You Are Bound by the Self

It’s not that you have to get rid of all those things from the very beginning; you do have to see through them. When you see through them, you’ll feel at ease whether you pick something up or put it down. If you’re not at ease, you’re certainly trapped there. Say you want to do something today and feel you have to do it—if you don’t, you can’t let go—then you’re definitely trapped by it.

True freedom is this: I can do it, and I can also not do it; every matter is like that. I can choose to do it or choose not to, and my heart remains at ease. But when we feel we absolutely have to do something today, and cannot let go if we don’t, we feel distressed. Then that’s it: you’re trapped in the feeling.

A felt experience is also part of the self; you must be trapped by the self. Without you yourself, where would a felt experience come from? Right? But understand this: our felt experience arises because—at the material level, we think there is a nervous system and certain physiological reactions—but in the end, you’ll find that it is your cognition, what you take it to be. You think, “I have to drink this glass of water,” or “I just like this red color.” In fact, you cognize it first, and only then does the felt experience arise.

Thus Buddhism changes cognition. The highest Right View is important—Right View. Fully realizing Buddhahood means repeatedly beginning by realizing “Form itself is emptiness,” then moving from “emptiness itself is form,” and coming back again to “Form itself is emptiness,” then “emptiness itself is form.” You go back and forth like this several times; only gradually does it become complete.

This process—going back and forth—is breaking through the appearance of emptiness and the appearance of existence, again and again. You cannot take it as an illusion: if you do, you fall into annihilation; nor can you take it to be an appearance of emptiness. When we understand Buddhist emptiness, we must not understand it as an appearance of emptiness, as nothing at all, or as an indifferent attitude; all three are wrong. In other words, throughout the process of completion, you are breaking through the appearance of emptiness or the appearance of existence—breaking through these things. In fact, this is the self’s greatest attachment later on.

Your six sense faculties are not pure; no one’s are. After spending all of last year cleansing them, your six faculties still… Those whose six sense faculties are purified have “No Eyes Ears Nose Tongue Body or Mind.” It does not mean that eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind no longer exist; it means the six faculties are purified. You understand? It’s that simple.

When you purify them to a certain degree, what will you feel? It is the line from the Heart Sutra: “No Eyes Ears Nose Tongue Body or Mind.” You immediately feel that you do not exist—that eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind do not exist, and nothing is unmoving. Your view is also in place. There is nothing—those things—that is, as soon as all the practices are explained, you immediately understand them. The ear faculty is purified, the eyes are purified; it is that simple.

It is simply that we are stained; we must purify ourselves, and we are heavily stained. But this is a necessary road in cultivation; there is no other way. It is not that we first transform spiritual powers and energy channels; purifying the six sense faculties is something that must be done first and urgently. Otherwise you cannot understand the Dharma when you hear it, and hearing the Dharma will do you no good. We can only cultivate gradually, gradually.

But Right View and understanding must be in place. Whether you can carry it out or not, your understanding must be just that; it must be in place. Then what remains is cleansing—layer by layer, little by little. You must also complete your merit. Doing something and not doing it are not the same. At the beginning, you must engage in conduct that benefits others, or you will not be able to let go of the self. How can you break through this self? You cannot. How can you attain Buddhahood?

You should know: when the self is there, do you know how tiny we are? We really are a bacterium on Earth, with only that much power. What else do you want to do? Early birth, late death—just this much; truly, we are tiny.

The self is tiny. We seem to think that, with our big heads, we are very clever and can do anything in this world. But you have to step out into space, step out beyond Earth, and look back at humanity from space. What can we really do? Aren’t we just eating, drinking, playing, and having fun every day? Repeating the same things every day, just as we watch animals doing the same things.

What we think about every day, what we long for in our hearts, and what we strive desperately for—it all comes down to a few things. We do them every day, repeatedly, life after life; history repeats itself. People—every person, men and women—are much the same, aren’t they? Who is higher or nobler than whom? Really, we are exactly alike.

