Return to the Source

At every moment, you can make your vow anew, because after two days you forget it. The vow you make is at your source. We are now returning; you do not know what you are like. We live without knowing what we originally were, and so we suffer terribly.

We are wandering, lost in time and space; now we are returning to our source. Whatever we are like, we return to being that way, and everything is OK. On the road back, we are often pulled from outside and turned by appearances. So we cannot get back; we cannot settle our minds. When you are pulled away, you can recall the vow you made.

Because we are returning, why do we arouse the Bodhi mind? Why practice the Bodhisattva Path in Buddhism? Because you say, “I want to return, I want to return,” but this “I” can never be broken through. Only with no-self can you return.

Once you have a self, there is an A-Qing; once there is an A-Qing, your affinity with this world is not finished, and you cannot leave. So to break through this A-Qing, you must first break through ego-clinging. And breaking through ego-clinging means—the best way to break through ego-clinging is to practice the Bodhisattva Path: giving, upholding the precepts, patience, diligence, and meditative concentration. Then arouse the Bodhi mind and act with an altruistic mind. In this way, it becomes easy for you to break through this self in the world and return to the source.

But you must clearly understand what your entire path of cultivation and realization is doing. All your cultivation is not about becoming a Buddha radiant with light; it is about knowing where your original source is. In other words, you originally had a certain nature, but now you do not know what it is. You have lost your original nature, and so you have suffered, life after life.

You were originally so great, so complete, so… But now you are small; none of us is worth mentioning. We cannot accomplish anything; we cannot fulfill even the small wishes we have in this world. We are so helpless—helpless in everything.

It seems this world really is unfair, and so on; you feel that you cannot be happy no matter what, right? Happiness lasts only a moment. Your mind is always unsettled, your mind and spirit uneasy, and so on. And sentient beings in other realms suffer terribly. If we were in one of those realms, we would suffer even more—we could not even give rise to the kind of wisdom that recognizes “unhappiness.” We would think the world was simply that way.

If a chicken lives forty days and is killed and fried by KFC, it thinks every life is like that, that every life will be fried by KFC; it accepts it. It does not even know how it dies or how it is born. Every forty days it is fried again, and every forty days fried again, right?

We can still sit here now, and our wisdom is sufficient for self-reflection: can we be liberated? A chicken does not have this wisdom. Explain it to the chicken and it still will not understand. Is there anything more comfortable than what I have? A chicken—that chicken’s wisdom cannot understand human “comfort.” Do you feel comfortable eating such a large piece of steamed bread? Won’t you choke? How could it be more comfortable than what I have, right?

How could a chicken understand your wisdom? It thinks you are suffering: such a large piece of steamed bread is being stuffed into your mouth, right? It cannot eat it; it can only eat rice, so it thinks you are so miserable.

But higher wisdom will tell you—Buddha’s wisdom will tell you—that you too are miserable, that you live miserably, eating such dirty things every day, and so on. The things we find delicious are all corpses, and we talk about sprinkling on a little salt and this and that, and so on. We are dirty, yet we cherish ourselves as though we were precious. You never know what is precious in this world.

So we are lost, and so we must go back. Your cultivation is a return. When you return to the source, you will be at peace—life after life, life after life, OK—and you will never have to suffer these things again. Shouldn’t everyone go back? Everyone has to go back.

Look, look—you are telling me now, “This self is so hard to break through; it is in conditioned reflex.” How do you so wisely know your own state? That wisdom of yours has never been lost. You must find this wisdom; there is nothing wrong with your conditioned reflex either.

You have a wisdom that knows all your states: it knows that today you are ignorant, that today you are awakened, and what happens to you tomorrow… This wisdom is always there, standing there in completeness. That is why cultivation and realizing Buddhahood are so easy: this wisdom is here, this awareness is here, this awareness—this complete awareness—is always here.

This wisdom is always here. When you speak to me, you describe the state of your whole life so clearly. What is describing this state to me? What tells me that you have this state? It is your wisdom. This wisdom is the Buddha, the Tathagata. You only need to abide in this wisdom.

