Lecture on the Shurangama Sutra ——38

–Volume8(Par2)

Author: Fafu

Translator : Gemini

Dear Dharma Friends,Welcome to this episode of the podcast provided by the Buddhas’ Practice Incorporated of Australia.

Today, we will jointly explore the profound and systematic stages of Bodhisattva cultivation  within the Dharma. This path meticulously and progressively guides the practitioner deep into realization until the Unsurpassed Buddha Way is achieved.

I. The Overall Structure of the Bodhi Path

This path of Bodhi encompasses the Dry Wisdom Ground, Ten Faiths, Ten Abodes, Ten Practices, Ten Transfers of Merit, Ten Grounds, and the Four Stages of Added Practice.

Crucially, the five stages—Ten Faiths, Ten Abodes, Ten Practices, Ten Transfers of Merit, and Ten Grounds—are not linear and successive stages but rather different perspectives that explain and describe the state of the same stage of realization. They are like multifaceted mirrors, reflecting the perfected merits attained by the practitioner at a specific level. The Four Stages of Added Practice are the standard and measure that runs throughout the entire cultivation process for examining any Dharma Door.

1. The Ten Practices:

1. Practice of Joyful Giving (Huān Xǐ Xíng): Fully possessing the immeasurable wonderful virtues of the Tathāgata (from the perspective of the causal ground, one possesses them).
2. Practice of Benefiting All Sentient Beings: Being skillful at benefiting all sentient beings (by practicing the Ten Virtuous Deeds).
3. Practice of Non-Hatred: Self-enlightening and enlightening others, obtaining no resistance or rejection. In the process of self-awakening and awakening others, one never deviates, rejects, is averse, or is hateful.
4. Practice of the Infinite: Genera (of the Ten Virtuous Causes) arise and are born, exhaustive throughout future eons.
5. Practice of Non-Deluded Confusion: Obtaining no error or deviation in various Dharma Doors.
6. Practice of Skillful Manifestation: Manifesting difference within sameness, and seeing sameness within difference. Manifesting various functions based on the Essence (Self-Nature).
7. Practice of Non-Attachment: Manifesting dusts and manifesting realms, without mutual obstruction. Whether manifesting a speck of dust or the world, one is free and unhindered.
8. Practice of Respect: Various states of being manifest, all are the foremost Pāramitā (Perfection). All states and abilities are manifested and completely perfected.
9. Practice of Good Dharma: Able to accomplish the rules and regulations of the Buddhas of the ten directions. All the teachings of the Buddhas can be established.
10. Practice of True Reality: Every single one is pure and without outflows, the one True Non-Active. Everything established is pure and without outflows.

2. The Ten Transfers of Merit:

1. Transfer of Rescuing All Sentient Beings, Departing from the Form of Sentient Beings.
2. Transfer of Indestructibility: Destroying what is destructible (breaking the recognition that all people, things, and matters are truly existent, arising, and ceasing), and departing from all departures (finally departing even from the departure, not mistaking the false for the true).
3. Transfer of Equality with All Buddhas: The Original Awakening is clear and serene; the awakening is equal to the Buddha’s awakening. The wonderful awakening manifested by the Self-Nature is equal to that of the Buddha.
4. Transfer of Reaching All Places: The refined truth shines forth; the ground is like the Buddha’s ground (like the Buddha).
5. Transfer of the Storehouse of Endless Merits: The world (the mind’s function) and the Tathāgata (the mind’s essence) mutually enter and mingle, obtaining no hindrance.
6. Transfer of Following Equal Good Roots: Relying on the cause to manifest function, seizing the path to Nirvāṇa. Relying on the essence of the Self-Nature to manifest function and plant all causes.
7. Transfer of Following and Equally Contemplating All Sentient Beings: The nature is perfectly accomplished, not forsaking sentient beings. Perfectly accomplishing the illuminating function of the Self-Nature, but not abandoning sentient beings.
8. Transfer of the Form of True Thusness: That which is all Dharmas, departing from all forms. Only relying on the ‘that which is’ and the ‘departing,’ without attachment to either.
9. Transfer of Unbinding and Liberation: Truly obtaining the thusness, unhindered in the ten directions. Manifesting all functions based on the True Thusness Self-Nature.
10. Transfer of Immeasurable Dharma Realm: The nature’s virtue is perfectly accomplished, and the measure of the Dharma Realm is extinguished. The full accomplishment is based on all the merits and virtues of the Self-Nature.