We truly don’t know what we are like. Step outside and you’ll know; step outside and you’ll know how (tiny) we are. Within the human realm, we can say we mustn’t underestimate ourselves; each of us should have some ideals and aspirations. But step into space and look, and there’s really not much to us.

Yet we human beings have the greatest opportunity and ability to attain Buddhahood—the greatest opportunity. You know, how much is attaining Buddhahood… Once you fully realize Buddhahood, how much… that kind of ability—there is simply no way to compare it with ordinary people; truly, you can do anything.

It is only a little bit of being trapped inside—the self, just a little. The five aggregates: you have to break through them life after life. Even so, think how hard they are to break through—the things at the root. Without pain, without some piercing, bone-deep pain, scraping the bone to cure the poison, how could you let go? How could you see through that self right here, by yourself?

It is not asking you to make a revolution, nor to die; it is simply to see through, see clearly. But in the beginning it seems like patience under humiliation, like benefiting others, like everything is pointless. But after some time, once you have benefited, you will know that everything is done for yourself: all your giving is for the perfection of your merit, all of it is preparation for you to break through appearances and attain Buddhahood. What part of it is not for your attaining Buddhahood?

All collisions, the causes and conditions of every event, and everything that comes to you are for your attaining Buddhahood; everything must converge on the Buddha Way. Reflect on it, and reflect on every matter, regardless of good or evil, good or bad, or defiled or pure. Applied to the Buddha Way, everything is making you attain Buddhahood; everything benefits you.

After attaining Buddhahood, the more you cultivate and realize, the more grateful you will become to this world. In other words, this world was what enabled me to attain Buddhahood. Before, I lived in such a tiny time and space—I truly was tiny—living in such a tiny world, and I was already satisfied.

This is what the arhats say in the Lotus Sutra: We sought too little; we had an inferior-minded heart. With a little food and warmth, a little happiness, we were satisfied; we thought that having enough to eat and wear and a comfortable life meant we were well-off. Then we had a little spare-time cultivation and thought that even attaining Arhat Fruition was already pretty good—we felt we had no regrets in this life.

Yet he precisely did not know that he followed Shakyamuni, and Shakyamuni Buddha was a Buddha, so great—a Buddha unseen for thousands of years was sitting there, and he followed him while seeking only Arhat Fruition: an inferior-minded heart. Human desire is satisfied just by fulfilling a small desire. The poor son’s mindset: he is poor, and earning a thousand yuan makes him wildly happy; originally, the billions in family wealth were his. We’re used to poverty, satisfied with having nothing; a little makes us feel rich. We are quite content.

But because we are poor, we cannot let go of greed. Because we are unaware, we always feel poor, so our greed is always there. We always feel we haven’t eaten enough, always feel we need something, as though we don’t know that we are well-off. In his subconscious he knows he is wealthy: Why haven’t all those rich things of mine come down? Something like that.

At the beginning, there must be some giving, some understanding; you really have to do it. This is only a place for cultivation and realization. Don’t be like others who study Buddhism: elsewhere, they just recite a few sutras and gain a little understanding, as if… We really can attain enlightenment, really attain enlightenment, truly accomplish something in realization and bring it to completion. Don’t be content with little gains; don’t take them as enough. You get a tiny bit and feel already much better than people outside.

You have to compare yourself with the Buddha! You have to compare yourself with the Buddha, not with people outside. Are you complete? Do you feel that some things in this world still trouble you? Even if you cannot see through them, right? When fame, profit, emotion, and desire come, you are still shaken; your heart struggles.

And you still cannot see through many things, and you have no certainty—you have no certainty about death. If you were going to die tomorrow, would you be sure? What are you sure of? Do you know where you are going? Who knows whether we will be alive today? Who knows about tomorrow or the day after?

