Understanding and revering the Buddha

1. Revering the Buddha is the basic practice

Understanding and revering the Buddha is the basic ethics underlying all other ethics. Yet we almost entirely neglect it, take it lightly and fail to see the full importance of this very special quality of mind and conduct. Every day we still bow to the Buddha, more or less, but as the months and years pass we bow with an increasingly perfunctory mind. So we do not obtain the subtle merits of that bowing.

Revering the Buddha is the basic merit that gives rise to all other merits, the basic quality of mind and conduct that gives rise to all others. As disciples of the Buddha, especially as those who have left home, we hope to establish in ourselves countless fine qualities of mind and conduct, so that our own life may be peaceful and joyful and we may be fit to benefit beings. But those countless qualities cannot be achieved without the initial one, revering the Buddha.

For example, we want our minds to be full of compassion and love for all beings, because we know that love for beings is a beautiful ideal, as beautiful as the full moon, which all the saints praise and the whole world relies on. All our lives we aim at it and strive to reach that ideal of compassion. But almost everyone notices that, however hard we try, our compassion grows very little. Attachment to self, from countless ages past, always stops us from loving everyone easily. We do not love even the brothers and sisters around us enough, and there are still the afflictions of resentment, blame and disparagement of one another, again and again.

What strength have we lacked, that we cannot develop compassion like that?

We have lacked the practice of revering the Buddha!

Or take forbearance, which is also an important ethical quality for practitioners. It is a mind that stays calm and unmoved in the face of adversity, offence and things that go against us. Often we are already upset, resentful and suffering over everything in life, and then have to show a sharp, irritable, resentful, short-tempered attitude… so that outsiders looking in judge that we lack strength of practice. For those who have left home especially, calm in the face of adversity is far more important. But we have lacked some spiritual strength, which leaves us weak and no longer steady.

We have lacked the practice of revering the Buddha!

The ancients said, "Revere the teacher in order to become a teacher." It is the same here: only if we revere the Buddha will we gradually attain the Buddha's qualities in our own mind. Only if we revere a certain saint will we achieve a part of that saint's qualities. Of course we achieve only a part, since we cannot possibly match the merit of that saint's practice over many lifetimes.

There is a beautiful story about this. A poor married couple met an arhat of very handsome appearance. They resolved to offer the arhat a length of cloth to replace his tattered, shredded robe after many months in seclusion deep in the mountains. The arhat went into the bushes to put on the new robe and came out looking many times more dignified. The wife blurted out:

• May we share in the attainment that you have realised!

The arhat smiled and agreed, then bowed lightly and turned away. He knew he had attained arhatship, but the couple did not. In any case, that vow would be fulfilled in a future life.

Unexpectedly, when he smiled his appearance became even more beautiful. After he left, the wife kept praising him:

• Heavens, he is as handsome as a film star!

Her husband nodded in agreement.

Many lifetimes passed, and when Shakyamuni Buddha appeared, the couple were reborn not long afterwards. The wife was born into a family of travelling performers and so became an actress who sang from one region to another. The husband, infatuated with the singer, ran away from home to follow her. They had a child together. The husband was often needled, directly and indirectly, as good for nothing, because in truth he did not know how to perform like his wife. Stung in his pride, he learned to perform and also became an actor.

Once, while performing an acrobatic swing on a pole twenty metres high, he suddenly saw the Buddha approaching from afar with a majestic, radiant deportment, so he held still to gaze at him. The Buddha also saw that his conditions had ripened, and recited a verse to him whose content was that life is also a kind of circus act that the wise must know how to escape. He attained the Way on the spot and flew down to bow to him.

The husband left home, and the wife also left home following him and likewise attained the Way, just as the vow of their former life had wished. Of course we also know that they must have had many lifetimes of genuine practice, and it was not due merely to the conditions of offering a length of cloth.

The story above gives us a vivid illustration of how one achieves qualities like those of the saint one has revered.

And above all other saints, the Buddha is the absolute saint of the whole universe, with countless lofty and wonderful qualities. By placing our reverence on him we sow in our minds the seeds of absolute saintly qualities. One day we too will gradually achieve the lofty and beautiful qualities of the Buddha.

Character is raised

The first result, easy to see, from the practice of revering the Buddha is that our character is gradually raised. If we were once coarse, hasty, impatient, shallow in how we looked at matters… then after some time of bowing in reverence to the Buddha we will find ourselves more composed and steady, and looking more worthy of respect.

That kind of bearing and deportment is not obtained by straining to put on an act, but is truly formed naturally by cause and effect. A person without merit, even if he puts on an air of dignity and decorum for a while, will in time reveal his poor nature.

A person with genuine bearing, whether before a crowd or in an empty room, does not make a single wrong gesture that loses dignity. This person always keeps a proper and beautiful deportment even when no one sees, because his own mind knows how to keep watch over each movement gently and carefully.

Through the merit of bowing in reverence to the Buddha, deep within, our mind gains strength and wisdom that show outwardly as a character that makes everyone respect us. This same wisdom also helps us to find our hidden faults. Indeed, anyone who bows to the Buddha for some time begins to see faults that they could not see before. Sometimes others pointed them out and we did not acknowledge them. Now, thanks to the merit of bowing to the Buddha, we understand for ourselves that it is a fault. Once we know the fault, it is already beginning to fade.

For example, before, we lived selfishly, caring only for ourselves; now, after bowing sincerely to the Buddha for some time, we suddenly see which small gestures and small thoughts carry selfishness with them. So we know for ourselves that we must change and cannot stay like this for ever.

A wondrous will appears

Next, a kind of wondrous will appears that helps us get through adversity and through temptation.

We have already distinguished two kinds of will: one that arises from the ego, and one that arises from merit. Will that arises from the ego comes about by straining, by forcing. The more of this kind arises, the more it increases attachment to self and arrogance.

Will that arises from merit is both fierce and light, and very effective.

For example, someone says something that makes us sad. We see that it is not good for someone who knows how to practise to be sad, so we want to let go. But if we merely try hard, we will feel exhausted and the sadness will still cling on. Whereas if we have merit, then the moment we want to be free of sadness and decide to stop it, naturally some strange power within us wipes the sadness out at once.

That is why will is a double-edged knife: it will increase the ego if merit is lacking.

