..續本文上一頁The element of the beginningless time

　　Is the location of all phenomena.

　　Due to its existence, there are all beings,

　　And also, the attainment of nirvana.”

　　(That was taught by the Buddha.)

　　“All beings are Buddhas,

　　But obscured by incidental stains.

　　When those have been removed, there is Buddhahood.”

　　That is a quotation from Tantra.

　　Some students may think that the first sentence after the homage, Though beginningless, it has an end, is quite strange and could argue that samsara must have a beginning somewhere and at some time. In fact, many people insist that anything and everything must have a beginning. But this is not so. Let us look at the example of a flower. Where did the flower originate

　　 It came from a sprout, and the sprout grew from a seed. Where did the seed originate

　　 It came from last year”s flower, and last year”s flower came from a seed that was a product of a previous year”s flower – on and on, into the past. We clearly understand that there is no beginning and will never be found, no matter how hard people try. Similarly, the succession of lives in samsara has no beginning.

　　When will samsara end

　　 Although never, Rangjung Dorje tells us, (…) it has an end. This means that although there is no beginning, samsara has an end. How can this be

　　 When one attains Buddhahood through practice, then samsara ends. Other texts say that samsara is endless. How can that be

　　 These statements seem to contradict each other. What they mean is that for an inpidual samsara is beginningless but will eventually end. Since there are so many living beings in samsara, it is, in fact, endless. This is the reason why samsara does end and is endless at the same time – it is endless in that there are innumerable beings in myriad worlds entrenched too deeply in samsara to even sense that it is possible to experience relief.

　　In the second line of the shastra, Rangjung Dorje quoted the words of the Buddha from a sutra,

　　“It is pure by nature, and has the quality of permanence.”

　　This means that the Tathagatagarbha, the Buddha nature, has two qualities. Some people think that it is not faultless, but this is not so. It is immaculate and has no defect whatsoever. It is also permanent, i.e., it is, continuously present, at all times, and therefore has the quality of permanence.

　　Four qualities of the Buddha nature have been presented: It is beginningless, ends samsara, is by nature pure, and is permanent. One may wonder why it cannot be seen. The Karmapa tells us that

　　“It is unseen, because it is obscured by a beginningless covering.”

　　That is to say, it is covered and therefore cannot be seen, the fifth characteristic of the Tathagatagarbha, which is compared to a golden statue that has been concealed.

　　In the Uttaratantrashastra, Maitreyanatha presented the simile of someone possessing a piece of gold that fell from his hands and was lost in the rubbish around his feet. One day an impoverished man came along and built his shack on the mess. He lived there, atop the lump of gold, destitute for food and clothes. The gold could not reveal itself, and the poor man could not see it hidden in the dirt under his hut. A clairvoyant could, and one day someone with such abilities walked by the shack. Out of compassion, he told the beggar that he only needed to dig for the pure gold under his house and all his worries would stop. Yet, the poor man first needed to believe what the clairvoyant had told him before he started digging for the treasure he had been living on for such a long time. In the same way, all living beings have the Buddha nature, which - like gold - is changeless. As long as we are in samsara, we cannot see it. The Buddha saw the Tathagatagarbha abiding within each and every one. Out of great compassion, he taught about the Bud…

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