BTW, think about it, people who use this outlandish
method can only see one form of beings – Petas (ghosts).They are
lower beings, suffering and in deep need of merits. THey are there
because of lack of cultivation. you seldom hear of people who use
this method to be able to see the devas.
Thats right.
http://www.chan1.org/ddp/channews/10-1987.html
The Five
Eyes
(Lecture given by Master
Sheng-yen on the Surangama Sutra, Sunday, December 22,
1985)
Ananda reached an understanding of the limits of perception
itself, and so he asked the Buddha how he would be able to know his
true nature. The Buddha replied: "Ananda, though you have not yet
reached the state beyond the stream of transmigration, you may now
use the Buddha's transcendent power to behold the first dhyana
heaven without obstruction, like Anirudha who sees this world as
clearly as fruit held in his own hand. Bodhisattvas can see
hundreds and thousands of worlds. Buddhas in the ten directions can
see all the Pure Lands as countless as the dust. As to living
beings, their range of sight is (sometimes) limited to inches."
The Buddha explains to Ananda that beings on different levels,
although they may look at the same thing, will really see it
according to their own perspective. The Buddha then continues to
talk about different levels of vision. The Buddha sees all things
as equal, undifferentiated, but he can also see things as ordinary
beings see them. The Buddha explains how things are perceived from
five different levels. They are:
The eye of ordinary sentient beings
The heavenly eye
The eye of an arhat
The eye of a bodhisattva
The eye of the Buddha
The first level, which is also called the "fleshy eye," includes
animals and all beings in the realm of desire. This eye can see
material things, but it can also be blocked. If a piece of paper is
put in front of your eyes, vision is blocked. If the paper is
removed, you can see. This eye is quite limited. You can't see
things that are too big, too small, too far, too close. The fleshy
eye is so weak that it is almost useless.
There are two kinds of heavenly eyes. First, there is the eye
which is achieved only through the practice of meditation by those
who have cultivated samadhi and reached the first level of dhyana.
Second, there is the eye which is achieved on the basis of
accumulated good merit.
An ordinary human being can achieve the heavenly eye through
meditation and the achievement of the first level of dhyana, or he
can achieve it through the grace of buddhas, bodhisattvas, or
heavenly beings. An ordinary human being could not attain the
heavenly eye through accumulated merit. One who had enough
accumulated merit would already be born in the heavenly realm, not
in the human realm.
The arhat eye, also known as the "wisdom eye," is the third
level of attainment. It is called the wisdom eye because the arhat
has attained wisdom and eliminated all vexations. Those with the
fleshy eye or the heavenly eye still have vexations. The sutra says
that when an arhat observes this world, he sees it the same way an
ordinary being sees a mango in his hand, and he sees it with
complete clarity. He can not only see this world, but he can see a
great chilocosm of worlds. Why is his vision so vast? He no longer
has a sense of self, therefore the chilocosm is there before him,
unobstructed by his own perceptions or interests.
The next kind of eye, the bodhisattva eye, is also called the
dharma eye. Why is this eye, and not that of the arhat, called the
dharma eye? Even though the arhat has liberated himself from self,
or ego, there is still a sense of discrimination between the realms
of birth and death. But for the bodhisattva there is neither birth
nor death, samsara nor nirvana. He has no attachment to the Dharma,
and thus he has the dharma eye.
The arhat can see one great chilocosm, but the bodhisattva can
view 100,000 great chilocosms. There is no comparison between the
arhat eye and the bodhisattva eye.
The Buddha's vision is the greatest. The Buddha eye can see all
the Buddha lands in the ten directions. The Buddha's eye is the
most perfect. The way Buddha sees has nothing in common with our
ideas of far and near, large and small.
