Following yesterday’s discussion of the Four Siddhānta, I’m offering a short discussion of greed and suffering from Chinese Master Hsuan Hua’s commentary on Chapter 3, A Parable.

The cause of all suffering / Can be traced to desire. Of all the factors that aggregate into suffering, greed is foremost. What is greed? It is insatiability. No matter how much one gets, one always wants more. Let’s say you start off with nothing, and you somehow acquire 100 dollars. Before you had 100 dollars, you were satisfied with the idea of acquiring that much money. But once you get that 100 dollars, you feel it is not enough.

“I need 1,000,” you think. But when you get 1,000, you still aren’t satisfied.

“I want to buy some clothes, a house, and some property. A thousand is simply not enough. If I had 10,000 dollars, I’d really be satisfied. In fact, I’d retire. I’d never work again or want anything else. That would be enough for me!”

But once you’ve gotten 10,000 dollars, the price of goods and supplies has inflated. For example, when I first arrived in San Francisco, the price of a box of tofu was two cents. But over time, there has been inflation, and a box of tofu is now much more expensive. Then you think, “I would like to retire, but I need 100,000 to pay all my expenses after retirement, so I can’t retire yet.” As a result, you greedily go after 100,000, but it’s still not enough. When you attain 100,000, your greed is entirely out of hand, and you dream of becoming a millionaire.

But before you get 1,000,000 dollars, impermanence befalls you and it is your time to die. As you die, you think, “I wanted 1,000,000, but I never did reach my goal. I’ll try again next life, for sure.” In your next life, you again work like a horse so you can leave money for your children. What benefits does greed bring? The text says, “The cause of all suffering / Can be traced to desire.” Greed always brings misery, for greed is the root of suffering.

This is still another example of how Chinese Master Hsuan Hua weaves basic Buddhist teachings within his commentary on the Lotus Sutra. This comes from Chapter 7, The Parable of the Conjured City.

Looking at things from the perspective of the individuals being taught, we can consider the four siddhāntas. What is a siddhānta? Siddhānta is a Sanskrit word that means “accomplishment.” The four siddhāntas are:

1. The worldly siddhānta. This refers to benefiting the world. Originally there was nothing, but something was created out of nothing, which brought delight to the beings who beheld it. The worldly siddhānta brings benefit to the world.
2. The siddhānta for individuals. This benefits every individual by helping them attain repose and comprehension.
3. The corrective siddhānta. This has the function of preventing misdeeds and guarding against enemies. It refers to corrective methods that benefit living beings by disciplining them.
4. The siddhānta of the supreme truth. Eventually, living beings arrive at the state of ultimate nirvāṇa. In other words, they realize the supreme truth and obtain its benefits.

This explanation of the four siddhāntas is given according to the potentials of the individuals being taught. From the perspective of the Buddha’s response body, there are four more ways to explain the conjured city.

1. The transformation of the world. The Buddha uses provisional and expedient Dharma so that living beings in the world will benefit from it. The conjured city is an example of this.
2. The transformation of individuals. The Buddha teaches all living beings to undertake small acts of kindness.
3. Transformation through correction. The Buddha teaches all living beings to get rid of the delusions arising from incorrect views and incorrect thoughts.
4. Transformation according to the supreme truth. The Buddha teaches all living beings to attain the great fruition of the Great Vehicle – that is, to finally attain Buddhahood.

Following yesterday’s example of how Chinese Master Hsuan Hua’s commentary expands the Lotus Sutra, I offer another example of how he uses the sutra to explain basic Buddhist concepts.

SUTRA

“Bhikṣus, you should know that the Tathagata possesses skillful means and profound understanding of the dispositions of living beings. Knowing that they aspire to lesser Dharmas and are deeply attached to the five desires, he teaches them nirvana. When they hear this teaching, they will immediately believe and accept it.”

COMMENTARY

Bhikṣus, you should know that the Tathagata possesses skillful means and profound understanding of the dispositions of living beings. Knowing that they aspire to lesser Dharmas and are deeply attached to the five desires… Śākyamuni Buddha said to the bhikṣus, “You should know!” Know what? The Dharma that the Tathagata teaches is the provisional Dharma. Why does he teach the provisional Dharma? Because the potentials of living beings vary. If you were to teach them the ultimate Dharma, they probably wouldn’t believe it; if you were to teach them through skillful means, then they probably would believe it.

