The Four Applications Of Mindfulness

Extracted from 'The Buddha Speaks of Amitabha Sutra with commentaries of the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua' page 58 & 63

(Page 58)
Then Ananda said, “We have always lived with you, Buddha, but when you enter Nirvana, where are we going to live?”

Shakyamuni Buddha said, “When I go to Nirvana, all Bhikshus, Bhikshunis, Upasakas, and Upasikas should dwell in the Four Applications of Mindfulness: Mindfulness with regard to the body, feelings, thoughts, and dharmas.

1) Contemplate the body as impure. If you know that the body is impure, you won’t love it, and without love there will be no attachment. Being without attachment is freedom. So first of all,regard the body as impure.
2) Contemplate feelings as suffering. Feelings are all a kind of suffering, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant, for pleasant feelings are the cause of unpleasant feelings.
3) Contemplate thought as impermanent. Thoughts shift and flow and are not permanent.
4) Contemplate dharmas as devoid of self.”

(Page 63)
The Four Applications Of Mindfulness

1) Contemplation of the body as impure. Everyone sees his body as extremely precious. Because you think it is real, you are selfish and profit-seeking. Without a body, there would be no selfishness.

We think our bodies are real and actual. Being selfish, we create offenses and commit evil deeds. We cannot let go of the affairs of the world and calculate on behalf of our bodies all day long, looking for good food, beautiful clothes, and a nice place to live— a little happiness for the body. On the day we die, we are still unclear. “My body is dying,” we moan. “How can it do this to me?” At that time we know that our bodies are unreal, but it’s too late, too late for our regrets.

Ultimately, is the body real? Stupid people think so, but wise people see it merely as a combination of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. It is not ultimate.

“Then,” you ask, “what is ultimate?”

Our own self-nature is
bright and all-illumining;
Our own-self-nature is
perfect and unimpeded.
It is nowhere and nowhere is it not;
to the end of empty space,
it exhausts the Dharma Realm.

Our bodies are temporary dwellings where our self-nature comes to live for a time. But the person dwelling in the hotel is not the hotel, and in the same way, his body is not him. The traveler who thinks that he is the hotel is mistaken. If you know that the body is just like a hotel, you should seek that which dwells within it, for once you have found it, you will recognize your true self.

From the time of birth, the body is impure—a combination of its father’s semen and its mother’s blood. The child grows up with greed, hate, stupidity, pride, and doubt. He commits offenses, creating the karma of killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and taking intoxicants and drugs. Offense-karma is created because of the body. But is the body such a precious thing after all? No.

A precious jewel is pure and undefiled, without stain or the slightest trace of filth. Our bodies, on the other hand, have nine apertures which constantly secrete impure substances: tears from the eyes, wax from the ears, mucus from the nose…

There are religions whose members eat mucus. They say that they are “smelting the cinnabar.” They also eat tears and ear wax thinking that these filthy substances are precious jewels. Isn’t that pitiful?

Two ears, two eyes, and two nostrils make six holes. The mouth is full of phlegm and saliva. That’s seven holes. Add the anus and urinary tract and you have nine. Would you call this pure? Everyone knows that excrement and urine are unclean and, if you don’t believe it, just try seasoning some fine food with a tiny pinch of excrement. No one will eat it. People will want to vomit instead because it is unclean. Would you call this body, dribbling filth from nine holes, a jewel? If it’s a jewel, why do such vile things flow from it?

If you don’t bathe for a week, you itch and squirm and a thick crust forms on your body. Where did it come from? Soon you stink with an odor even a dog finds repulsive. What is the advantage of having a body? Contemplate the body as impure. If you see how filthy it is, do you still love it? Are you still attached? What’s the use of loving such a dirty thing?

“Then can I stab myself? Can I kill myself?” you ask.

No. That’s not necessary. You must borrow this false body and use it to cultivate the Truth. The self-nature dwells within the body. You entered the body of five skandhas and the yin and yang merged in a combination of purity and filth which is your body. If you cultivate, you can go up, and attain purity. If you do not cultivate you will go down, create offense karma, unite with the filth, and turn into a ghost.

Go up. Become a Buddha. Whether or not you cultivate is up to you, however. Nobody can force you to cultivate.

The Venerable Ananda thought that because he was the Buddha’s cousin, he didn’t need to cultivate. He thought that the Buddha would just give him samadhi. But the Buddha couldn’t do that, and so it was not until after the Buddha’s Nirvana, when Ananda was about to edit the Sutras, that he finally certified to the fourth Stage of Arhatship and realized that he could not neglect cultivation.

Be mindful that the body is impure, don’t be so fond of it, and don’t take it as a treasure.