Could we all really die peacefully in old age? Are we all waiting and preparing to live to a hundred, lie at home in our burial clothes, and only then die? Who knows? What about tomorrow or the day after? If we were to leave in these next two days, what would we do? Would we be sure? Right?

How much of the self have we let go? Is doing and not doing the same? That something deep within us… First you must understand yourself—understand. We are not necessarily saints from the start, all so great. Understand yourself; face yourself—face yourself, understand.

Facing it means accepting it. It doesn’t mean saying, “Whatever, I don’t care,” about your good and evil and calling that acceptance. No. You must face this: This is what I am today—but how far am I from attaining enlightenment? Measured against the Buddha’s requirements, I feel certain things still obstruct the Way. Can I change them? Can I do it? If not, attaining Buddhahood is still far away for me. Understand? I shouldn’t say, “I’m almost there, almost there.” I’m really still far from it.

Or put it this way: This is how I am today—have I generated the aspiration to adjust it? If not, you haven’t generated that aspiration, and attaining Buddhahood is not important to you for now. Then go deal with what’s important. One day, you may feel that attaining Buddhahood is first; everything else will take second place.

Sometimes you think about many things, but simply ask: What is attaining Buddhahood, after all? Because in our current cultivation, there are many… At the beginning, there has to be some benefit. What can attaining Buddhahood bring us? Right? What are we attaining Buddhahood for? What benefit can it bring us? Everyone must ask. Without benefit, everyone won’t…

That is why the Buddha did not speak the Lotus Sutra; instead he said that attaining Buddhahood can free you from suffering and bring you happiness—that is one; attaining Buddhahood can liberate you from samsara—that is two. Benefits—sentient beings want them. Attaining Buddhahood can liberate sentient beings far and wide, bring you fame, make you impressive, and have all sentient beings look up to you.

This is what sentient beings deeply desire, so the Buddha did not speak the Lotus Sutra. But you are all great practitioners, so first learn from the Lotus Sutra, understand? First learn the Lotus Sutra. For the rest, follow what the Buddha said; wherever you differ from what the Buddha said, lean that way. The Eightfold Path and such—gradually learn from Mahayana toward Hinayana. We are going back the other way; you are not. We are going back to study it; a review of Hinayana is enough—OK.

Of the six perfections of Mahayana, which one can’t you do? Just six simple ones—six; they have all been summarized for you. Just follow those six. Understand the Hinayana concepts, and that’s OK.

The only worry is that you don’t want to attain Buddhahood—how could you fail to? In plain terms, you don’t want to. You feel you haven’t reached what you want in this human world; many wishes are still unfulfilled, many things are still unfinished, and many dreams and ideals are still unrealized. You have elders above and children below; you still have to support your family. So many responsibilities and obligations remain. I’m not living for myself, but I have no choice—that’s all, right?

In fact, it is still habitual tendencies and desires. You go on living as if you have a whole pile of responsibilities and obligations, but most important, in the end, aren’t you still living each day according to your habitual tendencies and desires?

How much time have we spent considering responsibilities and obligations? So when all is said and done, we tell ourselves we don’t study Buddhism because we have elders above and children below, no choice, this thing to do and that thing to do, or our family needs this or that and has to be taken care of. In fact, most of the time we are still lost.

Each person’s causes and conditions are different; you can arrange an appropriate amount of time for your cultivation and study. But first, we often need to step outside this life, this one lifetime, to look at the problem.

Our whole life is only this long. If I’m thirty or forty now, then to fifty—that’s twenty years; sixty to eighty, another twenty. How will I walk through life, section by section, along this road? I need to step out and look.

There are things we cannot change; we must fulfill our obligations and responsibilities. But my life is only this long. If I want to attain Buddhahood, I need a lot of time for cultivation—how should I arrange it? Right?

Sometimes I earn one hundred yuan; when I’ve earned fifty, I feel that’s enough. I don’t earn the other fifty, because it would consume time and energy; I take that time for cultivation. Time and life are capital for you. Without that half-day, you cannot read the sutras. It’s that simple.

