the sixth patriarch's sutra february 24, 2012 lecture

8/3/2019 The Sixth Patriarch's Sutra February 24, 2012 Lecture

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The Sixth Patriarch’s Sutra 7:30pm Pacific time

February 24, 2012 lecture ©

as outlined by a Buddhist monkat 1777 Murchison Drive, Burlingame, California 94010, open to public

(phone 650-6925912)

(Listen ‘live’ or recorded audio explanations atwww.wondrousdharma.org)

Q&A There is no justification to killing.

Chapter 2 – Prajna – the meaning and practice of prajnaand paramita

[Subscribe to the free Dharma newsletter atwww.wondrousdharma.org]



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Verse for opening a sutra

• Na Mwo Fundamental Teacher Shakyamuni Buddha (3x)

• Homage to the Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra (3x)

• The unsurpassed, deep, profound, subtle, wonderfulDharma,

• In a hundred thousand million eons, is difficult toencounter,

• Now that I’ve come to receive and hold it, within my sightand hearing,

• I vow to fathom the Thus Come One’s true and actualmeaning.

Exhortation to uphold the Buddhadharma:

“Using conditions, analogies, expressions and powerful expedients, I causethem to rejoice.” (the Wonderful Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra)



Q&A

Question: Someone says, "There is justification for being a soldier

to kill evil people, otherwise evil people will kill others. Aresoldiers then not Bodhisattvas?”

Answer:

• Killing is killing and there is no justification; the reason being

1. You do not comprehend that the “myriad phenomena are just

our mind”, we are all interconnected thereby overlook tocomprehend great compassion.

2. Killing is a phenomena which in reality is empty and false; wefail to comprehend that the “mind is the myriad phenomena”

whereby the phenomena is fundamentally empty and false as itoriginates from the mind that is empty and clear. (overlook to

comprehend wisdom of the original true mind) 3



Q&A

3. Killing, whatever the intent, is an action, a karma that carries aretribution that binds us in this conditioned world; …

• …we fail to comprehend the law of karma that good and evil

are just the effect of causes planted in the past and karma willtake its course regardless of whether you take action or not – overlook to comprehend patience with non production.

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Q&A

• Despite the above you insist on being a “bodhisattva” who

sacrifice personal for the benefit of others, then you have toreflect:

1. “do we have true wisdom to distinguish good and evil correctly”

2. “to what extent we fathom the principle of emptiness”

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Q&A

3. Does two wrongs make one right? No

4. “Well, by killing an evil person, I certainly saved a 3rd,4th, and 5th person”, this a typical clever mundane justification that does

not hold because…

….you only prevent the effect for this life only but fail tocomprehend and attend to the cause of past group karma

...and so in future lives the evil person will continue to attempt tokill the 3rd, 4th and 5th persons …

…the unresolved group karma now becomes more complicatedwith you now being emotionally involved with it.6



Q&A

• A Bodhisattva teaches and transforms expediently according

to the conditions; we accord with conditions but do not change,we do not change yet accord with conditions yet ultimatelythey also truly abide in the emptiness of all phenomena.

• A thought of killing is a mind that moves; the Buddha is onewhose mind is thus, thus unmoving despite teaching andtransforming living beings using either :

1. The method of kindness and compassion

2. The method of awesome virtue of patience.

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Q&A

• The Great Master 6 th Patriarch explains wisdom nature:

• “Students of the Way, all thoughts of good or evil should be

completely cast away.

• What cannot be named by any name is called the self-nature.

• This non-dual nature is the real nature, and it is within the realnature that all teaching doors are established.

• At these words, you should see it for yourselves.”

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Q&A

• One of the final instructions of the Great Master 6th Patriarch is:

• “The basis of this school is non-contention,

• Contention is not the meaning of the Way.

• For in grasping at the Dharma doors of contradiction andcontention,

• The self nature enters birth and death.

• ……how much the more so we don’t even think of killing.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “What is meant by Paramita? It is a Sanskrit word

which in our language means ‘arrived at the other shore,’and is explained as ‘apart from production and extinction.’”

Comments:

• From the position of common person, we arrived at the shore ofthe sages.

