Translated by Nguyên Giác: See and know as it actually is

The night is quiet. Looking through the window pane, I see only a solid black color. Trees, hedges, flower beds, lawns, benches, and winding paths in the park can make it difficult for pedestrians to discern their location and character. The police might mistake a roadside tree for a thief, and a thief might mistake a policeman for a thief. Rope or snake. Bird or crow. Squirrel or cat. Human or evil spirit. Everything is black.

Everything can easily become ghostly and illusory in the dark.

The growing imagination and drawing memory of life’s woes make it easier to panic as you walk through a dark garden, with no lights or torches. It seems that ghosts or evil people are hiding, snooping and watching passers-by.

However, the same scene returns to normal with nothing significant or ominous when the sun rises. In the morning light, the leaves are still rustling in the morning wind, the birds are chirping on the roofs, the squirrels are crossing the neatly trimmed hedges, the smell of toast is mixed with the scent of dangling orchids, the stone benches are still wet with dew, and the winding road is still winding around the green lawns.

Seeing the true nature of things, people will no longer be afraid.

The real nature, or true entity, or core nature, is emptiness, which is not having an independent individual self-nature. Still, all are dependently arisen (i.e. dependent on each other), dependent-arising (i.e. dependent on each other to appear). Due to dependent origination, all dharmas are impermanent and non-self; Experiencing this impermanent, non-self nature right in the present reality is abiding in peaceful and tranquil nirvana.

Such is the way, but you must first see the way. Seeing is the first step to lifting the veil of ignorance. Those who see the way (that is, seeing the Dharma) will no longer be lost. But this view is not simply understanding the principle of dependent origination through explanations of scriptures or lectures from teachers. That view must be the awakening, a sudden awakening of perception after going through a process of deep practice and contemplation.

Seeing and knowing as things actually are means seeing things as they are, without any labeling, naming, or making distinctions based on one’s perception. The ego needs to vanish in order to see that way. For the ego to vanish, it takes deep and long practice. There will also be no more ignorance for those who see themselves as non-self. But even without ignorance, we are only now starting to step up the steps towards non-self.

Such a view comes from the aspect of essential rationality, advising practitioners to practice introspection, to realize not-self, and to reach nirvana. Regarding the relative world, practitioners entering everyday real life armed with empirical information must be able to comprehend and interact with others within the constrained parameters of laws and customs. That is, you must know that the rope is a rope after the sun rises, and you should not insist that it is a snake on the basis of prejudice and delusion from last night. That means that right and left, good and bad, right and wrong need to be discerned clearly. That is, if this is a good thing, you know it is a good thing to do, and if it is a bad thing, you know that it is a bad thing to avoid. Don’t exalt yourself, your relatives, your organization, or your party by feigning sincerity, uttering lies, breaking moral principles, or putting other people’s lives and well-being at risk.

A child of the Buddha sees and understands it as it truly is in both the conventional truth and the ultimate truth. The relative world is the manifest side of the absolute world. It is a phenomenon outside the surface of a profound and mysterious essence. When you don’t understand what’s obvious and conspicuous, how can you see and understand the essential emptiness and the true form of Tathagata?

You talk lengthily and proudly about the profound teachings, but your common sense and behavior are vague and biased: it turns out that following the Buddha for so many years is a waste! You profess the teachings of truly seeing and knowing, but your mind is full of wrong views and one-sided views. You see fake but say it’s true, and see the truth but say it’s fake. You see it’s wrong but say it’s right, and see it’s right but say it’s wrong. You honor the wicked and slander the good. You work hard and waste your time on worldly delusions. How might you have the heart to reach the noble incomparability?

Like the sun that emerges after a long, mysterious night, the way of “see and know as it actually is” opens up to us the true understanding of the impermanent, non-self nature of the world of sentient beings, leading us straight into the quiet unborn essence of nirvana right at the appearance of non-self impermanence.

Under the sun, all imaginations and illusions disappear. Everything is revealed. Nothing is hidden. Nothing can evoke doubt or fantasies. The bird is still perched on the tree. The tree is still standing by the side of the road. There is no such thing as ignorance; There is no such thing as the end of ignorance. There is no lifting of the night curtain; only the sun appears, bright, and clear.

The Buddha entered this crazy and upended world in such a way. A thousand years of darkness, in a blink of an eye, dissipated.

Buddha’s Birthday season, Buddhist calendar 2565.
California, April 24, 2021. 

(All the notes were removed in the audio version.)

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