Chapter 27: Without attachment gains the Dao.

(Chapter 27) 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 27: Without attachment gains the Dao.

The Buddha said,” Those who put the Dao into the practice are such as the wood floats on the water, flows along the river, doesn't touch the two side of the river, doesn't be taken away by people, would not be covered by ghosts and gods, would not be stopped by turbulence and nor being corrupt, I guarantee that this wood is decided to enter the sea. People who learn the Dao are not confused by the emotion and desire, are not disturbed by many viciousness, and refine the progress and practice the no-doing, I guarantee such person to gain the Dao certainly.

The meaning of Dao

“Dao” is transliterated from Chinese character, which original meaning is the road, the way and the path. Then, the meaning is extended to be the truth of our internal and external world, or any teaching or theory of truth. In Buddhism, it means the truth of our internal and external world, which means emptiness and stillness. In such state, there is no-doing, no-thinking, no-cause, no-condition, no-wishes, no-desire, no-demanding, no-suffering, no-happiness, no-greed, no-hatred, no-obsession, no-obtaining, no-losing, no-fame, no-power, no-generating, no-eliminating, no-phenomenon and no-fear. Such state and such truth is not created or found by anyone, but is understood and experienced by the individual's enlightening. The emptiness does not need to be created. When any cause and condition is not existed, the emptiness has been naturally existed there. That is, such state and such truth is not created by God or by Buddha, but is realized by the individual's understanding and inspiring. No matter who you are, no matter your race is, no matter where you are, no matter what your faith is, such truth is there, and which can be seen, understood and realized by you. That is what the Buddha hopes us to know. 

  

When the Buddha explained what the Dao is, which have the deep and the shallow meaning respectively. That is because everyone’s character and its understanding level are different. Therefore, we should know that we should not be bind by the single explanation about the Dao.

In the history of world and China, there are a lot of teachings and theories which talk about the Dao. But, I have to tell you that there is a lot of artificial ideology containing the individual worldly intention. Some of them are even the distorted and reversed opinions and values. Unfortunately, it is to be regarded as the truth and be taken to repress the human beings. We also can find that there are a lot of evil ideologies and theories purposely bewitching and fanning humans, and such evils are the causes to make the binary opposition of humans and to make the world not peaceful at all. Such Dao is not the Dao of Buddhism. When we really understand the Buddha’s teaching about the Dao, we can absolutely get rid of any evil and stupid ideologies and theories.

In Buddhism, the meaning of Dao is very broad and unlimited. When we have one concept about Dao said by Buddha, such concept might be destroyed by Buddha in the next time when we are taught by Buddha. Why? That is because any concept about Dao will make us insist in and addict in it and thus to make us be bind and restricted. Our mind will thus become un-free. Even we strongly insist in the right thing and the good will as we think, the Buddha will advise us to let it go. Then, some people might have strongly question and disagree with it. They said, if we do not strongly insist in the right thing and the good will, do you want us to insist in the mean thing and the evil will? Of course, not. Whether it is the right thing or the mean thing, and whether it is the good will or the evil will, we should not addict in it. That is because any right thing or mean thing, and any good will or evil will, will be easy to be explained and propagated with distorted and reversed way by the evil person. Meanwhile, it is also easy to be operated by humans who are scheming and have selfish intentions to reach their selfish purpose.

Even though we have such concept of not to addict in any right and wrong, it does not mean that we do not need to distinguish the good and evil. And it also does not mean that we do anything without principle of virtue. It is still necessary for us to understand and distinguish the good and evil. Not to addict in right and wrong does not affect us to understand and distinguish the good and evil and it is also not to affect us to do anything with virtue. We have to know it.

Walk in the middle of the road--middle way

When we do not addict in any good things and any evil things, we can thus neutrally review anything. It is the open-minded and the objective attitude. It is as if we walk on the road. We neither keep to the left nor to the right. We just walk in the middle of the road. It is called the middle-way or the middle-Dao. When we walk in the middle way, we get rid of any fight, opposition, and argument between the right and left. Meanwhile, we can avoid any purposely operation from any evil and selfish intention.

For example, some people operate the racism or the nationalism so as to stir the hatred emotion of humans and the opposition to each other so as to achieve their selfish purpose. If we thus dance and sing with them, we are really stupid.