• A common person is one who ceaselessly make discursive

thoughts; thereby creating the karma (action) that binds in theturning wheel of birth and death.

• A sage is one ‘apart from production and extinction’ who is

apart from producing discursive thoughts. 10



Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “When one is attached to states of being, production

and extinction arise like waves on water. That is what ismeant by ‘this shore.’”

Comments:

• A common person is stuck in ‘this shore’ because…

• A common person ceaselessly make all manner of discursivethoughts, imaginations, speculations, idle thoughts, jealous

thoughts, angry thoughts, thoughts of attachments, randomthoughts, thoughts of contention, thoughts of scheming andplotting, frivolous thoughts, thoughts of desire and all themyriad types of thoughts that are like continuous waves hittingthe shore.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “To be apart from states of being, with no production

or extinction, is to be like freely flowing water. That is whatis meant by ‘the other shore.’ Therefore it is called

‘Paramita’.”

Comments:

• It is said that ‘a turn of the head is the other shore’

• From the usual habit of producing ceaseless thoughts thatbinds us in the 6 destinies, we turnaround to the liberation of‘no thought’.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

• From being muddled and cluttered by ceaseless thoughts, ourminds become free.

• From ‘production and extinction’, we turnaround to neither produced nor extinction.

• From ‘birth and death’ we turnaround to neither born nor die.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “Good Knowing Advisors, deluded people recite with

their mouths, but while they recite they live in falsehoodand in error. When there is practice in every thought, thatis the true nature.”

Comments:

• Delusion is knowing about mahaprajnaparamita and yet do nottranslate this understanding into our daily lives.

• The point we live is accord with the principle of emptiness ofmahaprajnaparamita is the point we abide in our true originalself nature.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “Good Knowing Advisors, common people are

Buddhas and affliction is Bodhi.

Comments:

• A common person can attain the position of a Buddha when he

understands affliction is Bodhi.

• When you stop being afflicted that itself is bodhi orenlightenment.

• When you don’t know how to cease affliction, you remain in

confusion.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “Past thoughts deluded are the thoughts of a common

person. Future thoughts enlightened are the thoughts of aBuddha. Past thoughts attached to states of being areafflictions, and future thoughts separate from states ofbeing are Bodhi.”

Comments:

• Why are past thoughts delusion?

• It is because the very reason you have past thought is justattachments.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “Past thoughts deluded are the thoughts of a common

person. Future thoughts enlightened are the thoughts of a

Buddha. Past thoughts attached to states of being areafflictions, and future thoughts separate from states ofbeing are Bodhi.”

Comments:

• Future thoughts that are attached to states such as anxiety,worry are delusion.

• Future thoughts become enlightened or wise thoughts providedthey are free of attachments.

• The key point is to embody the principle of emptiness of all

phenomena. 18



Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “Good Knowing Advisors, Maha Prajna Paramita is the

most honored, the most supreme, the foremost. It does not stay;

it does not come or go. All Buddhas of the three periods of time

emerge from it.

Comments:

• Mahaprajnaparamita is the wisdom of the Buddhas, those who

have uncovered their inherent prajna wisdom.

• Mahprajnaparamita does not stay; a Buddha is not fixated in hisviews.

• Mahaprajnaparamita does not come or go; neither come norgo, neither produced nor extinguished, being thus, thusunmoving.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

• “The Thus Come One does not come from anywhere nor does he go anywhere. Therefore he is called the ThusCome One” (Vajra Sutra)

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Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “Good Knowing Advisors, Maha Prajna Paramita is the

most honored, the most supreme, the foremost. It does notstay; it does not come or go. All Buddhas of the threeperiods of time emerge from it.

Comments:

• The Buddha in the Heart Sutra says: “All Buddhas of the three

periods of time attain anuttarasamyaksambodhi throughreliance on prajna paramita.”

• Mahaprajnaparamita is the mother of all Buddhas.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “You should use great wisdom to destroy affliction,

defilement, and the five skandhic heaps. With suchcultivation as that you will certainly realize the BuddhaWay, transforming the three poisons into morality,concentration, and wisdom.”

Comments:

• How do you use wisdom to overcome afflictions, defilement andthe five skandhic heaps?

