Universal Door Chapter Lecture 9 — Overcoming Fear

Lectured by Rev. Heng Sure on May 28, 2021

(Dharma Master Heng Sure opens up playing and singing, Namo Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva)

Namo Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva

Guan Yin Bodhisattva

Na mo Guan Shi Yin Pu Sa

Good early morning, everybody. Good afternoon, everybody. Good evening, everyone. This is Reverend Heng Sure coming to you from Queensland, Australia, Gold Coast. It is Saturday, May 29^thhere. It should be Friday, May 28^th back in America. Wherever you are around the world, it’s nice to be with you this early morning. It’s winter here in Queensland.

Now, I’m going to pop up the Dharma Requesting Ceremony here on the screen and I’m told that Yin Wenbo is going to do the Dharma Request for us. What I’m going to do first is ring the bell three times and I’m going to make a half bow from where I’m sitting here and invite everybody to do the same and then we’ll ask Yin Wenbo to do the Dharma Request.

Here comes the bell. Here we go. (Dharma Master Heng Sure rings the bell three times)

(Dharma Master Heng Sure rings the bell) First bow.

(Dharma Master Heng Sure rings the bell) Second bow.

(Dharma Master Heng Sure rings the bell) Third bow.

All right. Yin Wenbo, please begin.

[Yin Wenbo]

恭請大德僧聽，

Gōng qǐng dà dé sēng tīng,

為此法會及一切眾生.

wèi cǐ fǎ huì jí yī qiè zhòng shēng.

請轉妙法輪教導我們，

qǐng zhuǎn miào fǎ lún jiào dǎo wǒ men,

如何了生脫死離苦得樂，

rú hé liǎo shēng tuō sǐ lí kǔ dé lè,

速證無生。

sù zhèng wú shēng.

Will the Sangha with great virtue,

Out of compassion,

For the sake of this assembly

And all living beings,

Please turn the wonderful Dharma-wheel,

To teach us how to leave suffering,

And attain bliss,

And end birth and death and

Quickly realize non-birth.

[Rev. Heng Sure]

Namo Tassa Bhagavato, Arahato, Samma Sambuddhassa

[Yin Wenbo]

Namo Tassa Bhagavato, Arahato, Samma Sambuddhassa

[Rev. Heng Sure]

Homage to the Blessed, Noble, and Perfectly Enlightened one

[Yin Wenbo]

Homage to the Blessed, Noble, and Perfectly Enlightened one

[Rev. Heng Sure]

南無薩怛他

Na mo Sa Dan Tuo

蘇伽多耶

Su Qie Duo Ye

阿喇訶帝

E La He Di

三藐三菩陀寫

San Miao San Pu Tuo Xie

[Yin Wenbo]

南無薩怛他

Na mo Sa Dan Tuo

蘇伽多耶

Su Qie Duo Ye

阿喇訶帝

E La He Di

三藐三菩陀寫

San Miao San Pu Tuo Xie

[Rev. Heng Sure]

開經偈

Kāi jīng jì

無上甚深微妙法

Wú shàng shèn shēn wéi miào fǎ

百千萬劫難遭遇

bǎi qiān wàn jié nàn zāo yù

我今見聞得受持

Wǒ jīn jiàn wén dé shòu chí

願解如來真實義

yuàn jiě rú lái zhēn shí yì

Verse for Opening a Sutra

Supreme and wondrous Dharma, subtle and profound,

Rarely is encountered throughout billions of eons.

But now we see it, hear it and accept it reverently;

May we truly understand the Buddha’s actual meaning.

Here is today’s text. And this is the 法華經 Fǎhuá jīng. So, I’m going to read to you down to there. We’ll read the whole page first in Chinese then English. I’ve got my palms together, you’re welcome to join me:

若三千大千國土滿中怨賊有一商主將諸商

Ruò sān qiān dà qiān guó dù, mǎn zhōng yuàn zéi, yǒu yī shāng zhǔ, jiāng zhū shāng

人齎持重寶經過險路。其中一人作是唱言: ‘諸善

rén, jī chí zhòng bǎo, jīng guò xiǎn lù. Qí zhōng yī rén zuò shì chàng yán: ‘Zhū shàn

男子! 勿得恐怖汝等應當一心稱觀世音菩薩名號,

nán zǐ! Wù dé kǒng bù, rǔ děng yīng dāng yī xīn chēng guān shì yīn pú sà míng hào,