Then, throughout our life of practice, we will meet countless bitter adversities. Without will, we will become discouraged and give up halfway. With will, we will endure and keep going. We will also face countless tempting invitations. Without will, we will also stop to indulge. Will is that necessary, but it must be the kind that comes from merit if it is not to have the harmful side effect of developing the ego.

So we must be wise and know how to bow in reverence to the Buddha, to create for ourselves a firm foundation of merit that makes our life of practice more secure.

Taking refuge in the Buddha

At the first step towards Buddhism, everyone holds the ceremony of taking refuge in the Three Jewels, and fundamentally this is taking refuge in the Buddha. Taking refuge in the Buddha means vowing to venerate the Buddha for the whole of one's life, to be the Buddha's child for one's whole life, to offer this body and mind to the Buddha for one's whole life, and to live within the Buddha's teaching for one's whole life. The meaning of refuge is very great, yet most of us do not fully understand it, and sometimes take it lightly or understand it in a different sense.

First we must make clear that the Buddha is the Perfectly Awakened One, with supreme awakening, whose most concrete representative is Shakyamuni Buddha, who really existed in history. We are deluded beings sunk in suffering, and now, having the good fortune to meet the Buddha's Dharma, we vow to follow the Buddha with our whole life. That is the standard meaning, very basic, very ordinary and very exact.

If we understand it by translating word by word — "quy" is to return, "y" is to rely on — it will seem very superficial and light. That is why many Buddhists easily abandon the Way when they meet the circumstance of marriage or go to live in another country.

In ancient times a lay person who met the Buddha knelt down and made the vow: I take refuge in the World-Honoured One, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha, for the rest of my life.

They said it with complete determination and sincerity, because in front of them at that time stood the Buddha, so lofty and great.

Nowadays, when monks and nuns hold a refuge ceremony for Buddhists, they sometimes cannot sow in the Buddhists' hearts the deep emotion of the first day of entering the Way. Buddhists are not as fortunate as the lay followers of the Buddha's time, who had intense feeling for the Way. Later some Buddhists with little attachment to the temple marry Christians or Muslims and at once abandon the Way to hold the wedding according to them. Those religions strictly require believers to hold the wedding at their own place of worship, which also means requiring the spouse to follow the religion. This is a very effective way of using marriage to bring people into the religion. And the source supplying additional believers to the other religions is precisely our own Buddhism, because we have not helped Buddhists to have absolute faith and reverence for the Buddha.

Now is the time to adjust this, to help Buddhists understand the sacred meaning of taking refuge in the Buddha: to live earnestly, for the whole of life, in accordance with the Buddha's teaching, so that nothing can shake them.

Let us be wary of the meaning of taking refuge in the Buddha as taking refuge in one's own nature, because it does not match the standard fundamental meaning that is necessary for the spiritual life of practice. If we say that taking refuge in the Buddha is taking refuge in one's own nature, who has ever seen what their own nature is like in order to take refuge in it?

Asked where the Buddha is, we point into our own mind. Asked where the mind is, we can only point to the head, or the heart, or the belly. But what is hidden in our mind?

In our mind there always exists an extremely dangerous ego. That ego secretly governs all our thoughts and actions, and often makes our mind give rise to countless afflictions, greed, anger… We have never realised no-self; we merely imagine some lofty own-nature in our mind to venerate, and unwittingly venerate the ego by mistake. Even some who have attained concentration and see the mind empty and bright have not yet escaped attachment to self completely. Only those who have achieved the three knowledges and six supernormal powers like the Buddha are regarded as having ended attachment to self. At present, whatever results we may have in meditative concentration inside, we have still not ended attachment to self. So we must be wisely wary of the inner mind, which still holds this ego, rather than venerating the mind that has a little peace. Otherwise the arrogant mind will grow quickly and shatter our ethics.

There is a story of a visiting monk from far away who came to a village temple and chatted happily with the resident monk. The guest spoke about the field of own-nature. The host asked in puzzlement:

• You say own-nature is within oneself. So when you came from up there to here, did your own-nature come with you? And when you take leave of here to return there, will your own-nature go back with you?

The guest was silent and did not reply. The host went on:

• If that own-nature goes back and forth with you like that, it is not unmoving. And if own-nature is unmoving, it does not go back and forth with you like that; and if it does not go back and forth with you, then that own-nature is not in you, but somewhere else.

If we accept the meaning of taking refuge in own-nature, we very easily fall into venerating the ego and cause the arrogant mind to appear. And the arrogant mind is the calamity of the practitioner.

For example, a person who newly enters a temple to leave home has, besides the master whom he must revere and obey gently, many senior brothers who began practising before him. So he must obey the whole temple and cheerfully accept the scolding and instruction of the whole temple. This is the most beautiful period of the life of practice, because by gently obeying everyone his ego is gradually wiped out. The longer this period lasts, many years, the greater this person's merit. The "misfortune" appears when the master accepts new disciples, that is, when this person is promoted to senior brother and begins to have junior brothers to teach and order about. When someone obeys his orders, his ego is waking up and his merit will gradually decline. The more junior brothers he has, the faster the ego grows.

We see that often, without yet knowing what no-self is, simply through the practice of gentle obedience the ego has greatly diminished and a great deal of merit has been established. The merit from that early period is sometimes enough to carry us through a whole life of practice in peace. But when we begin to have junior brothers, or disciples, this person must keep a mind of no-self through more intensive methods of practice. Otherwise high position is only a favourable environment for the ego to grow stronger.

When we take refuge in the Buddha, we truly revere the Buddha; that is an external object, a supreme saint without the slightest flaw in his character. We are more fortunate than the followers of other religions in that the founder of our religion has such absolute saintly qualities. And it would be a misfortune if we suddenly turned back to worship and take refuge in our own ego, call it own-nature, and then look down on everyone, even the Buddha and Bodhisattvas. Taking for granted that anything outside ourselves is meaningless, and that the Buddha and Bodhisattvas are outside too, we become indifferent to the saints. Our merit will collapse before long!

So we should not twist the meaning of taking refuge in the Buddha into taking refuge in own-nature. Moreover, a disciple of the Buddha who does not understand the Buddha and does not revere the Buddha is very much open to doubt about their ethics. However lofty the doctrine they present, if they lack reverence for the Buddha we should hold off calling them a good person. Reverence for the Buddha must be the foundation before we go on to build other practices within the Buddha's Dharma.