• By turning around the mind

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Chapter 2 Prajna

• Understanding that ignorance is affliction, defilement, and

engaging in the five skandhas, wisdom is simply the mind notafflicted, not engaging in defilement, not engaging in the fiveskandhas.

• Wisdom is putting down the false mind; and the true mind isrevealed.

• How is it that we are able to turnaround the mind?

• It is because we understand Mahaprajnaparamita; the principleof emptiness of all dharmas.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “You should use great wisdom to destroy affliction,

defilement, and the five skandhic heaps. With suchcultivation as that you will certainly realize the BuddhaWay, transforming the three poisons into morality,concentration, and wisdom.”

Comments:

• The mind of greed, anger and delusion is the sick mind of the7th conscious mind.

• Because of the false self, to benefit self, there is these 3poisons.

• Cultivation is putting down the false mind of greed, anger anddelusion into the practice of being mindful of morality,concentration and wisdom.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “Good Knowing Advisors, my Dharma-door produces84,000 wisdoms from the one Prajna. Why? Because

worldly people have 84,000 kinds of defilement. In theabsence of defilement, wisdom is always present, since itis not separate from the self-nature.”

Comments:

• All the myriad wisdom comes from the wisdom thought ofputting down the defilement.

• And after having done so, we don’t have any attachment or

even any thought of having turnaround.

• When we put down the false mind, the true prajna wisdom isever present in our self nature.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “Understand that this dharma is just no-thought, no-remembrance, non-attachment, and the non-production offalsehood and error. Use your own true-suchness nature,and, by means of wisdom, contemplate and illuminate alldharmas without grasping or rejecting them. That is to seeone’s own nature and realize the Buddha Way.

Comments:

• Wisdom is no-thought, no-remembrance, non-attachment and

non-production of falsehood and error.

• How is it we are able to bring out our prajna wisdom nature?

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Chapter 2 Prajna

• Because we contemplate that the reality of all dharmas: mind isthe myriad phenomena, myriad phenomena are the mind.

• We don’t grasp nor reject when everything is empty and false.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “Understand that this dharma is just no-thought, no-

remembrance, non-attachment, and the non-production offalsehood and error. Use your own true-suchness nature,and, by means of wisdom, contemplate and illuminate alldharmas without grasping or rejecting them. That is to seeone’s own nature and realize the Buddha Way.

Comments:

• No-thought does not mean to suppress the false thoughts.

• No thought is not to give rise to discursive thinking and this isachieved by putting down the discriminating mind andattachment to the self.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

• No-remembrance is to forget about the past; move on.

• Non-attachment is not being attached to anything, including thethought of having practiced and put down the false.

• Non-production of falsehood and error is to avoid creating thecause that leads to our future suffering.

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Chapter 2 Prajna

Sutra: “Understand that this dharma is just no-thought, no-

remembrance, non-attachment, and the non-production offalsehood and error. Use your own true-suchness nature,and, by means of wisdom, contemplate and illuminate alldharmas without grasping or rejecting them. That is to seeone’s own nature and realize the Buddha Way.

Comments:

• Grasping and rejecting are dualities that comes fromattachments and false thinking that the myriad phenomena arereal and existing.

• Grasping is when we like something; rejecting is when wedislike.

• Ultimately the original mind does not hold liking and disliking.30



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Dedication of merit

• May every living beings,

• Our minds as one and radiant with light• Share the fruits of peace, with hearts of goodness

luminous and bright.

• If people hear and see, how hands and hearts can find ingiving unity

• May their minds awake, to great compassion, wisdomand to joy.

• May kindness find reward; may all who sorrow leave theirgrief and pain;

• May this boundless light break the darkness of theirendless night.

• Because our hearts are one, this world of pain turns intoparadise;

• May all become compassionate and wise (2x)



Dedication of merit

• I vow that merit made from this deed will become,

• Adornments for the Pure Land of Bu-ddhas.

• Repaying the four kinds of kindness above,

• And aiding those in three paths below.• May all who see and hear of this deed

• Bring forth the resolve to reborn

• In the Land of Ultimate Bliss.

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the sixth patriarch's sutra february 24, 2012 lecture

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