Samadhi and Wisdom Has Non-duality

Samadhi and Wisdom Has Non-duality
JUN/3/ 2023—JUN / 4/ 2023

Hello everyone, welcome to our Dharma talk at Dharma Rain Meditation Center.

Since last week, we have started our new topic of wisdom. What is wisdom? How wisdom could cope with ignorance and how can we find our wisdom from our self-nature. I believe we’ve all thought a lot about it. Today we will discuss a new section: Samadhi and wisdom have non-duality.

When we went to the temple, we can see a big plaque with the words “Non-duality Dharma Gate.” What does that mean, what is non-duality? Equality, and no difference. Duality is the divisiveness. Non-duality means no divisiveness, which also means the one. You may wonder, what? Why we spend a month talking about wisdom and Samadhi separately since they have no differences? Before we talked about three studies, now if we say Samadhi and wisdom have non-duality, why we call them three studies?

Let’s read a paragraph from the platform sutra. The Master instructed the assembly: “Good Knowing Advisors, this Dharma-gate of mine has Samadhi and wisdom as its foundation. Great assembly, do not be confused and say that Samadhi and wisdom are different. Samadhi and wisdom are one substance, not two. Samadhi is the substance of wisdom, and wisdom is the function of Samadhi. Where there is wisdom, Samadhi is in wisdom. Where there is Samadhi, wisdom is in the Samadhi. If you understand this principle, you understand the balanced study of Samadhi and wisdom.

“Students of the Way, do not say that first there is Samadhi, which produces wisdom, or that first there is wisdom, which produces Samadhi: do not say that the two are different. To hold this view implies a duality of dharma-If your speech is good, but your mind is not, then Samadhi and wisdom are useless because they are not equal. If mind and speech are both good, the inner and outer are alike, and Samadhi and wisdom are equal.

“Self-enlightenment, cultivation, and practice are not a matter for debate. If you debate which comes first, then you are like a confused man who does not cut off ideas of victory and defeat, but magnifies the notion of self and dharmas, and does not disassociate himself from the four marks.”

 “Good Knowing Advisors, what are Samadhi and wisdom like? They are like a lamp and its light. With the lamp, there is light. Without the lamp, there is darkness. The lamp is the substance of the light, and the light is the function of the lamp. Although there are two names, there is one fundamental substance. The Dharma of Samadhi and wisdom is also thus.”

The Master instructed the assembly: “Good Knowing Advisors, the Single Conduct Samadhi is the constant practice of maintaining a direct, straightforward mind in all places, whether one is walking, standing, sitting, or lying down. As the Vimalakirti Sutra says, ‘The straight mind is the Bodhimandala; the straight mind is the Pure Land.’

“Do not speak of straightness with the mouth only, while the mind and practice are crooked nor speak of the Single Conduct Samadhi without maintaining a straight mind. Simply practice keeping a straight mind and have no attachment to any dharma.

“The confused person is attached to the marks of dharmas while holding to the Single Conduct Samadhi and saying, ‘I sit unmovingly and falseness does not arise in my mind. That is the Single Conduct Samadhi.’ Such an interpretation serves to make him unconscious and obstructs the causes and conditions for attaining the Way.

This passage explains what is Samadhi and what is wisdom. If you are referring to gradual cultivation, precepts are the precepts, wisdom is wisdom, and Samadhi is Samadhi, three of them can be discussed independently. Keeping the precepts then you will attain Samadhi when you attained Samadhi, you will find your wisdom naturally, use your wisdom to observe, then break annoyance and become extraordinary sanctification. But here, there is no need to separate them. Samadhi and wisdom is summed up into one. This is “realize self-nature and attain enlightenment directly” Samadhi and wisdom.

