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Buddha’s Light Newsletter

佛 光 世 紀

  • August 2009
  • Issue 24

Hsing Yun’s Ch’an Talk

Sugar Cookie

A monk went to study with Ch’an Master Tao-ming. The Master asked the monk, “What kind of Buddhist teachings have you read?”
Master Tao-ming continued, “What do you call it?” The novice replied, ‘A sugar cookie.” Master Tao-ming laughed heartily and said, “You can also lecture on the teachings of Yogacara!”
The monk replied, “I have read the Yogacara teaching.”

The method and direction of studying Yogacara differ from that of studying Ch’an. Yogacara’s idealism emphasizes understanding and analysis, whereas Ch’an does not. A Ch’an adept aims directly at the mind, attaining Buddhahood by seeing one’s own nature. Ch’an masters use humor in their speech and treat people with kindness. They do not like to present a stern face. Sometimes, when they talk about east, they are actually pointing west. Sometimes, when they strike or scold a student, they are actually expressing their loving kindness.

The Master asked, “Can you lecture on this subject?”

The monk declared, “I dare not.”

Whereas a scholar of Yogacara employs ample verbal explanation to expound on the doctrine of idealism, a Ch’an practitioner only has to say ‘A sugar cookie,” and the underlying implications are conveyed. This alone is sufficient to express the meaning of “The three worlds are nothing but the mind’s manifestation; the ten thousand dharmas all arise from consciousness.”

Master Tao-ming picked up a sugar cookie, broke it in two, and asked, “The three worlds are nothing but the mind’s manifestation; the ten thousand dharmas all arise from consciousness. What do you say to that?”

The monk was dumbfounded. Tao-ming persisted, “Should this be called a sugar cookie, or should it not be called a sugar cookie?”

The monk was perspiring now and answered nervously, “It should be called a sugar cookie.”

The Master then asked a novice who was standing nearby, “A sugar cookie has been broken into two pieces – what do you have to say about it?”

The novice answered without hesitation, “The two pieces remain in one mind.”

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Buddha’s Light Newsletter

佛 光 世 紀

  • August 2009
  • Issue 24

The Unique Characteristics of Buddhism

~ By Venerable Master Hsing Yun

(continued from last issue)

between cause and effect is a very complicated one, but it works in a very orderly and precise manner.

Karma can also be categorized according to the time at which it ripens. There are three such categories: karma that ripens in this life, karma that ripens in

There are two reasons why the fruit of karma will ripen at different times. One reason is the strength of the cause; it will determine the time when the effect appears. For example, if a melon seed and a peach seed are planted at the same time, the melon seed will grow and produce fruit in the same year; however, it will take several years before the peach tree that grew from a seed can produce fruit. The second reason why the fruit of karma may ripen at different times is because the strength of the conditions can be either strong or weak. If all necessary conditions are present, the fruit will ripen earlier, whereas if the necessary conditions are not present, the ripening will take longer. Either way, there is a saying in Buddhism, “Good begets good; bad begets bad. All causes will give rise to results; it is just a matter of time.”

the next life and karma that ripens in future lives. Karma that ripens in this life means that the fruit of the action done in this life will ripen in this very life; karma that ripens in the next life means that the fruit of the action done in this life will ripen in the immediate next life; and karma that ripens in future lives means that the fruit of present actions will ripen after two or more lives. This indicates that from the viewpoint of time, whether it is the past, present or future, the effect of any action will not be lost. The fruit will ripen according to the karma performed.

Good begets good and bad begets bad. No one is exempt from the Law of Cause and Effect. Those who are familiar with agriculture know that some plants can be harvested in just one year, some in two years and others in several years.
The Law of Cause and Effect is certain. A particular cause will inevitably give rise to a particular effect and no mistakes will ever be made. The reason why a good person suffers in this life is because the unwholesome seeds that he has planted in the past are ripening now. Therefore, he must suffer at this time. Although he may have done many wholesome deeds in this life, the power of the seeds of these wholesome deeds may be too weak to ripen during this life. He may have to wait until his next or future lives to enjoy the effects of these wholesome deeds. In contrast, a bad person may have done many unwholesome deeds in this life, yet he is enjoying a good life. This is because the wholesome seeds that he has planted in his previous life or lives are ripening, so he is enjoying the fruit of his prior good deeds. The unwholesome seeds that he has planted during this life will ripen in his future lives.
There are those who do not fully understand the Law of Cause and Effect. They see that some people who have been kind and have done wholesome deeds experience much suffering and misfortune. On the other hand, they observe other people who have committed unwholesome deeds but nonetheless lead a comfortable and free life. So they conclude that the Law of Cause and Effect does not apply at all. Some even say, “This is the twentieth century. Why still believe in superstitions like cause and effect?”