The expedient Dharma-doors that the Tathagatas use are always in accord with living beings. Why does the Buddha use expedient Dharma-doors to teach living beings? He does so because all living beings have individual conditions that allow them to be taken across through specific skillful means. The Buddha teaches them accordingly. What’s meant by living beings with conditions that allow them to be taken across through specific skillful means? For example, the Buddha, “knowing that they aspire to lesser Dharmas,” can see that their vision of things is small. Since all these living beings know are petty things and minor principles, they wouldn’t understand if you were to speak to them about the entire universe. They know only their small problems, so they wouldn’t understand it if you tried to talk to them about the problems of the world. Their resolve is to just cultivate a tiny path. They continue to be “deeply attached to the five desires.”

The five desires are the desires for wealth, sex, fame, food, and sleep.

1. Wealth. In this world, if you have wealth, you can buy any material goods, so people are attached to their wealth. If they could see through it, then they wouldn’t be attached to it; being unable to see through it, people fight over money. I’ve often told you that the word money in Chinese [錢 qian], is composed of two swords [戈ge] and the radical for gold [金 jin]. This means that “You have a sword, I have a sword, and the two of us fight over the gold.” So those with money will have a lot of trouble; those who don’t have money won’t have this problem. But everyone wants money, and they aren’t afraid of the trouble it brings. If you know how to use money properly, you can create blessings; if you don’t know how to use it well, you’ll commit offenses. With money you can either create merit or else commit a lot of offenses. Therefore, money is really the worst thing there is! Money is filthy! You’ll often see people counting money by spitting on their fingers when they count the bills. Who knows how many germs are on that money? It’s quite unsanitary, yet no one seems to mind. When it comes to money, people seem to like it, and they aren’t concerned about hygiene.

2. Sex. This is the desire for nice-looking forms and the attachment to attractive appearances.

3. Fame. This is greed for celebrity. When someone praises you, you’re elated. If someone says something bad about you, you may feel even more hurt than if you’d been stabbed in the heart with a knife. Reputation is very important to people, but it’s just one of the five desires.

4. Food. This refers to the food we eat every day. If you have one kind of food to eat but not another kind, you may not feel satisfied. If you have that kind of food but not this kind, you may not feel satisfied either. If you eat both kinds of food at the same time, you won’t be able to eat much of either one, so you still won’t feel satisfied. There’s no way that you can ever satisfy your desire for food. If you cultivate the Path, you mustn’t look upon food and drink as being overly important. You should think of them as medicine that you use to keep your body from becoming dehydrated and emaciated. Don’t get too attached to food.

5. Sleep. Everyone likes to sleep. You might feel that sleeping for one hour is not enough, nor is sleeping for two, three, four, or five hours. Finding sleep immensely enjoyable, you feel you must sleep at least seven or eight hours a night.

These are the five desires to which living beings are attached and which they find extremely important. They can’t get along without money. Nor can they go without sex. They have to have some fame, and they can’t be lacking food or sleep either. They tend to be deeply attached to one or more of these five desires.

Below is another example of how Chinese Master Hsuan Hua’s commentary expands the Lotus Sutra. In this case he is commenting on the Parable of the Conjured City. (This has been edited to remove duplication.)

For example, suppose there is a treacherous, difficult road, five hundred yojanas in length, that runs through a desolate wasteland filled with terrors. Śākyamuni Buddha set up an analogy for the assembly. Why did he teach expedient Dharmas and the principles of the Two Vehicles? One yojana is 80 li [about 25 miles]. Ten yojanas would then be 800 li [about 250 miles], and 100 yojanas would be 8,000 li [about 2,500 miles]. Therefore, a road of 500 yojanas would be 40,000 li [about 12,500 miles] long. This road was extremely dangerous and difficult to travel. Let’s assume there were bandits as well as jackals, wolves, tigers, and panthers. There was no human presence at all along the 500 yojanas. It was very scary to walk down this road.

