Until We Reach Buddhahood Lectures on the Shurangama Sutra Master Sheng Yen Volume Two Until We Reach Buddhahood inside Book_Volume Two_ID5.indd 1 3/18/17 1:08 PM © 2017 Dharma Drum Publications Chan Meditation Center 90-56 Corona Ave. Elmhurst, NY 11371 (All Rights Reserved) Until We Reach Buddhahood inside Book_Volume Two_ID5.indd 2 3/18/17 1:08 PM All thoughts, ideas, and conceptions that pass through our minds are dreams, and we will not awake to this understanding until we reach Buddhahood. Master Sheng Yen (1930-2009) From Volume One, the Chapter: “Five Skandhas: False and Unreal” Until We Reach Buddhahood inside Book_Volume Two_ID5.indd 3 3/18/17 1:08 PM About the Chan Meditation Center In 1979, Master Sheng Yen established the Chung-Hwa Institute of Buddhist Culture, more commonly known as the Chan Meditation Center. The mission of CMC is to be a Buddhist meditation and practice center for anyone whose good karma brings them to its front door. (As often is the case, adventitiously.) CMC has a varied and rich offering of classes in meditation and other forms of Buddhist practice, in particular, its Sunday Morning Open House, which is a very popular event for individuals as well as families. It features meditation sittings, talks on Chan and Buddhist Dharma, and a vegetarian luncheon. All are welcome. Information about CMC is available at http://chancenter.org. Until We Reach Buddhahood inside Book_Volume Two_ID5.indd 4 3/18/17 1:08 PM About the Dharma Drum Retreat Center In 1997, Master Sheng Yen established the Dharma Drum Retreat Center in Pine Bush, New York. It is a sister organization to the Chan Meditation Center, and is located about two hours from the Chan Meditation Center by car. DDRC offers a rich schedule of intensive Chan meditation retreats of varying lengths, from 3-day weekend retreats, to those of longer duration, typically 7 to 10 days. While the retreats are open to all without regard to affiliation, it is preferred that participants have at least some beginner-level meditation experience and/or have attended at least one intensive meditation retreat. Information about DDRC is at: http://www.dharmadrumretreat.org Until We Reach Buddhahood inside Book_Volume Two_ID5.indd 5 3/18/17 1:08 PM Table of Contents Preface to Volume One...1 Preface to Volume Two...4 Mind and Dharma Dust...7 The Story of Vision...16 The Eighteen Realms...32 Taste and Touch...45 Human, Hinayana, and Mahayana...55 The Four Elements...65 The Earth Element...73 The Elements of Consciousness...83 The Sun in the Buddha’s Mind...95 Untying the Six Knots...107 Generating Bodhi Mind...120 Penetration through Sound...131 Awakening Through the Sense Organ of Consciousness...142 Enlightenment through Eye Consciousness...153 Complete Penetration of Ear Consciousness...163 Avalokiteshvara’s Complete Penetration through Hearing (Part One)...176 Avalokiteshvara’s Complete Penetration through Hearing (Part Two)...187 Until We Reach Buddhahood inside Book_Volume Two_ID5.indd 6 3/18/17 1:08 PM Dharma Drum Mountain Until We Reach Buddhahood inside Book_Volume Two_ID5.indd 7 3/18/17 1:08 PM Until We Reach Buddhahood inside Book_Volume Two_ID5.indd 8 3/18/17 1:08 PM Preface to Volume One In December of 1984, Master Sheng Yen began a series of lectures on the Shurangama Sutra at the Chan Meditation Center in Queens, New York, as part of the Sunday Open House program. The Master provided deep, learned, and insightful commentary on key passages from the sutra, placing them in the context of ordinary life for practitioners of Mahayana Buddhism. Oftentimes, he would use anecdotes from his own life experience and contacts with people to elucidate points from the sutra, often drawing laughter from the audience. Not surprisingly, the lectures were very well received by members and visitors to the Chan Meditation Center. As was the usual custom, the Master’s lectures were concurrently translated into English and recorded. Early in 1985, edited transcripts of the lectures began to appear in Chan Newsletter. Thus, to the good fortune of sentient beings, the Master’s lectures on the Shurangama Sutra became a regular feature of Chan Newsletter. At the same time that he was abbot of the Chan Meditation Center, Master Sheng Yen was also abbot of the Nung Chan Monastery (later to become Dharma Drum Mountain) in Taiwan. To fulfill his responsibilities to both centers, it was Master Sheng Yen’s practice to alternate his time by spending three months in one place, and the next three months in the 1 Until We Reach Buddhahood inside Book_Volume Two_ID5.indd 1 3/18/17 1:08 PM other. In addition, Master Sheng Yen’s renown was such that he traveled to many states in the USA and other countries, to lecture on Chan Buddhism. Through