是菩薩能以無畏施於眾生, 汝等若稱名者, 於此怨

shì pú sà néng yǐ wú wèi shī yú zhòng shēng, rǔ děng ruò chēng míng zhě, yú cǐ yuàn

賊, 當得解脫.’ 眾商人聞俱發聲言: ‘南無觀世音菩

zéi, dāng dé jiě tuō.’ Zhòng shāng rén wén, jù fā shēng yán: ‘ná mó guān shì yīn pú

薩!’ 稱其名故即得解脫。無盡意, 觀世音菩薩摩訶薩威神之

sà!’ chēng qí míng gù, jí dé jiě tuō。Wú jìn yì, guān shì yīn pú sà mó hē sà wēi shén zhī

力巍巍如是。

lì wéi wéi rú shì.

“Suppose vicious thieves in legions that could fill a three-fold, great, thousand-world system infest a perilous road along which a merchant chief guides a traders’ caravan laden with precious jewels. If one man among them proclaims: “Good Men, do not be afraid! With all your hearts invoke the name of Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva, the Enlightened One Who Gives courage to All Beings! If we beseech this Bodhisattva, we will surely escape these thieves. Upon hearing this exhortation, if all the traders in unison cry out, ‘Namo Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva!’ By virtue of calling out Guan Shi Yin’s name, they will immediately go free. Infinite Resolve! How imposing is the awesome spiritual power of the Great Bodhisattva Who Listens to the Sounds of All the World!”

This is our section of texts from the 普門品 Pǔ mén pǐn, the Universal Door Chapter. And I want to say how much I appreciate the volunteers who put this sutra together that we have this beautiful edition with a frontispiece with the Buddha and then two images of Guan Yin: Thousand Hands Guan Yin and 紅衣觀音 (Hóng yī gGuānyīn) Guan Yin not 白衣觀音 (Báiyī Guānyīn) Guan Yin with her willow branch and ambrosia sweet dew in the vase, in the picture. So, just excellent. What does our text say? We looked at this once before, but I wanted to go back to it because I skipped over one of the important Dharmas that occurs here in 普門品 Pǔ mén pǐn and that is Guan Yin Bodhisattva as Bestower of Courage; if you want to say Giver of Fearlessness, you can, same thing. Courage, fearlessness, lack of fear, both! Guan Yin Bodhisattva has this quality in her vows, in her nature; she recognizes that one of the things that comes along with being a human is fear. Oh my goodness, is that ever true? I guess, it’s part of being a living being not just a human being.

I’m here surrounded by animals and birds. And the animals and birds here in the Queensland bush have been here, being there themselve for millions of years uninfluenced, unhampered, unburdened, unblocked. The way they are now is the way they have been for millions of years. Is it ever helpful and informative and instructive and enlightening to watch other formations of consciousness live their lives up close?

My ticket to this world is bird seeds because some of our kind volunteers here provided me with bird seeds, so I get to observe birds interacting with their own kind through the generations—parents and kids—and interacting with the other species in the bush, in the forest then at night out come the furry ones, bandicoots! Anybody ever relate to a bandicoot? Well, we get to. What about pythons? Fact of life here. What about brushtail possums? Oh my, every night and fear keeps them alive. We have kookaburras who will land on your hands, or on your arms or on your legs if you teach them to do that because they lose a certain amount of fear, but when I interact with these animals, I have learned to modify my behavior so that I don’t trigger their fear survival reflex and one important thing is: Don’t look at their eyes, unless it’s a kookaburra! Kookaburras stare at you; kookaburras are like: ‘How are you doing?’ They look at you with both eyes when they trust you. Gradually you gain their trust and they look at you carefully, but the other birds, particularly our scrub turkeys, bush turkeys, if you look them in the eye, they are gone. Their translation of perceiving a threat and danger and running away is faster than your eyes can follow. That’s how they survive. So, animals have built-in fear reflexes that work for them to keep them alive.

Look at humans: what do we have? Oh, we have a little bit of fear. We have worries. What else do we have? We have anxieties, we have distress, we have unease, we have fear, fright, panic, terror, horror, alarm, agitation, trepidation, dread and when there’s nothing to fear, we can even send out negative projections in case there’s something to be afraid of.

So look at this, we have so many different things that we are afraid of. Guan Yin Bodhisattva knows that and because Guan Yin is tuned in to what it means to be alive in a human body, Guan Yin makes it one of her particular missions to give us something called courage, fearlessness.

