Zen Buddhism often talks about the three stages
of spiritual cultivation. At the first stage, an ordinary person sees a
mountain as mountain and a lake a lake. An ordinary person will feel happy upon
seeing a beautiful mountain but upset upon seeing an ugly one. The mind of an
ordinary person will be affected by the external environment. An ordinary
person will feel happy upon seeing a beautiful lake, but upset upon seeing an
ugly one with murky and filthy water. Our old Singapore River was filthy and
stinky. When one saw it in the past, he would feel very uncomfortable. That is
the mentality of an ordinary person. No one is spared before he embarks on the
path to enlightenment. All ordinary folks are in this stage, no matter how smart
he is, be it a president or a bagger - it makes no difference. As long as you are
still bound by the misconception of the notion of “I”, your mind will be
affected by your surroundings.
At the second stage, you have started doing your
spiritual cultivation. Initially, you must observe lots of precepts, refraining
from the negative conducts and abiding by the Five Precepts. You must be bound
by the precepts at the initial stage and do the Ten Virtous Acts. In order to
transform from an ordinary person to a saint, you must uphold the Five Precepts
and do the Ten Virtous Acts. Otherwise, you will forever remain an ordinary
person in the first stage. As long as you do not discard your self-importance,
you will forever be stranded in the Six Realms of Existence.
Precepts are very crucial. You must start from
observing the precepts. There are many precepts in the Hinayana practice and a
greater number in the Mahayana practice, and even greater number in the
Vajrayana practice. If you want to attain the ultimate enlightenment, you must observe
the precepts. You might ask, “Can I not abide by the precepts?” The answer is
“No!” We were born with the three poisons of lust, hatred and ignorance deeply
ingrained in us due to our karma. Our negative propensities are so strong that
we can easily fall into the Three Lower Realms (animal, hell being and hungry ghost),
if we are not protected by the precepts. Besides, at this stage, a rigorous
practice is a necessity. Without rigorous practice, you will never stand a
chance to break free of the cyclic existence. At this stage, you have already
started doing your spiritual cultivation, and you will now see a mountain not as
a mountain and a lake not as a lake. You have broken away from the old mindset
and perception of an ordinary person and see the world in a different light.
The second stage can last an awfully long period, up to many lifetimes or even
eons; you might not realize that you have been practicing for a long time. In
the Hinayana, this stage can last billions of years, even as long as three big
eons. This is just the preliminary practice of the second stage.
Take a look at how Saykamuni Buddha attained His
enlightenment. In his past life, he even offered himself to a hungry tiger
because he already attained the state of “selflessness”. Take a look at
Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara who readily gave up His eyes to someone else! “A
mountain is not a mountain, and a lake is not a lake!” To Him, eyes were not
“eyes” - they were not “His”. He would give His eyes to you if you want them.
Now you have come to the later part of the second stage which is extremely
difficult only a few can reach. Most of you can only reach the earlier part of
the second stage, which is to observe the precepts and do the virtuous acts.
How will you be able to give up your wealth when others request it? Or give up
your house, car, wife, children, etc.? Will you give up all your possessions, your
life? Although the advance practice in the second stage is of extreme
difficulty, it is not the ultimate attainment yet.
Finally, you must enter the third stage, where
you will see a mountain as mountain and a lake as lake once more. If you
continue to persevere on observing the precepts, you will forever remain in the
second stage where you will see a mountain not a mountain and a lake not a
lake. You will just be a special practitioner different from others; you will
appear to be a sublime looking deity being worshipped in a shrine, at the most.
You will not be able to walk into the crowd and mingle with them, with the ultimate
aim of guiding them onto the path to enlightenment. If you want to help the
sentient beings, you must return to the state of seeing a mountain as mountain
and a lake as lake once more, like the rest. Of course, by now you have already
become a different person in the third stage, different from what you were in
the first stage. Regardless of whether the mountain or lake is good or bad, it
makes no difference to you - you will not be discriminative now. You have
become a happy person, immersed in great joy in a state where you will see a
mountain as mountain and a lake as lake once more.
Basically, when you have reached this stage of
cultivation, you can break free of the precepts – you can “transgress” the
precepts. Like the story told in the Mahā-vaipulya-buddhâvatasaka-sūtra, you
could even become a prostitute and offer yourself to any man who wants you, in
order to help him enter the path to enlightenment. You can do anything you want
and offer anything you wish, for you have already surpassed the conceptual mind
of life-and-death, and the discriminative and antagonistic views. You will
appear crazy but, in fact, you have truly attained the state of enlightenment.
