Teaching by: Chan Master Miao-Tien, Forty-eighth Patriarch of the lineage of the Linji Order of Chan, the Fifty-eighth Patriarch since Master Bodhidharma, and the Eighty-fifth Patriarch since Shakyamuni Buddha.
Translated to English: Dr Jerome
“一切有为法
如梦幻泡影
如露亦如电
应作如是观”
金刚经三十二品 - 应化非真
“All conditioned phenomena
like dream, delusion, bubble and shadow, like dew and lightning,
thus should be viewed this way.”
Diamond Sutra Verse 32 - Contemplation on the Truth
What are conditioned phenomena? Cultivating the path of the Buddha is a non-conditioned phenomena. Cultivating the path of humans is a conditioned phenomena. We should start cultivating from the path of humans, amidst the manifestations of the human world, persevere in your practice and improve in your practice until you realise the characteristics of emptiness. From our mental conceptions, thinking and attachment to forms, we learn to let go of these attachments and realise the characteristics of emptiness. After realising the characteristics of emptiness, we must let go of these characteristics of emptiness and enter a state of neither perception nor non-perception and at last realise the ultimate truth, aka the highest realm, which is also the luminous Buddha world, the realm of the ultimate truth.
The human realm is the fourth dimensional world. Through meditative states of concentration, we can enter deep concentration, right concentration and finally profound concentration. We can surpass the fourth dimensional world and enter higher dimensional worlds through these meditative states of concentration. From a limited lifespan, we can realise the illimitably long life that is beyond birth and death. At the same time, we can realise high wisdom, profound abilities, unsurpassed wisdom, unsurpassed abilities, and realise these creative power. Such a person is a true living buddha in this world.
“All conditional phenomenon” means all physical things and living beings with shapes and forms. “Like dream, delusion, bubble and shadow” means like a dream, once a person wakes up from a dream, the dream disappears. Or like a bubble, it bursts in an instant. “Like dew and lightning” means like a morning dew, it will evaporate when the sun is up. Or like lightning, it ends abruptly.
The human life is the same. It is delusive and comparable an illusion. We should treasure all the merits we possess now and do more merits for the sake of all sentient beings. We should understand gratitude and learn to have gratitude and we should repay gratitude. We should understand that all things bestowed upon us from others, including our parents who brought us up, our teachers who taught us, our seniors who taught us, the gratitude from heaven and Earth, the gratitude to sentient beings, all the support from our elderly, friends and the love bestowed upon us from others, etc. Apart from feeling gratitude from the depths of our heart, we should repay the gratitude. How do we repay the gratitude? We should benefit more sentient beings.
The Buddha said, “ thus should be viewed this way.” What does this mean? It means human life is short, we should view it in this way. We should not attach to all mundane things of a “human”, we should persevere in our cultivation, progressively learn to let go, progressively liberate all these useless, mundane things and do more meaningful things, that is to benefit other sentient beings, to bring other sentient beings to learn the Buddhadharma, to give dhamma talks, to support Dhamma centres, to spread the Buddhadhamma. This is what we should do.
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