But you cannot abide there, so gradually recognize this wisdom; gradually recognize that there is something there that has never moved, that has never moved through all your lives, that is everywhere and in everything. This something is not separate from anything. This something is your Dharma-nature, your self-nature, your emptiness.

Recognize it again and again, recognize it again and again. Look, that something of yours knows everything: it knows that you itch here and itch there, that today you are scattered, that today you are unhappy, annoyed, or in pain.

That is what you use to communicate with me; you keep telling me your state. Who is telling me your state? If he has already gone off in conditioned reflex, can he tell me his state? Isn’t he reacting conditionally outside? Shao Ning is outside; Shao Ning ran off in delusive thinking long ago.

Who is sitting here telling me this state? Telling me about yesterday, about today, about worries for the future—it is your wisdom. That wisdom is emptiness. This something is everywhere, following you every moment, following you. One day, when you recognize it, you will attain Buddhahood. Until you recognize it, you will not attain Buddhahood.

So perhaps you have not recognized it this moment, and recognize it the next. Realizing Buddhahood is possible at every moment. At any moment, you may suddenly blossom; it is that simple, because it is right here. If it were not here, your cultivation would take tens of thousands of great eons. It is here, so you can recognize it at any time; you can return to it at any time, anywhere. You only need to suddenly return, suddenly be touched by it.

Who knows you so clearly? Who knows your own state so clearly? You even know that you are lost. If there were not something clear, how would you know that you are lost? How do you know? Even when you feel, “I am like a sentient being,” who knows that? You yourself know; your wisdom knows: “I am like a sentient being. I am not at all like a Buddha.” There is something that knows this.

So what happens through cultivation and realization? At the first level of view, you are already a Buddha. The Chan School keeps pointing you back, pointing you back every day, just to bring you back into this recognition. So there is no cultivation and no realization, because you were there from the beginning. It keeps breaking things through for you—when you incline toward emptiness, it says there is something; when you have something, it says emptiness. In this back-and-forth, it brings you back to the middle: to recognizing that state, recognizing.

This is how the Chan School delivers sentient beings. It does not let you become attached: there is no Buddha appearance to realize and no appearance of sentient beings to deliver; it is always bringing you back to emptiness. So it does not talk about Buddha or about the appearance of sentient beings. It says, “Go drink tea; go eat a pastry; go drink tea”—because it is afraid you will cling to appearances.

But at the beginning, when we are scattered, without anything at all, we cannot enter. If we cannot enter, then you—we are cultivating awareness now, aren’t we? First, call this emptiness awareness. But there is one that is aware and one that is observed—the one that is observed is Shao Ning; as for the one that is aware, just take it as real for now, and take the one that is observed as false.

But first—what about being aware yet unmoving? This awareness, this Shao Ning whom it knows—doesn’t Shao Ning keep moving wildly? Right? Arising and ceasing constantly: restless and scattered today, pure tomorrow. These are two states, right? This awareness knows them, right?

This awareness neither denies purity nor denies scattering. It simply watches, unmoving. OK, as you cultivate this awareness again and again, as long as you abide in this awareness, whether it is scattering or purity, these appearances gradually, gradually level out.

Scattering is actually an appearance too, like a wave; purity is also an appearance. These are two appearances, at the level of your consciousness. When your awareness is unmoving and you abide in awareness, these two appearances gradually disappear. When the appearance disappears, this awareness also disappears, because awareness exists in relation to what is observed. When what is observed is gone, awareness does not exist, and you become empty. Practice this way first.

At first, then, you assume that this awareness and what is observed exist, because you still cannot understand what it means that Form and emptiness are not two. Emptiness is neither existent nor nonexistent, and you still cannot understand this level of realization. This is something to be realized; this is a state you realize. So for now, begin with awareness: awareness that illuminates, and a mind that does not become careless.

But why must we also practice the Bodhisattva Path? Practicing the Bodhisattva Path is necessary because at first we are self-focused and selfish. Everyone is very selfish, holding on tightly and unable to let go. One aspect is at the level of consciousness: the self, the concept—this is a self; you cannot insult Shao Ning, because insulting Shao Ning is insulting me.