The more we revere the Buddha, the higher the fruit of the Way

Let us take the image of an aeroplane to suggest progress towards the fruit of the Way. First the aeroplane moves slowly, then faster and faster, until it accelerates quickly enough to lift off the ground.

Once it is high in the air, landing is not easy either; it must come down skilfully onto the runway at great speed, then slow down gradually until it stops completely.

A train is the same: once it is running fast, stopping is not easy either; it must reduce speed over several hundred metres before it stops completely.

We are the same. We revere the Buddha and live a life of altruism, loving all beings, humble and discreet. That is the aeroplane gathering momentum. Then those ethical states of mind grow and grow until they are strong enough to take off, and we are said to attain the fruit of stream-enterer, to enter the stream of the saints. A person who attains the fruit of stream-enterer is certified by the Buddha as never again falling into the three evil realms of hell, hungry ghosts and animals. This is so because the momentum is strong enough that the person no longer falls back into error and wrongdoing. The door of the three evil realms is closed to this person for ever. Then, in some life not yet fixed, that person will attain the fruit of Nirvana. One teaching says that a stream-enterer will be reborn seven times before attaining Nirvana; but in fact that is not certain.

Likewise, beings who live with a cruel and selfish mind and do not respect the divine are also building up a momentum towards the realms of downfall. When such an unwholesome life is strong enough, they will fall into the evil realms with no day of rising again. First they will go down to hell. Once they leave their life in hell they will become hungry ghosts; once they leave the life of hungry ghosts they will become animals. But because they had much evil in their minds before, they will become a fierce beast that eats living flesh. Then, because they kill other animals to eat their flesh, they have no chance of being reborn as a better kind, and sink gradually into tiny insects. Once they have become insects, the matter of returning to be human seems no longer able to happen. How pitiable!

We must accumulate enough reverence for the Buddha to take off into the vast sky of merit, and only then do we have no fear of falling back. An aeroplane that has not yet taken off can stop easily; reverence for the Buddha that has not yet passed the threshold can have its aspiration for the Way slip back just as easily. Only when we attain the fruit of stream-enterer can we be temporarily at ease that we will no longer turn back from the Buddha's Dharma.

If our reverence for the Buddha reaches the absolute, we surely already have the cause of the fruit of arhat. But what is reverence for the Buddha that has reached the absolute?

This is a place that cannot be described in words, only our own mind knows.

If someone kneels each day before the Buddha with complete earnest reverence to the absolute, feeling that this body and mind and this life are all offered to the Buddha, and every thought follows the Buddha, that person will later realise a fruit of the Way that is limitless and boundless.

Everyone has bowed to the Buddha, but in fact the mind of reverence differs; most follow the common outward ritual while their minds are very perfunctory. If we bow to the Buddha too perfunctorily, it is hard to have the merit for lasting progress in practice later.

To revere the Buddha, understand the Buddha

To revere the Buddha, we must understand the Buddha, and understand him very deeply. We cannot revere the Buddha with our whole heart if we do not yet understand him. To understand the Buddha we must:

• Know fairly well the extraordinary, transcendent life of the Buddha
• Know much of the sacred and noble teachings of the Buddha
• Know many details of the Buddha's magnificent life of teaching
• Practise diligently and realise, in order to sense the wondrous value of the Buddha's Dharma.

First we must know much about the life of the Buddha, with his noble conduct, with small but extraordinarily moving details. Most of us have read some books on the Buddha's history, but without wisdom we will not feel much and will read as if reading a novel. Sometimes it is because the writer cannot express all that is wonderful in the Buddha's life, but sometimes it is because the reader does not recognise the wonderful things in it. With wisdom we will recognise the greatness of the Buddha from simple passages.

For example, in the Great Discourse of Advice to Rahula, once the Buddha went with Rahula on the morning alms round. It is a beautiful image of a prince and his son becoming master and disciple, setting their wandering footsteps together on the roads of the human world to teach. The Buddha saw that the conditions had come. Halfway along, the Buddha suddenly stopped, then turned and looked at Rahula with the gaze of a king of elephants. The Buddha taught Rahula about the meaning of impermanence and no-self.

Merely the short passage about the gaze of a king of elephants can move us. The sentence is short, but it holds within it the Buddha's whole steady and boundless inner calm, because only such an inner mind can show such a gaze. We see that the Buddha had a beautiful, majestic deportment in even the smallest gestures, such as his gaze. In the Buddha, every lift of a hand and step of a foot was full of power, calm and beautiful, drawing in and winning everyone. Merely seeing the Buddha sit still, beings were strangely convinced, because an invisible spiritual power from the Buddha's golden body radiated strongly all around.

Every movement of the Buddha seemed to contain within it limitless liberation, limitless peace, limitless wisdom. These are the three thousand dignified deportments and eighty thousand subtle conducts of the Buddha and the great Bodhisattvas. A Buddha like that appears on Earth only once in a very long while, very rarely. Ordinary saints, arhats and Zen masters, on the other hand, we still see appearing from time to time.

At the age of twelve, while still a prince, the Buddha followed his father King Suddhodana to the fields for the ploughing ceremony at the start of the rice-planting season. While everyone was enjoying themselves, the prince quietly went to the foot of a tree and sat in meditation. He quickly entered the first absorption and sat, forgetting the time. When the king suddenly remembered and sent people to look for him, they found the prince still sitting in the shade of the tree. Looking at the tree's canopy, the king was amazed to see its branches and leaves seeming to strain to follow the sun so as to keep shading the prince.

We understand that to enter the first absorption one must beforehand be thoroughly practised in mindfulness and alertness, which means that the mind is never distracted from the method of practice. To achieve mindfulness and alertness, the mind must beforehand be purely wholesome. For the mind to be purely wholesome, we must spend five or ten years purifying our inner mind, in each tiny thought, letting no wrong thought remain. But to give up wrong, unwholesome thoughts, we must first have the courage to assess ourselves, to know that they are wrong thoughts. Most people always consider their own thoughts right; few consider that they have thought wrongly; and that is also why few are genuine practitioners. A genuine practitioner must be someone who recognises their own wrong thoughts so as to eliminate them themselves, because who else sees the thoughts in our mind to remind us?

