The Miscellaneous Treasures Sutra tells the story of the mutual hatred between a maidservant and a goat: Once there was a maid-servant who was responsible for working in the mill. Each morning she would take coarse grains and pulses, like barley and soy, that her master had given her and grind them into meal. However, a certain goat would often steal a bite of the soy meal whenever the maidservant was not looking. For this reason the master often suspected that the maidservant was not making enough soy meal, so he would berate her and punish her with a beating. Each time after the maidservant was punished by the master, she would angrily take up a bamboo stick and beat the goat. Being beaten repeatedly, the goat grew increasingly spiteful, as well.

One day, the maidservant was making a fire and the goat saw that there was no bamboo stick in her hand, so he butted her with his horns. The maidservant became angry and flustered, so she picked up a burning piece of firewood and beat the goat. The goat’s flesh began to burn, and he was in great pain, dashing madly about and throwing sparks from his flaming body, spreading the fire to the nearby villagers and their homes. The blaze grew and even consumed the surrounding mountains and wild plains. Five hundred monkeys who were living on the mountain could not escape the blaze, and they, too, perished in the fire.

Such a terrible disaster all came from the anger and hatred between the goat and the maidservant. It is from instances like this that the Buddhist saying, “The flames of anger can burn up a forest of merit” comes from. Anger can make us feel as though we have plunged into a land of demons with rancid winds and rains of blood.

The Upasaka Precepts Sutra states that there are three kinds of enlightenment:

One kind is attained through hearing; the second kind is attained through contemplation; and the third kind is attained through cultivation. Since the sravakas have attained enlightenment by hearing [the Buddha’s teachings], they are not called Buddhas; since the pratyekabuddhas have attained their own partial realization through contemplation, they are called pratyekabuddhas. The Tathagata has no teacher and attains enlightenment through cultivation and not through reliance upon hearing or contemplation. This is total enlightenment, and so such a person is called the Buddha.

The Tathagata is the Buddha not because of hearing the Dharma or contemplating it; rather, the Buddha attains enlightenment through the process of cultivating the Dharma. This is why such a person can become the Buddha.

Once there was a man who made a living as a thief. One day, his son said to him, “Dad, you are getting old. How am I to make a living? You really ought to pass on to me the secrets of your trade.”

The father said, “Fine. I will pass on my knowledge to you tonight.”

When the still hours of the night arrived, the father told his son to go out with him. Soon they found a house and prepared to break in. The two jumped over the wall and entered the house. Once inside, the father opened a cupboard, and told his son to hide himself within. Suddenly, the father started shouting:

“Thief! Thief! There’s a thief here!”

The father’s shouting woke the homeowner, who immediately came down to catch the thief. By then the elder thief had run away, but his son was still hiding in the closed cupboard. The young thief thought to himself: “How could my father do such a thing? Why did he shut me up in this cupboard and then run off after shouting an alarm? What am I going to do now?” The only thing he could do was look for a way to get out of this predicament on his own. Desperation is the mother of invention, and so the young thief came up with an idea: Still inside the cupboard, he started to imitate the sound of a mouse:

“Squeak, squeak, squeak.”

The homeowner was looking for the thief with a candle in hand, and when he heard the mouse squeaking, he relaxed.

“Oh, it’s only a mouse. The thief must have run off.”

When he had let his guard down, the young thief dashed out of the cupboard and blew out the candle. In the darkness, the homeowner ran after the thief. The young thief was quite worried now, and the chase was on.

The young thief then thought of another idea: he ran by an old well, picked up a large stone, and threw it in. When the homeowner reached the well he said, “Alas, it looks like this well claimed somebody’s life tonight.”

The homeowner then left. The young thief was able to return home safe and sound.

When he arrived home, the young thief found his father, and took him to task: “Why did you play such a trick on me today?”

The father asked, “What do you mean I ‘played a trick’ on you?”

“I mean closing me up in a cupboard and then shouting, ‘Thief! Thief!”‘

The father then asked, “So, how did you get out of it?”

The son told him everything that happened. The father was very pleased and said:

“Son, I have found my successor in you. Now you understand.

You know that to adapt to changing circumstances you must depend upon yourself. Others cannot pass on anything to us!”

We often hear about students blaming their teachers for favoritism, disciples blaming their spiritual mentors for not passing on the “real secrets;’ and children blaming their parents for the partiality of their love. But success and fulfillment are not things that others can give us. Prajna is inherent to our own minds; it is one’s will to succeed and the power to put one’s vision into practice. If we do not seek prajna within, nor practice prajna in our lives and, instead, only indulge in idle talk of prajna, what good does it do?

When Fifth Patriarch Hongren passed on the robe and bowl to Huineng, he knew that initially no one in the monastic community would understand, so he had Huineng leave the monastery at Huangmei in the middle of the night. After departing from Huangmei, several hundred monastics chased after Huineng to try and claim the robe and alms bowl. One such monastic, Huiming, was the first to catch up with him, and tried to take the robe and bowl that had been given to Huineng by the Fifth Patriarch.

Huineng laid the robe and bowl on a rock beside the road and said, “This robe symbolizes trust. How can you take it by force?”

Huineng then hid away among the bushes. When Huiming tried to take the robe and bowl, he found that he could not lift them, and then he understood. He felt ashamed of himself and then begged Sixth Patriarch Huineng to give him instruction in the
Dharma.

Huineng said, “Remove all your mental conditioning and do not give rise to a single thought. [ … ] Do not think of wholesomeness. Do not think of unwholesomeness.”

Huiming then asked, “Besides the hidden and profound meaning imparted to me now, is there any other?”

Huineng answered, “If I could tell you, it would not be hidden. If you reflect within, the hidden and profound are close at hand.”

The true hidden meaning is to eliminate the place where thoughts dwell, and cut off the path of language. Prajna, pure and free, is right here in our minds. But even if one has grasped this hidden meaning and has attained prajna, it is still up to us to carry it through in the actual practice of daily life in a dynamic and adaptive fashion.

Source: Hsing Yun. Four Insights for Finding Fulfillment: A Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Diamond Sutra. Los Angeles: Buddha’s Light Publishing, 2012.