Baishui Zen

This chapter continues the interview with the Buddha before he enters Nirvana. This time, we are dealing with moral precepts and the transmission of dharma. In fact, the original discussion deals with something we were just discussing on this blog, the concept of dharma transmission, and how it is used to justify lineages. The buddha prompts the monks to ask any questions they have about how their conduct should be, and they start by saying, “we do not know what to ask.”

The world of the Tathagata cannot be known by us. Whatever is said is incomprehensible. So, with what wisdom we have, there can be no posing of questions to the Tathagata. For example, suppose there is a man who is 120 years old. Suffering from a long illness, he is in bed and cannot get up. He cannot live long. There is a rich man there who is on his way to far-off places on business. He gives this man a hundred pounds of gold and says: “I intend to go on a journey and entrust this treasure to you. After 10 or 20 years, I shall come back, when my business is concluded. When I am home again, give this back to me.” The sick old man receives it. And he has none to
succeed him. After some time, the illness develops and he dies, and what was entrusted to him cannot be found. The person who entrusted the treasure to him comes back from his journey, looks around, but cannot find the man. One like this, being ignorant, cannot think and weigh the good and bad of entrusting a thing to the hands of another person. So, on coming back, he does not know where to look. Thus the treasure gets lost. It is the same with us as listeners. We hear the kind admonition of the Tathagata, but we cannot hold it long. We are ignorant now and do not know what to ask regarding the precepts.”

Furthermore:

If the treasure is entrusted to Ananda and the monks, it cannot survive long. Why not? Because all listeners and Kasyapa must pass away and the situation will inevitably be like that of the old man who receives the entrusted goods of the other person. Because of this, all the unsurpassed Buddhist teachings must be entrusted to the hands of all Bodhisattvas. They discuss well and the treasure will live long and flourish for infinite thousands of ages and benefit all beings enormously

So the monks essentially argue that the concept of a single patriarch after the Buddha is not a good plan, that dharma transmission is too delicate to be always in the hands of just one person. This is one reason why this sutra will span ~600 pages or so. The Buddha agrees with this sentiment, and will need to dispense quite a few additional teachings into the hands of not just the trusted few, but into the entire community. This fits in snuggly with the idea that Mahayana is an extension of Theravada Buddhism, and the sutra will expound on some of these additional teachings. Kasyapa arrives from the crowd, and is levitated by the Buddha onto our main stage, so that he can pose, in poem form, many questions to the Buddha.

Kasyapa’s first question to the Buddha: how do I gain a long life?

The Buddha’s answer is simple: bring others into the path with loving kindness.

If he desires to have a long life, he should guard and protect beings and view them as one would one’s only son, and abide in great loving-kindness, great compassion, great joy, and great equanimity. Also, he should impart the precept of non-harming to them and teach them to practice all good things.
Also, he must let all beings abide peacefully in the five moral precepts and the ten good deeds. Furthermore, he will free all these beings from where they are suffering, emancipate those not yet emancipated, pass over those who have not yet gained the other shore, give Nirvana to those who have not yet attained it, and console all who live in fear. Acting thus, the Bodhisattva gains longevity of life and unlimited freedom.

Throughout the conversation, the Buddha repeats a theme, which is that you should love sentient beings as you do an only son. After some exchange, Kasyapa takes issue with this as well:

You may say that you look upon all beings equally and treat them as you would an only son such as Rahula. This is not so. A person may try to harm you with a sword. If it is the case that you view both persons with the same eye, how could you cure moral offences?

The Buddha’s response starts out by justifying killing children when there’s good intention, which is a poor start. Let’s gloss over that.

He views those who transgress Dharma as he views his only son. The Tathagata now entrusts unsurpassed Wonderful Dharma to the hands of everyone attending. All of these kings and the four classes of the Buddhist Sangha will encourage those who practice the Buddhist teaching and enable them increasingly to observe the moral precepts, practice meditation and wisdom. If there are any who miscarry these three aspects of Dharma, the members of the Buddhist Sangha will work hard and remold such people.

OK, so the thrust seems to be, if, in the process of trying to bring someone back to the path, something bad happens to them (such as a loss of a child, in an extreme case), we don’t hold them responsible, because it’s an accident and they’ve lost enough as is. The goal is to set up the community in such a way that it is self-regulating, so that those there are inclined to deepen their practice authentically.