Only after purifying the inner mind to the point of pure wholesomeness do we move on to the stage of monitoring whether the mind is moving or still. That is the step into the stage of practising mindfulness and alertness. Only when we practise mindfulness until we are never distracted again can we attain the first absorption. We understand that the first absorption is not easy to achieve. Many people who enter practice, hurrying to gather the mind without passing through the stage of purifying the inner mind to pure wholesomeness, have also gained a little calm. But before long the mind stirs again, because that calm has no basis in a purely wholesome inner mind.

Yet as a child the Buddha attained the first absorption with ease, which shows how great the Buddha's merit from the past was.

We also need to understand that attaining the first absorption means no longer needing to exert effort; the mind keeps itself in calm automatically. A twelve-year-old child who enters the first absorption without needing to exert effort is truly great.

Even the prince's strong departure from the golden palace and jade halls, from his beautiful wife and good child, to leave home and seek the Way, is not easy to do. Imagine ourselves in a similar situation and we will see that we do not have enough courage to cut away like that. Whatever gives us pleasure makes us cling and hold on. A single word of praise can be something we cannot let go of all our lives, let alone wealth and power.

Simply put, if we had ten taels of gold, we would not have the courage to spend three on good works; if we did, we would take out only a few hundred thousand, not dare to give generously.

Status and power are the haunting thirst of countless people in this world. They suffer so much to win rank and title, sometimes resorting to base schemes to seize them. The Buddha gave them up lightly and decisively. That light, decisive renunciation was the extraordinary strength of a thirst for truth. Only an extraordinary ideal makes us treat other worldly values lightly.

Suppose we were a ward chairman; we would already be unable to give it up, and would anxiously guard it for fear others would take it.

Then in life, especially for lay people, love is something very great and important. Anyone who has a beautiful wife loves and guards her as one guards gold and jade. Especially when she is a lover beautiful in looks and character, capable, gentle, resourceful, kind, faithful, upright… no one has the heart to leave her and go to practise. Princess Yasodhara was such a woman, and yet the Buddha still turned his back and left to seek a lofty truth for humanity.

Then came the months and days of wandering from this forest to that valley seeking teachers to learn the Way, up to practising fierce austerities that no one in this world had ever done. Of course we must also note the extraordinary inner strength of the Buddha, gained from practising qigong (yoga) while still in the royal palace, which helped him a great deal in the period of arduous practice.

Then, from boundless and limitless wisdom, the Buddha spoke priceless teachings, like countless jewels left to the culture of humanity. Whatever talent we have now is only repeating, expanding, explaining more clearly… we do not have the strength to open up such a vast system of theory and practice. The later it gets, the more the world's intellectuals praise Buddhism as the best compared with other religions. Many religions have become outdated as science progresses; but Buddhism is the opposite and grows clearer as science progresses. People admire the Buddha all the more when they see that more than two thousand years ago a person on this planet could say such exact and lofty things.

Then there is the teaching of the four immeasurables: compassion and love for all beings without limit, which only the Buddha has spoken. Not one founder of a religion, East or West, ancient or modern, has expressed such absolute love. Since ancient times many saints of religions have called on people to cultivate ethics of kindness, but all with some limit. Jesus of Christianity taught to love even enemies; Confucius encouraged benevolence, within the scope of human beings. Mohammed limited love to the scope of Muslim believers, with the right to kill outsiders (!)

Only the Buddha taught a compassion without limit, covering all beings and all things, covering the whole vast universe, spreading even into the metaphysical world that human eyes cannot see.

In one previous life the Buddha was a king famous for kindness and love for his people. Because he loved his people so much, he had the weakness of not devoting much capacity to building a strong army for national defence. Spies of a neighbouring country reported this to their king. The neighbouring king suddenly gave rise to greed and sent troops across to attack and seize the country. The Bodhisattva (the Buddha's previous life) thought that the neighbouring king was also very good at governing, also loved his people and knew how to make them stable and happy. His country had clear laws and punishments. If he ruled the Bodhisattva's people, they would also be happy and nothing would be harmed. Whereas fighting now would mean rivers of blood and mountains of bones, the suffering of countless families.

Thinking so, the Bodhisattva ordered the soldiers not to resist, and himself slipped away. The other king entered the royal palace without meeting any resistance, then merged the two countries into one and ruled it steadily. He only feared that the Bodhisattva might raise troops against him, so he ordered him hunted down.

The Bodhisattva hid in the forests and mountains until his clothes were in tatters. Once, at the edge of the forest, he met a Brahmin who asked the way to the capital to find the former king, that is, the Bodhisattva himself, to beg for help in his extreme misery.

When the Brahmin learned that the man before him was the famous kind king, he wept in despair. The Bodhisattva thought for a moment and then told him to capture him and hand him over, and he would be richly rewarded. He was so persuasive that in the end the Brahmin agreed to bind him and hand him over. The new king, delighted, rewarded the Brahmin and then asked how he had managed to capture him. The Brahmin told the story. The new king was stunned and astonished. In truth he too was a good man, only still greedy. When he learned of the Bodhisattva's extraordinary goodness, he was strongly moved. He then made a bond of brotherhood with the Bodhisattva, returned the country, and they lived in peace together.

In many lifetimes the Buddha always lived in complete altruism like this.

Now let us try practising compassion and we will see how hard it is. Sometimes we practise for a few months and still cannot truly love the brothers and sisters around us. Sometimes when a brother or sister is ill we are still indifferent and forgetful. Towards someone we had a connection with in a past life, we easily feel love and affection; towards someone with whom we have no connection, it is very hard to love, let alone to love all beings. It is truly baffling. Later, when we have progressed a little in practice and have a little more compassion, we will look back at the earlier perfunctory years and feel regret that we did not love enough those close to us, and the time has passed, and there is no more chance to live together and redeem it. Only then do we bow our heads in admiration of the Buddha, who loved beings so fully, so easily and so boundlessly.

The Buddha taught so much about compassion, and many saintly disciples found peace from a loving heart like that. Today we too will vow to practise according to the compassion the Buddha taught.

We need to understand the meaning of the Buddha's attainment of the Way in order to see how great it is. Until now we have understood only in words that the Buddha attained the Way, was awakened, was liberated, had supernormal powers… but that was only hearing in words, not yet sensing those meanings deeply. Because we do not understand much about the Buddha's inner realisation, our reverence for the Buddha is also perfunctory and slight. Of course, unless one has attained the Way like the Buddha, no one can understand the Buddha, but through good roots and wisdom we can also sense the greatness of that realisation.

