–Volume4(Part2)
Author: Fafu
Translator : Gemini
Hello, Dharma Friends! Welcome to this podcast episode provided by the Buddha’s Practice Association of Australia.
Today, we continue to delve into the profound meaning of the “Three Continuities” (of the World, Sentient Beings, and Karmic Retribution). The Buddha, with the subtle sound of the Dharma, reveals that the root of all these continuities lies in the sentient beings’ error of “Awareness Mistaken as Fault,” the illusory thought of “establishing the object due to brightness.” This triggers endless karmic power, leading to the three continuities. Ultimately, the Buddha guides us to recognize the “Tathagata-garbha, the Wondrous True Suchness Nature,” to eliminate the dust (defilements) and unite with Awareness, moving towards Unsurpassed Bodhi.
1. Awareness Mistaken as Fault:
The Buddha teaches that the fundamental basis of the three continuities is the sentient beings’ mistake of regarding “Awareness and Brightness” as real—the error of “establishing the object due to brightness.” This “Awareness and Brightness” is the delusion that sentient beings clearly know and understand everything, without knowing that this is the source of ignorance, the “establishment of knowledge upon knowledge” (jñāna-pati-jñāna). Once attached to a certain “What” (object), one falls into the framework of delusion and cannot transcend it.
- Since the Object is Illusory, the True Principle is Not Transcended: Sentient beings are confined to the Six Objects (form, sound, scent, taste, touch, dharma). They cannot hear beyond the range of sound, nor see beyond the limitations of form. The functions of the six roots are isolated, and the six delusions are accomplished, all arising from the creation of karma.
- The Clarity of Seeing Gives Rise to Form; The Clarity of Awareness Forms Thought: When sentient beings clearly perceive form, solid delusion gradually forms. This, combined with afflictions and delusions, gives rise to the “Illusory Ability.” For example, different views lead to hatred (yi-jian cheng zeng); shared thoughts lead to love (tong-xiang cheng ai). Because sentient beings have “Awareness Mistaken as Fault,” mistaking illusions for reality, they trigger endless karmic power, leading to the Three Continuities.
2. The Continuity of Sentient Beings:
The root of the Continuity of Sentient Beings lies in the “union of thought and love,” where desire and attachment become the seed, triggering the cycle of rebirth.
- Flowing Love as the Seed, Containing Thought as the Embryo: Due to the seed sown by love and desire, combined with the harmony of three conditions (parents and one’s own karma), thought is contained as the embryo, attracting sentient beings of similar karma to take rebirth.
- Womb-born, Egg-born, Moisture-born, Transformation-born, Responding to Karma: The life forms of sentient beings are divided into the four types (womb, egg, moisture, and transformation), determined by karmic conditions. For instance, the egg-born arise solely from thought; the womb-born from emotion; the moisture-born from sensory feeling and contact; and the transformation-born from separation and response.
- The Union, Separation, and Mutual Change of Emotion and Thought: These life forms are not fixed. The increase, decrease, and change of emotion and thought cause sentient beings to constantly create, leading to their karma soaring up or sinking down, such as flying in the sky or swimming in the water—all are the result of receiving karma. Whatever karma is perpetuated becomes the type of sentient being they are.
3. The Continuity of Karmic Retribution:
The root of the Continuity of Karmic Retribution lies in greed:
- Based on the Greed of Desire: The union of thought and love, and the inability to renounce attachment, leads to parents, children, and grandchildren continuously giving birth to each other, all due to the greed for desire. Love is the cause, and loving life is the result, thereby trapping sentient beings in the cycle of rebirth.
- Based on the Greed of Killing: Attachment and greed grow without cease, leading to the survival of the fittest among the four types of birth. The weak are preyed upon by the strong. For instance, humans eat sheep, the sheep dies to become human, and the human dies to become sheep, even among the ten types of living beings, dying and being reborn, mutually devouring each other. The evil karma is endless and hard to escape.
- Based on the Greed of Stealing: Taking what is not given leads to the entanglement of “You owe me a life, I repay your debt” and “You love my mind, I pity your form.” Sentient beings are thus bound in the bondage of birth and death for hundreds of thousands of eons.
4. The Continuity of the World:
The Continuity of the World, the continuous flow and change of conditioned phenomena like mountains and rivers, is all due to the inverted continuity triggered by “Awareness and Brightness.”
- Arising from Illusory Seeing: Due to the manifestation of forms through clarity, sentient beings cling to illusions as real, leading to the sequential flow and change of mountains and rivers, only to begin again.
- Delusion Has No Source; the Nature is Ultimately Empty: The Buddha uses the analogy of a deluded person mistaking South for North, explaining that delusion has no root, and the Self-Nature is fundamentally empty. When one awakens from delusion, the delusion ceases; Awareness does not give rise to delusion. It is like a person with an eye disease seeing flowers in the sky; when the disease is cured, the flowers vanish. If one waits for the flowers to reappear, that is madness and foolishness. The Tathagata, having realized the Wondrous Awareness that is Empty, is like pure, unadulterated gold, or wood ash that can never return to being wood, never again giving rise to conditioned outflows.
The illusion of the World’s Continuity exists because sentient beings “turn their back on Awareness and unite with the dust (defilements),” recognizing the false as true, and thus generating the dust-like labor. The Buddha, based on the Wondrous Brightness that is neither destroyed nor born, unites with the Tathagata-garbha, perfectly illuminating the Dharma Realm, eliminating the dust and uniting with Awareness, thereby manifesting the Wondrously Aware Nature of True Suchness.
5. Conclusion:
- Essence and Function Are One, Neither Identical Nor Separate: The Tathagata-garbha is the fundamentally wondrous, perfectly complete Mind. It is neither mind nor space, neither Earth, Water, Fire, nor Wind, nor bright or ignorant, nor permanent, bliss, self, or pure (speaking from the perspective of its Essence). Simultaneously, it is mind, is space, is Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind, and is permanent, bliss, self, and pure (speaking from the perspective of its Function). It is separate from being identical and separate from being non-identical; it is identical yet not identical, like a screen that is not text yet can display text, and the text is the screen.
- One Is Innumerable, Innumerable Is One: Within the Tathagata-garbha, the small manifests the great, and the great manifests the small. It manifests a jeweled king’s country on the tip of a single hair, and turns the Great Dharma Wheel while sitting within a subtle dust mote—all are the wondrous functions of the Wondrous Bright True Mind perfectly illuminating the Dharma Realm.
All illusory phenomena are the Tathagata-garbha, the Wondrous True Suchness Nature, responding to the minds of sentient beings and manifesting according to their karma.
Thank you!
