Blog » Sweet Dews Of Dharma Talks » 2007 » The Precious Jewel in Our Clothes
The Precious Jewel in Our Clothes2013-01-10
By Dharma Master Heng Yun
English Translation By Lotus Lee
The Buddha spoke the Dharma for 49 years, and lectured in more than 300 assemblies. In his life, the Buddha expounded on many, many Sutras, and it can be said that every Dharma door is the foremost. Since the nature of all living beings are different, the Buddha spoke the Dharma according to the capacities of living beings in order to teach and transform them.
The Buddha’s goal for explaining the Dharma was to help living beings realize Buddhahood. Because our original nature is the Buddha nature, it is no different from that of the Buddha. As it is said, ”the Dharma Flower Sutra and Nirvana together made up eight years.” It was eight years between the time that the Buddha spoke the Dharma Flower Sutra and the time he entered Nirvana. The great masters of the past divided the Buddha’s teachings into five periods. Because we don’t have much time today, I will talk about the last period, the “Dharma Flower/Nirvana period.”
The principle of the Dharma Flower Sutra is reveal the ultimate truth -- ultimately there is only one Vehicle, the Buddha vehicle. It means that every person can ultimately become a Buddha. Some of the Buddha’s disciples didn’t believe that they could become Buddhas, so in this sutra, the Buddha used a lot of stories of causes and conditions and analogies to make this clear. For example, he gave the Venerable Ananda prediction as to when he would attain Buddhahood, and what his Buddha Land would be like. He also gave predictions to the Venerable Purnamaitreyani, the Venerable Shariputra, and so forth.
Today I will talk about an analogy the Buddha spoke in the Dharma Flower Sutra. There was a very, very, poor person. One day, he went to visit a wealthy friend. The friend had an abundance of food and clothes. The poor person was treated like a king there, just like us these past seven days. For us, every day, not only the food of Dharma is incredibly abundant, but the real food is also very sumptuous, to the extent that it is a little too much. Isn’t that right? It’s like we’re having a party. When the poor person ate lunch at his friend’s house, his friend gave him food and wine. Then, he got drunk and fell asleep. After he fell asleep, his friend, probably a very important person, had to go somewhere. He felt very sorry for his poor friend. He thought, “I ought to give him something.” However, his friend hadn’t woken up yet. He was afraid that his friend might lose the gift while still asleep, so he sewed an invaluable jewel onto the inside of his friend’s clothes.
After the poor person woke up, his friend was already gone, so he left too. After that, he resumed his pathetic life of trying to make ends meet, just like all of you here. I heard that before this temple got its name, some lay people asked the Venerable Master what he was going to name this place. The Venerable Master said, “All you people! All you can think of is money, money, money, all day long! Let’s call it the Money Monastery.” After a while, these disciples thought that this name didn’t sound very good, so they asked the Venerable Master if he could change the name. The Venerable Master then named this place the “Gold Sage Monastery.” (“Jin Shèng Si”) It was so named because Gold Sage Monastery is located in San Jose, and the Chinese transliteration of San Jose includes the word shèng (聖) in it. This character means “sage,” so the name of the temple was changed from “money” to “sage.” Notice, it’s not the character for another shèng (剩), which means “left over.” It’s not that you have a lot of leftover money in your pocket. You have to put money to good use. Our Buddha nature is just as valuable as gold. If we put our Buddha nature to good use, then this place is the Gold Sage Monastery. Otherwise, it is the Money Monastery.
[Going back to the story,] in order to survive, this poor person worked very hard, but was still impoverished. One day, he met his wealthy friend again. The friend said, “You’re still this poor?!” The poor person replied, “Yes, what did you expect?” The friend then said, “Didn’t you know? I sewed an invaluable jewel onto the inside of your clothes. You should take it out and use it, then your life won’t be so hard anymore.”