You say, “I can’t stand criticism. I can’t stand it.”

Who are you?

“If they hit me, I can’t bear it. It hurts!”

Really? If you put your attachments down and see through them, there is neither pain nor not pain. Who is in pain? What, exactly, hurts? If someone hits you, pretend that you bumped into a wall. If someone scolds you, pretend that they are singing a song or speaking Japanese. How can they scold you if you don’t understand them?

“Are they speaking Spanish or Portugese? French? German? I’ve never studied languages so I don’t understand…” They can scold you, but it’s nothing. In general, once you see through, break, and put down the attachment to your body, you win your independence.

Contemplate your body as impure. Don’t regard it with so much importance. It’s not important.

Contemplate feelings, thoughts, and dharmas as impure also.

2) Contemplate feelings as suffering. Feelings may be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral; from the point of view of the three sufferings, unpleasant feelings are the suffering within suffering, pleasant feelings are caught up in the suffering of decay, and neutral feelings are the suffering of process. Wake up! Everything you enjoy is a form of suffering. If you know that pleasure is suffering, you will not be attached to it. I often say:

Enduring suffering puts an end to suffering;
Enjoying blessings destroys blessings.

If you endure your suffering, it will pass. If you enjoy your blessings, they, too, will pass. Contemplate feelings as suffering.

The body, thought, and dharmas are also suffering. Although there are Four Applications of Mindfulness, you can divide them up; each of the four characteristic qualities, impurity, suffering, impermanence, and the absence of self, can be applied to the body, to feelings, to thoughts, and to dharmas, making sixteen applications in all.

3) Contemplate thoughts as impermanent. The Vajra Sutra says, “Past thought cannot be obtained, present thought cannot be obtained, and future thought cannot be obtained.” All your thoughts are unobtainable. They flow without stopping and so they are impermanent. The body, feelings and dharmas are also impermanent.

4) Contemplate dharmas as without self. Basically, since there are no dharmas, from whence cometh the self? The self is a combination of four elements and the five skandhas—a creation of form dharmas. Outside of the four elements and the five skandhas there is no self. So contemplate dharmas as being without a self.

The Four Applications of Mindfulness are very wonderful. If you investigate them thoroughly, understand and dwell on them, you will be unattached and will attain true freedom. If you’re attached, you can’t be free. Why? Because you’re attached! So dwell in the Four Applications of Mindfulness. Dwell and yet do not dwell.


~End of Post~





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Shurangama Sutra With Commentaries

(Picture source: flickr.com)

Eight volumes of Shurangama Sutra, with commentaries from venerable Master Hsuan Hua.

The Shurangama Sutra Part 1
The Shurangama Sutra Part 2
The Shurangama Sutra Part 3
The Shurangama Sutra Part 4
The Shurangama Sutra Part 5
The Shurangama Sutra Part 6
The Shurangama Sutra Part 7
The Shurangama Sutra Part 8

~End of Post~




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Is the Shurangama Sutra an Inauthentic Sutra?

A talk by the Venerable Master Hua

Every dharma is found within the Shurangama Sutra, so there are no potentials it fails to attract.
It is the essential Dharma for all generations: It is the right seal for becoming a Buddha or a Patriarch.

The Great Master Han Shan (Silly Mountain) once said: "Unless you read the Lotus Sutra, you won't know of the pains the Thus Come One took to save the world. Unless you read the Shurangama Sutra, you won't know the key to cultivating the mind and awakening from confusion." This says it exactly right, because every dharma that exists is found within the Shurangama Sutra, so there are no potentials it fails to attract. It is the essential Dharma for all generations: It is the right seal for becoming a Buddha or a Patriarch. A Chan cultivator must thoroughly master this text and understand the Fifty Skandha-demon States that it explains, in order to escape the snares of the demon-kings. Otherwise, he won't recognize states when they arise, and he will become attached to them and join the retinue of demons. This is extremely dangerous!

We want to be able to recite the Shurangama Mantra from memory, and we also want to memorize the Shurangama Sutra. As the saying goes, "Familiarity leads to expertise." When the time comes, we will gain infinite advantages and inconceivable responses. Anyone who studies Chinese literature simply must read the Shurangama Sutra. The literary quality of this Sutra is excellent, and its meanings are profound; it is the most perfect Sutra.

(Picture source: flickr.com)

There are some pretentious scholars who possess no deep understanding of Buddhism and yet consider themselves experts in the field. They see themselves as authorities when they are not. Without a thorough grasp of the principles of Buddhism, they freely criticize the Shurangama Sutra, recklessly asserting that it is an inauthentic Sutra. Still others who may be more conscientious, nonetheless, parrot the false claims of the scholars, like the blind following the blind. The situation is truly pathetic!

