Chapter 12 ﹝19﹞ : Seeing the circumstance and unmoved in heart are difficult.

(Chapter 12 ﹝19﹞ ) A Brief Talk about The Scripture of Forty-Two Chapters Said by Buddha

Co-translators in the time of Eastern Han Dynasty, China(A.D. 25 - 200) : Kasyapa Matanga and Zhu Falan (Who translated the said Scripture from Sanskrit into Chinese. )

Translator in modern time (A.D.2018: Tao Qing Hsu (Who translated the said Scripture from Chinese into English.)

Teacher and writer for explaining the said Scripture: Tao Qing Hsu 

Chapter 12: List the difficulties and exhort to practice   

The Buddha said,” There are twenty difficulties for people. Giving something to others is difficult when people are in poor. Learning the Dao is difficult when people are in the huge wealth and are the nobility. It is hard to the people when they must die because their lives have to be abandoned. Being able to see the scripture of Buddha is difficult. Being born in the time of Buddha is difficult. Enduring the erotic and desire is difficult. Seeing the self-interest and not to pursue it is difficult. No resentment when being humiliated is difficult. When having the authority and not to draw near to ordinary people  is difficult. When contact with things and no heart  is difficult. Learning widely and researching extensively are difficult. Removing the ego-arrogance is difficult. Not to despise the un-learner is difficult. Practicing the equality in heart is difficult. Not saying its right or wrong is difficult. Meeting the good-knowledge person is difficult. Seeing the Nature and learning the Dao are difficult. According to conditions to reform people so as to save them is difficult. Seeing the circumstance and unmoved in heart are difficult. Good at understanding the convenience is difficult.

Chapter 12 ﹝19﹞ : Seeing the circumstance and unmoved in heart are difficult.

Seeing the circumstance and unmoved in heart are difficult, seeing the circumstance so not moving in heart is difficult, which is the nineteenth difficulty in the twenty difficulties said by Buddha Shakyamuni in this Chapter.

 “Seeing the circumstance” also means seeing the situation, the condition, the form, the development and its trend, the state, the event, the thing, the case, the consequence, the environment, and all of which is happened in outer of our body, could be seen by our naked eyes, could be judged or thought by our mind, and also could be felt or perceived by our awareness. We say that it also could be seen by heart.  

Furthermore, “seeing the circumstance” also means seeing the image appeared in our mind, such as seeing the image or the situation, which is showed in the heart-mirror, and could be seen in any time, especially, in the time of quiet, such as dreaming or Zen sitting, the meditation sitting. We say that it is seen by the third-eye, the heart-eye.

Do you have ever made the nightmare? The nightmare is so real and so to make us feel chilly and scared. Do you have ever made the sweet dream? The sweet dream makes us happy and encouraged. The dream is really to affect our emotion, feeling, thinking, judgment and action. So, it’s hard to see the situation and not moving in heart.

All things as what happened in the outer or inner of our body, are like a dream, which also affects our emotion, feeling, thinking, judgment and action. That also means that our heart is to move or is moved. This kind of moved or moving is not what you think about to touch your heart. On the contrary, such moved or moving is related to the static.

The original of our heart is stillness. Once we are affected by any circumstance as said above, our heart is easily moved or turned, such as a still flag in the air. Once the wind blows, the still flag is beginning to sway in the wind. The circumstance as said is like the blowing wind. The heart is like the flag.

In the Tang dynasty of China, a Buddhist master was teaching the Buddhist scripture and asked his disciples: “There is a flag swaying in the wind softly. What do you have seen? Is the flag moving from side to side, or is the wind moving? ” Some of his disciples said what are moving is the flag, not the wind. Some of his disciples said what are moving is the wind, not the flag. The sixth-founder of Zen, the master Hui Neng, went by this place and heard the question. Then he said, “What is moving, is neither the flag nor the wind, but is your heart.”

This story is telling us that our heart is easily affected and turned by the outer situation so as easily to be moved or shaken.

There is a story in the Buddhist scripture. One day, the Buddha walked in the road and saw a pile of silvers beside the road. Then, he told his disciple, Ananda, and said, ” I just see vipers over there.” Ananda came, saw the pile of silvers, and said, “ Yes, I also see vipers.” Then, they walked away and kept going forward.

A father and his son, walking behind the Buddha and Ananda, had heard the saying by the Buddha and Ananda. They felt curious, walked forward and saw the pile of silvers. They were so extremely happy to see those silvers and took the pile of silvers away. The father and his son didn't know that these silvers were stolen from the national treasure and were thrown by the stealer. They were regarded as the stealers and finally taken away by the state for questioning and were locked in jail.

This story tells us that we are easy to birth the greedy in heart when we see the outer things, such as the father and son see the said silvers. And it is also easy to make us stuck in troubles. That also means that we are easy to make us fall into any troubles, once our heart is not stillness but is moved (shaken) or is moving.

The same reasoning, we are easy to birth the hatred or resentment in heart when we see any situation or object, which are not corresponding to our will, or not content us. Or we are easy to birth the stupidity and obsession in heart when we see someone or something which we love. 

So we can see that there are a lot of things or events in the world are the flow of the phenomena caused by such three kinds of hearts, greedy, hatred or resentment, stupidity and obsession, because everyone’s heart is moving and affecting each other.

Furthermore, all of these are also becoming the circumstances. Then, the outer world of us is like the kaleidoscope, and which conceals us to see the truth, including the truth in our heart in the original, the stillness and the silence, nothing in there.

Suppose that everyone’s heart is stillness and not to affect each other, how it would be in the world? Of course, we could not ask others’ heart to be stillness, but we could ask for ourselves. Suppose everyone lets its heart return to the stillness and not be affected by any circumstance, what it would be in the outer and inner world of us?

Think about it, then, seeing the circumstance and unmoved in heart would not be difficult for us.