Then there is the view of the body—the view of the body is the body’s sensations of soreness, numbness, cold, swelling, and pain. So practicing the Bodhisattva Path gradually lets us break through these concepts: the view of the body, and this conceptual self, this self. Then your awareness becomes more and more complete.

Because you only focus on yourself, your awareness remains the awareness of a small self, with a perspective only a few inches wide, circling around yourself and your self. When you practice the Bodhisattva Path, your awareness becomes very complete, because you care less and less about “me,” less and less about yourself. It opens up; it opens your self, opens the self… As you stop caring about your own feelings, stop caring about your own…, it gradually expands and becomes complete.

This is not difficult, is it? What we let go of from time to time is really just one attachment. Usually everyone is attached to only one thing, because the brain gets tired; so generally we are attached to at most one thing. These two days you are attached to this one thing and cannot let go; next time you are attached to another thing and feel terrible inside.

So just let go and it is over. Go deal with it. Do not care about the result; deal with it using your wisdom, and do not care. Your wisdom is simply what it is. Whether you deal with it well or not, what difference does caring make? You have that wisdom, and the outcome will be what it is. You only need not to care. Do not care about other people either. Act in your own movie—act as fully as you can—and gradually, gradually complete your movie.

(How do you break perfectionism?)

With perfectionism, you must understand that perfection is impossible. Completeness is not perfection. Everyone is complete, in their original place, completely living out their life, completely living out every single thing…

Because with each thing, as I said, there is yin and yang—it is a balance of yin and yang. In other words, this is perhaps better explained in Daoist terms. Everyone is complete; within each thought is the complete mind of the Dharma Realm, entirely complete.

Completeness does not mean that you think something is perfect. Perfection is your attachment, your longing. In other words, within completeness there is defilement and purity, and everything else; that is your making distinctions. At first, recognize these things, but do not make distinctions. Know that this part of you is an illusion, call it wrong, and then gradually cultivate and realize.

(Teacher, does this kind of recognition also count as a kind of wisdom?)

It counts, I suppose. As your recognition becomes clearer, wisdom is really your seeing through things more and more completely. It is simply that your eyes become brighter and brighter, and you can increasingly recognize what color something is. That is all. So wisdom is not difficult.

So why is it that perhaps someone who sweeps the streets can awaken tomorrow, while a doctoral student cannot awaken? It may have nothing to do with knowledge, understand? It is simply that your eye faculty is unstained, so you see through the truth directly.

(You just said that this wisdom is Buddha-nature, and that this wisdom is also an expression of Buddha-nature. So if this recognition gradually becomes more penetrating, and this wisdom becomes more and more complete, does that mean it is approaching Buddha-nature, or that it is Buddha-nature? Or is it possible to awaken through recognition?)

You too are already complete in Buddha-nature. You are simply coming, in the end, to recognize this more and more. You are not approaching Buddha-nature; you are recognizing that sentient beings and Buddha are no different, and you no longer cling to appearances.

You are different only when you cling to the appearance of sentient beings and the appearance of Buddha. In this recognition, when you no longer cling to appearances, you are the same as Buddha. It is a recognition; you are not approaching Buddha-nature. There is no Buddha-nature for you to approach. Buddha-nature is right in front of you, right here with you; you have to recognize it.

(For example, now that I am aware of this recognition, since there is also manifestation within Buddha-nature, will I keep using this recognition to guide my life, or to guide everything?)

Then are you at peace? If you have truly recognized it, first of all you are at peace, understand? First of all you are at peace; first of all you can practice patience. Like the Never Disparaging Bodhisattva: when others hit him, he was still very happy, understand? This is recognition. He recognized this one point: all sentient beings are Buddhas. His perspective, his way of conducting himself with people and handling affairs, changed, understand? Then he gradually, gradually became complete.

Of course, after you realize Buddhahood, other benefits also come, such as spiritual powers and spiritual transformations, and so on. You are no longer this small, helpless person who can do nothing; truly, you can do anything. That is what is realized.

