and earth.

When the realm I've just talked about spontaneously appears before you, you will have no doubts about birth and death, you will have no doubts about the sayings of the buddhas and enlightened teachers- indeed, you will have met the buddhas and enlightened teachers. This is the wonder transmitted from person to person by buddhas and enlightened teachers since antiquity.

You must make it your concern: be careful not to neglect it. Be like this even when attending to affairs of state and working for the renovation of the people. Use this Path also to be alert to all events and to encourage all our ministers and common subjects to share together in the uncontrived inner truth and enjoy Great Peace. Then the buddhas are sure to rejoice.

- T'aego (1301-1382)
Taken from A Buddha from Korea: The Zen Teachings of T'aego, Thomas Cleary (1988)

--------------------------------

We no longer live in times where leaders ask Zen masters for guidance nor where true guidance is that easily attainable. However, to one who is sincerely trying to cultivate the "mind that seeks the Way" the tradition is still alive and worth finding. To understand how to maintain practice throughout one's daily life is the koan for many of today's students. That is at heart what T'aego is offering to the King in the excerpt above, how to realize Mind in everyday activities. Sometimes using language at all to communicate becomes the main barrier, then we have the language of ages past and the situation becomes more abstruse. In more recent times this same message was communicated in the following:

*

You can be your own sage. You can be your own teacher if you are a person for whom no task is worth losing the Way. No goal, no thing, nothing you are doing, is really worth throwing that awareness away for. No feeling that you have is as important as staying at that cool, clear center of awareness. If you are going to move like a fly buzzing around, or you are going to be oppressed by a thought or feeling that comes up, where is your love of the Way then? Where is your love of the Way when you are buzzing around? That is when you have to keep coming back and find it.

This takes a tremendous effort. A tremendous amount of energy is all that it takes the next time you feel that way. It is like pushing your way through to your second wind. The next time that you have a feeling oppressing you, stand up, observe and use every atom of energy you have to observe. Don't just sit there and let it push you to the ground.

To be that still, clear mind everyday is the only thing that makes life truly worth living. The rest is just gaining, winning, and losing. You should put every atom into living these principles -- to realize them, to see them, to use them.

Everything you do is from Blue Sky Mind. You don't run off with your delusions when they arise. You see them as clouds. You understand that which stays and that which goes. This consciousness that you have, the Blue Sky Mind observes all these states and sees them all clearly.