This analogy describes something we all have. The treasure in our essential nature is very much like an invaluable jewel. We should excavate this jewel. Our wisdom, our compassion, our virtue, and even our spiritual powers are no different from the Buddha’s. That’s why the Buddha taught us how to find our own Buddha nature, like the precious jewel hidden inside our clothes.
Although we all have this jewel, we always seek for it outside. We have been looking outside for so long that when we turn inside, we don’t know how to search for it! The Buddha teaches us how to find it. He found it, so he is “the Honored One who perfected both blessings and wisdom.” The Buddha is perfect in all three awakenings, complete in all ten thousand virtues, and perfect in both blessings and wisdom.
Now, we have to find this precious jewel gradually, and we also have to cultivate blessings and wisdom. How do we cultivate wisdom? We can do so by bowing to the Buddha, participating in the repentance ceremonies, reciting sutras, and studying the Dharma, and so forth. We cultivate blessings by not doing any evil, doing all good, and benefiting all living beings. Cultivating blessings and wisdom in the Triple Jewel is an excellent method; it is also the correct way taught by the Buddha.
It’s been many years since Gold Sage Monastery started having the annual Emperor Liang’s Jeweled Repentance. I feel that there are many improvements this year, but we still have a lot of things we need to work on. The Way place’s growth is everybody’s growth. This Bodhi field needs all of us to cultivate it. Does anybody know how big is Gold Sage Monastery? We have a total of 16 acres. It not only includes the buildings you see here, but also encompasses large fields on the hillside. For example, the apricots at Gold Sage Monastery are very, very sweet; you can’t buy them anywhere else. However, just picking them every year takes a lot of time. So in the past, I thought, “What a big place, and the buildings are 50-60 years old, what should we do?” But on second thought, I thought, “This place is actually a pretty good place.” How come? Because everybody can come here and plant their blessings! Since you want to cultivate and become a Buddha, where do Buddhas and Bodhisattvas come from? From living beings. We have this big piece of land for everybody to help maintain it. If you bring forth your mind to come and help, you are cultivating blessings and wisdom. At the same time, the Way place is also growing and improving. As I mentioned earlier, other than maintenance, we even need a lot of people for weeding. In the summer, all the Sangha have to spend at least an hour each day watering the plants. Watering the plants takes up so much time already, let alone other tasks. So, I encourage everybody to join our Bodhi gardener team and take care of this field of Bodhi.
In this temple, we also have the Instilling Goodness Sunday School. If children grow up in a pure environment, it is very beneficial to their nature and character. For example, during the repentance ceremony, I asked Annie Chen, one of our students from our Sunday school, “Do you want to offer incense again?” Do you know what she said? She said, “No, because I want to give other people a chance.” Her ability to think of and caring for others is the merit and virtue that she learned by attending the Sunday school. So we welcome all of you to bring your children to join our Sunday school. Let’s all work together to make it flourish, so that more children well have good character to influence not only their friends, but ultimately the world.
This year there were many Vietnamese lay people who joined us in the repentance ceremony. It is really not easy for them, because most of them do not understand Chinese. But they were here from the beginning to the end reciting with us. I asked them, “You are here even when you don’t understand Chinese. What is the reason for your willingness? They said, “We like the Venerable Master Hua’s Dharma, and we like the way he cultivated.” In order to help them learn Chinese, we are going to offer a Chinese class in the temple, helping them to read Chinese Sutras and learn the Dharma.
Lastly, I hope I will see everyone more than once a year! Please don’t say, “Dharma Master, you don’t recognize me.” I am sorry, but it’s true that we really don’t know you, since you only come once a year. If you only come once a year, it won’t be very easy for you to find the jewel inside your clothes. It will probably take you a little bit longer to find it. But, don’t come back just to do volunteer work. If you can come back to attend the Dharma talks and participate in the Dharma assemblies, then you are part of the positive force that can influence others to bring forth their Bodhi Resolve. So, I hope all of you come back often!
