An Overview of the Buddhadharma By Living Buddha
Sheng-yen Lu INTEGRATION OF PRACTICE WITH DAILY ACTIVITIES Many students have been coming here for several years to learn to do the practice. There was one time when several were asked by someone outside the school what they had learned from me. One student replied, "Master Lu did not teach me anything." Did this hurt my feelings? Let me use this story as an illustration. One of the students of the Zen Master Bird Nest had been following him for many years. One day this student packed up his belongings and bade farewell to the Zen Master. The master asked, “Where are you going?” “I am going to look for another teacher.” The master asked again, “Why are you going to find another teacher? Aren’t you doing very well here?” The student replied, “You have not taught me any Buddhadharma in all the years I have been here.” Zen Master Bird Nest then extended his leg and plucked out a hair. (Too bad, I don’t have hairy legs!) [audience laughter] The Zen Master pointed to the hair. “This is Buddhadharma,” The hair from the leg was the Buddhadharma. Do you comprehend? At that moment, the student suddenly had a breakthrough and understood what Buddhadharma was. If that student I mentioned earlier had packed up and come to say good-bye to me, I also would have plucked out a whisker [audience laughter] and told him, “This whisker is the Buddhadharma. Do you understand?” Buddhadharma is interwoven with everything in one’s daily life and it has to be experienced! Everything is a manifestation of the Truth! After listening to the teachings, instead of going home and forgetting about them, one has to apply the teachings to one’s normal life and daily activities—this is Buddhadharma. Therefore every gesture of the teacher is a Dharma teaching. [audience applause] Every word uttered and every action performed by Buddha Shakyamuni was the Buddhadharma. Described in the sutras were the daily rituals of the Buddha, which indicated that walking, living, sitting, and lying down could also be intimate experiences of the Buddhadharma. Many people are not aware that to practice Buddhism is to have a sacred orientation to everything in one’s ordinary life. Buddhadharma is not some special technique that is only taught to one special person. Its transmission is not based on any special “price.” There are other teachers who would confer upon you special methods or exclusive empowerments if you made a huge offering. We have a Taiwanese folk saying to describe such practice, “One has a grand opening every three years and money made at each opening lasts three years.” Sometimes some of these special methods are not authentic. There are people who use this form of practice solely to make money. At the time of Buddha Shakyamuni, such practices were forbidden by him. |
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