Kasyapa is unconvinced:

You say that a Bodhisattva, practicing impartiality, can well view beings just as one views one’s only son and that such a person gains a long life. But you should not say this. Why not? One who knows Dharma indeed speaks well of filial duty. But suppose that back home, he beats his parents with tiles and
gravel. Where the person should be making offerings, he performs evil. There is a distinction between what this person knows and what he does. What the Tathagata says is also like this. The Bodhisattva practices impartiality and views beings as an only son, and he gains a long life, can look into the past, and live eternally and there cannot be any change. Now then, why is it that the World-Honored One dies so young, not even 100 years? Does not the Tathagata entertain hatred against all beings? What evil acts did you perform in the past, and how many?

The Buddha, unphased by this unexpected criticism, explains:

There are eight great rivers, which are 1) Ganges, 2) Yamuna, 3) Sarabhu, 4) Ajitavati, 5) Mahi, 6) Indus, 7) Pasu, and 8) Sita. All these eight rivers and other small rivers drain into the great ocean. All the great rivers of life of all people, heaven, earth and sky drain into the Tathagata’s sea of life. Hence, the length of life of the Tathagata is incalculable. Furthermore, there is Lake Anavatapta, which gives rise to four rivers. The Tathagatha gives rise to all long life-spans.

The Buddha recapitulates to Kasyapa that he should not entertain any doubts regarding the permanent extinction of the Buddha. That for him to enter Nirvana is to discard the carnal body, which relies on food for sustenance. On the other hand, his true nature is transformed and transcendent, and this nature is eternal, as we’ve discussed before. Nevertheless, the Buddha seeks to explain the fundamental essence of buddhahood, called “Dharmata.” This analogy is somewhat longer, but underneath the long-winded explanation is a simple idea, which I think we can boil off easily here.

“A rich man has many cows. They are entrusted to the hands of a cowherd, who takes them to grassy land. Solely sarpirmanda is sought, not fresh milk or cream. The cattleman, having milked the cows, takes the milk himself. Suppose that when the rich man dies, the cows are stolen by robbers. They get the cows, but don’t know how to churn milk to make butter and then sarpirmanda. It is hard enough to obtain what one could drink. At that, the robbers, spoil the product by adding water to the milk out of ignorance.

We have a similar case with common mortals. There are good teachings. But all are the residues of the Wonderful Dharma of the Tathagata. The Tathagata enters Nirvana. Later we steal what was left behind, i.e. the precepts, samadhi, and Wisdom. This is like the robbers stealing the cows. All common mortals obtain the precepts, samadhi, and Wisdom, but they
have no means of perfecting or even implementing them. Hence they never
gain the eternal precepts, the eternal samadhi, the eternal Wisdom, and emancipation.

Common mortals do small-scale pure actions and make offerings to their
parents. Then they gain rebirth in heaven and attain small-scale bliss. This is like the milk to which the robbers added water. And common mortals do not themselves know the fact that one gets born in heaven by small-scale pure actions and making offerings to one’s parents. Also, they do not know the moral precepts, samadhi, Wisdom and taking refuge in the Three Treasures.
Not knowing all this, they talk about Eternity, Bliss, Self, and Purity. Though they talk, they do not know what these are. Hence, after taking birth in this life, the Tathagata talks about Eternity, Bliss, Self, and Purity.

When the perfect ruler of the wheel of Dharma appears in the world, all beings abandon these, because they cannot talk about the precepts, samadhi, and Wisdom. The Tathagata indeed speaks of secular and supramundane things. For the benefit of beings, he lets the Bodhisattva talk as the occasion arises. The Bodhisattva-mahasattva, on gaining sarpirmanda, lets all the innumerable beings gain the unsurpassed manna of Dharma. The Eternity, Bliss, Self, and Purity of the Tathagata thus come about. The Tathagata is one who is eternal and unchanging. This is not in the manner in which common mortals and the ignorant of the world say that Brahma is eternal. This eternality is always with the Tathagata. All good men and good women should always carefully practice the Way. Any good man or good woman who practices the Way, such a one accords with what I do and gets born where I go. If any person practices, and sees it as extinction, know that the Tathagata enters Parinirvana in the eyes of such a person. Nirvana is the “Dharmata” of all Buddhas.”

Alright so what’s going on? The Buddha’s answer is something of a non-answer. He kinda says “wait and see.” We think we understand things like the eternal and the pure, but we are deluded in ignorance, like the robbers. The Buddha discusses these things in this life and world because common people are interested in understanding these things, and the Buddha wants to inspire people to practice and attain liberation. If we do just small scale things for ourselves and others, we can attain higher rebirths, but we must be careful not to soil the “product” we are working to produce, and then get lower rebirths again. We need to practice diligently and as deeply as possible, and if so, we will go with the Buddha. Moreover, the eternality (the quality of being eternal) of the Buddha is only apparent to those with such diligent practice. The Buddha does not merely enter Nirvana, Nirvana is the Buddha’s fundamental nature.

