The ultimate perfection of Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings lies in the perfection of wisdom: in gaining Prajna Wisdom, the wisdom of emptiness. Yet up to now, our understanding of this wisdom has come mostly from the scriptures.
Many people cannot understand the scriptures; they can only explain the words by the words. Some teachers explain them to you in the same way: what Prajna Paramita means, what its explanation is, how it is translated—explaining the words by the words.
In other words, many Buddhist teachings use metaphors, and they are written in classical Chinese. As a result, many people cannot directly enter the Buddha’s true reality through the scriptures, or penetrate more deeply into what the Buddha is saying and what the scripture means.
There are relatively few teachers who cultivate and realize. So this is simply the current situation in Buddhist studies and in the Buddhist world. China also went through ten years of the Cultural Revolution, leaving Buddhism itself, as a religion, with a blank space. In other words, it is not like Taiwan or Hong Kong, where things are more mature, at least when it comes to the scriptures…
As I see it, Chinese Buddhism is basically… In fact, the Buddhist world everywhere is the same: it is generally divided into several levels. One is faith, the general question of faith—you were just talking about how some people have faith.
Some are simply Buddhists: on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month, they offer incense, burn a stick of incense, and ask for safety in their business, or ask for… They believe the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will bless them. That is a simple Buddhist. They receive the Three Refuges and Five Precepts and feel that they should be good people, or do something or other. This is one part of the Buddhist world today: they believe in Buddha.
Then there is studying Buddhism. People who study Buddhism begin to learn about samsara and Karmic Retribution. They may then ask what Shakyamuni Buddha was teaching: Why should we bow to him? Why should we offer this incense? Could it be that our self-nature is Buddha? They begin to explore these questions. This is studying Buddhism; it is another level.
At this level, people may speak well in theory, but in practice they have not applied the qualities of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to their own body and mind. They have not used Buddhist teachings to change their lives and the way they live. This, too, is considered studying Buddhism.
So there are faith and studying Buddhism, and what remains is realizing Buddhahood. After you study Buddhism, how do you apply the Buddha’s wisdom to your life, to your everyday life, and even change the direction of your life, and so on? That requires cultivation and realization.
This is the path to realizing Buddhahood. You have to become a Buddha yourself, rather than merely having faith or studying Buddhism; you have to realize Buddhahood yourself. These are three different levels.
So, in the situation you were just describing, you have only encountered the levels of studying Buddhism and faith. In other words, there are many more people at these levels, and relatively few who cultivate and realize.
Moreover, those who cultivate and realize have to become Buddhas themselves. The Buddha says that we all have the Tathagata nature; in our fundamental nature, every person is a Buddha. So how do you verify this—that you are a Buddha—and manifest it fully? That requires cultivation.
This cultivation and realization sometimes requires letting go of some of the self-related things in this world. The process of letting go is the process of cultivation.
In this process, Mahayana Buddhism has the Six Paramitas: giving, upholding the precepts, patience, diligence, and meditative concentration; it has many Dharma doors. Many practitioners generally choose to cultivate and realize on their own, or go into retreat, and rarely come out. Sometimes they do not want to have extensive contact with people. So we have relatively little contact with this part.
What we see are mostly people who often talk about Buddhist concepts. They seem to live however they want, talking about cause and effect and samsara while not actually believing in cause and effect or samsara, and so on. They can talk, but they cannot practice. Then there are people who believe in Buddha; even when they study the scriptures, they do so only to seek peace and happiness in this life, health in this life, business prosperity, and so on.
Where does the superstitious element lie? When the Buddha teaches the Dharma, he is addressing the Six Paths of Rebirth. This is unlike Confucian culture, which addresses only the human path: how to be a good person, how to be an upright gentleman—in other words, how to conduct yourself as a human being.
But Buddhism addresses all six paths in all its scriptures. And you know that of these Six Paths of Rebirth, we can see only two: the animal path and the human path. The other four paths cannot be seen.
When it comes to what we cannot see, if we cling rigidly to an understanding of it, or if there are things we do not understand, superstition becomes mixed in. Many people who believe in Buddha actually do not understand these things. Ghosts and spirits are still vague concepts for them, but because they believe in Buddha and have become Buddhists, they believe that the Six Paths of Rebirth exist.
