Floating Wood with a Hole

 

Floating Wood with a Hole

This Buddhist story primarily explains how difficult it is for sentient beings to be born as humans, and that being able to rely on the human body to encounter the Buddha-Dharma, which contains genuine liberating teachings, is even more extraordinarily difficult.

The following is an English excerpt of the Saṃyukta Āgama Sūtra, Fascicle 15:

At one time, the World-Honored One addressed the bhikṣus: “Suppose the entire vast land were a vast ocean, and there was a blind turtle whose lifespan lasted for immeasurable eons, yet it could rise to the ocean’s surface only once every hundred years. In this great ocean, there is a piece of floating wood with a single hole in it, drifting throughout the sea carried by the waves and blown by the wind, with no fixed location, moving east and west unpredictably. Could this blind turtle, which surfaces only once every hundred years, possibly encounter this piece of floating wood and poke its head through the hole in it?”

Ānanda respectfully replied to the Buddha, “It would be impossible, World-Honored One! If this blind turtle were to swim to the eastern part of the great ocean, the floating wood might be blown by the wind to the western, southern, or northern parts of the ocean. Thus, their paths may not cross.” The Buddha told Ānanda, “Although the blind turtle and the floating wood are vastly distant from each other and moving in opposite directions, making an encounter extremely difficult or unlikely, there’s a chance they would meet after a very long time. Yet foolish and benighted ordinary beings who transmigrate and drift without ceasing through the five destinies have hundreds of thousands of times less chances of temporarily obtaining a human form compared to the blind turtle’s chances of crossing paths with the floating wood! This is because these foolish and deluded sentient beings’ actions, speech, and minds have never relied upon righteousness and the correct Dharma. They do not practice wholesome dharmas or in accordance with the authentic principles of the worldly and the transcendent.

Therefore, they perpetually kill one another in cycles, or the strong oppress the weak. Because they constantly create boundless evil karma, they quickly fall into the three evil destinies, with little hope of escape, and being reborn as a human in the human realm will be a matter of many long eons hence, if at all.”

The Buddha added, “Therefore, bhikṣus, within the Dharma of the Four Noble Truths—suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path—you should all diligently and earnestly use various skillful means to generate a sense of superior intent, continuously studying the Four Noble Truths and other teachings, severing all fetters to ultimately reach the state of the fourth fruit and beyond!” When the Buddha finished teaching this sutra, the bhikṣus who heard what the Buddha taught all joyfully believed, accepted, and practiced it.

In the Buddhist story above, the blind turtle drifts and searches throughout the vast ocean. Isn’t the turtle like many ordinary people today, seeking the true principles and cultivation methods that genuinely lead to liberation and the path to Buddhahood? Aren’t those “wood-like objects” we gaze at from afar like the Buddhist temples and monasteries lining every street, which we assume to be places where we can find rescue and peace of mind, where we can eliminate afflictions and find salvation?  

However, one might unfortunately encounter fraudsters who use Buddhism as a cover for money and sex scams, preying on students who lack the ability to discern genuine teachers from fraudsters.

Or perhaps one frequently attends chanting ceremonies, mistakenly believing that this is true cultivation and can lead one toward achieving Buddhahood.

Or one might close their eyes, sit in a meditation posture, empty their minds, and imagine that this alone is the path to Buddhahood. However, this doesn’t even brush against the outer frame of the Buddhist gate! These people, who regard themselves as “practitioners” but who actually aren’t, may even commit the great transgression of false speech, which truly isn’t worth it.

