I. Lamentation over the True Aspect of the Mislead and Diminished Buddhism of the World

 I. Lamentation over the True Aspect of the Mislead and Diminished Buddhism of the World

 

1. Lamentation over the True Aspect of the Mislead

and Diminished Buddhism of the World

 

 

I prostrate with all the five parts of my body and pay homage for millions of eons times to our Venerable Teacher, the World-honored Buddha, who attained the Buddhahood for the first time in the dharma realm of cosmos immeasurable kalpas before, and then manifested again in the mundane world in the physical form 2,600 years before to deliver the unsurpassed teachings and then entered the mahaparinirvana and abides now as suchness of a living personality of light in the state of 'non-self' in the realm of ultimate substance.

However, the Lord's unsurpassed illustrious cosmic teachings have been greatly mislead and diminished during the long passage of 2,600 years, and losing their immeasurable power they lost their original true aspects. What an woeful situation it is!

I firmly believe that it is about the time that we should reflect upon ourselves and investigate the true facts of the mislead Buddhism without reserve and then find out the cause of the mislead interpretations and establish the illustrious teachings of Buddha on the firm ground to open a new direction of Buddhism. In other words, it is about the time we should reveal the true face of our Buddhism and spread the illustrious true dharma far and wide throughout the world. Our Buddhism must be recast and reborn!

 

In order to do so, we must first awake from a long slumber casting off the old garments, and with the open mind listen to the lion's roar of the right dharma with both eyes and ears wide open. We must listen with the earnest mind like young Sudhana, the seeker of truth, who gladly gave his body to the fearsome Mara in order to listen to a single phrase of the verse of unsurpassed truth.

We must have an impregnable courage and wisdom to accept the pain of abandoning even the explications and notes of eminent scholars, which have been regarded for long as established doctrines of Buddhism. We must also abandon without hesitation our own study and knowledge about Buddhism which have been thought of as a part of our own body.

 

At present, there are three branches of Buddhism in the world: the southern or original Buddhism, northern or Mahayana Buddhism, and Tibetan or Esoteric Buddhism. However, regretfully none of these Buddhist branches have succeeded the true lineage of the orthodox dharma of Buddha and mislead and subsided failing to reveal the great features of the orthodox dharma or Buddha's unsurpassed illustrious doctrine.

Now let me show you an overall present situation of our Buddhism, and before introducing my argument, I wish you all to understand that as a Buddhist and a follower of Buddha's illustrious teaching, I have no intention of criticising the Buddhism of present time. My only wish is for the future of our Buddhism.

 

The southern Theravada Buddhism, as the center of Buddhism in the South Eastern Asia, was transmitted to Sri Lanka at the time of the Great King Asoka of Magadtha in the ancient India and flourished widely, but it could not even think of escaping from its own confined cell of meditation practice even though it is highly laudable for its strict observation of precepts.

The practice of Vipassana is also of course mentioned in the Buddhist sutra. However, the practitioners are firmly attached to its method of practice and they had no thought of practicing other better methods of meditation practice to receive Buddha's miraculous spiritual power. Vipassana is the method of practice aiming chiefly for Arahant, and it could not help the practitioner to attain the stage of Bodhisattva and Buddhahood.

They are ignorant of the realms of the miraculous spiritual power of Buddha and samatha or serenity and quietude of enlightenment. However, it is fortunate that it did not deviate far from the right path even for such limitations of its mode of practice.

 

On the other hand, the northern Buddhism was transmitted to China and Korea, which is usually called Seon (Ch'an or Zen) Buddhism, and from the early period it associated with the thoughts of the Outside Way (外道), and deviated far from the essence of Buddhism. It put forth the excellent teachings such as, "Mind itself is the Buddha." Or "Seeing self-nature and attaining the Buddhahood." However, it could not understand the true meaning of Buddha's teaching, and actually it diminished Buddhism and even abased the Buddha.

There is not much difference in Korean Ganwha-seon, or Hwadu concentration meditation, a kind of trademark of Korean Seon Buddhism. If you want to hold a Hwadu, it should be one of the holy titles of Buddha and recite it day and night, not the words of patriarchs which are not even in the sutra. The consequence is only perceiving the self-nature, which is only the first stage of the zealous practice of realizing the emptiness of phenomena without much profit. We should reconsider about Ganwha-seon practice if it is truly worthwhile to practice for so long with so much endeavor without the assurance of obtaining the goal.

 

And then someone might say that there is a last rampart of Tibetan Buddhism. How wonderful if it is true. It is true that Tibetan Buddhism is well systematized for practice. But the practice of Esoteric Buddhism which is, in fact, the mixture of Yoga practice of Hinduism practiced at some stage of practice is not the orthodox Buddhist practice. Tibetan leaders also practice the miraculous supernatural power to conduct transmigration, which also does not agree with the orthodox dharma.

It does not matter how well it agrees with the Tibetan Buddhism, we should not practice it if it does not agree with the orthodox dharma. The doctrine of "this body itself is Buddha (卽身成佛)," which is claimed as a great merit of Tibetan Buddhism also somewhat confuses the discerning or appreciative eyes of the practitioners.

It seems that they do not know exactly what the profound meaning of Venerable Sambhogakaya (報身佛), the Body of Bliss is. He is one of the Trikaya or 'the Triple-body (三身佛)': Dharmakaya or the Dharma-body (法身佛); Smabhogakaya, or the body of the manifestation of the universal Buddha-essence in symbolic form; and Nirmanakaya or the bodies of transformation, or incarnation bodies of Buddha (化身佛).

If it is true, they are making a great mistake of regarding the 'will-body (意生身)', a body mentally produced, or a contrived body with consciousness or mind that received an unsullied light (無染) of the cosmic essence in the realm of an intermediate state of the dead spirit between heaven and hell to be Sambhogakaya.

 

The following is a summary of the common problems of the Buddhism in the world now has:

 

1. The Buddhism in the present world became a Buddhism that does not believe the subsistence of Buddha and the Lord's awesome spiritual power.

 

2. The Buddhism in the present world became a Buddhism that does not acknowledge the 'substance of soul (靈魂體)' which is in fact the real substance of a man, and then accordingly denies the substance of transmigration. In short, it became a Buddhism without a master or nucleus.

 

3. Buddhism of today became a Buddhism that has no way of practice to become a Buddha and Bodhisattvas and then attain a complete liberation from birth and death.

 

4. Buddhism of today became a lesser Buddhism that is unable to explain clearly the province of enlightenment and the realm of quiescence.

 

Buddhism upholds Buddha as its founder, who is the Dharma King of the dharmadhatu, and it has a complete system of religious tenet and ideology for salvation. Yet when we compare the number of its followers with other religions of the world today, such as Christianity, including Catholic, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism falls to the fourth and the last.

Of course, it is true that we cannot evaluate a religion on the basis of the number of its followers, still we cannot deny that it is a simple indication of the present status of Buddhism in the world.

Buddhism has almost disappeared in India, its birthplace, and it has many difficulties in spreading its belief to the world far and wide, barely maintaining its deteriorated life only in the Asian sectors. When we think of the unsurpassed illustrious teachings of Buddhism and more than half of the world it is now covering, it is a very poor score. What is then the cause of all this? We are going to investigate the causes.