An alternative way of explaining the aforementioned three teachings is based on the principle of the Three-Vehicle Bodhi, which classifies the dharma teachings into those for sound-hearers and solitary-realizers in the Āgamas (C.阿含聲聞緣覺), those on the Middle Way prajñā (C.般若中觀), and those on knowledge-of-all-aspects pertaining to Consciousness-Only (C.唯識種智). However, regardless of these different classifications, the dharma teachings will all eventually be subsumed under the Perfect Teaching.
From another perspective, there is also the Immediate (C. 頓, literal translation sudden) Teaching. It refers to the teachings in the Avataṃsaka Sutra. It is an essential dharma teaching, which one must teach soon after he becomes a Buddha (unless only one turning of the Dharma Wheel expounds the bodhisattva dharmas alone, which is not the case). Why must one teach the Avataṃsaka Sutra soon after he becomes a Buddha? If the Buddha does not do so, some people may slander him by saying, “When you (Buddha Sakyamuni) initially explained the Path to Liberation, you actually did not understand prajñā. You learned the prajñā that you talked about today only later.” Similarly, when the Buddha expounds the Consciousness-Only Vaipulya, some people may again slander him and say, “When you expounded prajñā, you actually still did not know these wondrous dharmas of the knowledge-of-all-aspects pertaining to Consciousness-Only. You learned them only later.”
The Buddha had already foreseen long ago how ignorant people would misconstrue the sutras due to their mentality. To prevent them from gaining unfavorable speech karma out of His great mercy and compassion, He first expounded the Avataṃsaka Sutra, covering the areas from the human world to the heavenly realms, encompassing all the stages in the Path to Buddhahood. The Immediate Teaching thus elucidates in one go the complete Path to Buddhahood. The Buddha consummated His preaching of the Buddha Dharma from the beginning to the end, including all the cultivation stages and their connotations in the Avataṃsaka Sutra.
For those in the future generations who will slander the Buddha for not teaching the Three-Vehicle Bodhi due to their ignorance during the period of the second or third turning of the Dharma Wheel, or in the Dharma-ending Age, the Avataṃsaka Sutra will be a proof that the Buddha had already perfectly explained the Path to Buddhahood. That is, both the Lotus Sutra and the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings fall under the Perfect Teaching, and they perfectly contain the entire Buddha Dharma in the wondrous lotus, the tathāgatagarbha mind.
The Lotus Sutra states, “At that time, the Buddha emitted a white-hair-mark light between His brows, completely illuminating the eighteen thousand worlds in the east, down to the Avici Hell and up to the Akaniṣṭha Heaven….” The eighteen thousand Buddha worlds are equivalent to the eighteen thousand Milky Way systems or galaxies. Our solar system is just a small world at the edge of our Milky Way system. A galaxy represents a Buddha world. How many galaxies can the Hubble telescope see in the current century? According to astronomers, after zooming in with the telescope on the small bright spots in the sky, they unexpectedly discovered that there are many more galaxies therein. However, these galaxies are too far away to be seen clearly, and astronomers can thus only make rough conclusions about them. Therefore, the sea of the Lotus World in the infinite space of the ten directions mentioned in the Avataṃsaka Sutra really exists. However, the current space telescope is still unable to completely capture them all as scientific technology has limitations. Buddhism transcends science; evidently, human modern science and technology cannot keep up to date with the wholeness and expansive contents of the sutras.
Undoubtedly, the Five Periods and Three Teachings are teachings laid down by the Buddha for Buddhist practitioners of all time. The Lotus Sutra expounded at the final period attests to the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings and is the perfect teaching of the Buddha wherein all the steps in the Path to Buddhahood stringed together through a single dharma, tathāgatagarbha.
No comments:
Post a Comment