Knowing versus Doing
by Franklyn Wu
It was the first Sunday of the retreat. The topic for the evening lecture was cause and effect. The hot weather plus the fact that I got up at 3:30 that morning made me sleepy. I struggled to follow the 10 grounds (of Bodhisattvas), and the 4 stages (of Arhats), and the 33 heavens on the board. I was trying really hard not to think, "an academic from Stanford can tell me about all these terminologies, but how do they relate to the Shurangama and causes and effects?" Just when I was about to blank out, the Dharma Master made a statement that made all the difference in the world for me. She said, "Arhats are really good with principles; Bodhisattvas are great with specific matters". She further explained that Bodhisattvas not only understand the principles perfectly, but they have the courage and the strength to carry them through. This statement spurred storms of reflections in my mind about my "practices", which I soon realized were non-existent.
After graduating from high school at CTTB, I went outside to the world where spiritual practices such as bowing and doing recitation are considered old-fashioned and even superstitious. Although I do not share the same opinion, I took the easy way out by convincing myself that though these practices (bowing, sitting, reciting) are all very wholesome, they are not the Dharma Doors for me. I decided that my Dharma Door was going to be holding the precepts and following the principle "Do no evil, and practice all good". That somehow seemed hip and modern, without the "baggage" of old rituals. I still bowed and sat and recited whenever I get to the temples but never sustained a daily practice. In those days, I believed that I knew enough to make sound judgments as situations arise in life, what I neglected to realize was the fact that often times I am so muddled that I don't even know where to start thinking about the problems in life. I am liable to make misjudgments and misdirected decisions when I am not emotionally charged, the situation is worse when the matters are more personal and mixed up with emotions and feelings. I have always had a rational temperament, and thought I could think my way out of troubles in life. I had the misconception that living my life this way was actual "practice". The comparison brought about by the Dharma Master between Bodhisattvas and Arhats "opened" my eyes: I need to bow, to sit, to recite, to repent, to study scriptures so I can have enough hesitation and clarity to follow "Do no evil, and practice all good". This suddenly altered my attitude toward daily practices. Before they are things that are good for you but not necessary, now I see them as essential parts of my life. At that point in the retreat I made a promise to find a daily practice for myself that I can sustain for an extended period of time.
Vigor
The realization helped me in the following week to be more mindful of my practice and trying to understand the sutra text in the context of practices. The second week we had a different speaker for the evening lecture. Less than half way through the Monday evening lecture, a participant took her time to elaborate her question on the "objective" vs. the "subjective". I got awfully impatient as she annotated carefully her question. When the speaker asked us about our thoughts on her question, I blurred out something like, "there are certain things in the sutra text that are just so inconceivable that there is NO POINT in trying. We should just practice and when we have enough wisdom, we will understand those principles naturally." I then was proud of myself for trying to focus on "practices". The speaker did not seem to address my comment or the question at first. He talked about the current philosophical construct we all are living by. One dominant belief currently is that science is so powerful that it will eventually figure everything out and solve all our problems. The second construct is the prominence of individualism or the extreme importance we place on our own ego. These two constructs are drastically different from the "Buddhist world view". It is very difficult to try to study Buddhist teaching if we think by the two worldly construct all the time. The speaker went further to say that there are many different levels in studying sutra. We can recite it, intellectually studying it, or go to the next level. He said, sometimes when we encounter a difficult passage, though we should not try to pick it apart intellectually, we also should not "cop out" by saying that since it is so inconceivable, we stop trying to understand it. The speaker's answer hit me right in the head. It mirrors something I heard from another speaker during the retreat that picking a Dharma Door is a delicate combination of a practice that I am interested in and good at, and a practice that I cannot deal with very well. Though I obviously should not try to pick apart scripture, I should not just back down so easily when I encounter a difficult teaching in the sutra.
A Changed Life
Realizations like the two described above happened on the daily basis for me. Throughout the retreat I found myself become more mindful about things I do, about the temper that's about the flair, and have more "hesitation" before making a decision. I have decided, appropriately to pick up scripture reading as a Dharma Door, as I have promised to find a daily practice. The retreat changed my life, at the small places of mundane life moments, as sustained daily practices become meaningful to me again. That old Buddhist song I used to sing in high school ring about my mind, "I'm really lucky, to study Buddhism."