However, they do not realize that the existence of everything in this world arises from, and is dependent on, the Law of Cause and Effect. The relationship

(to be continued…)

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Buddha’s Light Newsletter

佛 光 世 紀

  • August 2009
  • Issue 24

LETTER FROM OUR SUPPORTERS

Dear Venerable Manpou, I was kindly asked to share my experience during the Dharma talk by Venerable Hsin Ting on July 3, 2009. I was deeply touched by the talk.

Very recently before the Dharma talk my husband was told that he has an illness which is not extremely serious thankfully but still has upset my husband and myself. He was having a difficult time and I was very attached to his upset feelings and his illness. It was such a heavy burden for me to be attached to these things. Also I felt very attached to hurts I have experienced during my childhood and had a hard time getting past them so I could live a full life. I felt in my life I was attached to many things and tried to control many things. This caused me to worry quite a lot.

When Venerable Hsin Ting began talking about non attachment I could feel such love from him and his words and I could really feel how he truly lives what he is talking about. Feeling his love and truth about non attachment helped me to very deeply and fully realize how I am attached to so many things and how very painful these attachments are for me. I felt the pain of my attachments so deeply and at the same time could feel how beautiful and free Venerable Hsin Ting is from attachment. This caused me to see what it could be like for me if I could learn to let go of my attachments.

This realization caused me to be quite emotional but I am beginning to see and feel things in a different way. I am noticing my attachments more in my daily life and I am learning to let them go slowly but in a way I could never do before. I am also praying and meditating to strengthen my mind. If I would not have experienced the Dharma talk I feel I would not be at this new level of understanding and commitment to change. Also I believe that everything I have experienced at the Temple has helped me to reach this new understanding.

I sincerely thank with all of my heart Venerable Hsin Ting for his Dharma talk and also Venerable Manpou and Venerable Miaotsan for all of the Sunday Services and everything they do which makes such a difference in my life.

Sincerely, Lisa Cook

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Buddha’s Light Newsletter

佛 光 世 紀

  • August 2009
  • Issue 24

Venerable Hsin Ting’s Dharma Talk on
Love and Desires

July 3rd 2009

  • I am happy to be here today
  • Here is a story of a dying

  • to have a talk of Dharma.
  • man with staring eyes. His

son asked him, ‘What else do you want to say?’ The father said, ‘I had one piece of meat on my chopsticks that I wasn’t able to eat the other day.’ The son asked why, the dying man answered, ‘Because I had another piece of meat in my mouth.’ At the last moment of our lives, we can’t let go of anything that we are attached to, even as small as a piece of meat.
I have been to Chicago once before, years ago. Now I am very surprised to see this magnificent temple here, which is transformed from a barn. What an achievement! I admire your work and dedication very much!

Today’s topic is on love and desires.

Love, in English, has some meanings of attachment and desire. We have strong desires of our possessions. If we lose them, we feel sad and can’t calm down. The chase of desire makes us emotionally very attached. When we speak of love, naturally we have the mind of occupation. We want to possess. We are sentient beings, it’s natural for us to have desires. There are good desires, as well as unpurified desires.
As we talk about love, we feel nervous about things to which we are attached, because we are afraid of losing them. The attachment brings us anxiety. In our daily lives, we nourish our physical body by eating and drinking, and we grasp things from outside, the external material things such as money, food, fortune and fame. Those are the things to which we are attached. We think that we would be happy if we can get everything we ask for and have an abundant life. Here is a story of how endless our desires can be.
Good desire is something beneficial to our family and society, it doesn’t harm anyone. When we practice Dharma, we have good desires. Unpurified desire is when we only think of ourselves, and not care for others or even harm others in order to get what we want. As we are attached to something, we chase after it. If we do that to harm others, that’s bad. That kind of desire is not only harmful to others, but also to our own body and emotion. When we have unpurified desire, we would not be able to close our eyes when we die, but stare at the things that we can’t let go.
A farmer was working in the field, a man suddenly appeared by his side. The farmer invited the man to have tea at his home. The guest told the farmer, ‘I am from heaven. Today I received your kind offering of food, I can fulfill three wishes for you.’ The farmer was very excited and said, ‘I want to expand the field, have more cows and more servants. I want so much stuff, but three wishes are not enough.’ So the farmer asked his daughter to help determine which three are the most important.