It is extremely difficult for people who wish to study Buddhism on the correct path to be able to encounter someone who can teach them the correct views and methods. True Buddhist practice means following the stages of the Bodhi Path in the right sequence; you can’t skip steps or mix them up. In other words, truly encountering the “floating wood with a hole” mentioned in the Buddhist scriptures is indeed an extremely difficult and rare experience. It requires encountering a truly enlightened mentor who thoroughly comprehends the path of the Three-Vehicle Bodhi, understands its true principles, and can explain the content of the Buddha Bodhi Path and the sequential stages of cultivating it. Only then can we correctly hear, practice, and realize this path according to its content. If you have already encountered such a wholesome Dharma, you should treasure this opportunity because it is as rare as a blind turtle encountering a floating wood with a hole in the ocean. That is, you must firmly hold on to a Mahāyāna practice center where there is a truly enlightened mentor―go there regularly and listen to, contemplate, and realize the true principles so as not to waste your current human form, which is so difficult and precious to obtain throughout countless lifetimes, and so as not to lose your excellent karmic condition!  

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A Bodhisattva’s Skillful Means (P4/4)

 

As for the six consciousnesses of sentient beings—the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mental consciousnesses—they actually operate at the corresponding five internal sense faculties within the brain. The six sense objects (forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles, and mental phenomena), which are respectively discriminated by the six consciousnesses, are, in fact, merely the manifestations of the eighth vijñāna, the tathāgatagarbha, according to the differently perceived five external sense objects. The six knowing consciousnesses do not actually make direct contact with external objects.

King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva, through his wisdom of the ultimate truth pertaining to Mahāyāna Buddha Bodhi, had long since fully realized and verified these teachings of the Śrāvaka conventional truth that the World-Honored One had explicitly expounded on in the Lesser Vehicle. He recognized that what held the woman’s hand and sat together with her was merely the great earth element, not the perceptive conscious “self,” and thus, there was no transgression.

Therefore, the World-Honored One finally taught, “Ordinary sentient beings, due to their craving for the five worldly desires, commit various unwholesome karmas and consequently fall into the three evil destinies or even the hells, where they suffer severe karmic retribution. However, when bodhisattvas engage in the five worldly desires together with sentient beings to liberate them, employing various skillful means, their minds remain pure and free from desire. After death, they are instead reborn as pure beings in the form realm heavens. Why is there such a great difference? This is because Bodhisattva-Mahāsattvas are able to practice skillful means.”

Having heard this story, everyone should now have a clearer understanding of the true meaning of bodhisattvas’ skillful means. (Part 4)

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A Bodhisattva’s Skillful Means (Part 3/4)

 

After contemplating in this way, King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva cognized his own body as nothing more than the great earth element, and keeping his mind on great earth element, he took the woman’s hand and sat beside her on a single seat. He then told the woman, “You should take refuge in the World-Honored One and generate an aspiration for Buddha Bodhi. The Dharma path of the World-Honored One does not praise the worldly practices of sexual desire and craving pursued by unwise and deluded ordinary beings. On the contrary, only by cultivating dispassion or detachment from desire and eliminating craving can one accomplish the Buddhahood Path and become the Great Venerable, whom all sentient beings in heaven and the human realm revere and study under.” At that moment, having heard the teaching of King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva, the woman’s heart became filled with immeasurable joy. She rose from her seat, and, with the sincerest reverence, prostrated before King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva and said, “I previously harbored thoughts of unwholesome desire and craving toward you. Now, I wish to confess and repent before you in person.” Thereupon, the woman generated the pure and wholesome aspiration for the unsurpassed, perfect enlightenment of all Buddhas and Tathāgatas, vowing to benefit all sentient beings so that they, too, could accomplish the Buddhahood Path. At this point, the World-Honored One emphasized, “A bodhisattva like King of the Honored Multitude, who is able to liberate and guide sentient beings through skillful means, ensures that the followers he liberates and guides—both in the past and present—will henceforth never regress from the Buddha Bodhi or fall into the three evil destinies.” Moreover, due to King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva’s wisdom and skillful means, the woman immediately confessed with utmost sincerity and made great vows, so that after ninety-nine kalpas, she would accomplish the Buddhahood Path.