Enlightenment isn’t difficult. If you persist in cultivation, it is only a matter of time, because you already are; it is only a matter of when your six sense faculties are purified and you let go. Sometimes you are too clever at turning, over-clever, heavily stained; too nimble—you turn out of sight and cannot come back.

Then, when you come back, you awaken. Actually, awakening is not difficult; what matters most is completion. You will awaken eventually; only by completing it, by fully realizing it again and again, will you truly receive benefit. Attaining Fruition is what brings benefit; only then can you see the benefit cultivation brings—you can manifest it in this world, on the material level.

If there is no attainment at the level of Fruition, then it is truly just a verbal formula, that sort of thing. Cultivation can sometimes leave you sick, tired, and dull, as though it offers no benefit. But believe this: the Buddha does not speak false words—on this point, how could your cultivation have no merit? How could you fare worse than other people?

A practitioner cannot be measured by worldly standards. At the beginning, many matters connected with worldly ways cannot be used as a worldly measure for cultivation; this process is to change what has been there through lifetime after lifetime.

An uneasy heart. In fact, many young people are still… Look, young people all over the country wander here and there, listen to sutras here and hear talks there; their minds keep swaying and cannot settle. Their minds cannot settle, and they cannot find a sense of belonging.

Why can’t the mind settle? In the end, he simply doesn’t know what he wants to do. It’s not truly that he wants to attain enlightenment. He has never really settled: “I am doing this to attain enlightenment; I want to seek the Buddha’s wisdom; I want to cultivate. Everything else in this world exists to assist me.”

He just sways and wanders, wasting time and energy. But deep down, attaining enlightenment is not first. He is always choosing opportunities to do… In other words, cultivation is one aspect. “I like it, so since I have time now, I’ll go here and there listening.” That’s how it is.

Or he may say, “I’ll spend half a year or a year of my life on concentrated practice, go into retreat or something. If cultivation leads to awakening, fine; if I don’t awaken, I’ll do something else,” and so on. In his life, cultivation is still not that important.

Because sentient beings must see a benefit, they think, “What benefit do I get from cultivation? Only then will I…” Unless there are some—there are also people who say, “I am willing; I like it; I truly want to pursue it in this life,” and keep going. That’s another…

But in general, the smarter people are, the more roads they have; many roads in their minds, always ready to turn, always ready to choose. At any moment he has several roads there; whichever has more benefit, or whichever road is more tempting to him—that’s how it is. In other words, he can never settle down.

There is no better or worse, no right or wrong, but you must grasp the Buddha’s Right View. If you fully understand the Buddha’s teachings and many of his views, you can awaken on any road; you do not have to sit in a place of practice.

I think sometimes even sitting in a place of practice may not necessarily be better. Sometimes collisions in the marketplace make him reflect more deeply. Without a collision, some people may not feel pain and cannot reflect; when it hurts, they reflect. Sometimes you suddenly feel… Many people who truly resolve to study Buddhism may have suffered a severe blow in their career or relationship, and suddenly turn back and let go of everything.

The self is like this: without an impact, it is truly hard. The self absolutely will not give up, absolutely will not—no matter what, it refuses to give up. The things in this world are too much fun; it absolutely will not give up, that’s how it is. The deeper the pain, the more intense the reflection. And collisions are not limited to the marketplace; anywhere… But your understanding must be right. If it is right, you will not go astray; no problem. Anywhere works; anywhere is a place of practice.

(I explain the Lotus Sutra to my mother.)

How old is she? That’s still quite young. Seventy isn’t old, really. Look, nowadays you’re only considered elderly at 120; seventy or eighty isn’t old. You’re not old—you’re young. Don’t we still call you Brother Chen?

(My mom is quite impressive, really. Yesterday she was very happy to hear the Lotus Sutra. I went over what the teacher taught that day with her—just roughly—to see whether she understood.)

