The Sixth Patriarchs Sutra

7:30pm Pacific time

March 2, 2012 lecture

as outlined by a Buddhist monk
at 1777 Murchison Drive, Burlingame, California 94010, open to public (phone 650-6925912) (Listen live or recorded audio explanations at www.wondrousdharma.org)

Q&A The discriminating mind ceased. Chapter 2 Prajna no-thought, no remembrance, no

attachments and avoiding falsehood
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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, wonderful Dharma, In a hundred thousand million eons, is difficult to encounter, Now that Ive come to receive and hold it, within my sight and hearing, I vow to fathom the Thus Come Ones true and actual meaning.
Exhortation to uphold the Buddhadharma:

This Dharma cant be demonstrated, the mark of language being still and extinct,; of all kinds of living beings none there is who can understand it except for the host of Bodhisattvas firm in the power of faith. (the Wonderful 2
Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra)

Q&A
Question: Someone commented, By not doing anything and

carrying on with this normal life, would not Venerable Elder Master Xu Yun allow the gang of bandits who had beaten him continue with their ruthless spree?
Answer:

The reason why Venerable Master Xu Yun did not do anything despite having physical injuries from the beatings by a gang of bandits is because he has put down the discriminating self and understood the reality of the principle of karma. Venerable Elder Master underwent the karmic retribution as if in a dream, being careful to avoid planting new cause and contemplating and seeing the effect as a dream.
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Q&A

In doing so, the karmic debt ends there and then.

Should the gang continue with their ruthless deeds, whatever may happen is just the retribution of whoever encounter them.

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:

The Buddha in the Heart Sutra says: All Buddhas of the three periods of time attain anuttarasamyaksambodhi through reliance on prajna paramita. Mahaprajnaparamita is the mother of all Buddhas.

Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: You should use great wisdom to destroy affliction,

defilement, and the five skandhic heaps. With such cultivation as that you will certainly realize the Buddha Way, transforming the three poisons into morality, concentration, and wisdom.
Comments:

How do you use wisdom to overcome afflictions, defilement and the five skandhic heaps? By turning around the mind

Chapter 2 Prajna
Understanding that ignorance is affliction, defilement, and engaging in the five skandhas, wisdom is simply the mind not afflicted, not engaging in defilement, not engaging in the five skandhas. Wisdom is putting down the false mind; and the true mind is revealed. How is it that we are able to turnaround the mind? It is because we understand Mahaprajnaparamita; the principle of 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 such cultivation as that you will certainly realize the Buddha Way, transforming the three poisons into morality, concentration, and wisdom.
Comments:

The mind of greed, anger and delusion is the sick mind of the 7th conscious mind. Because of the false self, to benefit self, there is these 3 poisons. Cultivation is putting down the false mind of greed, anger and delusion into the practice of being mindful of morality, 8 concentration and wisdom.

Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: Good Knowing Advisors, my Dharma-door

produces 84,000 wisdoms from the one Prajna. Why? Because worldly people have 84,000 kinds of defilement. In the absence of defilement, wisdom is always present, since it is not separate from the self-nature.
Comments:

All the myriad wisdom comes from the wisdom thought of putting down the defilement. And after having done so, we dont have any attachment or even any thought of having turnaround. When we put down the false mind, the true prajna wisdom is 9 ever present in our self nature.

Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: Understand that this dharma is just no-thought, no-

remembrance, non-attachment, and the non-production of falsehood and error. Use your own true-suchness nature, and, by means of wisdom, contemplate and illuminate all dharmas without grasping or rejecting them. That is to see ones 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 is the myriad phenomena, myriad phenomena are the mind. We dont 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 of falsehood and error. Use your own true-suchness nature, and, by means of wisdom, contemplate and illuminate all dharmas without grasping or rejecting them. That is to see ones 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 is achieved by putting down the discriminating mind and attachment 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 the thought of having practiced and put down the false. Non-production of falsehood and error is to avoid creating the cause 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 of falsehood and error. Use your own true-suchness nature, and, by means of wisdom, contemplate and illuminate all dharmas without grasping or rejecting them. That is to see ones own nature and realize the Buddha Way.
Comments:

Grasping is when we perceive all dharmas to be real, as existing. Rejecting is when we perceive all dharmas to be unreal, as empty Neither grasping nor rejecting is to perceive all dharmas as 14 a dream; empty and yet not totally empty.

Chapter 2 Prajna
Grasping and rejecting are dualities that comes from attachments and false thinking that the myriad phenomena are real and existing. Grasping is when we like something; rejecting is when we dislike. Ultimately the original mind does not hold liking and disliking.

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Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: Good Knowing Advisors, if you wish to enter the

extremely deep Dharma realm and the Prajna samadhi, you must cultivate the practice of Prajna.
Comments:

Prajna is to be practiced; not for intellectualization Use prajna wisdom to turnaround affliction, defilement, the five skandhas and the three poisons to precepts, samadhi and wisdom. Practice no-thought, no remembrance, no attachments, no production of falsehood and error and contemplate all dharmas without grasping nor rejecting them. 16

Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: Hold and recite The Diamond Prajna Sutra and that

way you will see your own nature.

Comments:

The practice of prajna also involves holding onto the principles of the Vajra (Diamond) Prajna Paramita Sutra and The constant recitation of the Vajra Sutra as reverence to the Sutra and to remind us of the supreme principles of emptiness contained in the Sutra. If people of the Great Vehicle, the Most Superior Vehicle, hear The Diamond Sutra, their minds open up, awaken, and understand. They then know that their original nature itself 17 possesses the wisdom of Prajna.

Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: You should know that the merit and virtue of this

Sutra is immeasurable, unbounded, and indescribable, as the Sutra text itself clearly states.
Comments:

The reason why merit and virtue of the Vajra (Diamond) Prajna Paramita Sutra is measureless is because the teachings addresses the essential nature S 14 Subhuti, if in the future there is a good man or good woman who can accept, uphold, read or recite this Sutra, then the Thus Come One using his Buddha-wisdom will thoroughly know and thoroughly see such a person. That person will obtain immeasurable and boundless merit and 18 virtue.

Chapter 2 Prajna
S 12 How much the more should they make offerings to any place where there are people who can completely accept, uphold read and recite this Sutra... You should know that such people accomplish the supreme foremost and most rare of Dharmas. Wherever this Sutra is found, there is a Buddha or reverent disciple.

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Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: This Dharma-door is the Superior Vehicle, taught

for people of great wisdom and superior faculties. When people of limited faculties and wisdom hear it, their minds give rise to doubt.
Comments:

S 6 Subhuti addressed the Buddha, World Honored One, in the future will there be living beings who truly believe upon hearing such phrases?

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Chapter 2 Prajna

The Buddha told Subhuti, Do not say that! In the last five hundred years after the Thus Come Ones Cessation, there will be those who, holding the moral precepts ad cultivating blessings, will believe such phrases and accept them as true You should know that such people have not planted good roots with just one Buddha, two Buddhas, three Buddhas, four or five Buddhas, but they have planted good roots at the places of immeasurable tens of millions of Buddhas.
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Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: Why is that? Take for example the rain which the

heavenly dragons shower on Jambudvipa. Cities and villages drift about in the flood like thorns and leaves. But if the rain falls on the great sea, its waters neither increase nor decrease.
Comments: The above is for the explanation of the following previous line:

When people of limited faculties and wisdom hear it, their minds give rise to doubt.

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Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: Why is that? Take for example the rain which the

heavenly dragons shower on Jambudvipa. Cities and villages drift about in the flood like thorns and leaves. But if the rain falls on the great sea, its waters neither increase nor decrease.
Comments: The above is for the explanation of the following previous line:

This Dharma-door is the Superior Vehicle, taught for people of great wisdom and superior faculties.

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Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: If people of the Great Vehicle, the Most Superior

Vehicle, hear The Diamond Sutra, their minds open up, awaken, and understand. They then know that their original nature itself possesses the wisdom of Prajna.
Comments: The title of the Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra tells us:

Vajra is indestructible Prajna means literary, contemplative and real appearance wisdom Paramita means reaching the other shore In sum, this Sutra points to the inherent prajna wisdom of our 24 Buddha nature which is ever present.

Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: Because they themselves use this wisdom

constantly to contemplate and illuminate, they do not rely on written words.

Comments:

When you constantly contemplate and truly understand the principles of the Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, then you understand nothing spoken, nothing attained, and all dharmas are empty in nature. Subhuti, what the Thus Come One speaks of as appearances of dharmas are not appearances of dharmas . Therefore they are called appearances of dharmas.
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Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: Take for example the rain water. It does not come

from the sky. The truth is that the dragons cause it to fall in order that all living beings, all plants and trees, all those with feeling and those without feeling may receive its moisture. In a hundred streams it flows into the great sea and there unites in one substance. The wisdom of the Prajna of the original nature of living beings acts the same way.
Comments:

The cause for the opening of our wisdom is the Vajra Sutra. And finally, when do fully uncover our wisdom, we merely unite 26 with the great sea of our inherent prajna wisdom.

Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: Good Knowing Advisors, when people of limited

faculties hear this Sudden Teaching, they are like the plants and trees with shallow roots which, washed away by the great rain, are unable to grow.
Comments:

those who, holding the moral precepts ad cultivating blessings, will believe such phrases and accept them as true. You should know that such people have not planted good roots with just one Buddha, two Buddhas, three Buddhas, four or five Buddhas, but they have planted good roots at the places of immeasurable tens of millions of Buddhas. Conversely, those who dont believe this Sutra are those with shallow roots, unable to receive and accept the teachings 27 of the Vajra Sutra.

Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: But at the same time, the Prajna wisdom which

people of limited faculties possess is fundamentally no different from the Prajna that men of great wisdom possess.
Comments:

For those of inferior roots do possess the inherent prajna wisdom in perfection. The difference between is that those of deep roots have drawn near to the Triple Jewels for many lives and those of inferior roots dont. Therefore the importance of drawing near the Triple Jewel.

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Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: Hearing this Dharma, why do they not become

enlightened? It is because the obstacle of their deviant views is a formidable one and the root of their afflictions is deep. It is like when thick clouds cover the sun: if the wind does not blow, the sunlight will not be visible.
Comments:

Why do people of inferior roots not accept the Sudden Teaching even though they may encounter them? It is because of they are being fixated in their deviant views. It is also because they always harbor afflictions and when they are constantly afflicted, how could they understand and see 29 clearly?

Chapter 2 Prajna
Sutra: Prajna wisdom is itself neither great nor small. Living

beings differ because their own minds are either confused or enlightened. Those of confused mind look outwardly to cultivate in search of the Buddha.
Comments:

Every living being has the inherent prajna wisdom which is perfect and complete Confusion is to search for wisdom outside your own self; just like looking for a rabbit with horns Awakening is to look inwards, shine the light inwards

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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 in giving unity May their minds awake, to great compassion, wisdom and to joy. May kindness find reward; may all who sorrow leave their grief and pain; May this boundless light break the darkness of their endless night. Because our hearts are one, this world of pain turns into paradise; 31 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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