Dear Buddha, Where are You? / By Venerable Master Hsing Yun
Buddha, where are You?
Are You in the Tushita Heaven now?
Have You not yet descended to this world?
Oh!
In Lumbini Garden, where the lotus
Flowers blossomed under Your seven steps,
Are You there?
No!
Practicing asceticism by the
Nairanjana River, gazing upon
The stars under the bodhi tree, have You
Not already attained enlightenment?
Buddha!
Astray while the Buddha was in the world,
Not born until He had entered nirvana,
I repent with this karma-bound body,
For missing Tathagata’s golden body.
Buddha!
You set the Dharma Wheel in motion at
Deer Park, You were joined by millions
Of humans and heavenly beings
On Vulture Peak.
You subdued the Three Kasyapa Brothers,
And converted Sariputra and Maudgalyayana.
You expounded the teachings of the
Four Noble Truths,
Three Dharma Seals, and
Twelve Links of Dependent Origination,
And established the community of
Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.
Your teachings at Jetavana Grove,
Your stories in Kushinagar; these were
All events I could not attend.
Your eternal Dharma body is,
I firmly believe, Buddha, still there
In the vast emptiness.
I refuse to accept this!
Throughout seventy-five years of my life
As a Buddhist monk,
To the ends of the earth,
I had searched for You everywhere.
I went to India eight times,
Buddha, over in Your homeland,
I thought I might be able to meet You.
I prostrated myself
Beside the Vajra Throne at Bodhgaya,
Rising high and above, at the majestic Mahabodhi Temple;
I still could not see Your manifestation!
I lingered around Tapovana Forest
On the Snowy Mountain, wondering if
Spiritual cultivation was still
Necessary to You.
All that was left there were playful children,
Not even traces of the shepherdess.
I reached the place where You turned
The Dharma Wheel.
I could not even see the Five Bhiksus there.
At Rajagriha’s Kalandaka Venuvana,
Where You spoke to King Bimbisara
On several occasions,
Your Dharma sound lingered in the air,
Your Dharma teachings have been
Compiled into sutras and widely
Disseminated.
Yet in Rajagriha,
You are nowhere to be found!
I went northward to Sravasti in Kosala,
Knowing that, there,
You once taught King Prasenajit
Ways to govern his kingdom.
Yet the place where You spoke
The Truths on impermanence,
Suffering and emptiness,
That beautiful Jetavana Grove
Is now nothing but ruins.
Of course, Buddha,
You are not there anymore.
Buddha,
Have You left the country?
But if the Dharma body is omnipresent
Within the vast emptiness and immersed
In the Dharma realm, then of course
You are still here.
Oh!
Although You taught the Dharma in India,
Mainland China is where
Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha thrived.
In the Dunhuang Caves in Western China,
I could only see colorful paintings of You;
I went to the Longmen and Yungang Caves, And still saw only stone reliefs of You.
Inside the Baoding Grottoes in Dazhu,
There are also only noble statues of You,
So majestic, beautiful, and full of
Loving-kindness and compassion;
But what I yearn to see is Your true body!
Buddha,
Where exactly are You?
I have traveled to the Buddha shrines
Of Jinshan and Jiaoshan, to the
Meditation halls of Wenshu and Baoguang,
Tiantong, Yuwang, Tianning, and Gaomin,
Yet among the many ancient monasteries,
I have only heard Your stories,
But have no idea what You look like.
You and I have never interacted!
I have been to Nara, Kyoto, Mt. Hiei,
And Mt. Koya in Japan.
I have visited Korea’s Busan near Gyeongju,
And Tongdosa, Haeinsa, and Songwangsa
Temples, representing the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha Gems.
While they each shine in their own way,
Each also tells stories about You,
Yet You still have not appeared.
I went to Indochina; in Myanmar,
Among the pagodas of Pagan,
And on the Shwedagon Pagoda,
I could still only see the majestic pagodas.
In Thailand, the golden and jade Buddhas
Still are only noble statues;
They are not Your true body!
Buddha!
For someone who has relinquished life’s
Five Desires and Six Dusts,
bade his loved ones, friends goodbye,
And has taken refuge in You;
To not be able to see You is
Such a difficult thing to accept!
I have read the Lotus Sutra,
Hoping that You would
Manifest among the writings;
Yet in it, there is only Your Dharma body
In the form of texts.
Your parable and apparitional city,
Your analogy of the three carts;
Although these were all teachings
Personally spoken by You,
I am unable to visualize the
Thirty-Two Marks of Excellence or
Eighty Notable Characteristics
Of the Buddha.
In the Avatamsaka Sutra,
I read about the fifty-three bodhisattvas,
And also understood the
Truth of the non-obstruction of phenomenon against phenomenon.
But what exactly does
Vairocana Buddha look like?
The layman in Vimalakirti-nirdesha Sutra,
Was able to, inside a small room,
Conjure up thousands of jeweled thrones
To accommodate
Thousands of bodhisattvas.
Nonetheless,
Your immense supernatural power
Is something which Vimalakirti
Can never compare to.
I envy Ananda from Your time,
Also Upali, Purna, and others.
How blessed they were
To witness Your Dharma,
To have heard Your wonderful voice.
The eight-year old Nagakanya, seven-year
Old Sumati, Candrottara, men such as Yasa,
Singalaka, the Elders’ sons, they all received
Your prophecies for future Buddhas.
Why can’t I do the same?
