Dharma Talk to Begin 2013 Summer Retreat

The Supreme Patriarch of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, His Eminence the Most Ven. Jinje

Three Transformative Teachings (三傳語) by Master Yunmen (雲門)

〔Mounted the Dharma seat and raised the Dharma staff (拄杖子) to the assembly,〕

The place where one attains life in the midst of great deathCannot be realized or reached even by the Buddha of past. Hence, I thus pronounce: Only the old master may allow knowing Or not.

Today opens the summer retreat season for the Buddhist Era of 2557. Devote all your might into steadily holding a hwadu, investigating it urgently and single-mindedly. If you have not received a hwadu yet, take up the hwadu of:

“What is the True Self before we were born from our parents?”

Hold this hwadu a thousand, or ten thousand times. Arouse a fervent doubt in mind that propels hwadu investigation day in and day out. Make every single moment of thought only be with hwadu, make it run ceaselessly like a flowing water. Then one day, this current will carry you into samadhi in which all your sense organs will cease functioning and you will be as dumb and immovable as a tree or a rock. This state may last a month or a year until one day your eyes and ears suddenly open to reality and at that single moment, the hwadu will shatter to finally reveal the True Self from endless eons ago. Upon this, you will reach the ultimate home of the mind and join the infinite bliss of the Truth with Buddhas and Patriarchs of all ages.

Members of the four-fold community who are about to start the summer retreat,life in this corrupt world is plagued by the afflictions of all sizes and shades because one has committed throughout one’s past lives layers upon layers of evil deeds whose ugly shadows darken the brilliant light of wisdom. Therefore, those who dispel all shadows of unwholesome karma of the past will be hindered by nothing and consummate everything with an unspoiled ease and grace.

As such, all practitioners shall devotedly investigate the Truth and cultivate wisdom of mind at all times by relying on the supreme strength generated by boundless faith and ceaseless effort. If you successfully follow this advice, you will develop the wisdom eye of unsurpassed clarity and conquer all unfavorable conditions.

If you do not attain the wisdom eye and see the true nature in this life time, there is no guarantee that you will come upon this Way of Seeing Truth in any of your future lives ever again. All members of the four-fold community! Resolve to attain enlightenment over and over again and make an effort time after time.

In the old days, Master Yunmen (雲門) delivered a Dharma talk on Three Transformative Teachings (三傳語).

First, what is the Way of Truth?

Second, what is Madhyamaka, or the school of Nagarjuna?

Third, what is the sharp blade that would sever even a falling feather?

All members of the four-fold community, why do you think this monk always metes out such difficult teachings, while dismissing all easy and skillful means of teaching Dharma whose number exceeds eighty four thousand? Even if an ordinary being is lucky enough to attain a human body life after life, it is extraordinarily rare and precious to come across a word of the highest and deepest Truth. If this single word of the highest and deepest truth brushes past one’s ear, even just once, countless crimes of past lives will melt away and bright wisdom will be revealed. Therefore, sharpen your attention to catch even a single word of Dharma that passes by fleetingly and cherish it like gold treasure. If any of you grasp and attain the Three Transformative Teachings of Master Yunmen, that person will become a great teacher with clear wisdom sight and guide all beings on the Path to Liberation.

Do you understand?

People do not know how to go directly to the source and cut it. Alas! How long would it take to put to rest countless karmic deeds one by one?

〔Hit the Dharma desk (法床) once with the Dharam staff (拄杖子) and descended from the Dharma seat.〕