These are the five kinds of eyes. Now we can return to the sutra
and ask what kind of problem Ananda was having. He was not an
arhat, and he didn't have psychic power or the heavenly eye; he
only had a normal human eye. The Buddha appeared in the world not
just for bodhisattvas and arhats, but for ordinary sentient beings
as well. He explains the Buddha eye to ordinary sentient beings
because they tend to believe that what they see is all there is,
and that that is right and correct. According to the Buddha's view,
there is nothing that is right, nothing that is wrong. If the
Buddha and an ordinary sentient being look at the same thing, they
both see it, but they each see it differently. When the Buddha
looks at something, he sees into its empty nature, its original
nature. Common people look at the material nature of things -
shape, color, and quality. The Buddha looks at true nature.
In early Chinese literature there was a Taoist philosopher named
Chuang-tzu. One day he was talking to another philosopher, Hui
Shih, and they were both standing on a bridge overlooking a river.
Chuang-tzu said, "Look at the fish, see how happy they are." Hui
Shih replied, "You're not a fish -- how do you know how happy they
are?" Chuang-tzu countered, "You're not me, how do you know that I
don't know how happy the fish are?"
These two men had very different perspectives. Chuang-tzu is at
one with the fish, and really knows what they are feeling. Hui Shih
still discriminates between himself and the fish, so he has no idea
how they feel.
There's a Ch'an story concerning two partriarchs, Ma-tzu and
Pai-chang. These two masters were walking, when a flock of geese
flew over them. The elder patriarch asked Pai-chang, "What was
that?" Pai-chang replied, "Those are wild geese." Ma-tzu then
asked, "What about now?" And Pai-chang said, "They've flown away."
Ma-tzu grabbed Pai-chang's nose, squeezed very hard, and demanded,
"They flew away?" Pai-chang's nose really hurt, and he started to
cry, but then he started to laugh uproariously. People thought he
went crazy.
At the beginning of their walk, when the geese first flew over
them, what they saw was different. But at the end of the story they
were both seeing the same thing. When Ma-tzu saw the geese, he saw
them, as we say in Ch'an, with "no coming, no going, no dying, no
being born" -- how then could he say that the geese flew away? When
Pai-chang first saw the geese, he had the mind of discrimination.
When the geese flew away, his mind flew away with them. But when
Ma-tzu grabbed Pai-chang's nose, Ma-tzu brought Pai-chang's mind
back. When the pain was great enough, Pai-chang was right there
again. He saw for himself that he was unmoving, that the geese were
unmoving. His tears and his laughter were both expressions of his
joy. In the beginning they had different eyes, but in the end their
eyes were the same.
The experience of these patriarchs is different from the story
of Chang-tzu and Hui Shih. Chang-tzu was at one with nature, but he
was still moving with nature. Ma-tzu was also at one with nature,
but his mind was not moving, therefore, nature was not moving for
him.
In Ch'an we only consider it important to deal with two of the
five eyes, the ordinary eye and the Buddha eye. There is no need to
bother with the heavenly eye, the wisdom eye, or the Dharma eye. In
the gradual school of practice all five eyes would be included. But
the sudden school of practice begins with the worldly eye and moves
directly to the Buddha eye. This is what Pai-chang did. He moved
immediately from the material view to the point where he could see
the empty, unmoving nature of all things.
In this sutra the Buddha is trying to help Ananda take the step
directly from the fleshy eye to a realization of the Buddha eye. He
does not talk about the three stages in between. But since we have
some time, I will go more deeply into the differences between the
worldly eye, the heavenly eye, and a sub-level called the deva, or
ghost eye.
Have you ever seen a ghost or a god? Normally people can't see
things that are too far, near, big, or small. But some people
borrow the power of a ghost or other spiritual being, and gain
spiritual vision. There are also cases of heavenly beings who are
born into the human realm, who still retain some ability to see
ghosts and spirits in the realms below. They can no longer see into
the heavenly realm, nor can they see ghosts and spirits in the
human realm.