The nature of human beings is the emptiness and stillness. It is all the same for all human beings. No matter what your race and nation is, and no matter what your color of skin or eyes is, such truth cannot be changed and it is the everlasting. What can be changed is the appearance of humans, their language and ideology, and which are impermanent. When we know it, we understand that it is nonsense to operate any racism or nationalism. In the eyes of Buddha, all human beings are equal. Do you know all human beings to be equal in where? All human beings are equal in the self-nature of emptiness and stillness. It is the peaceful mind. Any despising and opposition to the human beings is operated by and is coming from the ignorant of humans. The consciousness that manipulates human hatred is the ignorance of the ignorant. It is tragic that many humans are died and hurt in such ignorance. 

Listening, Thinking, and Practicing

How do we put the Dao into the practice? The first, we hear what the Dao is from Buddha’s teaching. After having the concept about the Dao in Buddhism, we think about the connotation of Dao, and what the meaning is for us. We even can question it whether such Dao is the reasonable or not, or whether it is good for us or not, and why we want to accept and practice it. The last, when we think such Dao is correct and will not bring us into the wrong direction in life and we can accept it, but it has not yet being put into realizing, we thus put it into the practice in our life so as to prove whether it is the truth or not, and how it will be realized by us in life. Therefore, there are such three procedures which are respectively hearing, thinking and practicing the Dao. Meanwhile, there are also another three methods which are respectively to keep the precepts, to practice the meditation, and to inspire our wisdom, which are the focus points in practicing the Dao. All these procedures and methods are for the purpose to make us peaceful and stable in mind and to generate our wisdom in life. 

When we have such concept and experience as said above, it is not enough for us to practice the Dao. It has to keep long-lasting and perceiving the self inner and outer world so as to review self thought, motive and action whether it is sincere and pure or not. What has mentioned above is just the basic effort. All the methods are flexible and can be applied in convenient way.

All the Dharma, the Buddha-law, is the method to prove the truth by self.

What the Buddha’s teaching is to advise us the truth and how to prove it. All the Dharma, the Buddha-law, is the method to prove the truth by self. The first cause, the first thought, the first decision and any incurred effect is dependent on the individual, not by others person. The Buddha never said that if you don't follow my teaching, what kind of evil and consequence you will get. The Buddha never uses such logic and tone to threaten and control humans. In other word, the Buddha never uses the authority to threaten and control humans. In fact, all Buddha’s teaching is on the basic point of equality, empathy, and compassion. There is no unequal authority relationship between the Buddha and sentient beings. The Buddha just wants us to know what kind of truth he can prove, such truth also can be proved by all sentient beings. In other word, he wants us to know that he can prove the Dao and become the Buddha. Such things can also be done by all sentient beings. Meanwhile, he teaches us how to prove it. That is all Buddha-law.

Each thought is one cause.

There are a lot of different ways to practice the Dao according to the individual’s level of understanding the Dao. For instance, to recite any name of any Buddha or Bodhisattva at each moment and at each day is the basic way to practice the Dao for the beginner. But, do you know why the beginner has to do that?

Recently, the researcher of Queen’s university has the answer that everyone has 6,200 thoughts flashed through self mind each day. Excluding the time of deep sleep, countless thoughts flash through our minds all the time. Even in our dream, there are thoughts, too. Are all thoughts the good things to benefit the self and others? No. In fact, the most thoughts of the most people are bad things to harm the self and others. One thought after another is constantly changing like flowing water. These thoughts are inseparable from greed, hatred, ignorance, arrogance and doubts.

The Buddha said that each thought is one cause. When a thought is implemented in the real life, it will combine the conditions and chances coming from outside around us, and then become the consequence. Mostly, we think that the good thought will result in the good consequence. But, the actual status may not be so. That is because that any condition and any chance coming from outside are the variable and unpredictable, which is difficult to be controlled by us. Furthermore, each thought of each person are colliding or mingling to each other, not to mention that countless thoughts of countless persons are colliding or mingling to each other at each moment.

As we have mentioned above, most of the thoughts are not necessarily to be good, most of them even to be evil. However, the evil persons do not think that their thoughts are evil. They even think that they are good persons and their thoughts will help humans. When our one thought is caught in the torrent of evil thoughts, we may not be able to be autonomous, and we will run away with this torrent of evil, towards the result of evil. That is to explain that each thought of everyone is easy to be affected by any thought coming from outside.