In fact, before attaining the Way the Buddha already had very deep concentration. He quickly realised the concentration of the sphere of nothingness with his first teacher, Alara Kalama; then realised the concentration of the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception with his second teacher, Uddaka Ramaputta. Both teachers admired the Buddha and both offered to share with him the responsibility of leading their followers. But with the wisdom of a Buddha-to-be, he vaguely sensed that something was still unsatisfactory, not yet ultimate in what they had realised.

The Buddha asked the two teachers about the problem of the ego. At that level of concentration, does the ego remain or end? If the ego has ended, who knows that one is entering concentration? If the ego remains, it is not yet true liberation.

The two teachers could not answer this profound question, and could only look at Gotama and bid him farewell.

Later, when he attained the Way, the Buddha resolved this problem thoroughly, and the goal of no-self became the dazzling highlight of Buddhist teaching. Later we will have the chance to dig deeply into that wondrous teaching of no-self.

The Buddha went to a forest near the town of Uruvela to practise austerities in solitude. What he later recounted is terrifying to us. He ate very little, a few beans and a few sesame seeds a day. He tried holding his breath. The sensations of pain that tormented him were extremely fierce. Some secret potential, perhaps both merit from the past and inner strength from training in qigong, sustained his life. Many people express doubt as to how the Buddha could endure extreme malnutrition for so many years without dying. There are still many strange and extraordinary things in the world that we cannot fully explain, and among them the Buddha's not dying is a real marvel of that kind. Even now there are many people with special abilities whom we still read about in the press.

In the end the Buddha gave up austerities, seeing clearly that they were useless.

The reason the Buddha had to pass through extreme austerities and then abandon them was, first, to give an eloquent answer to the tendency of the time to regard austerity as nobler than other practices; second, to spare the Buddha's later disciples from pressure to live in excessive, unnecessary hardship.

The Buddha turned back to seek awakening through meditative concentration. He took food again to regain his strength and then put his effort into meditative concentration. We are not fit to discuss the Buddha's work of concentration, because what have we realised that would let us understand the Buddha's inner realisation! Here, if in honouring the Buddha we describe the successive levels of meditative absorption, we are only relying on the scriptures and the commentaries of saints of old.

The Buddha spread grass to make a seat under the tree that we now call the Bodhi tree. He sat in the full lotus posture and began to re-enter the levels of absorption he had realised before. First, the first absorption.

The first absorption is the first level of meditation realised. At this level, the mind keeps itself in concentration automatically. As long as the practitioner does not intend to leave concentration, the mind remains automatically bright, pure and empty. Subtle thoughts about the Way still appear, but are eliminated automatically by the mind's power of alertness. The practitioner does not need to do anything. By maintaining the first absorption for a long time, together with other merits in life, the practitioner will enter the second absorption.

The second absorption puts out delusive thoughts completely; the mind is free and covers heaven and earth; there are some moderate supernormal powers and sharp insight, and sometimes one thinks one has realised the true self in the sense of Hindu Yoga.

The third absorption is an entirely different world. One who realises the third absorption achieves vast supernormal powers and sees the whole world as made of the substance of mind, no longer material as before. Iron, stone, wood and earth are all made of mind like thoughts. Thoughts and all things are equally mind. So one who realises the third absorption can control matter by thought and pass through walls as through air. If we imitate this and regard this wall as mind, we only bump our heads and cannot pass through.

The fourth absorption is the very end of consciousness. In this fourth absorption, the Buddha deliberately turned his mind to recall his own countless past lives, achieving the knowledge of past lives. He also deliberately observed beings passing through the paths of rebirth according to their wholesome and unwholesome karma, achieving the knowledge of the divine eye. He uprooted to the very bottom ignorance and the deepest attachment to self, achieving the knowledge of the destruction of the outflows. He became an Awakened One for the world after many ages in which no Buddha had appeared.

In this realm of the realisation of absolute nirvana, boundless space seems to be just a point, yet each place remains where it is without confusion. For example, the Earth and Mars are sixty days' flight apart; but in the Buddha's view the two places are one, and still not confused with each other.

Endless time is likewise like a single point in this Nirvana, though still not confused. For example, the time five thousand years ago of Egyptian civilisation and the present are as if simultaneous, though still not confused with each other.

Zen master Mật Ấn said a very interesting Zen saying about this idea: "Everyone knows that a drop of water falls into a big lake, but how many know that the whole ocean falls into a drop of water."

We try, awkwardly, to present some part of it so as to sense the Buddha's great inner realisation and see our own smallness and ordinariness. If the Buddha is an ocean, we are not yet a drop of water; if the Buddha is a high mountain, we are not yet a speck of dust. So no amount of reverence for the Buddha is enough.

There was a lay man, a high-school teacher, who in the summer holidays went to a quiet country temple to do volunteer work and practise. Later, meeting another monk, he complained that the abbot of that country temple was not as diligent in practice as he was, because since he had arrived the abbot often left him to do the work of bowing and repentance alone. The other monk defended him, saying that since the monks had chanted sutras and bowed to the Buddha so much from childhood, what harm was there in resting a little now.

In truth that is exactly the weakness of those who have left home: lacking enough reverence for the Buddha, they consider that bowing to the Buddha for so many years is enough. Even if we bowed to the Buddha for ten thousand lifetimes we could not fully honour the Buddha's great saintly nature. Precisely because we do not understand the Buddha's lofty and great saintly nature, we do not resolve to bow to the Buddha earnestly and often. If we do not bow in reverence to the Buddha regularly and earnestly, our merit from practice will gradually run dry. A person who has left home and runs out of merit will be forced back to lay life. Still wearing the robe of a practitioner, still respected by others, is because merit remains; when merit runs out, all that ends.

What makes us run out of merit?

When we first came to the temple to do volunteer work and practise, we accumulated merit by respecting our teachers, being gentle with our brothers, working diligently, and bowing with diligence. Through those many practices we increased the conditions of merit for practice, and our monastic seniority rose. But if one day those practices weaken, that is, there is no longer a teacher for us to revere, no longer a senior brother for us to be gentle with, we are not diligent in meritorious Buddhist work, we are indifferent to bowing in reverence to the Buddha, and on top of that we indulge in comfort, enjoy being honoured, grow arrogant and conceited and so on… then the old merit is slowly running dry.