At that point, they assume to some extent that the influence of things we cannot see or touch is also unknowable, and that this influence exists. Perhaps there is blessing, or protection, or ghosts and spirits influencing us, or something unknowable, and so on. They go to ask and petition—to offer incense, bow to the Buddha, and make requests. This part resembles superstition; it contains a certain element of superstition.
For those who study Buddhism, it goes deeper—one step deeper. Those who cultivate and realize have to walk the path at an even deeper level, by themselves. Generally speaking, this is widespread in the Buddhist world today; Taoism and other schools are the same, all situated at these three levels.
Whether Buddhism or Confucianism—in China, when we talk about traditional culture, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism are combined as three traditions. Confucian culture addresses only the human path. The human path means benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trust; doing good everywhere, so as to create good retribution. It only deals with the human path. Buddhist teachings speak from the perspective of the Six Paths of Rebirth, so their scope is much broader.
The difference between Buddhist teachings and Taoism is that Taoism seeks something different. Buddhism ultimately reaches perfection—complete perfection. The two differ at the starting point. Buddhism begins by teaching no-self, the wisdom of no-self; from the very beginning, it is no-self: the Four Elements Are Empty, and the self is illusory. The self you believe in does not exist. Then, when the self disappears and the Five Skandhas Are All Empty, as in the Heart Sutra, Buddha-nature will manifest fully.
But Taoism, from the very beginning, speaks of becoming an immortal and attaining the Dao; it cultivates immortality. Then there is immortality, ascending to the heavens after transforming, immortality, and even chickens and dogs ascending together—it seeks this longevity.
But immortality is founded on having a self: only with a self can one become immortal. Taoism begins from having a self. This is their most fundamental difference: Taoism begins with having a self, while Buddhism begins with no-self—that is the starting point.
But later Taoism absorbed many things from Buddhism. For example, there are such teachings as refining emptiness to unite with the Dao and refining the Dao to return to emptiness. Later, it also entered a formless, imageless, non-doing state, as described in the Dao De Jing. In fact, many things in it correspond with Buddhism again.
Although it begins from having a self, in the end it too must realize and enter the formless and imageless. The Dao, the substance of the Dao, is formless and imageless, so in the end it still breaks through the self. But Buddhism asks you to break through it from the very beginning.
So I think the greatness of Shakyamuni Buddha’s wisdom in the Dharma lies in this: from the very beginning, his scriptures and teachings are the most complete and perfect. That is all.
But the original meaning of Buddhism is this: after all, we are in the human path. In the end, if one realizes Buddhahood in the human world, it takes the perspective of the Six Paths of Rebirth to break through the self. Because, you know, sometimes the human mind is the mind of the Six Paths of Rebirth. Although we are human beings, our minds are the minds of the Six Paths.
Don’t you think that sometimes we call someone “worse than an animal”? You are saying that the person’s mind is like an animal’s; we are not saying that the person has turned into an animal and literally grown fur. Their mind is like an animal’s. Some people say that someone has a heart like that of a snake or scorpion—that their sinister, vicious mind is like a snake or scorpion.
In other words, our minds actually exist in the Six Paths of Rebirth. Sometimes, when we are kind, we can be like angels. When we forget ourselves, we are like Bodhisattvas. With our children, we are like Bodhisattvas; our love is selfless. But when it comes to our enemies, in our hatred we may be like a snake, ready to attack; or when we become angry, we are like… In other words, our minds are in the Six Paths.
Buddhist teachings begin from the Six Paths of Rebirth and ultimately break through the self, including the mind of the Six Paths, but in the end they must return to the human path.
So Buddhist teachings ultimately require that, after realizing Buddhahood, you return to the human path and apply them to human life. They must make your life truly at ease. They do not seek some sacred perfection. They do not seek perfection or pure holiness; in the end, they make you at ease.
In other words, this world still has flaws, right in front of you, but you are at ease. Your mind is not trapped in any state, nor in any appearance. This is attaining great freedom and ease.
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.