Letters to the Venerable Master Hua from Bhikshus Heng Sure and Ch'au on their bowing pilgrimage to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas.
April
2, 1979
Shoreline
Highway
Stinson
Beach
Dear Shih Fu,
This is an experience I had during the holiday season last year. I only now have found time to write it up.
I should rescue and save all beings
and set them in the place of ultimate
peace and joy! Therefore the Bodhi
sattva immediately brings forth the
bright wisdom of great kindness.
- Avatamsaka
Kindness is supreme. Kindness can make us happy all the time because kindness comes from giving and making others happy. Giving makes everyone happy. To be truly kind you have to have given yourself away, given your afflictions away, given everything away, let it all go.
Being brittle and hard is easy
it takes courage to be kind.
Being stingy and selfish
comes naturally to the weak but
it takes strength to be compassionate.
Holding on to the self is not wisdom but
it takes faith to let go
Doubts and fears are greed for benefit
it takes giving to be happy.
As I bowed in the icy shadows of the rocks on Christmas day last year the voice of a wise, kind teacher in my ear gave me faith and courage. He said, "C'mon, let it all go. I'll catch you if you slip." In my heart I stepped over a chasm with eyes closed and found myself on another shore. Without thoughts in my mind the peace and light was pure joy. Everything was okay. My heart wanted to give the happiness I felt to all beings. Every hard and selfish atom in my body felt permeated with the light of kindness. "Dwelling peacefully in an attitude of giving, all his faculties are happy, his merit and virtue increase. Producing a wholesome joy and desire he ever enjoys the practices of vast, great giving."
-Avatamsaka
Just then I bowed into the sunlight, out of the shadows and took a good look at my selfish, fearful heart that I have lived in all these years. When I seek benefit from others, when I seek their approval of me I cannot be kind. When I hold on to a self and project my fears on to others I cannot be kind. Seeking approval and fearing hurt by themselves are the cause of my own unhappiness. I make it all up by myself; in my own mind. Fear itself is the poison and the pain, it's not the object of fear that causes hurt. Give up the fear habit projection, stop seeking self, return the light and happiness fills the world.
Faith in my teacher's voice have me strength, strength gave me courage to act courage helped me give up my fears giving away the fearful self brought happiness .
I rested in the heart of happiness that day. I felt clouds of black chi disperse from my body. Kindness came naturally with the practice of giving. The more giving, the more kindness, the more kindness, the happier the heart. To maintain the happiness is easy when one gives to make others happy. With kind thoughts one is happy and wants to share it to make others happy too. This refills the original happiness without exhaustion.
Giving the Dharma is the highest giving and it makes for the highest happiness in return. To leave the home life and cultivate the Way is the highest kindness because it makes one able to give the Dharma without rest.
As I bowed on that rocky road I realized how deeply good it is to practice the Dharma. Reciting the name of the Buddha is great kindness and great goodness. As I bow I recite the name of the Avatamsaka Sutra and the Avatamsaka Assembly of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. I say the word "Buddha" twice and Bodhisattva once with each bow. Just this alone is a happy deed, a way to give to others. It is a kind act. It is enough to fill the world and my heart (no difference) with light "and joy and peace. "Basically there is nothing at all. We people-make all our troubles for ourselves." All the happiness begins with giving, giving up the self-contemplating freedom. How it feels to be content and seeking, nothing liberated and unbound by all the afflictions we make for ourselves, on account of our Self.
"At the place of seeking nothing, there are no worries."
Be content give up all afflictions, doubts fears.
"If you know contentment
you will always be happy.
If you can be patient,
then you naturally are at peace."
Give all thoughts of Self away. Stop thinking and get happy. Then be kind and make others happy. How? Give Dharma by cultivating the Way.
"He vows that all beings will perfect the speaking of the Buddha's road to Bodhi, and constantly take delight in the supreme giving of Dharma."
-Avatamsaka
A family of Dharma-friends joined the bowing that morning and "manifested bodies to speak the Dharma." Passers by saw seven disciples of the Buddha praying on the highway cultivating the Buddha's road to Bodhi with happy hearts.
"When the Bodhisattva cultivates the practice of giving he makes all beings happy and delighted." My heart does not stop smiling.
It's the cultivator that gives.
It's the giving that makes happy.
It's the happiness that wants to be kind and give.
It's the kindness that wants to cultivate.
What happened? Did it cost? No. It was a state and states come from the mind, they change like the weather. It was a natural thing. I didn't seek it, it came by itself. I didn't attach to it, it left by itself. I admit it was the happiest I've been in my 29 years of living. Until my self has been completely given away I will still turn and flow in attachments and false thoughts. Now happy, now afflicted. I don't want it this way and I don't want it any different. I just want to cultivate the Way with a single mind and really learn to give. I want to unite my light with the light of the Sutra.
"In thought after thought the Bodhisattva makes increasing advance into the Perfection of Giving.
Disciple
Kuo Chen
(Heng
Sure)
Bows
in respect.
Near
Stinson Beach, Calif.
April,
1979.