In addition, if we do not have the self-perceiving, self-reviewing, self-controlling, and self-cultivation, the evil thoughts inside of us are usually coming out easily and make us to do any evil things. We even do not know it is wrong and it will lead us into the evil consequence. For instance, many people do the wrong thing in the 1^st and 2^nd world war and it is not only to make them to suffer this evil bitterness, but also to make others to suffer the evil bitterness. It is all coming from the first evil thought. That's really a catastrophe for humans.

Once to dwell on one thought, it means a person is restricted by this thought. 

Most of our thoughts are flashed in mind secondly, which even to be the fantasy. Only few thoughts can be implemented by us in life. Some people even use their odd thoughts to torture themselves or to torture others. They even do not know it is the wrong thing.

In sum up, whatever humans’ thoughts are good or evil, most people will do anything through dwelling on their thoughts. Once to dwell on one thought, it means a person is restricted by this thought. Anyway, it forms the invisible closed and hindered situation and environment to us.    

The Buddha understands the reasons said above. He teaches us a convenient method to recite a name of Buddha or Bodhisattva. It can have a sound out of our mouth or keep a sound inside our mind. Usually, we keep a sound inside our mind so as not to disturb others. Therefore, when we practice this method to keep sound inside of mind, no one knows we are practicing it. This method is like to beat the mouse popped up on the game console with a mallet. When a thought is coming out from our mind, we recite a name of Buddha or Bodhisattva to inhibit any thought. That is also to use a positive thought to inhibit any negative thought so as to keep our thought in the right way.

No matter what we are doing, we practice it again and again, at each time, at each day. For instance, when we are walking, talking about gossip or sitting on the bus, we can use the time to practice it well. However, when we are reading or working, we focus on our business. At this moment, we temporally do not practice it. So, such practice is very flexible.

Can we use another thought that we can accept to inhibit our negative thought?

Then, we may have one question. Can we use another thought that we can accept to inhibit our negative thought? For example, can we recite the sentence “I love our country“ to instead of reciting a name of Buddha? We know that there are a lot of slogans such as patriotic slogans in the world. I have to say there is some kind of difference between them.

When I am a beginner and recite a name of Buddha, I have no such question. I even do not know the reasons as said above. One day, I met my professor who taught German Literature. We talked about reciting a name of Buddha. Then, he suddenly offered the similar question as said above. For a beginner, I only had vague concepts about it in that time. But now, it is different.

The Buddha or Bodhisattva is also beings with spirit. In Buddhism, its title is called Buddha or Bodhisattva which is also called “Fo” or “Pusa” in Chinese. But, in the outside of Buddhism, they may have the different title. For example, god or angel is also some kind of beings with spirit. Most of them may not have the concrete form and material appearance as human beings. But, they still have mind and conscious. They can communicate with us by mind to mind. Furthermore, they have “eyes” and “ears” to “see” and “hear” what we do and what we talk about. Each Buddha and each Bodhisattva has its own name. Their name is named according to their special merit, virtue or function. 

When we recite their name and title, it is as if we summon them. They can feel it. It is the telepathy. When each beings can be given the title “Buddha” or ”Bodhisattva” which is also called “Fo” or “Pusa” in Chinese, it means that it had ever to make wishes and vows to liberate itself and all beings from suffering, and it had practiced the Buddha’s teaching, proved the Dao and liberated itself from the suffering. At the same time, it is realizing its wishes and vows to save sentient beings and help them to liberate themselves from suffering with any convenient methods.

When we are reciting their name and title, we not only can suppress our evil thought, but also can feel their care, assistance and kindness. Only through keeping reciting the name and title for a long time, we can feel and understand it by such single-minded practicing. Meanwhile, we can realize it in life. We can gradually experience and realize what is no-thinking by such way. When we complete such practice, realize the no-thinking and always keep the positive thought, we can then let the said method go and use it freely. Any slogan or patriotic slogan are not beings, and do not have spirit. Its function and effect could not be like as said above.

To recite the name of the Bodhisattva, it is best to have the verbal inheritance and teaching face-to-face from a teacher who has completed the practice as mentioned. Under his guidance, we can better use this method and feel the energy and compassion of the Buddha. Or, you can follow this blog and read the introduction of any Buddhist Scripture and the said Buddha or Bodhisattva, to understand their background, good wishes, grand vows, great merit, unlimited virtue and benefiting function. If it is acceptable for you, you can practice it by self. If you have any question, you can leave message.