If your view becomes more and more complete, mind and energy are not two. When you are truly complete in the nature of mind, your energy channels transform rapidly, and they transform very quickly. But it cannot happen all at once. If you painstakingly train now, working from qigong, your energy channels transform with two good days and two bad days, and they never fully transform. It is not that they cannot transform at all; let them transform slowly over thirty or fifty years, like the Daoists’ gradual transformation.

If, at the level of consciousness, your recognition suddenly becomes complete and changes, mind and energy are the same, and all your energy channels are fully open.

Yes. But awakening of the mind comes first; the energy channels are slow. When your mind awakens, gradually—your habitual tendencies and desires gradually disappear, and then your energy channels also become clear. Then you go back to practice qigong, practice… At that point, when you return to cultivating the energy channels, it is very fast, and you can attain spiritual powers and spiritual transformations—attain abilities that other people cannot imagine. This is the fastest way.

If you proceed directly from the physiological side while your view is incomplete, it is slower, and your energy channels often become blocked. Transformation and purification both take time. But now everyone hopes to cultivate both body and life; actually, they come together.

But for sentient beings with strong faculties and capacity, the view can arrive directly, so it is like the Sixth Patriarch: you only need to tell them directly. There is no need to cultivate both body and life first for several years and several more years.

(Now, does recognition have two levels? One is recognition beneath thinking and consciousness, and the other is recognition that guides a divided mind. Are these two different?)

If your mind is open and calm, and very clear, you reach it in a kshana. Because your body, speech, and mind are one, not three, there is no separation between thinking and mind. It was like this with the Sixth Patriarch: a plain, honest mind, with no mixed mind, no wavering or divided intentions; yes is yes, no is no. He never went around in circles, never used false speech, and so on. People whose merit is complete are like that; one sentence from them is simply that way.

They are that clear, like a mirror. What you say is just so—correct; what the Buddha says is correct. Why do you keep separating consciousness? Separating mind? Separating the body’s feeling and sensation? Why divide things so much? Their body, speech, and mind are one, not three.

We are three. Inside, we are always… What we say aloud, what we think in our hearts, and what we think in our heads are all different—a complete mess. They are one, from beginning to end, just one. Very upright, always doing things for the benefit of others, both simple and upright. A straight mind is the place of practice. They never use false speech, never lie, never… Truly, they act openly and honestly, and are kind and sincere. Their merit is complete. For such a person, you only need to tell them directly; no problem, they directly realize and enter.

How extraordinary—self-nature is inherently complete. “So that is how it is; originally I was complete. If only I had known, right? Originally I was this complete—so simple. I used to think the Buddha was so far above me, but originally I was the same as him.” That is all.

As for cultivating the energy channels, just go with conditions. “I have already realized Buddhahood; I know where I will go after I die, and I know everything.” The mind is like a bright mirror—truly, the mind is like a bright mirror. Their mind is like a bright mirror, so people like that do not need to keep polishing it diligently. They do not need to remove defilement; their six faculties are unstained from birth. There are people like this.

This is what faculties and capacity mean. It is not that faculties and capacity are bad; they cultivated before, in a previous life. They learned earlier than we did. In this life they have not been stained again; their environment and everything else have kept them unstained. Such people arrive directly.

Truly, their body and speech have very pure energy. They have few of this world’s habitual tendencies and desires, so there is little to pull them, and they are not pulled away. With many things, when you become aware of them you cannot bear them; when you become attached, they think, “How could I be pulled by that?” To them, that thing is not an issue, but you cannot manage it, right?

It is like how none of you go gambling in Macau now, while some people are restless and want to gamble, sitting here with their hearts racing… Those who gamble often feel it has become an issue, because they have become addicted to gambling.

But for you, giving up gambling is easy, because you have not gambled and are not addicted. How could this be an issue for you? But for people at casinos who are addicted to gambling, it is an issue, right? So for people like the Sixth Patriarch, the things we consider issues are not issues for them. They do not have that poison in them; they have not been poisoned, right?

Note: This text was prepared from a teaching video by Yang Ning. If it differs from the video, the video takes precedence. Watch the video.