I had a student who came here for a beginner's class. She
claimed to have some psychic power. She said that when she was
well-concentrated, she could see into people's past, but I had my
doubts. I asked her if she could see into my past. I have heavy
karmic obstructions, which have their root in past lives, but still
she could see nothing of my past. Why? People are not always reborn
into the human realm. They might be born into a distant world, and
ordinary psychic power would be too limited to see that far. It
would be similar to a person who commits a crime in Taiwan and
moves to New York. The New York police would have no record of the
crime.
The ghostly or deva eye stands at a level between the fleshy and
heavenly eyes. This phenomenon occurs when a spiritual being uses
the eye of a human being as a medium. People who have experienced
this believe that they have been endowed with great spiritual
powers, but it is really the power of the spiritual being at work.
There is a book about a spirit called Seth who used a woman's body
to talk to people in this world. He could only talk through
her.
I have a Dharma brother who has such powers. He was once sitting
on a train, and suddenly he saw all the people sitting around him
as pigs and dogs and other animals. He could see the changes that
these people went through in various past lives, but he could see
no further. This is not really his power, but that of a spiritual
being working through him. I asked him if he could see such things
with his eyes closed, and he answered no, but there are people who
have such powers.
In the sutra Buddha talks about a disciple, Anirudha. He is a
good example of someone who developed the heavenly eye. He
practiced very hard. He sat for days with his eyes open, and he
never slept. Eventually, he went blind from keeping his eyes open.
The Buddha went to visit him and told him not to worry. He said
that the fleshy eye is of little use anyway, and there are better
eyes to acquire. The Buddha explained to Anirudha how to practice,
and in a short time he had the heavenly eye. As he penetrated
deeper into dhyana, his vision became truly vast.
Those who are born in the realm of desire with the heavenly eye,
because of their previous good karma, are always born in heavenly
realms. Those born as humans in the realm of form, must obtain the
heavenly eye through meditation. Normally, human beings cannot see
ghosts, and the ghosts that are here cannot see us. The more
powerful beings in the heavenly realms can see us, but spiritual
beings here cannot. They can sense our existence, but they can't
tell exactly where we are. Only by borrowing an earthly eye can
they see more accurately. An English psychologist who was able to
leave his body reported seeing just this sort of thing; he saw
ghosts and humans, but they could not see each other.
The heavenly eye can observe all manner of beings in the realm
of form: animals, humans, ghosts, spirits, heavenly beings. This
eye can see into the past and future for 500 to 1000 lives. But
looking into the past and looking into the future are two distinct
psychic powers. In the six heavenly realms, the lower realms cannot
see into the realms above them. Why? Because the body becomes more
and more subtle as you ascend into these realms. A being in the
highest heavenly realm can see throughout his realm and all the
realms below. Such a being can see us and know us as if we were
specks in the palm of his hand.
Common people cannot really understand this heavenly eye. It has
to be experienced. Sometimes someone in Canada might be able to see
what's going on in the United States, or someone in United States
can see things in Hong Kong. This is not the heavenly eye at all.
It is still the ghost, or spiritual eye. The heavenly eye, within
its realm, knows what is going on in all places at all times.
I'm not going to speak about the arhat eye or the bodhisattva
eye. I will speak directly about the Buddha eye. It is really quite
simple. The Buddha sees everything as emptiness. This does not mean
that he sees nothing when he looks at something or someone. It
means that he sees the empty nature of the things he sees. Levels
below the Buddha can see emptiness also, but emptiness is
experienced like air in a box. It takes the shape of the container.
There is still separateness. For the Buddha, according to this
analogy, air is everywhere, and it is not segmented. Even the
bodhisattva, who has the dharma eye, does not see in this way. Only
when you reach Buddhahood, do you see with unobstructed
limitlessness.
The Buddha explains to Ananda that he must see into the true
nature of things. In this way he will see his own true nature. This
is what the Ch'an sect calls "seeing into your own true nature."
But this can be somewhat misleading, because it might sound as if
your true nature is something separate from yourself. That is not
the case. Your true nature is your self; it is not apart from it.
This is why the Surangama Sutra is classified as a sutra
of true permanence, because it leads us to our true nature.
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