It is the best, convenient and basic method to practice and experience the procedure from the thought into without thought. We have a lot of thoughts each day and we never stop and rest to think and experience what it is in the status of without thought. In the process, we can feel our conscious and thoughts from strong to weak, from many into few, and gradually to be disappeared. Once we can stably experience such status of without thought, we can experience, realize and extend any status of none, such as no-doing. Furthermore, we can alert and perceive our any thought whether it is good or not good. Then, we may have further question, what is its meaning for us? What can it bring us any benefit?

Any thought may be what our problem is, if such thought is negative and not good at all.

Our any thought is stirred and affected by any changing situation from our external and internal world. And we further do anything according to such thought and affection. Meanwhile, there will be companied with self worries and troubles at the same time when we have any thought. Therefore, any thought may be what our problem is, if such thought is negative and not good at all. If we want to eradicate such problem, to control and train our mind to be stable and good is the best way. Keeping in the status of no-thinking does not mean that we really do not have any mind. We can generate any positive and good thought on this basis in any time, so as to benefit the self and others. That is because that we have controlled and trained our mind not to be affected by any situation from internal and external world. Meanwhile, we can thus independently and freely think about anything. That is the positive meaning for this method.

So, when we are touching the status of no-thinking, it does not mean that we have to dwell on it or addict in it forever. Some ignorant persons does not understand what the profoundly meaning of no-thinking and no-doing is, they therefore arbitrarily think that those people will be decadent persons. Even some ignorant Buddhist monk or nun, they want to practice the no-thought and no-doing, they then dwell on or addict in no-thought and no-doing, to become a vegan, and recite the name of the Bodhisattva so as to escape the worldly worries and troubles until they died. They even do not care what happened in the world and do not read the worldly news. In fact, they become the self-closed minded persons. However, they think that they are putting the Dao said by Buddha into the practice and hope to rebirth in the pure land of Buddha.

When I am young, I can not understand why they do so. Now I have some kind of understanding for that. It is the effect from the result of dictatorships and wars in the past. In many authoritarian regimes, there is no freedom of speech. Many monks and nuns use this way of keeping away from the world to protect themselves, while retaining Buddhism. Therefore, the public mistakenly believe that Buddhism is a decadent religion. That is also why the Buddhism can not spread broadly and be understood and accepted by the masses.  

Whatever stubbornly addicting in with thought or in without thought, it may be paranoid.

In the past, there is also a lot of argument about the Buddhist concepts of with doing or without doing, existence or without existence, with phenomenon or without phenomenon, and so on. Therefore, whatever stubbornly addicting in with thought or in without thought, it may be paranoid. So, the Buddha offered the concept of middle way. That is to say not to stubbornly addict in any side of with anything or without anything. So, what we are doing or thinking will be more free, flexible and creatable. 

For example, for the beginner, the Buddha will tell you that there is the good and evil, and advise you to do the good thing, not to do the evil thing, and tell you that to do good thing will be blessed by Buddha, and to do evil thing will be punished by the gods. It is not a bad thing for the beginner, and he happily accepts such Buddha's education and practices it in daily life. When the Buddha has found that this learner addicts in doing the good thing for a long time, the Buddha will advise him one day that there is no good and no evil. This learner is shocked immediately. How could it be possible for this learner to accept the concept that there is no good and no evil? If he can not accept it, it means that his learning will be stopped and without the progress and any surmounting from the current learning phase.

This learner thinks about what the Buddha has taught and why the Buddha has said that. Because he has the good virtue and believes in what the Buddha has taught, finally he seems to be enlightened something in his mind. Then, he gradually abandons his addiction about doing the good thing and let his mind dwell on the concept of no good and no evil. His mind and body are gradually free. But, he gradually addicts in the no-doing and begin to question the meaning of life. One day, the Buddha tells him that there is no such concept of no good and no evil. This learner is seriously shocked again. Owing to this learner has gradually been the profoundly practitioner, he deeply believes in what the Buddha has taught and profoundly thinks about the meaning as taught.  According to his good virtue and good wisdom, he is inspired not to addict in the no-doing. Then, he finally understands what the Buddha has taught. That is we should neither addict in doing the good thing nor addict in doing nothing. We should do anything and think anything by the Middle-Way. That is also means that we should not stubbornly addict in any concept whatever it is. Why?

