Straight Heart and Wisdom-life

Straight Heart and Wisdom-life
JUN/10/ 2023—JUN / 11/ 2023

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

Today we are going to talk about straight heart and wisdom-life.
We heard the “Dharma-body and wisdom-life” quite often, then what is Dharma-body and wisdom-life exactly?

The Dharma body of the Pali is spelt as Dharmakāya, also known as the self-nature body, referring to the surpassing truths that the Buddha has proved, throughout the entire world. The Dharma body id, not material Dharma, nor is it a material object; it has no image, nor a figure or shape, it is invisible. The Dharma body is always alive. It is not produced, not destroyed, not defiled, not pure; and neither increases nor diminishes, but it contains the unclean seeds from seventh consciousness because it is invisible and invisible not see it by the naked eye. Still, we can use our wisdom-eyes to find it when things happen.

The Dharma body can also refer to the body created by merits and virtues without effluents. This Dharma body and wisdom life is a relative concept of the material body and life. “Wisdom Life” is a state of advanced life in terms of “material Life”. Each person has an intangible and undifferentiated Dharma body besides a material body of five Skandha. Due to the afflictions and evil behaviours, the Dharma body can not show up and guide us. People have to cultivate Dharma, eliminate the afflictions, and accumulate merits to attain the Dharma body. And the Dharma body must rely on wisdom to moisturize, grow up just like our body rely on food. If a person does not have anything to eat, the body will die; if there is no nourishment from wisdom, the Dharma body might die.

So, what’s the difference between our material lives and our wisdom-lives? Why does the Dharma body are so important that people even say it is more tragic than taking someone’s life if you ruin someone’s wisdom life?

In a popular phrase, the body breathes we call it life. Our wisdom life is our spiritual wisdom; it is not produced, not destroyed, not defiled, not pure; and they neither increase nor diminish. It is relatively simple for us to change our lives, over in the 49 days after our death, we can have another form(body) of life. Of course, this is for ordinary people, the cycle speed of good and evil people is higher than this, and this life transform does not follow our will. If we want to nourish our wisdom life, we must have four elements: “get a human body, born in the middle land, hearing the Dharma and following a real master”, we have to collect four of them we can grow up our wisdom life. We wait and wait, for destiny, for an opportunity to meet a real master, for a human body, maybe waited for million years, then someone jumps up and ruins it, can you imagine how grievous mistake it is?

Therefore, we must take good care of our Dharma body and wisdom life. We have to use our wisdom to look after our Dharma body, then by how?

By keeping our straight heart. The Vimalakīrti-Nirdeśa-Sūtra said: “the straight-heart is a dojo and straight-heart is a pure land.”

A straight-heart is without a second thought, is the focus; not only focus, but also clearly, and this is wisdom. Where is the person, where is the heart, when I am chanting, I am focusing on chanting and listening to my chanting by my heart? There is no second thought; this is straight-heart. If we understood this theory, we could cultivate at any time anywhere not only in a meditation room or a special dojo. It can be practised daily, when you are sitting, sleeping, walking or talking etc. Everywhere are the opportunity and place for spiritual cultivation.

Having a straight heart means we must also be clear, understandable and masterful for our minds. As the Diamond Sutra says, “We should not abide in an object and give rise to thoughts.” This is the straight heart. Yongjia Master Zheng Dao Song said: “Walking could be Zen, sitting could be Zen, and speak quietly and peacefully.” The straight heart has to be there and leads us when we are walking, meditating, eating, and sleeping… it has to be the master of our behaviors, if it can not, then it is not the straight heart. When we can use our straight heart to supervise our dressing, eating, and thinking, we can immediately attain the magical function. Do not underestimate the straight heart; it is actually Buddhi-heart; it is supreme wisdom.

The straight heart asks for paying attention to what is going on all the time, we have to keep that state very often, in the past, the present and the future. People often say: “To set the heart free and stand upright in the samyaksmrti”. Set the heart free, and “freedom” means that the heart must exist. If you feel uncomfortable or not free, it is not right if this heart is similar to stone and wood or other lifeless things. It is this attitude that the mind does not do anything in the slightest. Setting the heart free means the heart does not need any cover; only the sixth consciousness does not rise any mind, does not move and does not reverse either. The heart stays still and also understands and determines as the Lord. This is “always keep a straight heart”.

Of course, each person has their own way to keep a straight heart. Buddha’s Dharma is an equal Dharma and non-duality Dharma; however, people’s lives are different because people from a different place and experienced different lives, has different karma and cultivation difficulty. Just as we are all students who will attend the examination, the cultivation credit we got and lessons we took in the past lives are different. Since we have different academic credits in cultivation, we may have different failed subjects. You may graduate from high school while I might be in a kindergarten, so the cultivation credits for us are not the same, the difficulty, the test form and the assessment method are all different. At the same time, we have different cultivation method.

As long as we are right-minded, keep our straight heart to learn our own lessons, we can get good credits and take care of our Dharma body and wisdom life because any step is a step towards enlightenment and becoming a Buddha. When you attained the enlightenment, to the highest level, everyone will be the same; we call it “combination of light and light, and Buddha and Buddha have the same Tao.” This will help us completely return to our Dharma body and wisdom life; we can go beyond the present life, which is the destined destination for each of us.

Thank you for the listening!