–Volume4(Part4)
Author: Fafu
Translator : Gemini
Hello everyone! Welcome to this podcast episode provided by the Buddha’s Practice Association of Australia.
Today, we will explore the supreme teaching of the “Two Decisive Meanings” of Practice. With unsurpassed wisdom, the Buddha reveals the two critical keys to generating the Bodhi Mind: abandoning the mind of arising and ceasing as the causal ground, and severing the root of afflictions to abide in the Wondrous Bright True Mind, which is neither born nor destroyed. This permanently cuts off ignorance and verifies the Tathagata’s fruit position.
1. The First Decisive Meaning:
The First Decisive Meaning is to abandon the error of generating the resolve for Bodhi using the “Mind of Arising and Ceasing” as the causal ground. If one takes the delusive mind of arising and ceasing as the root of cultivation, yet seeks the Buddha Vehicle, which is neither born nor destroyed, it is like “boiling sand in the hope of making fine rice—even if you go through dust-motes of kalpas, you will never succeed.” Such a thing is impossible.
The Buddha teaches that one should “closely examine whether the mind that generates the resolve on the causal ground is the same or different from the Awareness in the fruit position.” One must abandon the delusive mind and generate the Bodhi vow based on the Wondrous Bright True Mind.
2. Discriminating the Five Turbidities:
The Self-Nature is originally the “Clear, Perfect, Wondrously Aware, Bright Mind.” However, due to the illusory functions of the Four Great Elements and others, it is fragmented into the functions of the Six Roots, forming the “Five Layers of Turbidity”: the Turbidity of the Kalpa (Age), the Turbidity of Views (Viparyāsa), the Turbidity of Afflictions (Klesha), the Turbidity of Sentient Beings (Sattva), and the Turbidity of Life (Āyus).
These turbidities are illusions woven by the Self-Nature with delusion and defiling emotions. They are like clear water mixed with sand and dirt—originally pure, but now turbid due to delusive thoughts. The Four Great Elements (Earth, Water, Fire, Wind) and the Six Dusts (Form, Sound, Scent, Taste, Touch, Dharma) segment the Self-Nature’s virtue, leading to limited perception, hearing, awareness, and knowing, resulting in endless Samsara.
3. Abandoning the Root of Birth and Death:
To enable perception, hearing, awareness, and knowing to “far accord with the Tathagata’s Permanence, Bliss, Self, and Purity”, practitioners must “first select the root of birth and death” and abandon the source that leads to the cycle of rebirth.
The root of birth and death lies in the mind grasping at external conditions and delusions. By abiding in the perfectly clear, quiescent Wondrous Bright True Mind, the cycle of arising and ceasing will no longer continue. Ultimately, this leads to “subduing and returning to the Original Awareness, attaining the Originally Bright Awareness”.
4. Initially Subduing Guest Defilements and Permanently Severing Ignorance:
The Buddha uses the analogy of “clarifying turbid water” to reveal the two stages of cutting off delusion in practice:
- Initially Subduing Guest Defilements (Initial Stage): This is like turbid water remaining still and deep, allowing the sand and dirt to naturally settle, and the clear water to appear. This is the preliminary subduing of afflictions, the “guest defilements” like greed, hatred, and delusion. The practitioner restores purity by stopping the grasping at conditions and not following delusive thoughts.
- Permanently Severing Fundamental Ignorance (Ultimate Stage): This is the further step of “removing the mud to obtain purely clear water,” thoroughly cutting off Fundamental Ignorance. The mind that grasps at conditions is completely extinguished, reaching the state of “One Awareness, Permanent Awareness”.
5. The Second Decisive Meaning:
The Second Decisive Meaning in generating the Bodhi Mind is to “decisively renounce all conditioned phenomena” and to “closely investigate the root of afflictions.”
- Renouncing Conditioned Phenomena: All conditioned dharmas (yǒu wéi fǎ), such as mountains, rivers, and the six dust realms, are impermanent and subject to arising and ceasing. One should resolutely abandon attachment to them. This is like abandoning illusory objects in a dream and not mistaking the false for the true.
- Closely Investigating the Root of Afflictions: If one does not explore the root source of afflictions, one will not know “where the illusory roots and dust are inverted”. Without subduing the root of afflictions, one can never verify the Tathagata’s fruit position.
6. Subduing the Six Roots, the Thieves and Mediators:
The Six Roots—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—are like “thieves and mediators”, plundering the treasury of the Self-Nature’s virtue and causing sentient beings to be “bound by entanglement”, unable to transcend the World of Vessels.
- The Six Roots as Thieves and Mediators: The Six Roots grasp at the Six Dusts, triggering afflictions like greed, hatred, and delusion. Like thieves stealing treasure, they cause sentient beings to sink into the cycle of rebirth.
- Subduing the Grasping Mind: The practitioner must transform and subdue the mind of grasping at conditions, which is triggered by the Six Roots, thus severing the root of afflictions and preventing the Six Roots from being the cause of entanglement.
7. Conclusion:
The “Two Decisive Meanings” point the practitioner toward the correct path: Take the Wondrous Bright True Mind as the causal ground, abandon the illusory mind of arising and ceasing, and proceed toward the complete Buddhahood.
Thank you!