There is no concept in the status of emptiness and stillness. All concepts are formed by cause, condition and consequence or event and phenomenon. Eradicating anything, where we can find the concept? Even the concept of good or evil, emptiness and stillness, we should let it go and not addict in them.  

The Buddha said,” Those who put the Dao into the practice are such as the wood floats on the water, flows along the river, doesn't touch the two side of the river, doesn't be taken away by people, would not be covered by ghosts and gods, would not be stopped by turbulence and nor being corrupt, I guarantee that this wood is decided to enter the sea.”

“Doesn't touch the two side of the river” The wood flows in the middle of the river without touching the two banks, which is the middle way we mentioned above and which means not to addict in any side of the binary opposition, such as right and wrong, good and evil, with and without, existence and no-existence, and so on.

“Doesn't be taken away by people” means not to be threatened, kidnapped, restricted and affected by the words and actions of people who are not justice or have the un-pure intention.

“Would not be covered by ghosts and gods” The cover here means hinder. Some ghosts and gods are not good beings. They would harm humans and hinder humans to be good persons. They even can use humans to do evil things or to revenge. Some people are un-luckily. Once whose minds are controlled by the ghosts and gods, and if there is no positive thought and attitude, it is easy to be used by ghosts and gods to do evil things, and these people cannot extricate themselves from such bad fate. Therefore, to stably keep positive thought and attitude in life is very important for us.

“Would not be stopped by turbulence” It means we will not stop learning Buddha or Buddhism when we meet the chaos or frustration in life. When a wood floating on the river and meet the turbulence, it will spin around or stay at the same place and can not progress forward. It is as if we learn Buddha and put the Dao into the practice, we should not spin around or stay at the same phase, when we meet trouble or frustration in life. We should go forward so that we can enter the large view and the broaden wisdom.

“Nor being corrupt”, the Chinese saying,” Decayed wood cannot be carved”. Being corrupt means a person’s lazy and careless makes its talent cannot be created and achieved. Not being corrupt means we should be sincerely and diligent when practicing the Dao, should cherish self, respect self and make self mindful.

“I guarantee that this wood is decided to enter the sea.” Sea means the free, large, widen and grand wisdom. Meanwhile, there are a lot of things and treasures in the sea. It is also means it can be freely generated a lot of things and treasures from the wisdom. If those persons practice the Dao as the said, they absolutely gain the free and grand wisdom. It also means that they can gain a lot of things and treasures from the wisdom. 

The Buddha said,“People who learn the Dao are not confused by the emotion and desire, are not disturbed by many viciousness, and refine the progress and practice the no-doing, I guarantee such person to gain the Dao certainly.”

“Not confused by the emotion and desire”, any emotion and desire will stir and affect our peaceful mind to be chaos, make us confused and hesitate, and could not clearly see the fact. It would make us do the wrong decision and wrong thing, and thus to hurt self and others in mentally and in physically. Many worries, difficulties and troubles are coming from indulging our personal emotion and selfish desire. Therefore, to control the self emotion and desire so as to avoid any troubles in life is very important. How to control the self emotion and desire which we have mentioned a lot in the content of 42 chapters said by Buddha. There is a lot of Buddha’s education is to teach us how to control our emotion and desire.

“Not disturbed by many viciousness” means we should keep our thought steady in the right, justice and positive way so as not to be affected by many viciousness from external world. Viciousness means evil intention and evil things. There are many temptations in this world. These temptations can interfere with our body and mind and make us involuntarily. These temptations may even be traps set by others to frame us or use us. Some temptations are the structure of a joint crime. All of them come from various evil intentions. Other people's mind is unpredictable. We should be careful when we practice the Dao. And do not make self involve in any temptations.

“Refine the progress and practice the no-doing”, “Refine the progress” means we diligently practice the Dao and make us progress. “Practice the no-doing” means when we understand and experience the profoundly meaning of no-doing, we do any positive things to benefit self and others on the basis of no-doing.

“I guarantee such person to gain the Dao certainly”, if we practice the Dao according to what as mentioned above, the Buddha would guarantee us to gain the Dao certainly. This is the supreme and best blessing from Buddha for us.

Supplementary note: Dao is transliterated from Chinese, meaning way and method, deeper meaning as a system of learning or religion. Dao is Tao, which is transliterated from Chinese. The original meaning of Dao is the way and path, and it is extended to be the truth of life that we can learn and practice in our lives.