When one day the merit of being a monk is exhausted, we are forced back to lay life. Before returning to lay life, the person suddenly feels no longer fond of monastic life; the thought of leaving monastic life arises first.

It is like the devas of the heavenly realm: when their heavenly merit is about to run out and they are to be born down into the human realm, signs appear, such as their garlands of ornaments withering, the fragrance of their bodies ending, the radiance of their bodies disappearing, their bodies feeling sick, and especially feeling weary of the heavens and wanting to go somewhere else. That very thought of weariness with the heavens drives the deva to lose his heavenly lifespan and be born in the human realm.

Those who have left home are the same: when the merit of being a monk is about to run out and they are about to return to lay life, naturally in their hearts they feel weary of being a monastic. Before, when merit remained, they saw this robe as sacred, would defend this robe to the end, even die wearing this robe. When the merit of being a monk is exhausted they think differently, thinking that someone who understands the Way does not cling to the colour of a robe, that it is all the same whether one keeps hair or shaves the head, eats meat or eats vegetarian. And so they become lay people without knowing when.

A person like that, even if in his mind he claims to be free in accord with the True Mind and Buddha-nature, which has no form or mark, no coming or going, has in outward form run out of the merit to be a monk. If this person now stubbornly argues that wrongdoing and merit are also empty, he at once incurs another grave fault, that of rejecting cause and effect! The offence of rejecting cause and effect easily leads to falling into the animal realm.

So let us diligently bow in reverence to the Buddha, and understand that the Buddha's mind constantly covers and protects us in every second and every minute. Every day we bow to the Buddhas of the Ten Directions, but we should not think that the Buddha is very far away in some realm of the ten directions. The moment we turn our mind in reverence to the Buddha, a response appears at once in the deep recesses of our heart, in every breath we take. The moment we pray sincerely, we are always protected by the Buddha. Of course the Buddha's protection also matches our karmic conditions. If we pray for the karmic result of money it is hard, because it still depends on our own cause and effect; but if we pray for the Buddha's protection in order to establish ethics, to have the chance to help others and do charitable work, it is very easy to achieve.

For example, if we feel our mind lacks compassion, let us bow to the Buddha and pray for his protection, and naturally the mind of compassion will appear more easily. Or when we sincerely undertake a Buddhist task that benefits everyone but meet obstacles, let us bow to the Buddha and pray, and we will see the Buddha's protection help us through the difficulty.

Let us see firmly that our life, our body and mind, are offered to the Buddha and belong to the Buddha. Let us see that every step, every thought, every word is the Buddha's, and from now on nothing is ours. Anyone who achieves this has conditions of merit with the Buddha's Dharma that will never regress.

Most of us are still perfunctory and rarely sense that the Buddha is always present beside us in every moment of life. One's own effort is a good thing for creating causes, but clinging entirely to oneself is also arrogance. We must know that the Buddha's response always covers us.

2. Putting reverence for the Buddha into practice

a. Bowing to the Buddha

Every content must eventually take outward form; every heart must eventually show itself in action. Likewise, reverence for the Buddha must be expressed through the daily practice of bowing in reverence. The practice of bowing in reverence to the Buddha must be maintained throughout life, throughout lifetimes, and will create merit for us from this life into the next.

Every day we should have a session of personal bowing to the Buddha. Why? Because when bowing together with the assembly we are easily distracted, having to pay attention to keeping in step with everyone in the chanting and movements, so we do not put our whole sincerity into it. When bowing alone, not occupied with ritual, we can easily put our whole sincerity into revering the Buddha without measure or limit. It is also possible for many people to bow together in a large main hall, but each bowing in his own way, not concerned with keeping in step with each other, to reserve their whole sincerity. When it is the shared chanting session, we still follow the assembly in bowing and chanting as usual.

Even lay people must have a time of bowing to the Buddha every day to increase their conditions of merit. Lay people must bow diligently to the Buddha and not take it lightly. A lay person's home must also set up a Buddha altar where one can bow; do not put the altar above the doorway of a room where people pass in and out beneath it. The corner for venerating the Buddha must be relatively separate from daily activity or receiving guests, so that the worship is dignified and the bowing is pure. It is not enough to light incense and ring the bell a few times and regard one's duty as done.

Not only must a lay person who knows how to practise do so, he must also compel his children to practise alongside him so as to sow connections with the Buddha's Dharma for them. Why must we require our children to practise? Because children do not know for themselves what is right and what is wrong. Even going to school, when they reach school age, is the same: if left to self-motivation, certainly no child would be willing to go. Parents must coax, warn and compel before they can take a child to school.

The Buddha's Dharma is the same: if it is not required, children will not know what ethics and cause and effect are. And that will be the parents' fault for not fulfilling their responsibility towards their children. Later, when the children grow up and go astray, the parents will also bear part of the blame. So an exemplary Buddhist family must have strict order and not leave things loose.

When we bow to the Buddha with words praising a certain quality, we will gradually achieve that quality.

Mountains may sway

But you are unmoving

Your peaceful mind

Is greater than space itself

So subtle, deep and wondrous

To the utmost, absolute

Namo our Original Teacher Shakyamuni Buddha (1 bow)

Bowing sincerely like this, naturally after some time our mind becomes unmoving and steady in the face of outer circumstances. Whatever we praise in the Buddha, we will achieve in ourselves. Many lay families who bow together in this way also find that many good things happen to them. Those are side results beyond the main goal of achieving virtue.

There are children who were poor students, but after a period of bowing diligently to the Buddha like this suddenly become better students, finding maths and composition easier, which delights their parents. They also become less naughty and disruptive, which delights their parents more than they hoped. The Buddhas are truly wondrous and truly compassionate. It is only because we do not have enough reverence and do not fulfil our duty that we do not receive good things. If we bow diligently to the Buddha, good things will certainly come to us.

When bowing to the Buddha we should make accompanying vows and not bow emptily. For example, if we see that we are not diligent, that we often use one excuse or another to skip a session of sitting meditation, we should bow to the Buddha and vow to pray for diligence: May I be fiercely diligent; may I never lose heart however many difficulties and obstacles I meet; may I, in whatever circumstances, keep practising diligently until I achieve the fruit of the Way. Then after a while we will naturally become clearly and unexpectedly diligent. If we make the vow like this for about three years, the vow becomes bone and marrow, becomes a seed for many lifetimes to come. Afterwards we no longer make that vow but make other vows, yet the vow of diligence remains for ever without running out.