Dear Shih Fu,
Daily our resolve deepens. Each obstacle and demon we face leaves us stronger and happier in the Way. Yesterday I wrestled with a doubt demon all day. The demon was my own false thoughts, not outside. I borrowed strength from my vows and light from my teacher to subdue this demon. Today the world looks different the world didn't change, my mind did.
The weight and dust of all the doubts and false thoughts lifted like the end of a coastal storm. What I saw was very simple. For endless miles everything was clear and calm, empty and still. For two years I've been a monk but the only monastery I've lived in is my own mind.
"The straight mind is the Bodhimanda." The Master said this in Hong Kong. When we climbed the steep hill to visit the simple Way place, Western Bliss Gardens. It stuck with me. Today I found myself returning there like home. Western Bliss Gardens made a strong impression. Rough wood and stone, quiet, "sunlight coming through the trees and open windows. Nothing in excess or decorative. It was like a simple shelter in the wilderness meant only to keep out the elements and to realize the Way within.
My own monastery, my mind, should be this unadorned and basic. What really matters? Just being a real person and getting rid of all coverings of jealousy, arrogance, stinginess, and affliction is my work. The greatest good I could do right now is to clean up my Way place and truly purify my mind. Leave behind all false thinking and be "one of the Way with no mind." No thought for the past, present or the future. No mark of a self or others, of living beings or a lifespan. I should work hard, live simply and close to nature and give no one hassle or obstruction. Just be "pure peaceful and happy" was the Buddha's instruction. "Do good. Do no evil. Offer up your conduct according to the teaching; and purify your mind."
I feel like I'm starting from scratch, in a wilderness and building a pure Bodhimanda. It's just being true within the true in each step. In every thought subduing my greed, anger and stupidity and returning to principle, "Sweeping out all marks and throwing away all dharmas. "Constantly brush it clean arid let no dust alight."
The hard work is the bowing with a single mind. Bowing levels the gilded palace I've caged myself in. Living close to nature is holding pure precepts and guarding my mind from error. It's so clear that there is nothing outside; it's all made from the mind. I've neglected my own precious Way place and let it get overrun with weeds and cobwebs. Western Bliss Gardens is just my own mind. I should take care of it and keep it clean. All thoughts of helping the world and accomplishing Buddhahood with all living beings are not beyond a single thought. If I don't recognize myself and take care of this Bodhimanda of mine then what Path am I cultivating?
This little vision of my own mind becoming a Western Bliss Garden was the most honest and real thing I've felt on the whole pilgrimage.
"If one wishes to know all Buddhas of the three periods of time,
Contemplate the nature of the Dharma realm.
Everything is made from the mind alone."
We read some lines from the Avatamsaka the night before and they really went to my heart. I thought, "This is so good and true. I should be this way. But I am not like this. Where do I begin?" The next day I had my little vision and realized that all Buddhas of the past, present and future are just made from the mind alone. I should begin right where I am and purify my own ground of enlightenment, my own mind. This is the Bodhimanda nowhere else.
These were the verses we read from the Avatamsaka Sutra:
"He
fulfills the level equality
of all Buddhas of the past
He fulfills the level equality
of all Buddhas of the past.
He accomplishes the level equality
of all Buddhas of the future.
He peacefully dwells in the level equality
of all Buddhas of the present.
He practices the states of all Buddhas
of all Buddhas of the past.
He lives in the states
of all Buddhas of the future.
He is the same with the states
of all Buddhas of the present.
He obtains the good roots of all Buddhas
of the past, present and future.
He perfects the seed nature of the
Buddhas of the three periods of time.
He dwells in what is practiced by ill
Buddhas of the past, present and future.
He accords with the state of all“
Buddhas of the three periods of time.
Peace in the Way,
Disciple Kuo Ting
(Heng Chau)
Bows in respect.
P.S. When the Master visited us last month he said, "Tomorrow is Kuan Yin's day. We're holding a session. We'll be tying up the boundaries tonight, (big smile) You've got greedy thoughts about attending don't you? Well don't worry. For you here doing Three Steps One Bow everyday is a Kuan Yin session; everyday you're at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas."
A straight mind is the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas when the mind is straight no matter where you are you're at the City. When the mind is crooked, then even if you were at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, it would only be the "Old State Hospital."
"Bodhisattvas are made from people.
Buddhas come from what people cultivate."
A straight mind's the Bodhimanda,
practice understands;
A straight mind's the Buddha City,
every Buddha's made by hand.
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OPEN YOUR EYES; TAKE A LOOK AT THE WORLD, is an account of the 1978 Delegation's tour of the Asia region. Instructional talks by the Venerable Abbot and journals of Bhikshus Heng Sure and Heng Ch'au and Bhikshuni Heng Tao offer the reader a thorough look at Buddhism in Asia and devotees' heartfelt welcome of the Proper Dharma as embodied in the teachings of the Venerable Abbot. A fast moving account of the rigorously paced 42 day tour, this book is of historical significance as it depicts the coming of the Proper Dharma back to Asia from the West. Softbound pages. Also available in Chinese. Photographs, drawings, and illustrations.