Why would anybody claim that the Shurangama Sutra was not spoken by Shakyamuni Buddha? It's because the principles explained in this Sutra are simply too true. They thoroughly describe people's problems, thus preventing the goblins, demons, "cow-faced ghosts," and "snake-bodied spirits" from running amok and exposing them for what they are. That's why certain individuals defame the Sutra by claiming that it is fraudulent, destroying people's faith in the Shurangama Sutra so that they themselves have a chance to survive. If they acknowledged that the Sutra was, in fact, spoken by the Buddha, they would have no way to follow its Dharma. First, they cannot uphold the Four Unalterable Aspects of Purity. Second, they cannot cultivate the Dharma-doors of Perfect Penetration of the Twenty-five Sages. Third, they cannot face the Fifty States of the Skandha-demons.

If everyone reads the Shurangama Sutra and understands it, then the spiritual powers of the externalists will lose their magical gleam; they will seem powerless and people will no longer believe that they possess spiritual powers. That's why the celestial demons and externalists have no recourse but to slander the Shurangama Sutra and circulate the spurious claim that it is an unauthentic text.

Not only do laypeople slander the Shurangama Sutra as false, even left-home people perpetuate the rumor. Why? Because most left-home people have received limited education; some are even illiterate and cannot understand the Buddhas' Sutras. This is especially the case with the Shurangama Sutra: its text is deep, its principles are profound, so many cannot understand it or judge its authenticity. Thus, whenever someone claims that a certain Sutra is unauthentic, these ignorant people simply repeat what they hear without giving it any consideration. This is how the Shurangama Sutra has comes to receive its undeserved bad reputation.

In the past, the rulers of India considered the Shurangama Sutra a national treasure and forbade its being carried out of India. Travellers were stopped at the borders and thoroughly searched, out of fear that the Sutra would circulate. Sangha members who were leaving the country were especially subject to the scrutiny of the border guards. In those days (during the Tang Dynasty in China) the eminent monk, Master Paramiti of India, after racking his brains and thinking up every possible means, finally hid the Sutra beneath the skin of his arm to fool the customs inspectors so that it could come to China. He arrived in Canton, and met a Prime Minister named Fang Rong, who had been exiled by the Empress Wu Zetian and was serving as a Magistrate in Canton. Magistrate Fang Rong requested the Venerable Paramiti to translate the Sutra. He himself acted as editor and turned out a masterpiece of literature, which he then presented in offering to the Empress Wu Zetian. Just at that time, China was experiencing a scandal regarding the Great Cloud Sutra, a fraudulent text. Empress Wu Zetian concealed the translation in the palace and did not allow it to circulate.

Later, when Dhyana Master Shenxiu was appointed as National Master, he sat in the palace to receive offerings. One day he discovered the Sutra, realized its value for meditators in the Chan School, and put it into circulation. Only then did the Shurangama Sutra finally become known in China. The Shurangama Sutra is said to be the last of the Buddha's Sutras to reach China, but during the Dharma-ending Age, it will be the first Sutra to disappear into oblivion. Following it, the other Sutras will gradually disappear as well, until only the Amitabha Sutra will be left.

Note: The Venerable Master Hua endorses the Shurangama Sutra's absolute authenticity, and strongly asserts that it bears, without question, the "mind-seal" of all Buddhas. Upon arriving in America, the first major Sutra he explained was the Shurangama Sutra. Why did he choose that Sutra? Because when the Dharma is transmitted to America it transforms the Dharma-ending Age into the Proper Dharma Age. It represents the Venerable Master's lifeblood, given for the purpose of carrying on the Buddha's "wisdom-life." The Buddhist Monthly-Vajra Bodhi Sea has been serializing A Brief Explanation of the Shurangama Sutra in Chinese and English, and will continue to offer this text to readers.


Eight volumes of Shurangama Sutra, with commentaries from venerable Master Hsuan Hua.

The Shurangama Sutra Part 1
The Shurangama Sutra Part 2
The Shurangama Sutra Part 3
The Shurangama Sutra Part 4
The Shurangama Sutra Part 5
The Shurangama Sutra Part 6
The Shurangama Sutra Part 7
The Shurangama Sutra Part 8


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A Sure Sign Of The Proper Dharma: The Shurangama Sutra

A lecture by the Venerable Master Hua in January, 1983

The Shurangama Sutra is a Sutra that acts like a demon-spotting mirror in Buddhism. All the celestial demons, externalists, and the li, mei, and wang liang ghosts reveal their true appearance when they see the Shurangama Sutra. They have no way to hide and no place to flee to. And so in the past, when Great Master Zhi Zhe heard of the existence of this Sutra, he bowed in the direction of India for eighteen years. For eighteen years, he used this spirit of utmost sincerity to pray for this Sutra to be brought to China.

