Mahāyāna Sūtra Message Board. For November 2007
Messages from the Mahāyāna
Sūtras
These short extracts from the Mahāyāna scriptures (sūtras) indicate some of the ideas which stirred the imaginations of the peoples of India and further Asia, in the past. The texts from which they come were the objects of arduous searches by scores of pilgrims. Eventually, such matters and their full import claimed the attention of whole nations. Details of the texts used here can be found on our List of Sources.
The following Message Board will be continued, with further extracts, stories and items of interest, on a regular monthly basis.
Sūtra Extract.
Vimalakīrtinirdeśa. P. 64 of the translation by E, Lamotte, translated into English by Sara Boin-Webb.
…Absolutely nothing has been produced, is produced or will be produced: absolutely nothing has been destroyed, such is the meaning of the word “impermanent”.
Stories from the Old Silk Road.
Introduction
Most of these stories have been drawn from the tales contained in Buddhist sūtra texts. Others come from collections of legends in Chinese and Indian popular literature, e.g. items 3 and 9 or from ancient commentaries on canonical material, e.g. items 2 and 5. All of them travelled along the Old Silk Road which ran between China and north-west India and through central Asia during the first 500 years CE. They travelled along the route either as written texts being carried into china from India by Buddhist monk teachers, or in the heads of Buddhist sūtra specialists who were en-route to china to avoid repeated invasions by the nomad hordes which ravaged their homeland.
In the course of time these stories became the stock-in-trade of itinerant storytellers, who journeyed with the caravans in both directions. They would entertain the travellers by re-telling tales of this kind around the camp fires in the desert wilderness or in the caravanserais.
Of course, when the tales were told by the storytellers they would be shorn of their scriptural context (unless told by monks) and the details would be embellished and embroidered in time-honoured fashion. Although the essential point of the story was rarely lost in the telling.
Such is the case here. All the stories in this collection were related in popular fashion to members of the London or Luton Zen Centre, and also to assemblies of the Buddhist Society’s summers schools during the period 1980 to 1990. Such traditional story telling continued to be given, by request, when this writer visits the Luton Zen Centre, up to the present time.
Apart from the traditional mix of a hero’s exploits and of wondrous events, these stories display an extraordinary degree of warmth and humour, e.g. in items 2, 3, 5 and 21. It needs to be stressed that such humour is not part of the customary embellishment; it is an integral part of the original scriptural text. Humour of this kind in scripture is rarely to be found in the major religions other than Buddhism.
There is not particular sequence to this collection of stories, except for stories numbers 12 and 13. They have been taken at random from the sources and strung together much as an ancient storyteller would.
It is to be hoped that the reader will derive as much pleasure and gentle instruction from these stories as this writer did when finding them and re-telling them to others.
Eric Cheetham, June 2005 ©
6
(No. 19. of the original sequence from Eric Cheetham’s book)
Vimalakirti’s Empty House.
In ancient India, in the great town of Vaisali, which at the time of the Lord Buddha and after, was a separate and independent republic, there lived a very rich, very powerful, very well-known merchant layman called Vimalakirti. Now in reality Vimalakirti was not rich, nor powerful, nor a merchant. He was something quite different from that; he was a great bodhisattva who was masquerading as a rich and powerful merchant in Vaisali, masquerading for a very special purpose, as will be seen.
To the Buddhist Order, however, he was just a white-robed layman and nothing more. And the Lord Buddha and his Order of monks were in residence just outside Vaisali, in formal assembly, when they learned that the great merchant-layman of Vaisali was lying sick in his bed, unable to attend the assembly and hear the Buddha’s discourse.
The Buddha, of course, in his usual compassionate manner, wanted to know who would go to visit Vimalakirti and enquire after his health, and bring him flowers and a bunch of grapes, or some such, as was the custom when visiting the sick. He turned first to Sariputra, at that time never far from the Buddha’s side. “Why don’t you Sariputra, go and see the layman Vimalakirti and make the necessary enquires? You can then come back and tell us.”
But Sariputra said, “Oh, no. I’m not going to see Vimalakirti. Oh no. I know what sort of a chap this Vimalakirti is. I met him before on the high road and he reduced me to complete silence. He is so eloquent and well-versed in the Dharma that I couldn’t understand him and, well - I just couldn’t say a thing. I’m too nervous to go and see Vimalakirti?” - So answered Sariputra.
The Buddha then queried all the arhats, right down the line of seniority, and each said something like, “Oh, no, Lord, please don’t ask me to go. Ask me anything else, Lord, but not to talk to Vimalakirti; he’s too advanced for me. I just can’t make head or tail of him. He’s a real slippery customer and I want nothing to do with him. I don’t care if he’s sick. I am not going.”
Unprecedented! The Buddha asking his arhats to go and do something – and they refuse. So he turned to his bodhisattvas, rank upon rank of them. “How about you, - Bodhisattva so-and-so? Will you go and visit Vimalakirti?”
Same thing: “Oh, no”, came the reply. “Just like the arhats, I am having nothing to do with him. He’s far beyond anything I can cope with. If I asked him how he was feeling, he’d probably do something awful.”