- Taken from unpublished manuscripts of Traceless Way





Returning to Blue Sky Mind,
The Monkess

http://www.dailyzen.com/zen/zen_reading0611.asp From the Record of Things Heard Dogen (1200-1253) One day a student asked: “I have spent months and years in earnest study, but I have yet to gain enlightenment. Many of the old masters say that the Way does not depend on intelligence and cleverness, and that there is no need for knowledge and talent. As I understand it, even though my capacity is inferior, I need not feel badly for myself. Are there not any old sayings or cautionary words that I should know about?” Dogen replied: “Yes, there are. True study of the Way does not rely on knowledge and genius or cleverness and brilliance. Because study has no use for wide learning and high intelligence, even those with inferior capacities can participate. True study of the Way is an easy thing. Even in the monasteries of China, only one or two out of several hundred, or even a thousand, disciples under a great Ch’an master actually gained true enlightenment. Therefore, old sayings and cautionary words are needed. As I see it now, it is a matter of gaining the desire to practice. A person who gives rise to a real desire and puts his utmost efforts into study will surely gain enlightenment. Essentially, one must devote all attention to this effort and enter into practice with all due speed. More specifically, the following points must be kept in mind: “In the first place, there must be a keen and sincere desire to seek the Way. For example, someone who wishes to steal a precious jewel, to attack a formidable enemy, or to make the acquaintance of a beautiful woman must, at all times, watch intently for the opportunity, adjusting to changing events and shifting circumstances. Anything sought for with such intensity will surely be gained. If the desire to search for the Way becomes as intense as this, whether you concentrate on doing zazen alone, investigate a koan by an old master, interview a Zen teacher, or practice with sincere devotion, you will succeed no matter how high you must shoot or no matter how deep you must plumb. “Without arousing this wholehearted will for the Buddha Way, how can anyone succeed in this most important task of cutting the endless round of birth and death? Those who have this drive, even if they have little knowledge or are of inferior capacity, even if they are stupid or evil, will without fail gain enlightenment. “Next, to arouse such a mind, one must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world. This realization is not achieved by some temporary method of contemplation. It is not creating something out of nothing and then thinking about it. Impermanence is a fact before our eyes. Do not wait for the teachings from others, the words of the scriptures, and for the principles of enlightenment. We are born in the morning and die in the evening; the person we saw yesterday is no longer with us today. These facts we see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears. You see and hear impermanence in terms of another person, but try weighing it with your own body. “Even though you live to be seventy or eighty, you die in accordance with the inevitability of death. How will you ever come to terms with the worries, joys, intimacies, and conflicts that concern you in this life? With faith in Buddhism, seek the true happiness of nirvana. How can those who are old or who have passed the halfway mark in their lives relax in their studies when there is no way of telling how many years are left?” Think of those who gained enlightenment upon hearing the sound of bamboo when struck by a tile or seeing blossoms in bloom. Does the bamboo distinguish the clever or dull, the deluded or enlightened; does the flower differentiate between shallow and deep, the wise and stupid? Though flowers bloom year after year, not everyone who sees them gains enlightenment. Bamboo always gives off sounds, but not all who hear them become enlightened. It is only by virtue of long study and much practice that we gain an affinity with what we have labored for and gain enlightenment and clarity of mind. The most important point in the study of the Way is zazen. Many people in China gained enlightenment solely through the strength of zazen. Some who were so ignorant that they could not answer a single question exceeded the learned who had studied many years solely through the efficacy of their single-minded devotion to zazen. Therefore, students must concentrate on zazen alone and not bother about other things. The Way of the Buddhas and Ancestors is zazen alone. Follow nothing else. At that time Ejo asked: “When we combine zazen with the reading of the texts, we can understand about one point in a hundred or a thousand upon examining the Zen sayings and koans. But in zazen alone there is no indication of even this much. Must we devote ourselves to zazen even then?” Dogen answered: “Although a slight understanding seems to emerge from examining a koan, it causes the Way of the Buddhas and Ancestors to become even more distant. If you devote your time to doing zazen without wanting to know anything and without seeking enlightenment, this is itself the Ancestral Way. Although the old Masters urged both the reading of the scriptures and the practice of zazen, they clearly emphasized zazen. Some gained enlightenment through the koan, but the merit that brought enlightenment came from the zazen. Truly the merit is in the zazen.” The basic point to understand in the study of the Way is that you must cast aside your deep-rooted attachments. If you rectify the body in terms of the four attitudes of dignity, the mind rectifies itself. Students, even if you gain enlightenment, do not stop practicing, thinking that you have attained the ultimate. The Buddha Way is endless. Once enlightened you must practice all the more. Dogen (1200-1253) Excerpted from The Roaring Stream - A New Zen Reader Edited by Nelson Foster and Jack Shoemaker 1996 * One of the challenges to a life of practice is to protect and nourish the Mind that seeks the Way. In the beginning it is easy to have the intensity of Beginner’s Mind; everything is so fresh, so vital, so exotic sounding. Here, though, a student is questioning Dogen about his lack of attaining enlightenment, a feeling many in practice experience from time to time. Dogen answers by assuring him that anything you devote your energy to with intensity and sincere desire will over time bear fruits for your labor. Later on he answers more directly by stating: “If you devote your time to doing zazen without wanting to know anything and without seeking enlightenment, this is itself the Ancestral Way.” At some point in training sitting is just enough in and of itself; the “goals” of practice take more of a back seat. Meditation is just sitting in the lap of the universe and expressing your nature. All of us have our own genjo koans, or life questions that help to keep practice vital. To settle for answers to unanswerable questions dulls the mind and practice. To live with our questions each day, to see them in our lives, and to see them evolve into new questions keeps the practice “keen and sincere.” May your Way Be Clear, Elana, Monkess for Daily Zen

大通方广忏悔灭罪庄严成佛经

also named 大解脱经

url link :
http://bbs.ningma.com/dispbbs.asp?boardID=9&ID=327&page=3





《大通方广忏悔灭罪庄严成佛经》
这部经文的缘起本身就极具殊胜加持力，感人泪下。它是我们的本师释迦世尊去娑罗树涅盘途中宣讲的经文。
释迦世尊临欲涅盘的时候，心中仍充满了对我们罪苦众生的极大悲悯，再赐净除罪障的方便，教令称念十方三世佛和菩萨名号以及十二部经名。



這部經文的緣起本身就極具殊勝加持力，感人淚下。它是我們的本師釋迦世尊去娑羅樹涅槃途中宣講的經文。釋迦世尊臨欲涅槃的時候，心中仍充滿了對我們罪苦眾生的極大悲憫，再賜淨除罪障的方便，教令稱念十方三世佛和菩薩名號以及十二部經名。另外，本經內容十分豐富：不僅宣講了懺悔淨罪的殊勝法門，包括參加修持的人數、天數和占夢的驗相等，還宣講了三乘是一乘、別相三寶、一相三寶、薦拔眾生的方便、無上空義、成就菩薩道的方便、佛的本生故事、對虛空藏菩薩的授記等等。經中講，此經比佛更難值遇。我們的本師釋迦佛曾經歷劫修行，供養無數諸佛，但僅僅得聞一次此經的名字，並未親眼得見此經。而後又經多劫修行，終於定光佛時得聞得見此經

這部歷史上曾僅存名字的經典，一百年前終於振落掉了敦煌藏經洞千年的塵封，它先輾轉飄零於異國他鄉，而後又在它的故土上與房山石經洞的藏經完整地會聚一處，最終在大悲上師三寶的覆護之下，漢地眾生從藏傳佛教系統又重新接續上了《大通方廣懺悔滅罪莊嚴成佛經》殊勝的無間斷的傳承加持，使《大通方廣懺悔滅罪莊嚴成佛經》的法門得到了再次的弘揚，無量的眾生將因此而證得解脫┄┄。每當想起所有的這一切，心中就湧起了對大悲上師三寶無限的感恩與思念┄┄。
感动涕零