Mainly, the closer you get to truth, the simpler it is. You don’t understand? What you think is a very lofty teaching is actually very simple. I’m telling you, it just is. If you simply believe it, what’s so difficult? She may believe it more sincerely than you. You have let the Dharma stain you, thinking it is something so difficult.

She says, “Oh, so I am a Buddha.” It’s that simple—she just accepts it. “So being a Buddha is that simple. I thought it was that statue standing over there.” You are the one who bows every day; she just accepts it. I’m telling you, you are clinging to appearances.

(My mom is even more impressive than I am.)

Of course. She hasn’t been stained.

(I got stained.)

Exactly—you let the Buddha stain you. Mainly, you think about attaining Buddhahood every day; you imagine the Buddha as too high. Your mother doesn’t even think about what the Buddha is. You know? She doesn’t care; she simply accepts it and says, “I am the Buddha, so when I die I’ll go to a very good place.” She has complete, unquestioning faith, you know—she simply accepts it.

She doesn’t want to emit light or display spiritual powers. But you do: you want to open the three channels and seven chakras, and you want golden light radiating from your whole body. That’s contamination. All day you move this way and that, saying, “This moved here; light came out there.” In the end, this makes you seem like a Buddha, because no matter how you look at yourself, you don’t look like one.

She doesn’t think it is anything; she has no such concepts. “We were Buddhas all along.” It’s that simple—she accepts it. “I originally thought I was still an ordinary person.” That’s what she says; she simply accepts it.

(I also told her, “After hearing the Lotus Sutra today, your six sense faculties are purified.”)

She says, “I don’t care whether I’m pure or not; I know what you’re saying.” It’s like all of you: stained by the Buddha, stained by the Dharma. In the end you sit there explaining the Dharma to others, everyone awakens except me; the one explaining the Dharma can’t awaken, while somehow everyone else does.

At the very least, deep in your heart, the Buddha remains something sacred and beyond reach—that kind of sacredness. You mainly think, if it is too casual, what’s the point of attaining Buddhahood? You have the appearance of a Buddha, a teacher (guru), a Bodhisattva, an Arhat—every kind of name and appearance, including the appearance of an ordinary person; your mind is full of appearances, and in the end it is nothing.

(It was just that I was too reverent before, right?)

No. You have every kind of appearance. Mainly, you also have the appearance of an ordinary person—not the appearance of a Buddha; you have every appearance… just a whole mass of appearances in your mind. What is the Bodhisattva appearance? What is the Buddha appearance? What should an ordinary person’s mind be? What should a Buddha be like? What should a woman’s appearance be? A man’s? A whole lot…

(Then how do we break through appearances?)

Just don’t cling to appearances; what else is there to break? Why worry about how other people break through theirs?

(I made it complicated again.)

Keep cultivating slowly; continue. Didn’t the Buddha say to practice the six perfections? Isn’t it simple? Everyone says, “Teacher, I feel awful, very uncomfortable, it’s this and that…” The Diamond Sutra says, “Everything is like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow.” How can you sit there saying such grand things?

I say, forget “Everything is like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow” for now. How can you see things outside as a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow? First, figure out how to rescue yourself from that felt experience; you’re suffering that badly, and you’re talking about a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow. You sit there reciting “dream, illusion, bubble, shadow” a hundred times, you are suffering terribly, crying and sniveling—what dream, illusion, bubble, shadow are you talking about?

How can you say it is a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow? Your felt experience is already right there, isn’t it? At that moment, your self is that mass of felt experience—what else are you? Just that mass of felt experience. It is uncomfortable; that is what you call your self. How will you see it as empty? Tell me, how will you break through it?

You have taken it as discomfort. First, there is another point—there are a few ways. For example, when that uncomfortable felt experience arises in your heart, the moment you define it by saying, “This is discomfort,” that’s it; it really becomes discomfort.

