Opening: A Single Phrase of the Lotus Sutra, and You Can Become a Buddha

The Buddha said that if you hear even one line or verse of the Lotus Sutra, you can all realize Buddhahood — you will all receive the prediction, and you will definitely realize Buddhahood. Because you are Buddhas already, in the end you will all become Buddhas. One day you will all awaken, and you will all long to awaken.

Filial Piety and Faith: Mom Believes in Christianity — What Now?

(Teacher, my mother follows another religion. They don’t really like me studying Buddhism; she thinks believing in Christianity is better. So there’s still some conflict between “filial piety” and returning to who I really am.)

Do you think that going against her wish makes you unfilial? But your wisdom lies here: who is speaking the highest truth of the universe?

Christianity is fine too, but from the standpoint of the highest truth, I think Buddhism — Buddhist learning — is the more complete. So if you obtain the Buddha’s wisdom, you can be liberated from the samsara of life after life, and then you can deliver your mother.

If your mother hasn’t reached the highest wisdom but you have, then when you deliver her from the samsara of life after life, that is a great filial piety — the great filial piety of Buddhism.

So Buddhism has renunciation, and Confucianism teaches that our body and hair are received from our parents and must not be harmed carelessly. But Buddhism practices great filial piety from another angle: it says that all the elders under heaven are my parents.

Because Buddhism speaks of samsara: over life after life you have had many parents — you are not just this one lifetime. If you insist on identifying only with this life, then you identify as so-and-so — how could you possibly be the Tathagata?

So the parents of all your lives are waiting for you to deliver them, to liberate them from samsara. Your filial piety is measureless and boundless. If you want to fulfill filial piety, delivering all sentient beings is the true fulfillment of filial piety.

(So what is the wisdom for right now? As things stand, Mom doesn’t really understand any of this yet.)

Then be a little more skillful about it — no problem. You don’t need her to change; just say “I’m researching religion,” and that’s enough, isn’t it? Say: “I’m researching Christianity, and I’m also researching Buddhism. I want to see what each founder says — I don’t know what they’re saying.” You don’t need to say you believe in Buddhism. Just say you’re researching — you’re a scholar, you’re exploring religion.

(Sometimes I go to worship services with her too.)

That’s fine — I think Christianity is quite good too. Though some denominations are exclusionary, Jesus, Christ, and God are not exclusionary — it’s only the denominations that exclude.

You know this truth. So sometimes, just to make your mother happy, speak a little more skillfully and don’t be so attached. Just say: Jesus is wonderful, the Lord is wonderful — bless us, and bless me so I can study faster.

The Love of Jesus and the Love of Buddhism

(Oh, it’s strange. I told my mom that I went to hear a talk on Jesus, and I felt that so many of the teachings were the same as what Buddhism teaches — all about love and so on. Are Jesus and the Buddha brothers or something?)

But Jesus’s love has a self in it; the love of Buddhism is without self. That is why Jesus’s love is accompanied by suffering, and why Jesus was nailed to the cross. Because there is a “self” bearing the suffering, he has the appearance of sentient beings and the appearance of a self.

Because “I am Jesus,” and “I take on all the sins of sentient beings — I bear them all,” therefore “I was nailed to the cross.” He clings to the appearance of sentient beings and the appearance of a self — this is a love with a self in it.

But Buddhism starts with no-self from the very beginning, and the two loves differ in essence: the love of Buddhism finally rises to wisdom and compassion, while Jesus’s love manifested suffering in this world.

But Jesus’s love is very great in this world. Sacrifice — it is a sacrifice. When Buddhas and Bodhisattvas deliver all sentient beings, in the beginning it is also a sacrifice — because at first, not clinging to appearances and not setting too much store by your own feelings is itself a sacrifice. But as they gradually realize and enter the state of no-self, that sacrifice turns into merit — the merit of attaining enlightenment!

Inner Contemplation and Body Scanning: Every Method Is Just a Tool

(Teacher, my master now teaches us like this: after finishing the sutra recitation, we observe samadhi, sit in meditation, and scan the whole body in meditative concentration.)

Scanning the whole body — that is inner contemplation.

(With inner contemplation during sitting meditation, the master has us start with the scalp and hair, then move through every part of the body, working our way down like this. Is this observing samadhi?)

What state is this meant to bring you to? Inner awareness? The master didn’t say. Is it to settle down? To have fewer stray thoughts? Or to focus — to train your focus?

(The power of concentration, focus — and also becoming more keenly aware of every part of my own body. Because the teacher doesn’t say much about these.)

I understand. Many inner contemplation practices cultivate “noticing.” Actually, when we do inner contemplation, it’s noticing, noticing. Our consciousness is usually directed outward; we bring it back and abide in the body’s chakras — keeping the mind fixed — or abide in some particular place. But sometimes it also makes it easy to doze off or become scattered.

So moving the attention like this works a bit better.

But these are all just tools, not the final goal. Through moving, moving, you gradually settle into focus. When you are focused and still — when your mind no longer discriminates — your “moving” doesn’t exist. How could you move it?

You move only because there are thoughts: you move the thought from top to bottom, moving, moving… Gradually, you enter a state close to stillness, or to a state of absorption.

If it’s meditation practice — if you want to realize Buddhahood — this is a transitional method. If you only want to perceive the body’s states more keenly, that is another Dharma door, with little to do with realizing Buddhahood. It depends on what you set out to do from the start.

(The master did say to settle down and contemplate the lotus…)

All Dharma doors are tools. It’s like a treasure chest holding pliers, screwdrivers, axes, hammers… The one you’re talking about might just be a screwdriver, or something else.

The most important thing is: what do you want to do? What do you plan to do with this tool? Use it to break attachment, to cultivate meditative concentration, or to train your focus? Or do you want to gain spiritual powers and see the heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys inside your body?

Everything is a tool. The most important thing is: what is your purpose? What do you want to achieve with this tool — that is what matters, and you must be clear about it. What do you want to do?

(My first impression: it feels like there are fewer thoughts.)

That too is a thought — it’s just that it has changed into this thought: what you thought of as “messy thoughts” has become “more orderly thoughts.”

(What kind of state is the state they’re in?)

You’d have to ask him. I generally don’t presume to judge their states. In my eyes they are all states of awakening — as long as they keep practicing, in my eyes another Buddha is about to be born. That’s the kind of state.

Practice, Realization, and Letting Go of Attachment

(I’m like a kindergarten student who hasn’t graduated yet.)

Not like that, not like that. You’re in the big class — the pre-primary class… It’s fine, it’s fine. You’re just not familiar with the concepts — you can’t really say you know them. Your unfamiliarity doesn’t say anything about realization — realization comes in time. It really doesn’t indicate anything.

The question is whether, in your cultivation and realization, you can let go of your attachment. Breaking through that attachment of yours as quickly as possible — that is the key.

So perhaps for some people, once they become familiar with Buddhist concepts, many things are let go in an instant. They had already reflected a great deal before; even though they hadn’t studied Buddhism, they had experienced a lot and lived richly. Then they stopped clinging — they let go of many things and immediately got on the path.

Some people are very attached and very preoccupied with themselves. In fact, the hardest thing to break through is the self — ego-clinging — the hardest thing of all. You can be indifferent to everyone else, but you can’t let go of yourself; you can’t let go of selfishness. Even realizing Buddhahood becomes “I’ve made it — I want to become a Buddha,” not “he wants to become a Buddha.” A Bodhisattva wants others to realize Buddhahood first. “I want to become a Buddha” — that is all self, all attachment.