Now the arhats and the bodhisattvas didn’t just refuse flatly; they were adamant – “No way am I going to see him!” – But each did offer an explanation. In every case it was an encounter with Vimalakirti in which the layman had overturned or discomfited the monk; had shown him to be in some way lacking in perfect wisdom. So, having gone all round his Order, the Buddha’s final hope was the great Bodhisattva, Manjusri.
“Well, Manjusri, you’re not going to let me down, are you? Someone has got to go; how about you?”
Manjusri said: “If you insist, Lord, but I don’t want to go.” The Buddha, finding at last a half-willing victim, said “Yes, I insist. Go!”
Now, while all this was going on, the “sick” Vimalakirti was lying on his bed in his house in Vaisali. The townspeople there heard of his condition and trooped to his door in great numbers, bringing little gifts and good wishes. And he, being quite other than what he seemed, could lie there receiving them while at the same time listening to the Order’s discussion through his supernatural powers.
He was probably having a good laugh at this arhat and that bodhisattva as each described yet another humiliation at his hands, when he realised that his visitor was to be Manjusri. “Right,” he said to himself. “For Manjusri, we must arrange a special welcome!” And he set about the task of preparing his house to receive the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. A task of magic, of course! When the Order heard Manjusri agree to the visit, they were abuzz and decided to go along and watch. “These two characters will have quite a time together! - Can’t miss this!” So they all deserted the Buddha – he stayed in place – and headed off with Manjusri for Vimalakirti’s house, a huge crowd of arhats, bodhisattvas, monks, nuns and lay people surging along the road to enjoy the fun. Saraputra was there, and all the rest.
Manjusri, in the lead, entered the house and looked around. “Very strange! What’s going on here?” he asked himself. For in the reception room was nothing but Vimalakirti’s couch, with the layman stretched upon it in white robes. No chairs, tables, mats, hanging lamps, flowers, and no family or servants or retainers in sight. The entire house was absolutely, totally, empty of everything except the bed, and that in the centre of the room, with himself lying upon it. - Nothing else - all empty, completely deserted.
Despite his curiosity at this startling sight, Manjusri approached Vimalakirti and entered first upon the formalities. “How are you feeling?” he asked; and, “Have you had the sickness long? Are the pains severe? Are you taking the proper medicine?” and so forth. To these enquires Vimalakirti gave a stock answer, as visits to the sick in those days were conducted according to strict etiquette. Even a dying man would have replied, “I’m feeling fine, thank you.”
The conventions honoured, no doubt including even the bunch of grapes, Manjusri went on. Vimalakirti had earlier replied that the illness had lasted for some considerable time, so Manjusri now asked: How is it you have been sick for so long? Why is that?”
Vimalakirti’s response was to this effect: “I am ill because all beings are ill and as long as all beings are ill I remain ill.” Manjusri also asked, “And why is you house empty? Where are all your servants and where is you wife and family? Where is all your furniture? Why are you lying ill in an empty house?” Vimalakirti answered something like: “The whole world and all beings are empty, and that is why my house is empty. As long as all beings and the world are empty my house will remain empty.” There followed a subtle and complicated exchange of Dharma-talk about these ideas. It was on a very high level, indeed, carried on not for each other’s benefit but for the benefit of all those in the room. It wasn’t easy to follow. But not everyone in the room was trying.
Sariputra suddenly became aware that he and all the other arhats and bodhisattvas and monks and nuns and all the lay people and townspeople of Vaisali were contained in this one room. A perfectly ordinary room, yet half the population of the republic was in it! Scores of arhats, hundreds of bodhisattvas – and Vimalakirti on his couch - All in one room, nobody squeezed or crushed or crowded together – Extraordinary! And he thought, “Where are all these great beings going to sit?” (not for him the intricacies of the Dharma-talk. No! Quite down-to-earth was Sariputra, much more interested in questions of comfort.) Vimalakirti knew this. He read Sariputra’s thoughts and said to him: “Have you come here concerned with the Dharma, Sariputra, or have you come here concerned with where you are going to sit?” “Nasty, thought Sariputra. That’s exactly why people are afraid of him.. Aloud, he replied: “Who me? Oh, no. No – I mean yes. Well. Oh, well - Just carry on, Vimalakirti.” But Vimalakirti replied: “That being your thought, I will shortly show you such seats as you have never seen before. And,” he continued, “if you think this room is crowded now, well, there are about a hundred-thousand very large bodhisattvas on their way to join us. Where are you going to seat them?”
Sariputra was silent, quite speechless. “They’re coming to watch us and hear what we’re doing,” Vimalakirti continued, “and they’re very big.”
So, in an instant, Vimalakirti created hundreds of high thrones, huge ones, sized to hold the giant bodhisattvas about to arrive. These soon appeared. Paying their respects, they said that they came from their Buddha in another Universe and that they came to hear the teaching being given by Vimalakirti, with Manjusri.