Suppose a large group of people wish to travel this road to reach a land of treasures. Suppose a large number of people wanted to reach a place where precious treasures were stored, but to get there they had to take a perilous road that was 500 yojanas in length. The 500 yojanas are an analogy for the hardships we need to pass through while cultivating the Buddhadharma and walking the Buddha’s Path. The land of treasures represents the highest realization-Buddhahood. At the midpoint of their journey waits a city, the conjured city of the Two Vehicles.

Among them is a guide of intelligence and penetrating clarity who knows well the passable and impassable parts of the dangerous road. The guide, who is intelligent and wise and knows the way, is a metaphor for the Buddha. He knows how great the dangers are and how to avoid them. He knows which ways are clear and which are blocked.

He will lead the group through this hardship. The guide wants to lead all the people along the difficult path.

Halfway through their journey, the group he is leading grows weary and wishes to turn back. If you do something but quit halfway, that is to “grow weary” and “turn back.” If you cultivate and cultivate but then stop, you have become weary and are retreating halfway. They say to the guide, “We are exhausted and afraid, so we cannot go any farther. Our destination is still far from here. We want to turn back now. We are now extremely tired. We really don’t want to go any farther along this dangerous road. Since there’s still a long way to go, we’d rather turn back. We don’t want to go on.”

Their guide, who possesses many expedients, thinks, “How pitiful they are! How can they renounce the great treasures and turn back?” This guide, who has many expedient Dharma-doors at his disposal, thinks that these living beings are pathetic. How can they abandon their quest for the great treasures of Buddhahood and go back? So thinking, he conjures up a city through skillful means at a point three hundred yojanas along the dangerous road. The five hundred yojanas are a metaphor for the five destinies of rebirth: gods, humans, hungry ghosts, animals, and hell beings. Asuras are not mentioned because they can be found in each one of the five realms. While transmigrating through the five realms, you may be a cow or a horse. If you aren’t a human being, you may be a ghost. You may fall into the hells or ascend to the heavens. Life in the five destinies is extremely dangerous. These people had traveled three hundred yojanas along the road, which was more than half their journey. This represents the fact that they had reached a halfway point in their process of transcending the five realms. At that point in their journey, the Buddha conjured up a city.

And then the guide says to them, “Do not be afraid. Do not turn back! Do not think of retreat. You can stay in this great city and do as you please. You can live here and do what-ever you like.” The conjured city, representing the fruition of the Two Vehicles, was not real. However, the Buddha told them that if they reached the city – that is, if they attained Arhatship – they could do as they pleased, because “having completed their task and cultivated pure conduct to perfection, they would no longer be subject to the cycle of birth and death.”

Then the exhausted group rejoiced greatly over this un-precedented opportunity, saying, “We have now escaped this terrible road and will soon find peace and tranquility.” At that time they were extremely tired and couldn’t walk another step. They represent people who have cultivated for a long time and feel tired from working so hard. Hearing there was a city where they could stop and rest, they were filled with joy. They thought that now they had the chance to live in a fine city, one where they had never been before. The city, a metaphor for the spiritual attainment of Śrāvakas, is called a conjured city. They thought to themselves that they’d escaped that terrible road, a road that included the destinies of gods and humans as well as the lower realms of animals, hell beings, and hungry ghosts; they thought they would soon attain peace and tranquility.

The group then proceeded into the conjured city and believed that they had gained liberation and attained peace and tranquility. At that time all of them entered the conjured city and thought they’d been taken across and had reached the level of the highest tranquility.

At that time the guide, knowing that they had rested and that their fatigue was gone, dissolved the conjured city. When they had rested and restored their energy and had settled down, the Buddha made the conjured city vanish and said, “All of you, come along, let us go! The land of treasures is near. The great city was merely something I conjured up as a place for you to take a rest.” The guide told them that they were not far from the land of treasures. This means that if the Śrāvakas, having attained the fourth stage of Arhatship, were to turn toward the Great Vehicle, they would be close to Buddhahood. The conjured city that they lived in was created by the Buddha so they could take a rest in it. It wasn’t real, so they shouldn’t have mistaken the false for the true.