Zen Battles by Thich Nhat Hanh

Author:Thich Nhat Hanh [Hanh, Thich Nhat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781937006617
Publisher: Parallax Press
Published: 2022-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

COMMENTARY 15

A student asked what is meant by right view. Master Linji answered, “Right view is the ability to see the nature of becoming, abiding, ceasing, and emptiness in all phenomena whether you are entering the sacred or the profane, the pure or the defiled, when you are entering the lands of the Buddhas anywhere, the palaces of Sukhavati or the Dharma realms of Vairocana.”*

These places exist right inside us and around us. We don’t even need to buy a plane ticket. If we don’t go to these places, it’s because we aren’t used to going there. And when we do go into these worlds, then we are able to see the truth of the four phenomena: becoming, abiding, ceasing, and emptiness. They can also be called: manifestation, dwelling, disintegration, and nonbeing.

These signs don’t cause us to suffer and they are not responsible for our happiness. If we can look at our mother, our father, our children, and our teachers, and see their true nature, the nature of no-birth, no-dwelling, no-disintegration, and no death, then we will have right view.

When we touch one wave, we are in touch with all the other waves. This wave is continued by the next wave. A wave pretends to appear, it pretends to dwell, it pretends to disintegrate, and it pretends to disappear. Becoming, abiding, ceasing, and emptiness are just four false signs. If we can see the true nature of the four signs as empty, then we can enter the dwelling places of the bodhisattvas. This is Master Linji’s first definition of right view.

This is his second definition: “Right view is to see the mark of no coming, no going, unborn and undying in the Buddha’s arising in the world, becoming enlightened, turning the wheel of the Dharma, and entering nirvana.”

When the child Siddhartha was born, people had a celebration, and this is manifestation, becoming. When Siddhartha grew into a young man who went to look for the Path and became the Buddha, this is called dwelling, abiding. When Siddhartha was sick with his last illness and lay between the two sala trees, this is disintegration, ceasing. When Siddhartha entered nirvana, we cremated him and we cried; this is nonbeing, emptiness. These four things don’t cause us to be happy or to be sad, they are only the four kinds of manifestation. If we see this, then we have right view.

Master Linji gave a third definition of right view: “You see clearly that nothing is real in the way you thought it was when you enter the Dharma realms of the unborn, travel for your enjoyment in the Buddha lands, and enter the Avatamsaka realm.” When you enter the Dharma world of no-birth and no-death, you roam in all the Buddha lands and enter the Flower Treasury World.

Imagine a treasury filled with nothing but flowers. The Avatamsaka Sutra, also called the Flower Garland Sutra, uses the image of a world that is like a lotus with a thousand petals, a world of flower banks.

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