3. The Ten Grounds:

1. Ground of Joy: Awakening is universally penetrating like the Tathāgata, exhausting the Buddha’s realm. The awakening and penetration are consistent with the Tathāgata; the seeds of the Buddha’s realm are fully planted.
2. Ground of Leaving Defilement (Second Ground): Truly upholding the precepts based on the essence of the precepts.
3. Ground of Emitting Light (Third Ground): Purity reaches the extreme, and illumination arises. The Self-Nature’s knowing, seeing, and wisdom have arisen.
4. Ground of Blazing Wisdom (Fourth Ground): Illumination reaches the extreme, and awakening is full. Wisdom is like a flame, able to perceive and see everywhere.
5. Ground of Difficult Conquest (Fifth Ground): All sameness and difference cannot reach. It is difficult for all Śrāvakas (Hearers) to surpass.
6. Ground of Manifestation (Sixth Ground): The Non-Active True Thusness, the pure nature is clearly revealed. It is difficult for all Pratyekabuddhas (Solitary Awakened Ones) to surpass.
7. Ground of Far-Reaching Practice (Seventh Ground): Exhausting the bounds of True Thusness.
8. Ground of Immovability (Eighth Ground): The one True Thusness Mind. The Self-Nature is originally unmoving; this is the Ground of Immovability.
9. Ground of Good Wisdom (Ninth Ground): Manifesting the function of True Thusness.
10. Ground of Dharma Cloud (Tenth Ground): The compassionate shade and wonderful clouds cover the Sea of Nirvāṇa. This is rescuing sentient beings everywhere based on the Dharma.
11. Equal Enlightenment (Eleventh Stage): Following the practice to arrive, the boundary of awakening enters and mingles. (One step away from becoming a Buddha.)

4. The Four Stages of Added Practice: The Standard for Examining Practice

These stages measure the integration of wisdom and practice:

1. Ground of Warmth: Theoretically consistent with the Buddha.
2. Ground of Summit: Practically consistent with the Buddha, an active training stage, not yet reaching a state of proficiency.
3. Ground of Patience: All conduct strictly follows the theory, highly proficient and confirmed. It is manifested freely and naturally, like eating or dressing.
4. Ground of Supreme Worldly Dharma: Essence and function are non-dual, and everything is highly proficient. One completely achieves Practice without Effort, where theory and practice are unified.

II. The Fundamental Principle of Practice

From the initial Dry Wisdom Mind all the way to Equal Enlightenment, all these awakenings follow the Dry Wisdom Ground in the Vajra Mind, which is the initial, pure singular wisdom of the Self-Nature. The practitioner, using this pure singular wisdom, undergoes numerous cycles of the single and complex twelve stages (the Ten Grounds plus Equal Enlightenment and Wonderful Enlightenment), before exhausting Wonderful Enlightenment and achieving the Unsurpassed Way.

All these stages of practice must be established upon a fundamental foundation: the Vajra Contemplation of Illusion, the Ten Profound Similes. This means we must contemplate that the entire mundane world is like an illusion, recognizing that everything is the illusory function manifested by the Self-Nature. It is by following the Three Gradual Stages that one can skillfully achieve the Fifty-Five Stages of the True Bodhi Path.

III. Conclusion

Everyone, this is the gradual path of a Buddha’s disciple from generating the mind to the complete realization of Buddhahood. Understanding and practicing this path, taking the Vajra Contemplation of Illusion as the foundation of wisdom, using the Four Stages of Added Practice for examination, and cultivating progressively through the Three Gradual Stages to achieve purity, will ultimately lead to the realization of the Unsurpassed Buddha Way.

Thank you.