Now, we’re here in the 普門品 Pǔ mén pǐn, the Universal Gateway, but there’s another place that occurred to me where Guan Yin also appears to talk about the very same thing and where is that? Anybody know? I bet you do. In the Entering the Dharma Realm Chapter 39, the Gaṇḍavyūha Chapter of the Avatamsaka Sutra, Guan Yin Bodhisattva appears again and right there in the Gaṇḍavyūha, when she is serving as the Good and Wise Advisor to Sudhana Good Wealth, Guan Yin talks about fearlessness.

Here’s what she says, look at this. I’ve got a little passage here. I’m going to read you the whole thing. There it is. Now, the Chinese translator, sorry I didn’t get you the Chinese so you can give a summary here. What does Guan Yin say to Sudhana? Sudhana has said:

“大聖，我早已聽大聖能指導我，我想問如何修菩薩道？如何行菩薩行?”

or the other way around

“如何行菩薩道？如何修菩薩行？請大聖為我解說!”

Sudhana asks the question that he asks to every one of his 53 teachers. He says:

“I’ve heard that you, Great Sage, are a wonderful teacher. Please explain to me how I should walk the Bodhisattva path? How should I practice Bodhisattva practices?”

So Guan Yin says: “Good man, have you made the Bodhi Resolve?” 觀音菩薩就說: “善男子,如已發大菩提心否? (你有沒有發大菩提心?)” 善齋童子就說: “我早已經發菩提心.”

So Guan Yin Bodhisattva asks a question back. She says, “Good man, have you made the Bodhi Resolve? Have you 發大菩提心?” And Sudhana says, “yes, I have. I have done that a long time ago.” Guan Yin says, “Excellent, excellent, good indeed,” rolls up her sleeves, and says, “let’s get to work.” Here’s what she says, she says: “Good man,” it could be a good woman, the same. She’s talking to Sudahna, so it’s good man.

“As I cultivate this practice method of Great Compassion, I vow to forever save and protect all beings.” Here it begins, “I vow to enable all beings to leave behind the fear of treacherous path; to leave behind the fear of hot afflictions; to leave behind the fear of confused delusion; to leave behind the fear of being bound and fettered; to leave behind the fear of being killed and harmed; to leave behind the fear of poverty and destitution; to leave behind the fear of not living; to leave behind the fear of an evil reputation; to leave behind the fear of death; to leave behind the fear of the great assembly; to leave behind the fear of the evil destinies; to leave behind the fear of darkness; to leave behind the fear of wandering and drifting; to leave behind the fear of being apart from what you love; to leave behind the fear of meeting what you hate; to leave behind the fear of things that oppressed the body; to leave behind the fear of things that oppress the mind; to leave behind the fear of worry and anxiety. Moreover, I make the following vow: I vow that all beings who are mindful of me or recite my name or see my person will be completely spared and removed from all apprehension and terror.”

“Good man, once I have, with those expedients, enabled all beings to leave behind apprehension and terror, I further teach them to bring forth their resolve for anuttara samyak sambodhi.”

Here we go. Yay, somebody is quick. Yi-huan, you are quick with it. So 我們翻譯普通話的同參道友,這裡有中文. So our Chinese translator, we’ve got the Chinese right there in the chat box.

What’s going on here? Yes, we are explaining the 法華經 Fǎ Huá Jīng, the Lotus Sutra, but I thought, ‘Wow, you know, there’s another place where Guan Yin does the same thing, only in detail, what it means to bestow courage.’ And here it is! Guan Yin says,

“I vow to enable everybody to leave behind 离开,” right? “to leave behind fourteen kinds of fear.” Some of them I thought were really interesting. Poverty distribution. Not living, I think of “having no livelihood” is what this is actually—not being able to provide for your dependents.