Seem confusing? Kasyapa thought so too:

Now, “Dharmata” means “abandoning one’s body”. To abandon means “not to possess”. If not possessed, how can the body exist? If the body exists, how can we say that there is “Dharmata” in the body? If the body possesses “Dharmata”, how can the body exist? How can I know of this?”

Essentially this is saying, to enter Nirvana is basically to die. How can this death, what the sutra is calling “extinction,” be the fundamental nature of the body. Kasyapa is basically throwing up his hands at the apparent contradiction.

Do not speak thus – that extinction is “Dharmata”. Now, “Dharmata” knows no extinction. Practice the teaching of the Buddha, Dharma and the life of the Sangha, and abide in the thought of the Eternal. These three things do not contradict one another. There is no form of the non-eternal, no change. Any person practicing these three as things which differ fails in the Three Refuges which are pure. This we should know. This is to say that such a person lacks a place to abide in. No precept is fully learned; no fruit can come about of sravakas or pratyekabuddhas. Anyone who abides in the thought of the Eternal in this All-Wonderfulness has a place to take refuge in. It is like the shadow accompanying a tree. Do not say that there is a tree and that it has no shadow, simply because it is night. It is merely that the fleshly eye cannot see it. One cannot see it without the eye of Wisdom.

What to make of this answer? In the original text, which I’ve tried to edit down some here, the Buddha spends some time basically saying, you can’t know the answer to this question, stop asking it. Also, pratekyabuddhas, the autodidacts of Buddhism, have no chance of understanding this, so just stop trying (and I took that PERSONALLY, </s>). Because of this, I was ready to dismiss this as a non-answer. But after removing a lot of that stuff into this version, I think there’s a second argument here which is potentially worth considering a bit further. Namely, we identify the three jewels of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha as different aspects of the same thing. At the very least, Dharma is obviously eternal in some sense, and even if any particular community may ebb or flow, the idea that each generation propagates forward and gives rise to the next, these things means that the triple jewel itself is obviously eternal. So if they’re all the same thing, the Buddha is obviously eternal as well. The nature of what it means to be eternal might be outside our ability to grasp, like the various other realms and beings there. And then furthermore, in order to grasp this eternality, we need to take refuge in this triple jewel, and acquire the “eye of Wisdom.” This is sure to mean simply prajnaparamita, the perfected wisdom, which the sutra will continue to elaborate on as we go through.

While there’s been quite a bit of stuff to reduce and compile in this chapter, I think we can still put a nice summary on the chapter to wrap up. The chapter is titled, “On Long Life,” and deals with the eternal nature of the Buddha. The primary way we come to understand this is through the triple crown jewel, and I think we should not underestimate the role of Sangha, if we are to think of them separately, for a moment. At the beginning of the chapter, we understood that the Buddha should write this sutra so that his teachings will stay not with just Kasyapa or Ananda, but with all the Bodhisattvas and the entire Buddhist community. In other words, the monks ask the Buddha to put his faith that the community can treasure and protect these teachings for future generations broadly. The Buddha recognizes the merit in this idea. After all, he is one of the three facets, which are supposed to be equal. The chapter concludes by relying on this community again to understand the eternal and perfected nature of the Buddha.

Furthermore, while the discussion begins by asking about how to live a long life, we quickly see that the lifespan of a person is not particularly important – even the Buddha himself did not “gain a long life” in that particular body. On the contrary, the Buddha’s incalculably long life, perhaps even eternal life, comes from the eternal nature of the Dharma and the cascading generations of the Sangha. To understand the chapter, we should ask not just about the length of our own lives in these single, carnal bodies, which are but specks of dust compared to even tiny fractions of a kalpa. No, we must ask about the unfathomable depths of Lake Anavatapta (which by the way, is the name of the lake at the center of the earth, and the dragon-Bodhisattva who lives there, neat little legend), inconceivable breadth of wonderful Dharma, and uncountable generations comprising our Sangha across Mahayana cosmology. If we are to realize our Buddha natures ourselves, this seemingly inscrutable reality lies waiting for us, just beyond the veil of ignorance that the fleshly eye places before us. All we should do is cast off that ignorance.

It is truly difficult not to be humbled then, isn’t it?