There is one exception that makes us lose the wholesome cause of diligence: if later we disparage someone for not being diligent, disparaging with contempt and lack of compassion, then our cause of diligence will gradually be lost. Whatever we disparage in someone, we will become like that.

So what about making other vows?

It is only through practice that we discover the weaknesses that still remain in ourselves. If we do not take the trouble to practise, we do not see any faults in ourselves at all. The more diligently we practise, the more faults we will see that we did not see before.

For example, one day we suddenly discover that we lack compassion and so vow compassion: I vow to spread love to all beings, including enemies; may I love even those who do wrong, those who offend me… If we keep praying like this, after about three years we will naturally become very loving. There are people we hated before whom we no longer hate; there are people we despised before whom we no longer despise. Now, with compassion, we look at those who lack merit or character with different eyes, no longer as harsh and narrow as before. We know that those people also created unwholesome karma and so are now lowly like this, easily looked down upon by others. But thanks to compassion, we still escape their karma and still love them.

A poor man came to beg for rice while the monks were eating. One monk was annoyed, because he knew that this man was of poor character and had fallen into his present state through drunkenness and slovenliness. Another monk still told the novice to serve him rice, and turned to the other monks, saying: "Practising in a temple, many beings will come to trouble us. But anyway we must try to stay calm and love them."

In truth, people who lack merit will inevitably have one weakness or another. If they had no weaknesses they would not lack merit. Many relief teams from temples who come to give gifts to poor fellow-citizens complain that some people who have already received gifts still find a way to circle back to receive more, taking away part of others' share. We must understand these things so that we never give rise to hatred of them.

To be able to love dishonest and bad people, the mind of compassion must be very great, and to make the mind of compassion great we must bow in reverence to the Buddha and praise the Buddha's compassion.

We live in peace and joy

in your compassion

flooding like the air

covering all beings

altruistic and tolerant

vast and near…

You are lofty and sacred

You are vast and boundless

While we are small

Ordinary and sinful

In truth compassion is not easy to arouse. We must rely on the Buddha's merit, protection and power before we can arouse great compassion. If we both vow sincerely and bow in sincere reverence to the Buddha, the mind of compassion will gradually appear. Even a Bodhisattva must pass through very many lifetimes of cultivating great vows; it cannot be achieved in a few decades.

Throughout a life of practice, a person must make very many vows gradually. Some vows are made over a few years, and when they have soaked in deeply, other aspirations naturally appear to be made in turn. Those vows are precisely the orientation of our practice for the countless lifetimes ahead.

b. When sitting in meditation

When we cross our legs to sit in meditation it is the same: first we join our palms and set the intention of limitless, boundless reverence for the Buddha. Next we pray that the Buddha will keep us going the right way to the goal of no-self.

Let us say a little more about this goal of no-self. Everyone who practises meditation hopes to gather the mind into concentration. But a mind that has concentration, has lost delusive thoughts, has no thoughts, is still in a deluded concentration, because that concentration has no orientation. When there is concentration, this person's mind is very empty and bright; but it is still called deluded concentration because it lacks orientation. Why? Because without a clear orientation towards the goal of no-self, the power of concentration will naturally give rise to supernormal powers and insights. Then the practitioner quietly considers himself more talented than others. Though he has concentration, the arrogant mind still develops, and even develops more strongly than in ordinary people. Then this excessive arrogance itself gives rise to strange, mistaken views one after another, so that the practitioner becomes heterodox without knowing when.

If one day we practise meditation and gather the mind into calm, empty, bright concentration, and then keep holding on, dwelling in that state for ever, it is still called deluded concentration, because we do not know to turn towards the goal of no-self. We must understand that even a person who has realised the great concentration of neither perception nor non-perception and has the supernormal power of passing through walls still has an ego. While the ego remains, one of two things can happen: either this person goes on accumulating practice to realise the concentration of cessation and so ends attachment to self completely, or this person becomes complacent and arrogant and at some point falls back.

So, to avoid a regrettable mistake, even while dwelling in concentration we must know that the ego has not ended, and we must still aim at the goal of no-self. Concentration with the goal of no-self is right concentration. And right concentration will certainly lead to liberation.

We must also be careful of the view that exalts that calm, empty, bright mind as lofty, as identical with the Buddha, as own-nature and so on, because in doing so we unwittingly exalt the ego hiding within it. And the ego will grow. We should remember that the ego hides very deeply; thoughts may be gone and yet the ego remains. We must be extremely careful and not be complacent.

When sitting in meditation, we must make clear the goal of no-self and pray that the Buddha protects us so that we go in the right direction of no-self.

c. In all our work

There are two extremes that a genuine practitioner must avoid. One is thinking one's own strength is enough, and so gradually falling into complacency and arrogance; the other is always begging and depending on the divine without knowing how to make diligent effort, and so gradually sliding into superstition and weakness.

The Middle Way, rightly understood, is to make one's own effort while still humbly relying on the Buddha's merit. And the Middle Way always brings good results. When we make an effort to do good, we also need to know to pray for the Buddha's protection and to remember the Buddha's compassion. Do not think that having done good we are good and everyone must take care of us. That is an arrogant and mistaken thought.

Followers of outside paths beg the gods to receive results, for example to be rich, to pass exams, to be lucky. A disciple of the Buddha prays for the Buddha's protection so that he may sow causes, for example praying to have the chance to help people, to build a road, to advise those hard to advise… This is where those who believe in gods but not in cause and effect differ from those who believe in the Buddha and in cause and effect.

For instance, a lecturer normally silently prays for the Buddha's protection before going up to the Dharma seat. But in fact that is already late. He must pray for the Buddha's protection when preparing the talk; even that is still late, he must pray for the Buddha's protection from the time he saw that the Buddha's Dharma was not flourishing, when he first began to practise. We must pray for the Buddha's protection that we may teach in accordance with the Buddha's intention so that beings benefit.

d. Vowing to preserve and develop the Buddha's Dharma

Because we revere the Buddha, we must make the important vow to preserve and develop the Buddha's Dharma. We have spoken of how Buddhism is in a weak position, either retreating before other religions or growing dim before the progress of science. Today we do not let that situation continue. We must find a way for Buddhism to be revived, strengthened and spread again, and a way for many people to know the Right Dharma.