Anybody who has taken part in an explanation of the ten stages chapter will recall in the first stage, there’s what we called “the five-fold fears,” well, here they are: one, two, three, four, five. 无命畏, 惡名畏, 死畏, 大眾威德畏, 惡道畏. There it is. Those are the five right? No livelihood, loss of face, evil reputation is loss of face. Somebody steals your family name. Oh, how do you get it back, right? It’s like feathers out of a pillow. It’s really hard to get them all back once people start to hear gossip about you. That’s a fear. People are afraid of that—to lose face as a motivator. To leave behind the fear of death!I see the animals. The birds. Boom! You blink and they’re gone. The fastest ones now are the doves. We have three kinds of doves and pigeons who come to eat at the food bowl every day, the bird seed bowl. I’m in my room behind the glass. As soon as my head pops up above the level where they could see it out of the corner of their eye, I’m not even outdoors, boom! They’re gone. That’s how much their fear of death is acute and triggers them to survive. I guess because pigeons have no weapons. Kookaburras, they’re like, ‘No worries. No worries, mate. No, we’ll get along. She’s right,’ because they have this huge beak; they have a weapon. Oh my goodness!

So to leave behind the fear of the great assembly, what’s that? Stage fright. Look at this one: fear of darkness. Anybody afraid of the dark? Yeah. Remember when you were small? Oh, don’t turn out the light, Mom! Oh, my goodness! Look at these: wandering and drifting and here are sufferings. This is what? 愛別離苦(Ài biélí kǔ)，怨憎會苦 (Yuànzēng huì kǔ). Here they are. Two of the eight kinds of fears: to be apart from what you love and meeting what you hate. That’s scary. That will keep you from moving. ‘To leave behind the fear of things that will oppress the body and the mind and worry and anxiety.’

Then Guan Yin makes a vow. She says: ‘If you’re mindful of me, “念彼觀音力 (Niàn bǐ guānyīn lì)” ; if you recite my name, 稱我名號 (Chēng wǒ mínghào).. Look at this: all you do is see Guan Yin. If you look at Guan Yin and see her, that person will be spared and set free from all apprehension and terror.

So what I think is especially interesting is that Guan Yin isn’t done with simply delivering us from fear. What does she do? She says: “Furthermore, I teach them to bring forth the Bodhi resolve once the fear is gone.” Isn’t that interesting?

So Guan Yin’s, what her teaching to Sudhana in the Flower Garland Sutra is that if you recite my name, if you are mindful of me, bringing a thought of me to your mind, if you see me, I will make the fears go away and then, I’m going to follow that up once you’re mind is liberated from that emotion of fear, then I’m going to plant the seed of Enlightenment. I’m going to let you know what your mind is capable of—great wisdom, great compassion, the Bodhi resolve. Once that Bodhi resolve arises in your mind, you change your outlook.

Your priorities shift, once the Bodhi resolve has really taken root, which is you say, ‘you know, worldly attainments are good. Well, more than one PhD; two or three PhDs or you mix an academic and a professional degree—I want a PhD and an MD. I’m going to spend a lot of hours in the classroom, a lot of hours doing research, and a lot of hours walking the halls of hospitals so I can help people.

Or you say, I’m going to have the healthiest children I could have. I’m going to have good kids. I’m going to spend time with my kids, support them, inspire them and then let them fly on the foundation wings that I’ve given them. I’m not going to smother them once I’ve raised them. What an accomplishment! Those are all wonderful accomplishments to do in the world, but there’s more.

Where do the Buddhas come from? They come from people who made the Bodhi resolve and said, ‘I’m going for the top. I’m going to look deep in my mind and find out where wisdom can arise and let it rise. I’m going to transform all those pieces of false thoughts into one great perfect reflecting mirror. 大圓鏡智 (Dàyuán jìng zhì). That’s what I can do and the way I do is I come to terms with all of my living beings. What are they? Greed, anger, delusion, pride, doubt, jealousy, all those. Those are living beings. Fear is living beings. Who say, ‘I’m afraid, I want to survive. Help!’ Guan Yin says, ‘Right! I’m going to deal with that, so you can make the Bodhi resolve. With the Bodhi resolve, once you recognize what you want—your goal—you come to terms with the path to that goal; the path to that goal is in the same place. You don’t go anywhere else to make the Bodhi resolve come about. It’s right in the mind.

So that brings us to the next part of the Sutra. Here. I’m going to read this one.

若有眾生多於淫慾，常念恭敬觀世音菩薩，便得離欲；若多嗔恚，常念恭敬觀世音菩薩，便得離嗔；若多愚癡，常念恭敬觀世音菩薩，便得離癡。

ruò yǒu zhòng shēng duō yú yín yú cháng niàn gōng jìng guān shì yīn pú sà, biàn dé lí yù. Ruò duō chēn huì cháng niàn gōng jìng guān shì yīn pú sà, biàn dé lí chēn. Ruò duō yú chī cháng niàn gōng jìng guān shì yīn pú sà, biàn dé lí chī.