I refuse to accept this!
Very often I would prostrate myself on the
Floor of the Main Shrine,
Very often I would read Your words of Dharma beneath a raised wick.
Buddha,
Could You appear so that I can see You?
Amidst the sounds of
The morning bell and evening drum,
I yearn to hear Your voice.
The sounds of the creeks are voices
Spoken by Your broad and long tongue,
The mountains are none but
Manifestations of Your pure body.
This is how I give myself a bit of solace.
The lush chrysanthemums are all Expressions of the wondrous Truth,
The crisp green bamboos are none but
Manifestations of Your Dharma body.
Yet as your disciple,
I am just an ordinary, devoted human being
Who yearns to hear You teach in person.
How hard is it for this wish to come true?
Buddha, where exactly are You?
Buddha,
I refuse to give up.
From childhood to youth,
Then to the prime of life,
I am now a decrepit old man.
Not being able to find You
Is something I will not accept!
Therefore, I traveled the world,
Hoping that somewhere in it,
I might cross paths with You by chance.
I took the trains, high-speed rails, and
Magnetic levitation vehicles.
As trees outside the window swayed,
And meadows flew past me,
I wondered if I could see You there, Buddha?
I flew on airplanes,
Amidst the floating clouds;
But did not see You.
Buddha, could You show Yourself?
I sailed across the Pacific Ocean,
The Atlantic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean.
Atop the ocean waves,
Everything seemed vast and boundless.
I looked left and right,
But Buddha, where were You?
My tonsure Master and
The eminent monks of my time
Are all manifestations of You to me.
I regard my parents, and all
Living beings in the world
As Your Manifestations.
Humans looking like Buddhas,
Buddhas looking like humans;
Even for me,
It is hard to distinguish the two.
You once said that
Every person has Buddha nature.
It seemed so,
Yet it does not seem so.
Still, I wish to see You, the Great Buddha,
In person!
Head over heels,
I have continued to think of You.
From Taiwan’s Changhua to
Kaohsiung in the South,
Many times I have held the
“Return to Buddha’s Time” event,
Hoping that inside forests,
Over hills, and across the wilderness,
I could see the great sravakas, arhats,
And the many heavenly guardians.
Separated by past and present,
Today’s space of time that we live in,
Will never be
The time that You had lived, Buddha!
Oh! Finally…
The Diamond Sutra offers me a clue:
If anyone should think that
I can be seen amongst forms,
Or that I can be sought amongst sounds,
Then that person is on the wrong path,
And he will not see the Tathagata.
So it turns out that we are
Not supposed to look for You in form,
Nor seek You among delusions.
You are shapeless and formless,
You are omnipresent in the Universe.
So it turns out that
You have already stepped into my heart.
When I eat, You are eating with me,
When I walk, You are walking alongside me;
You are there even when I sleep.
Every morning,
I wake up alongside the Buddha,
Every night,
I fall asleep with the Buddha in my embrace!
Upstream of the Yangtze River
In Sichuan,
The Leshan Giant Buddha smiles
At travelers who come and go worldwide;
Atop Mount Pingding in Henan,
The Spring Temple Buddha
Stands and teaches,
Watching over sentient beings
With compassionate eyes;
Next to Fo Guang Shan,
A golden bronze
Fo Guang Big Buddha
Forty-eight meters tall
Does not just sit on top of the hill.
Instead, he is found within people’s hearts.
Finally,
I know where You are.
You abide in everyone’s hearts.
From now on, I no longer need to
Look for You,
Because I already have You in my heart.
What need is there to look anymore?
Buddha is the mind, the mind is Buddha.
Chan practitioners across the times
Have already given us such hints.
In the evening breeze,
I quietly recite,
Seek not far for Buddha on that
Spiritual Peak,
For the Peak is right in Your heart;
Each one of us is a Spiritual Pagoda,
Beneath which we cultivate our own minds.
Even Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch,
Once said,
The Dharma is within this world,
Apart from the world,
There is no awakening.
Master Taixu also said,
The Buddha we
Look up to and take refuge in
Perfected his character.
By perfecting our own humanity,
We attain Buddhahood.
So it turns out that once we
Perfect our character,
We will finally connect with You.
Buddha,
You have already manifested in
Many supernatural ways.
Sometime around 1970,
Devotees in Yilan told me,
“The Big Buddha has opened his eyes!”
Thousands of pilgrims at Fo Guang Shan
Had said,
“The Welcoming Big Buddha has turned around!”
When Taiwan was graced by
The presence of Your tooth relic,
Through the live broadcasts
By a dozen television stations,
The entire world witnessed
A path covered in gold.
Isn’t that the Buddha’s Light Path
You have manifested?
Today,
The Buddha Museum and Fo Guang Shan
Are sacred lands that are connected
By the Fo Guang Boulevard!
So it turns out that
One can see a world in a single flower,
One can see a Buddha in a single leaf.
You have walked along
The Fo Guang Boulevard
At Fo Guang Shan;
You have also strolled across
The Bodhi Wisdom Concourse of
The Buddha Museum.
The Four Bodhisattvas, the many arhats,
And the patriarchs; have they all worshiped
You there above or beneath the heavens?
Oh!
The world is but a creation of the mind,
The Dharma realm is a carefree existence;
Into the endless futures,
The Buddha is always in my heart.
Hsing Yun
February 1, 2013
Residence of the Founding Master,
Fo Guang Shan