In this story, King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva contemplated the following Dharma teaching: “The internal great earth element and the external great earth element are one great earth element.” This involves analyzing and deconstructing a sentient being’s physical body to clearly understand that the body is nothing but a composition of the four great elements: earth, water, fire, and wind. The five sense faculties—the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body—that held the woman’s hand and sat together with her on the same seat are, in fact, the great earth element, no different from the great earth element of solid matter in mountains, rivers, and land of the external material world. There was no “self” that held the woman’s hand and sat with her. (Part 3/4)

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A Bodhisattva’s Skillful Means (Part2/4)

 

In part one of the story, King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva first displayed supernatural transformations, enabling the adept Venerable Ānanda to understand that he was a great bodhisattva who purely upheld the precepts, was free from sensual desire, and came to possess supernatural powers and transformative abilities through genuine practice and realization. Upon learning this, Ānanda immediately kneeled on the ground with a grief-stricken expression on his face and earnestly beseeched the World-Honored One to allow him to publicly confess his transgression of ignorantly accusing King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva of violating the precept against sexual misconduct.

The World-Honored One then told Ānanda, “One must not judge the actions of Mahāyāna bodhisattvas as violating the pure precepts based solely on superficial appearances! For after Mahāyāna bodhisattvas take refuge in the mind of all knowledge, when they encounter pleasing forms, sounds, scents, tastes, and tactile sensations or the five desirous states of wealth, sensuality, fame, food, and sleep, which delight the mind, they will partake in and utilize these objects together with sentient beings, and then seize the opportunity to exhort these beings to take refuge in the Three Jewels of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha and to generate an unsurpassed aspiration for Buddha Bodhi. Such Mahāyāna bodhisattvas neither violate the precepts nor fail to liberate and guide sentient beings. Therefore, the World-Honored One said, “Only they can perfectly and fully accomplish the meritorious qualities and wisdom required to become Buddhas and Tathāgatas.”

The World-Honored One also explained the past karmic connection between King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva and the woman whom Venerable Ānanda saw him sitting with on the same seat. In the past, this woman had been the wife of King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva for five hundred lifetimes. Due to the habitual tendencies of marital emotional attachment from those past lives, when she saw King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva, craving for and attachment to him immediately arose in her mind. Especially upon seeing that he was a bodhisattva disciple under the World-Honored One who faithfully upheld the precepts and possessed a dignified demeanor and majestic virtue, she felt great joy in her heart and thought to herself, “If I could have the opportunity to sit together with King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva, I would also take refuge in the World-Honored One, generate an aspiration for the Bodhi mind of attaining unsurpassed perfect enlightenment, and become a Mahāyāna bodhisattva.”

King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva had already attained supernatural powers and transformations, so he naturally knew of his past-life karmic connection with the woman he was sitting with and understood her thoughts. He decided to liberate and guide her. The next morning, he took his alms bowl and entered the city, going from house to house to beg for food. When he arrived at this woman’s house, he entered. In his mind, he immediately contemplated a dharma principle: “Whether the internal great earth element within or the external great earth element, it is still the great earth element” (Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra, fascicle 106). That is, the solid parts of our body and the solid things in the external material world are actually composed of the same solid great element—the “great earth element.”  (Part 2/4)

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A Bodhisattva’s Skillful Means (Part 1/4)

 

“However innumerable sentient beings may be, I vow to save them all; however inexhaustible afflictions may be, I vow to eradicate them all; however immeasurable the teachings may be, I vow to study them all; and however difficult the unsurpassed Buddhahood Path may be, I vow to attain it.” These are the four vast and magnificent vows that bodhisattvas make when they first take refuge in the Three Jewels.

The first two vows express their determination to cultivate the bodhisattva path toward Buddhahood: They must vow to liberate all sentient beings and eliminate all afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion to attain purity and liberation. The process of hearing and being permeated by the bodhisattva precepts, cultivating and studying them, and finally upholding them in practice is a necessary and effective method for counteracting afflictions.

However, sentient beings possess vastly different capacities and faculties, and the conditions for their liberation vary greatly. How, then, can bodhisattvas liberate all sentient beings without exception while remaining faithful to the prohibitions established by the bodhisattva precepts they uphold? This touches on the spirit and principles underlying the bodhisattva precepts, and the matter of skillful means employed by bodhisattvas.

