Comparison of the Two Vehicles and the Mahāyāna

Ru Chun: Recently, while contemplating the twelve links of dependent origination, I have had some insights. For example: the eye faculty sees (contacts) a beautiful piece of clothing (form); putting it on, one feels beautiful and receives others' admiration, and inwardly one enjoys it greatly (feeling), wanting more (craving). To achieve this goal, one busies oneself endlessly with activity. Feeding oneself in all kinds of ways, materially and mentally (grasping), all of this makes us increasingly addicted to these lowly worldly pursuits, with body and mind craving full expression in every way. Yet we do not realize that these cravings and expressions, like thousands of tangled threads, bind body and mind tightly to the illusory realms of the six sense objects, so that we cannot return to what is real. At the same time, these mental states take root in the field of the mind like seeds, creating the conditions and basis for the next birth (existence); carrying all kinds of accumulated wholesome and unwholesome karmic seeds, we are born (birth).

After birth, due to the habitual tendencies carried by the karmic seeds, we are driven to indulge fully in wealth, sex, fame, food, and sleep, and helplessly, passively, pushed along by the current of karma, we slowly grow old and die (aging-and-death, sorrow, grief, suffering). Carrying this thick layer of ignorance, we begin the next round of life. Thus the eye faculty contacting form-dust brings the suffering of birth and death; the six faculties contacting the six sense objects likewise bring all kinds of suffering of birth and death. If contact is severed, the subsequent chain reaction can be severed. Simply put: do not crave form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or dharmas; do not pursue form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, or consciousness; do not use them as the basis for launching all kinds of bodily and mental activities. Instead, remain awake, restrain body and mind, in hopes of defying fate and changing destiny, and cutting off the cycle of rebirth.

Assessment: Ru Chun has explained the dharma of dependent origination and the chain of birth and death in a fairly concrete, straightforward, and thorough way. This is the Hīnayāna and intermediate vehicle dharma practiced at the beginning stage — the foundational dharma, the dharma leading to nirvāṇa without remainder — but it is not yet the ultimate dharma. The ultimate dharma is the Mahāyāna dharma. The Mahāyāna dharma does not cling to the surface appearances of dharmas; it probes deeply and sees through the substance of dharmas. Once the substance is grasped, the surface things no longer matter, are no longer of concern — anything goes, the mind does not attach; having is the same as not having, yet existence is not extinguished either. How wonderful this is! Without the foundation of the Hīnayāna and intermediate vehicle, this wonder cannot arise — it is all craving, attachment, and clinging to existence, and the result is still sinking in birth and death.

Only after realizing the emptiness of the Hīnayāna and then further cultivating the emptiness of the Mahāyāna can one realize that the substance of existence is non-existence, is emptiness — existence is illusory existence. Since it is illusory existence, what is there to fear? If fresh flowers fall upon the body, let them fall — after all, they are not real flowers, there is no real existence of flowers; the body is not a real body, there is no real body. If flowers contact the body, let them contact — what is there to worry or fear about? The eyes see form — seen is seen, it doesn't matter; do not take form seriously, the mind does not attach, and there is no plan for the next step; the outcome doesn't matter. In this way, seeing is the same as not seeing, contact is the same as no contact. With no mind toward form, what can form do to me? The eyes full of green mountains, yet not a single speck of dust obscures them; wandering through the world, like drifting in the air. Is this not wonderful? Possessing both emptiness and existence, lacking nothing — why, like the two vehicles, sweep everything away and extinguish it all? There is no need to expend that effort: everything exists, yet without obstruction — when has it ever obstructed emptiness?