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Buddha’s Light Newsletter

佛 光 世 紀

  • August 2009
  • Issue 24

The daughter said to her father, ‘Just make the first two wishes for anything you want, and the third wish to ask the guest to fulfill another three wishes.’
• Wind – everything swings, such as our breaths. Wind’s character is moving.
• Liquid – water in our body, such as blood and saliva. Every single cell in our body needs liquid to live.
• Heat – the temperature in our body. Heat can change colors of the material. When vegetables are cooked, the color and taste are different than when they are raw. The fruit changes color after receiving sunshine. The character of the heat is to transform the material and change them.
In our mind, we have the strong desires to grasp and chase for money, fortune and fame. This desire keeps growing and growing, and we get more and more miserable because we can’t get everything we want. Our memories of past desires also cause us depression, make us lonely and unhappy. It is natural for all of us to have desires. But only if we have a balanced mind, can we have balanced emotions.
• Earth – the solid element that makes things stable, such as our bones.
We all want to have a better body, to be prettier. The love for ourselves leads us to have the present attachments and future attachments. We think our physical body is real, that’s why we are attached to it. Let’s ask ourselves, it that really true?
Everything has the character of the four elements of air, heat, water, and earth. The formation of the universe needs them. A new born baby has them even when the baby is still in the mother’s womb. A tree needs water, air, sunshine, and earth to grow. When we burn the wood, it also gives us heat. Science discovered that the smallest particle of the material is atom. This is also mentioned in the Buddhist scriptures. Now we can observe these very tiny particles using high tech microscope, to see the realities under different views. Even those tiny particles are also made of the four elements of air, water, heat, and earth.
Take a look at an incense burner. It is made of bronze. Before that, the bronze was hidden in the earth. Australia is famous for its mines of different metals. South Africa is famous for its mines of diamonds. The earth provides us all kinds of metals, silver, gold, copper… We don’t know where the bronze that makes this incense burner came from. But we do know only when all causes and conditions come together, this incense burner can be made. However, all conditions are impermanent, and they change constantly.
The true meaning of self should be the ability to control. But our body is not controlled by us, but by the four elements. What will happen if we don’t drink for 24 hours? Only when air, water, heat, and earth come together, we have our body. After we die, our physical body will decay into the four elements. The basic teaching of Buddhism is for us to realize the truth of non-self.
The meaning of self is controlling and mastering. I can give orders to my physical body. I am the master, the king, the superb one. But as we think back, can we really control ourselves? If there’s no air or water, can we survive? If we are the master of our body, we should be in total control instead of relying on other things. The reality of ourselves is non-self, because we can’t really master ourselves, but rely on many other conditions.
When we apply the same perception from our birth to our death, it’s all to nothing. The wisdom of Buddhism teaches us how to observe the situation and come to the realization that we need all conditions to work together, in order to have any
Let’s analyze our body. It consists of four elements:

  • phenomena to manifest.
  • (to be continued…)

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Buddha’s Light Newsletter

佛 光 世 紀

  • August 2009
  • Issue 24

2009 Calendar August

SUN

  • MON
  • TUE
  • WED
  • THU
  • FRI

SAT

1 8:30 am Yuan-Ji Dance

10:00 am Kung Fu Class

  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8

8:30 am
Yuan-Ji Dance

10:00 am
Kung Fu Class

10:30 am Chanting Service

  • 9
  • 10

17

  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15

8:30 am

  • 7:30 pm
  • 7:30pm

Yuan-Ji Dance

10:00 am
Kung Fu Class

10:30 am Chanting Service

Meditation

Dharma Study
(English)

16

  • 18
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26

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  • 21

28
22 29

8:30 am
Yuan-Ji Dance

10:00 am
Kung Fu Class

10:30 am Chanting Service

23 9:00 am 24

Compassionate Samadhi

25

7:30 pm

Meditation

27

8:30 am
Yuan-Ji Dance

10:00 am

Water

Kung Fu Class

Repentance Service

30 10:30 am Chanting Service

Movie Time

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  • Wu Chin Tsang Fa Lüeh Shuo Abridged Explanation of the Dharma of the Inexhaustible Storehouse

    Wu Chin Tsang Fa Lüeh Shuo Abridged Explanation of the Dharma of the Inexhaustible Storehouse