all this varied and arduous activity, Master Sheng Yen continued to give his Sunday lectures on the Shurangama Sutra through at least the summer of 1996, when the Chan Newsletter was about to merge with the quarterly journal, Chan Magazine. The result is that between 1985 and 1996, only 39 of Master Sheng Yen’s lectures on the Shurangama Sutra were published in Chan Newsletter. We say “only 39” because he did in fact give more than that many lectures on the sutra. On the side of good luck, the Chan Meditation Center’s website, chancenter.org, at some point began to publish back issues of every Chan Newsletter. Because the Shurangama Sutra lectures were well received online, the Chan Meditation Center is publishing a compilation of these lectures as part of the annual Passing of the Lamp ceremony, to honor the memory of Master Sheng Yen. Beginning with this Volume One, the 39 lectures will be published in two volumes. Volume Two will be published in 2017. We apologize that even the two volumes will not comprise the entirety of Master Sheng Yen’s Shurangama Sutra lecture series. However, please be assured that the entire Shurangama Sutra series of lectures has been digitally preserved, both in New York and Taiwan. For now, in print there exists in Chinese only, an edition comprising the Master’s lectures on Avalokiteshvara’s method for 2 Until We Reach Buddhahood inside Book_Volume Two_ID5.indd 2 3/18/17 1:08 PM cultivating samadhi, taken from this same series, with the title, The Subtle Wisdom of Avalokiteshvara (觀音妙智). If our good fortune continues, someday we will also see this book published in English. Despite this being only a partial record of the Master’s Shurangama Sutra lectures, an attentive and receptive reader will discover that, as teachings on Chan and Mahayana Buddhism, they are in every sense, complete and fully realized. They give us a profound sense of the context and meaning of the sutra, as well as a detailed view of how one should practice Mahayana Buddhism, and the importance of samadhi within that practice. For this we are deeply grateful to Master Sheng Yen for this offering of wisdom and compassion. Note: As his reference text in English, Master Sheng Yen used “The Shurangama Sutra,” the translation by Charles Luk (Lu K’uan Yu), with notes by Master Han Shan of the Ming Dynasty. It is available for free digital distribution on the Internet by the Buddhadharma Education Association. Ernest Heau Compiler 3 Until We Reach Buddhahood inside Book_Volume Two_ID5.indd 3 3/18/17 1:08 PM Preface to Volume Two This is the second of two volumes of selected lectures on the Shurangama Sutra by Master Sheng Yen that appeared in Chan Newsletter, until its final issue in August 1997. In Volume One, in meticulous detail and with great insight, Master Sheng Yen discussed the Buddha’s explanation to his disciple Ananda, of the nature of the phenomenal world that sentient beings experience. In the Buddha’s analysis, the world of phenomena consists of the eighteen realms, namely: the six sense organs, the six sense objects, and the six sense consciousnesses. These eighteen realms are the products of the twelve links of conditioned arising, and the law of cause and effect (karma), which together give rise to the five skandhas, the foundation of what we perceive to be our individual self. Taking each of the realms separately, Master Sheng Yen explained how the Buddha convinces Ananda that the fundamental nature of the eighteen realms is that of emptiness. And since the five skandhas are nothing more than the product of the eighteen realms, they too are empty of self. In Volume Two, Master Sheng Yen continues his explanation 4 Until We Reach Buddhahood inside Book_Volume Two_ID5.indd 4 3/18/17 1:08 PM of the eighteen realms and conscious existence. He explains how the eighteen realms are not only the causal ground of the illusion of an existing self, but that they are also the means by which sentient beings can attain liberation. In the chapter “The Story of Vision,” he says: “Those [enlightened beings] act within the eighteen realms unfettered by vexations. Such perfected beings perceive that the eighteen realms are neither separate nor different from Buddha Nature, or True Suchness. They perceive that the Dharma Body of all Buddhas has always been within these eighteen realms.” The perfected beings that Master Sheng Yen refers to are Bodhisattvas who practice to transform the mind of illusion into the mind of wisdom, one that is free of the three karmas of action, speech, and thought. In the final chapter, Master Sheng Yen tells us, “When penetration is complete, everything is as it is. No matter what you consider good, no matter what you consider bad, everything is as it is.