Skillful means, also called expedient methods, refer to the wholesome and ingenious or flexible and adaptive expedient methods one has the ability to employ when facing particular individuals or special circumstances, enabling the other party to accept the teaching or resolving difficult situations. Buddhist scriptures contain numerous accounts of Buddhas and bodhisattvas who skillfully devised expedient means according to the capacities and karmic conditions of sentient beings, thereby succeeding in guiding them onto the Buddhahood Path.

For example, the Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra (Sutra of the Great Treasure Collection) records a story in which the Venerable Ānanda reported to Śākyamuni Buddha that when he was going on an alms round among the residents of Śrāvastī City, he saw King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva sitting with a woman on the same seat. This prompted him to report to the World-Honored One that King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva had violated the precept against sexual misconduct. However, this accusation proved unfounded.

The World-Honored One instead praised King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva, saying that he had already realized and taken refuge in the mind of all knowledge, attained the wisdom to face all circumstances without any obstruction, and possessed the ability to employ all kinds of skillful and expedient means to liberate and guide sentient beings. The World-Honored One further bestowed a prophecy upon the woman who had been sitting with King of the Honored Multitude Bodhisattva, declaring that in the coming ninety-nine kalpas, she would make offerings to hundreds of thousands of immeasurable and incalculable Buddhas of the ten directions, and would then fully accomplish all Buddha Dharmas and attain Buddhahood. (Part 1)

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Six Incredible Truths About Why You Suffer (Part 3/3)

 

Like the Raft, Even the Dharma Must Be Let Go Of (Part 3/3)

Differences Between Ordinary People from the Learned Noble Disciples 

The Buddha then clarified a misunderstanding and criticized some heterodox teachers, such as the ascetic Gotama, a nihilist who teaches that existing sentient beings will be annihilated and destroyed into nonexistence. The Buddha said, “This is not true. I never teach ‘annihilation’; rather, I teach people to clearly see the truth of suffering and eliminate suffering.”

The Buddha further said, “Whether people curse, slander, or honor me, my mind remains unmoved. Curses do not arouse anger in me; praise does not arouse joy in me. This is because I know that such people’s actions arise from a lack of understanding or from misunderstanding the Dharma.”

The Buddha admonished the bhikkhus: “You should be the same. Don’t become proud from praise or angry from slander.”

Finally, the Buddha taught: “Form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness—none of these belong to you. You should abandon them. Once you have done this, you will attain lasting peace and happiness.”

The Buddha gave an example: “If someone took away or burned the grass, trees, and branches in the Jeta Grove, would you think ‘they’ve stolen my things’?”

The bhikkhus answered, “No, World-Honored One, because we know that they are not us or ours.”

The Buddha said, “The five aggregates do not belong to you either. Only by abandoning them can you truly be free and self-existent.”

The Buddha summarized His teaching as follows: “The Dharma I expound on is clear, plain, and fully disclosed—its purpose is to cut off all the fetters of affliction that bind sentient beings.”

When the Buddha finished speaking, His words opened the bhikkhus’ minds to understanding. They joyfully embraced the teaching with faith and vowed to practice it accordingly.

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Reflections:

    Imagine yourself driving to an unfamiliar city for the first time. The GPS is like the raft that the man in the story told by the Buddha relies on to cross the river. While navigating unfamiliar roads, you must listen intently to the voice prompts and strictly follow the suggested route to avoid getting lost or stuck in traffic and to arrive safely at your destination. This is like the early stages of cultivation—practicing according to the teaching. Only through honest, diligent effort and by following the Dharma step-by-step can you avoid straying onto the wrong paths.

    However, once your car has pulled into the garage, the GPS’s mission is complete. If, at this point, you are still staring at the screen, unwilling to get out of your car until the system tells you what to do next, or even refuse to put down the GPS device when entering the house, then what was originally a helpful tool has instead become a mental burden.

    Cultivation is the same. While skillfully using the raft to cross the river is certainly important, once you reach the shore, you should smile and let go of it, continuing your journey unencumbered. 

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