Vimalakirti said, from his couch, “You are welcome sirs. Please take a seat,” and turning to Sariputra, he said, “Please show our guests to their seats.” Sariputra obeyed and the hundred-thousand enormous bodhisattvas sat on the hundred-thousand huge thrones and they and everyone who had come before them were perfectly comfortable; Still no crush. Still an empty room!
Watching and listening to all this was a goddess, a devi, who, because she was a devi, was invisible. But she was very much there, nonetheless, and in fact had been an attendant on Vimalakirti for many years. And when the great bodhisattvas had arrived, and she heard the dialogue between Manjusri and Vimalakirti, she decided to become visible in human form. She appeared as a woman in all the regalia of a goddess – head-dress, long silk garments, jewels, bangles, ropes and ropes of pearls – all the accoutrements of a female Indian deity.
She manifested while scattering flower petals on the arhats and bodhisattvas. This was a sign of respect often employed by gods and goddesses. When the Buddha was preaching, for example, they might well appear sprinkling petals all over, just to keep the dust down, so to speak. She did this to the whole assembly.
The petals that touched the bodies of the bodhisattvas merely brushed over them and fell off, onto the ground. Petals that touched the bodies of the arhats however, stuck. Petals were sticking all over their bodies and they tried to flick them off. They couldn’t do it. They were stuck tight. Sariputra was very annoyed.
The devi came up to him and asked, “Venerable sir, why are you trying to remove the flowers? What’s wrong with them?”
Saraputra said: “It is not fitting. It is not proper. It is not allowed that monks of the Lord Buddha’s Order be adorned with flowers. We are monks and we are governed by Rules. They must come off. I can’t have these flowers all over me. It is humiliating.”
The devi then said: “Observe, Sariputra, the flowers don’t stick to the bodies of the bodhisattvas.”
“Oh,” he said, “that is their affair. They can look after themselves. I can’t get them off me!”
So the devi asked: “Do you realise why the flowers can’t be brushed off, why they stick to you?”
“No.” answered Shariputra.
“Well” she told him, “it is because you constantly distinguish between what is proper and what is not proper and what is fitting and what is not fitting. And you cleave to this and reject that. And you grasp at one set of false views after another.” (This, to an Arhat…!)
“And because of the grasping and rejecting nature of your mind the flowers will not leave your body. They will stick to you like all your false views stick to you.” So, poor Sariputra was humiliated again.
The devi then, with the magical powers of a goddess, removed the flowers from all the arhats and, as one, they sighed deeply in relief. “Thank goodness that’s over!”
Sariputra studied this person, the devi, shamefacedly, wondering how a mere woman could know so much. He asked, “Do you come here often?”
“Well”, she replied, “as a matter of fact I’ve been coming here for some years listening to the Dharma preached by Vimalakirti.”
“How do you know so much?” Saraputra demanded to know. “How do you know this flower trick? After all, you’re only a woman. I’m an Arhat.” (Anyone but Shariputra could have seen he was going to be bounced hard.)
The devi asked, “How do you know I’m a woman?”
Shariputra replied confidently, “I can see what’s in front of me, can’t I? Of course you’re a woman!”
The devi abruptly used her magic powers again and transformed Sariputra into her body and herself into his. “What’s all this!” he stammered in astonishment. “Where’s all this come from?” And he looked up to see – himself. And the voice of the female goddess spoke to him from the body which was in every outward detail, Sariputra’s. “Now, Sariputra, are you still sure that I am a woman? And are you sure of what you are? Look!”
Of course he saw that he was dressed in the tiara and the beads and the bangles and all the rest of it. He was completely nonplussed. “What are you doing to me,” he protested. “How has this happened?”
The devi then explained to him – at some length, actually – that the
Lord Buddha has said that the dharmas, the real elements of existence, are neither male nor female. “The bodies we inhabit are illusory. There is no distinction in essence or in fact or in reality between men and women. They are merely appearances and nothing more.”
“Yes, yes,” agreed Sariputra readily. “You are quite right. I am wrong. But let me have my body back!”
She obliged and turned them both around again. They were back in their old selves.
Poor Sariputra! Humbled a third time and totally at a loss.
So Vimalakirti himself intervened and explained. “In a way, Sariputra, you have been misled. This being is neither a woman nor a goddess. She is a great bodhisattva who comes whenever the Buddha’s deep Dharma is being preached. She has attended on innumerable Buddhas of the past. She is in fact a non-reverting bodhisattva who can display any form she wishes!”
And all the assembly praised the wisdom and skilful means of both the goddess and Vimalakirti.
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We apologise for being so late with the Message Board this month. We are all very busy preparing the history of the progress of Buddhism from India, along the Silk Road into Central Asia and China. We hope to be able to present these binders in the very near future.
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If you would like to write into the Message Board with your comments and/or contributions, we would be happy to hear from you. We cannot however, answer questions on the Teaching but will acknowledge any other queries you may have.
Contact us on: info@parinama-publications.co.uk
Regards, Paula Reynolds. (Web Master for Parinama Publications)
© Copyright. Eric Cheetham.
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