Many of the enlightened Tibetan masters were accomplished practitioners of the
Great Perfection (Dzogchen), who lived like animals in filthy places such as a
garbage-dumping ground or a latrine. They appeared to be lunatics but, in fact,
they are the accomplished masters! The real lunatics are different because they
are mentally disordered, unable to tell the difference between good and bad,
clean or dirty; they are unable to spiritual practice nor help other sentient
beings, let alone being accomplished in spiritual attainment. Those who have
attained the third stage of cultivation are different - they are superior,
accomplished and non–discriminative. They are fully aware of the differences
between good and bad, clean and dirty, but they are just not affected by the
differences. They are fine with what you give or not give. They are not
bothered by your scolding or teasing. The third stage is a very superior level
of attainment most difficult to achieve.
We must walk the path to enlightenment one step
at a time. Zen Buddhism has its danger of being reduced to mere “pet phrases of
enlightenment”. One might just end up having an empty claim of “I am a Buddha.”
If you are not a truly accomplished practitioner and yet you choose to do
something against the Dharma, you will fall! It is pointless for you to simply
claim that “I am a Buddha!” You will fall because you have not truly attained the
state of Buddhahood. So, you had better start from the second stage and abide
by the precepts! Otherwise, you will get yourself into trouble.
You might say that “I can do anything. I can
kill!” Alright, then I will give you a knife to kill and see if you will be
spared from the universal law of cause-and-effect. Unless you have truly
attained enlightenment, like Guru Padmasambhava who could deliver the souls of
those He killed immediately to the Western Blissful Pure Land, you had better
keep the knife away. We had better walk the path to enlightenment one step at a
time, starting from the Hinayana, progressing gradually to the Mahayana, and
finally the Vajrayana. A gradual approach is a safer approach
Do not be mistaken that you could truly
understand the quintessential teachings of Zen Buddhism through the mere intellectual
study of Zen books. In the past, there were many Zen practitioners who
expounded Zen without truly understanding it’s true meaning. Grand Master has
written nearly 10 books on Zen by now, in order to help us understand the
ultimate teachings. However, so what if you have intellectually understood the
ultimate teachings? It is pointless as long as you are unable to apply the
ultimate teachings in your daily conduct! It is more important to be able to
apply the ultimate teachings in our conduct than having a mere intellectual
understanding. Both pet phrases and intellectual understanding are inadequate -
you will still fall unless you are truly enlightened. So, we had better take it
one step at a time - walk the path slowly to break free of the cyclic existence
eventually.
When you truly break free of the cyclic
existence, like that mentioned in the Diamond Sutra, you can discard all the
teachings including the precepts, cultivation, meditation and mantras. They are
like a boat ferrying us from one shore to another . When we reach the other
shore, we should not carry the boat along on our back anymore - that will be
meaningless and it will become a burden instead. A boat will become useless
when we reach the shore. A boat must be discarded after crossing the river.
Another word, when we have truly accomplished our practice, we should discard
all the doctrines and precepts. However, you cannot do so before reaching the
other shore. Without the boat, you cannot cross the river but you will get
drown in the river instead. As long as we are still practicing in the Causal Stage,
we will still need the doctrines, the precepts, the practice, the meditation,
the mantra, praising the Buddha, the Six Perfections, etc. One day, when we
reach the other shore, we can then discard the boat. Otherwise, we need to hold
on to it tight!
Now, while we are holding tight to our boat, we
might be seeing someone else discarding the boat. We must not criticize others
for discarding the boat because we may not understand their true ability. There
are many people who criticize Grand Master for drinking alcohol, dancing,
eating meat but not vegetarian food, etc. Not only outsiders criticized Grand
Master, even his own students followed likewise, “Why did he do that?” The
outsiders said, “Your teacher does not look a bit like a monk! A monk must
abide by the numerous precepts, but he does not!” Sometimes, Grand Master wears
normal attire instead of a monk robe when he goes out of the temple. Others saw
it and criticized him, “How can a monk like you wear normal attire? You don’t
have the serious mannerism of a monk.” Actually, the person did not know that
Grand Master is a truly accomplished practitioner. A truly accomplished
practitioner can wear anything, be it a monk robe, normal attire or nothing –
he is still an enlightened Buddha. When you are not a Buddha yet, no matter how
serious you wear, you are just an ordinary person!
So, we must not criticize others before knowing
who he really is. The greatest taboo of a practitioner is to criticize others
based on what you think you know – you can be wrong! This is my greatest taboo
too. I do not criticize others but merely sing praises of them. If I happen to
see any actions of you against the Dharma, I will just think to myself that
“Maybe you have already attained enlightenment. You may be breaking away from
the precepts for the sake of helping the sentient beings. I may not understand
it yet. How could I simply criticize you? If I do so, I might just be
committing a great sin through my speech!” No matter what, we must not
criticize others. We should not commit bad karma through our speech but to
maintain a pure speech at all times. When we criticize others, we are actually
criticizing ourselves for being non-accommodating. So, instead of committing
bad karma through our speech, we would rather train our own mind and practise
with vigour, which will be a more meaningful act.
A discourse given by Acho Rinpoche on 26-10-2010