Of all the greatly virtuous and eminent monks of the past, all the wise and lofty Sanghans, there was not a single one who did not praise the Shurangama Sutra. Therefore, as long as the Shurangama Sutra exists, the Buddhadharma exists. If the Shurangama Sutra is destroyed, then the Buddhadharma will also become extinct. How will the decline of the Dharma come about? It will begin with the destruction of the Shurangama Sutra. Who will destroy it? The celestial demons and externalists will. They see the Shurangama Sutra as a nail in their eyes and a thorn in their flesh. They can't sit still, and they can't stand steady; they are compelled to invent a deviant theory, saying that the Shurangama Sutra is false.

(Picture source: flickr.com)

As Buddhist disciples, we should recognize true principle. Every word of the doctrines in the Shurangama Sutra is the absolute truth. There isn't a single word that does not express the truth. So now that we are studying the Fifty Skandha-demons, we should realize even more just how important the Shurangama Sutra is. The Shurangama Sutra is what the deviant demons, ghosts, and goblins fear most.

The Venerable Master Hsu Yun lived to be a hundred and twenty years old, and during his whole life, he didn't write a commentary for any Sutra other than the Shurangama Sutra. He took special care to preserve the manuscript of his commentary on the Shurangama Sutra. He preserved it for several decades, but it was later lost during the Yunmen incident. This was the Elder Hsu's greatest regret in his life. He proposed that, as left-home people, we should study the Shurangama Sutra to the point that we can recite it by memory, from the beginning to the end, and from the end to the beginning, forwards and backwards. That was his proposal. I know that, throughout his whole life, the Elder Hsu regarded the Shurangama Sutra as being especially important.

When someone informed the Elder Hsu that there were people who said the Shurangama Sutra was counterfeit, he explained that the decline of the Dharma occurs just because these people try to pass fish eyes off as pearls, confusing people so that they cannot distinguish right from wrong. They make people blind so that they can no longer recognize the Buddhadharma. They take the true as false, and the false as true. Look at these people: this one writes a book and people all read it. That one writes a book, and they read it too. The real Sutras spoken by the Buddha himself are put up on a shelf, where no one ever reads them. From this, we can see that living beings' karmic obstacles are very heavy. If they hear deviant knowledge and deviant views, they readily believe them. If you speak Dharma based on proper knowledge and proper views, they won't believe it. Why won't they believe it? Because they don't have sufficient good roots and foundations. That is why they have doubts about the proper Dharma. They are skeptical and unwilling to believe.

Here at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, we will be setting up the Shurangama Platform, so it would be ideal if some of you bring forth the resolve to read the Shurangama Sutra every day for one or two hours. You can study it daily just as if you were studying in school, and memorize it so that you can recite it by heart. If you can recite the Shurangama Sutra, the Dharma Flower Sutra, and even the Avatamsaka Sutra from memory, that would be the very best. If someone is able to recite the Shurangama Sutra, the Dharma Flower Sutra, and the Avatamsaka Sutra from memory, then it will mean that this is still a time when the proper Dharma exists in the world. Therefore, in such a wonderful place as the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, everyone should bring forth a great Bodhi resolve to do these things. It is not that we are competing with others. We should be outstanding, rise above the crowd, and do these things.

In the past, I had a wish: I wanted to be able to recite the Dharma Flower Sutra and the Shurangama Sutra from memory. In Hong Kong, there is a disciple named Guo Yi (Heng Ding) who can recite the Shurangama Sutra from memory. I taught him to study the Dharma Flower Sutra, but in the end he probably didn't finish memorizing it, which is very regrettable. In such a fine place as we have here, all of you should bring forth a great resolve to study the Buddhist Sutras and precepts--the Shurangama Sutra, the Dharma Flower Sutra, the Vinaya in Four Divisions, and the Brahma Net Sutra--until you can recite them from memory. That would be the best, for then the proper Dharma would surely remain here for a long time.


Eight volumes of Shurangama Sutra, with commentaries from venerable Master Hsuan Hua.

The Shurangama Sutra Part 1
The Shurangama Sutra Part 2
The Shurangama Sutra Part 3
The Shurangama Sutra Part 4
The Shurangama Sutra Part 5
The Shurangama Sutra Part 6
The Shurangama Sutra Part 7
The Shurangama Sutra Part 8



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