“This Dharma-gate of mine has samadhi and wisdom as its foundation” means the dharma gate we are talking about now is heart dharma, is a non-duality dharma gate, is a realize self-nature and attain enlightenment directly dharma gate. Samadhi and wisdom is the foundation here. “Great assembly, do not be confused and say that samadhi and wisdom are different” is tell people we can not separate Samadhi and wisdom, do not lose yourself to separate Samadhi from wisdom or think about to have wisdom first or Samadhi first. “Samadhi and wisdom are one substance, not two.” This is the reason we called them non-duality, you can not separate them; “Samadhi is the substance of wisdom, and wisdom is the function of samadhi.” We are sitting and meditating here, don’t think about our past, don’t think about to be present, don’t worry what will happen in the future, nothing rises up in your mind, this is Samadhi. “Nothing rise up in your mind” is the body of wisdom. Do not think that there is another individual subject to carry wisdom when you attained Samadhi.  Apart from listening to the Dharma, nothing can be found. Everything is in this mind, not only Samadhi and wisdom in this mind, the boundless merits, the wonderful powers of the magical minds are all in this mind because the mind is the essence and the body. This mind has body and functions.

 To clarify this issue, we must introduce the theory of the body, phase and function. All things in the world can be explained from the theory of the body, phase and function. For example, the lamp used now, it has a light, where does the light come from? It is from the lamp bulb, lamp tube, then the light bulb and lamp tube is the phase; the electricity power produces light through the tungsten filament in the lamp, so the lamp’s body is the electricity power; light has lighting functions, which is used. In summary, the electric power is the body, the lamp is the phase, and the light is used. Human being also has a body, phase and function. The heart nature is fundamental, and the heart is a body. The human body is composed of females and males. This body, which is composed of land, water, fire, and wind, is called a phase. Each person has a different phase. Everyone has the functions from eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind; people can listen, touch, and think. From this perspective, everything has its body, phase, and functions.

Specifically, when it comes to spiritual cultivation, Samadhi is the standing mind. We are listening here, do not think about past, do not think about the present, do not worry about the future either. This is our own heart body, which takes the Samadhi as the body. However, if this mind is absolutely motionless, like dead wood, like cold rock, can it be work? Of course not, if someone is cultivated to the unfeeling and lifeless, just the same as the wood and stone. How can this person attain the enlightenment, how can he or she help people attain the enlightenment? This body is also very valuable then. Therefore, we can understand that the most valuable part in the body is wisdom; wisdom is the function. Our heart is standing but not motionless, this standing heart can see, can listen if it wants, when it sees gorgeous things it does not feel happy, when afflictions coming do not feel annoying, it is wisdom, it is functions. Therefore, it is functioning in the body and cannot leave the body to isolation.

It is the same thing that happened to ear roots. When someone praises you, you do not feel happy, someone slander you, you do not hate him and feel afflictions. The heart is standing; this is the body. However, who criticized or praised you, you know it and do not like it or hate it, this is wisdom. Similarly, to the tongue root, you know the tastes of food; this is the body. You can distinguish the sweet from sour; you can tell which is delicious; this is wisdom. The average person also has this wisdom; however, they do not have Samadhi. They are greedy to the taste; if they feel delicious, they tried desperately to eat; if they feel it is not delicious, they rise up afflictions immediately, it is because of the lack of Samadhi, it will be greedy to different tastes, the human body played an unclean function. Therefore, the practitioner should know what is good, but not to be greedy; to know what is not good, but not to hate. This is Samadhi in wisdom and wisdom in Samadhi, Samadhi and wisdom is non-duality. If we separated Samadhi and wisdom, when we eat something, we don’t know the taste, we even do not know what are we eating, because there is only Samadhi, no wisdom. Zen school say Samadhi and wisdom are non-duality, it helps people understand the truth that how the heart works in daily life, to understand why do we say that there are doctrines everywhere and Dharma in every second.

“Where there is wisdom, Samadhi is in wisdom. Where there is Samadhi, wisdom is in the Samadhi. This is Bodhi true heart. Understand this theory; we can stay in Samadhi and wisdom in every second, in meditation, in walking, even in sleeping, in dressing, eating and urine, just as Zen ancestors said: “Dressing, eating, walking, sitting, lying, picking wood and carrying water could be wonderful functions.

Thank you for the listening!