First, don’t define it; don’t cling to appearances. Children also feel bad, but they don’t regard it as suffering. When it arises here and you say, “I am so sad; I am in such pain,” that’s it—you’ve already defined it.

Don’t define it. Don’t define happiness or suffering; it is just a felt experience, just a felt experience sitting there, like two clouds hanging in the sky. Let it hang there. I don’t believe it can hang for long; it will disperse on its own.

But as soon as you define it, you bolster its authority. It is like wind and rain arriving: at first there is only one cloud, then suddenly wind and rain come all at once. Because “I have been hurt,” this “I” is thunder; then tears and mucus are the wind and clouds. That’s how it goes. There was only one cloud, and then everything came; the sky came crashing down. Then “I have been hurt,” “I am so sad,” my felt experience, I feel bad, and so on…

Actually, this is how it starts. Actually, all of this is at the beginning. At that moment you explain the Diamond Sutra, sit here and say, “Teacher, all appearances are illusory; I don’t cling to them. Everything is like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow; I don’t cling to it.” Is that useful? You’re suffering terribly right here—is it useful?

So at first you go inward from within; it is very subtle. For example, you can enter samadhi; you can cultivate samadhi, or cultivate observing from the outside. When observing, do not define it; slowly move outward, understand?

Simply regard this felt experience as empty and illusory. The felt experience is illusory; just watch it—do not distinguish whether it is good or bad. Now I am this felt experience; don’t concern yourself with it. It is a little uncomfortable, but at worst it is like a cold; I’ll bear it. I don’t need medicine; it will soon be gone. That’s all.

It is just that our habitual tendencies will act up. As soon as a felt experience arises, greed, hatred, delusion, arrogance, and doubt come along and strengthen it. “I want to hate; I want revenge; I want to say something; I want to do something to you”—it all comes. Form, feeling, cognition, formation, and consciousness all come, continually adding ingredients and fuel.

Restraint from the very beginning—that’s it; this is what it means not to cling to appearances. How could you not cling at the beginning? The moment you define it, you cling to the appearance of the self; you have already clung to the appearance of discomfort. This is not defining it, right?

It is illusory to begin with. Why? If it truly existed, when you felt bad, everyone would feel bad. But it is illusory, so everyone else cannot feel it. Because you added an “I”—the self—that illusion became real. Since we did not add an “I” inside, your discomfort is something that does not exist for everyone else.

So the self must always be broken through. When you first begin cultivation, it is not as though every day you are seized and tortured so severely that you cannot bear it. It’s just little things—what is there that you can’t bear?

Human beings have the opportunity to attain enlightenment. It’s like… If you put it this way, like when Communists were captured by Japanese forces in the past, beaten half to death—it’s like hell. You live in hell every day; in the Hell Realm there is no opportunity to attain enlightenment. No opportunity means that the sensation of pain, that feeling of being beaten half to death, leaves you unable to think. Hearing, reflecting, and cultivating—you can no longer practice.

How could you? Your entire vital energy and spirit are consumed by pain all at once; you cannot even summon your inner strength, cannot sit. That’s hell, understand? Hungry Ghost Realm and Hell Realm beings have neither time nor ability to cultivate and realize. But we are not like that now; no one beats you every day. Although there is some pain, it is within what you can bear, understand? It is possible; sometimes human capacity can bear it.

The hardest thing is actually despair. Sometimes you become desperate or disappointed—there is no hope for the future—and many people then commit suicide; they become walking corpses. This is actually the most destructive thing for humanity.

It is despair: no hope at all for life or the future, unable to see hope. Then despair—there is no love; deep down you can no longer bring forth even a little love for anyone, and you lose the capacity to love. Having lost that capacity, he also feels that the world does not love him, so he gives up and begins to commit suicide. If it were not for this one point, all suffering—the suffering humanity currently experiences—would be bearable to everyone; there is nothing terribly painful. What suffering is there?

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.