    B. Wu chin tsang fa lüeh shuo Abridged Explanation of the Dharma of the Inexhaustible Storehouse The Wu chin tsang fa lüeh shuo [¦áÀF‰ is in the Stein collec- tion (Stein No. 190, Giles No. 6617), and a fragment of the last part of this text is also found on the same scroll as the Hsin-hsing i wen, another impor- tant San-chieh text. Similarly titled texts found in the sutra catalogues include the Ta sheng wu chin tsang fa Ø/[¦áÀ in one chüan listed among Hsin-hsing’s works in the Ta chou k’an ting chung ching mu lu,1 and a Ming ta sheng wu chin tsang gØ/[¦á recorded in the K’ai yüan lu,2 the Chen yüan hsin ting shih chiao mu lu,3 and the Jen chi lu tu mu.4 The latter two cat- alogs add the information “four pages” and “six pages” respectively, and the ³rst three catalogs attribute the work to Hsin-hsing. As it is partially con- tained on the same scroll as the Hsin-hsing i wen and both texts contain the same list of “sixteen eternal, joyous, self, and pure practices of the Inexhaustible Storehouse,” we can assume that it belongs to the early strata of San-chieh literature, if Hsin-hsing did not himself actually compose this text. Although originally comprised of eleven sections, because the ³rst part of the text is damaged only six of eleven sections are preserved (sections six through eleven). The ³rst ³ve sections are preserved, however, in a commentary to this work, the Ta sheng fa chieh wu chin tsang fa shih Ø/Àƒ[¦áÀt (translated below), and together with the Hsin-hsing i wen we are thus able to get a good picture of this important practice of the Inexhaustible Storehouse.
  • Handing Down the Light

    Handing Down the Light

    Venerable Master Hsing Yun, 1991. A historical meeting between two religions—the Master greeted by His Holiness, Pope John Paul II at Vatican City. Taking a look at the world’s largest copy of the Koran inside the Roman Mosque in Italy, 1997. Hsing Yun extends a warm welcome to the Dalai Lama, 1989. The abbot of the Dhammakaya Foundation in Thailand escorts Hsing Yun for a tour of the grounds, 1994. Ordains the first-ever Buddhist monastics in Africa, 1994. Venerable Master Hsing Yun leading disciples in walking meditation. Venerable Master Hsing Yun A group photo with delegates of the World Fellowship of Buddhists Conference at Nan Tien Temple, Australia. Leading the opening ceremony of the International Outstanding Buddhist Women Conference at Fo Guang Shan, Taiwan. A family portrait with his mother and siblings. Buddha’s Light Publishing exhibits books in languages other than Chinese at the Taipei International Book Exhibition held at Taipei World Trade Center (February 1, 2002). A noted calligraphist, 1993 (Courtesy of Chen Chih-min). Presiding over the International Triple Platform Full Ordination Ceremony in Bodhgaya, India, (February 15, 1998). The Master leading a sea of B.L.I.A. members in the campaign for universal compassion and loving-kindness toward all, in Taipei. The Master leading the welcoming ceremony to receive the Buddha’s Tooth Relic, originating from Tibet, in a joint Sutric and Tantric Dharma Service held in Taiwan. Master of Chinese Painting Chang Ta-Chien [Zhang Daqian] visited Fo Guang Shan and presented his work “One flower, one world, one leaf, one Buddha” as a gift to Venerable Master, (March 14, 1978).
  • An Examination of Kumārajīva's Translation

    An Examination of Kumārajīva's Translation

    Thich Hang Dat, 1 A REAPPRAISAL OF KUMĀRAJĪVA’S ROLE IN MEDIEVAL CHINESE BUDDHISM: AN EXAMINATION OF KUMĀRAJĪVA’S TRANSLATION TEXT ON “THE ESSENTIAL EXPLANATION OF THE METHOD OF DHYANA” A THESIS PRESENTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN RELIGIOUS STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST Abstract For many centuries, Buddhologists have considered Kumārajīva as a strong advocate of Mahāyāna Buddhism and an equally strong opponent of Hīnayāna Buddhism. However, this assumption is debatable. My thesis addresses this assumption to determine its validity. Hence, I have reappraised his life, his role and contribution to Medieval Chinese Buddhism, as well as the cultural and social environments prior and contemporary to him. I especially paid attention to the translation of the meditation texts such as The Essential Explanation of The Method of Dhyāna, to find evidence that either supports or disputes the assumption that Kumārajīva was an advocate of Mahāyāna only. It is my conclusion that Kumārajīva not only advocated Mahāyāna, but also Hīnayāna Buddhism throughout his life and works. Thich Hang Dat, 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgement Table of Contents Part I. Analysis 1. Introduction 2. Background of Chinese Buddhism prior to Kumārajīva‘s arrival in Chang‘an 3. Translators that preceded Kumārajīva 4. Kumārajīva‘s biography 5. His prolific translation works 6. His fame as an advocator of Chinese Mahāyāna and the founder of Mādhyamika 7. Cultural and social influences of Sarvāstivādin Hīnayāna a. Central Asian Buddhist community b. Chang‘an center c. His collaborators of translation works d. His disciples‘ request of translation the meditation texts e.