Since we have affirmed that Buddhism is truth, of limitless benefit to beings, we have no right to be passive and let Buddhism weaken; on the contrary, we must make every effort to let everyone know of the Buddha's Dharma, and to bring the Buddha's Dharma to everyone.

It is precisely the weakness and passivity of the monks and nuns that spreads to the Buddhists, so that Buddhists also only care to practise for themselves and never take care to bring the whole household to follow the Buddha. The merit of lay people in bringing their families to the Dharma is very weak. One person who knows the Way is usually not strong enough to make everyone in the family come to know it and follow. That weak passivity must be understood as originating with the monks and nuns. If each person is a little passive, that is enough for the Buddha's Dharma to decline. That attitude must not be allowed to remain any longer.

In this new age, a monastic must both practise meditation diligently for himself and make effort to teach beings. Both practices must be carried out with equal fervour, with neither neglected in favour of the other, and without being lazy in both.

We often hear praise of the practice of meditative concentration in solitude by hermits who hide themselves in deep forests and high mountains or close the door alone in a quiet hermitage. Those images are truly worthy of respect, because only a very peaceful inner mind can endure the loneliness that surrounds it. But we misunderstand and take it that anyone who follows Buddhism must avoid everyone and stay alone.

In truth, when the Buddha or Zen masters praise solitary hermits, it is to honour that person's ability in meditative concentration, which has reached a depth sufficient to overcome the feeling of loneliness, not that the Buddha and the Zen masters advocate a Buddhism that flees from life. We must understand that the law of cause and effect governs everything with perfect fairness and thoroughness. When we are alone, caring for ourselves, not bothering to care for anyone, naturally we will have no merit and will not create new merit, which also means we slowly lose merit.

That is why many who enter a twenty-year retreat come out with ordinary qualities of mind and conduct, worse than when they entered, with a harder and more difficult life, and nothing promising spiritually, sometimes even worse than before. It is only because such a person did not have much merit accumulated from past lives, did not skilfully create more merit in this life, and hid in a quiet retreat hut enjoying the offerings and support of others for too long, so in the end the merit ran out!

Spiritual progress is possible thanks to the important contribution of merit, alongside many other factors such as diligence, method and so on… Understanding this, we must both practise diligently and work to benefit beings. These two will support each other in a wonderful way. We tend to think that creating merit keeps us busy and uneasy, so that it is hard to gather the mind. We do not expect that the busier we are creating merit, the calmer the mind becomes when we sit in meditation.

If we only care about practising and do not care about helping others, we will not have the merit to go far. If we only care about helping others and do not care about practising, we will not have the strength of practice to handle everything, especially when we meet trouble and adversity. So, to practise well we must take care to teach beings; to teach beings we must also take care to practise well.

In the coming century humanity will compete fiercely. All theoretical values will be set against one another to see which is the most reasonable. So a disciple of the Buddha must make more effort than ever to develop the Buddha's Dharma. We must examine, in the twenty-four hours of a day, how we work and practise, which hours we practise, which hours we help others, and whether any hour is left empty and forgotten. If any hour is left empty, we are guilty before the Buddha's Dharma.

Karma gives us a life with such long and broad days and months for us to use properly. If we leave time empty, we will bear an offence like wasting a bowl of rice by pouring it in the rubbish bin, or wasting good clothes by tearing them up for fun. Wasting rice and clothes, we later suffer the karmic result of having no rice to eat or clothes to wear; wasting time, we later suffer the karmic result of having no more time, that is, of not being allowed to live long.

A person who values time, even when tired and lying down to rest, quietly gathers the mind rather than thinking idle, wrong thoughts. When feeling well, he sits up and crosses his legs to meditate; on releasing his legs and ending the session he goes to work for the assembly, to attend his master, and to help his brothers. When some brothers have been permitted by the master to go out early to work, we who remain in the temple also find ways to support them quietly so that their Buddhist work goes more smoothly.

Eating and drinking must not be taken lightly either; they must be reasonably nourishing so that we have the health to do the work of the Way. Eating and drinking too little, so that the body is weak, is also a fault against the Buddha's Dharma. We need a healthy body to practise and to care for the Buddha's Dharma in the future.

May it be that twenty years from now each of us has contributed to bringing the Buddha's Dharma to very many people on this Earth.

3. Signs of merit

After a long period of bowing diligently in reverence to the Buddha, we will certainly see many good signs of merit appear. However, we should pay attention to only one sign, which belongs to ethics: the wisdom that sees one's own faults.

Why is the wisdom that sees faults merit?

Until now we have rarely recognised our faults, usually considering ourselves right and usually defending our own thoughts and actions. Precisely because we do not see our own wrongs, we have created a great deal of unwholesome karma without knowing it. The great happiness of someone who understands the Way is to see his own faults and stop. The ancient worthies said: Bodhisattvas fear the cause, beings fear the result. Bodhisattvas have wisdom and so avoid error from the very beginning; beings must wait until the karmic result appears painfully before they know to be afraid.

Thanks to the merit of bowing to the Buddha, every day we move further from mistakes and our character rises noticeably.

For example, on seeing a brother commit a fault, whereas before we would have scolded that person soundly, now, with wisdom, we quickly see that this is not good, and that we must speak another way, still strict, but compassionate, and keeping our own proper bearing.

And there are countless other good things in life where, when we have merit and wisdom, we will see little by little what is wrong and right down to the finest hair. That subtlety helps us greatly in a life of practice, and, most specially, will help us in teaching the Dharma to liberate beings. A good Dharma talk is subtle, careful, thorough, practical, easy to apply, and fresh and unexpected. It is fresh not because we raise a new issue, but because we discover deep, hidden things within very old issues.

Certainly no one is completely right until he has fully realised the Way. Only the Buddha truly has not the slightest flaw, as the Buddha declared: No being, from the heavens to the animals, can find a fault in the Tathagata.

Saints, Zen masters… all still have not fully penetrated the affairs of the Three Realms. So if we have practised for a long time and find that we seem to have no faults at all, then we must say that we gravely lack merit.

If we bow diligently to the Buddha, then as each day passes we discover new faults of our own. Six years from now, looking back at the present, we will be surprised that we made so many mistakes now. Even a good lecturer will discover that he did not teach very well before, if he bows to the Buddha regularly. And of course, knowing that, he will teach even better.

To end this lesson, we join our palms and pray that all beings may sincerely revere the Buddha so as to have the initial merit for escaping suffering later.