“If any living being with weighty desires can constantly revere and keep in mind Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva, his/her passions will subside.

If somebody with much anger can constantly revere and keep in mind Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva, then his/her anger will subside.

If someone dull and foolish can constantly revere and keep in mind Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva, he/she will leave stupidity behind.”

So this story that we started with today about thieves. We have a merchant chief taking people out to do business, and they run into thieves who are trying to steal their goods. That is number seven of the 七難 (Qī Nán), the seven troubles, disasters, dangers that Guan Yin Bodhisattva protects us from. And after we meet those dangers and surmount them, vanquish them, defeat them through mindfulness of Guan Yin, the next thing that happens is 三毒 (Sān dú), the Three Poisons, that Guan Yin Bodhisattva says afflict the mind, and made a vow to help us get past.

I don’t know. Buddhism is so useful; it’s so practical. Buddhism goes right to where the pain is, right to where the suffering comes from, which is poison in my mind.

The Seven Difficulties are external: floods, fires, bandits, trouble with the state, wild animals, demons, rakshasas, yakshas—those kinds of troubles—and thieves if you’re trying to do business. Tucked into that last one is fear. Fear is a danger, being afraid of things.

Fear sometimes, now I need to in our discussion of fear I didn’t specify one thing. Watching the birds and watching the furry critters trigger their fear response is very helpful for them, it keeps them alive. The birds that I’m watching are pretty much called garden birds; they are common all over South Eastern Australia, and in the West too, but different kinds. They all operate—the kookaburras go down to the ground, but the other birds like to be 15, 20 feet up in the air; they like to be in the air. My deck is on a hillside, a cabin here. So I’m to build the platform up, takes me up in the air and the house is raised so that the water can rush under it. So it’s so nice to be up high at the bird level so I can see them; they don’t have to come down to the ground where they’re in danger. I’m up where they are so I get to see them.

These garden birds have something all share, which is fear of raptors. Raptors are eagles and hawks and all the varieties. When an eagle, sea eagle or…forgotten the name of the indigenous eagle—the wedge-tailed. When the wedge-tailed goes by or hawks of which there are numerous ones or for any reason, owls might be out during the day, they’re not mostly, they’re nocturnal, but when one of those large raptors fly overhead, there is a signal and all the garden birds at once hide and it’s so interesting to see they share a common language, a common wavelength, a common vibratory tone, but as soon as the shadow of a raptor crosses, the guy crosses the yard, somebody, doesn’t matter who does it, whoever got the fastest response, goes “ahhh..” and Whoop! Silent. Not a sound. Not a bird. They’re all under the leaves waiting for the raptor to go.

So that kind of fear and by transference, by analogy in people, fear is useful. We burn ourselves on the stove and we’re afraid to do it again because it hurts. Once burned twice shy, right? We don’t want to stick our hand in the stove ring anymore because we know that hurts—that it will harm our body.

So fear is helpful. Guan Yin Bodhisattva is here to respond in unhelpful fears. So how does she do it? Well, I think if I were Guan Yin, I’m not. If I were, I would in my vows as a Buddha who is 正法明如来 (zhèng fǎ míng rú lái), I would take my appearance, my name and my vows and charge them with wholesome light so that when a human with our particular human consciousness and our human skandas, this set of components—when we take Guan Yin Bodhisattva’s image, thought, name, or vows, or practices, the mantra, the various mantras, Om Mani Padme Hum, the Great Compassion Mantra etc—when we take these mantras or Guan Yin’s vows or her image into our minds, it sheds that light, it sends that calming vibration.

And it’s true that if we’re reciting, Ná Mó Guān Shì Yīn Bodhisattva, Ná Mó Guān Yīn Bodhisattva, ná mó guān yīn pú sà, or guān yīn pú sà, guān yīn pú sà or 救苦救難 (Jiùkǔjiùnàn) Guan Yin Bodhisattva who saves us from troubles and disasters. When we take that vibration into our mind, it generates that calming, wholesome, fundamental, primal light and energy, and the fear that arises from I could be in trouble, maybe something might come to hurt me, that projection of danger vanishes, the way light vanishes darkness. Darkness that’s been in a room for 10,000 years, as soon as you light one cell phone flashlight, is gone forever. Light up your flashlight on your cell phone in 10,000 years of darkness are banished. It doesn’t matter how long it has been dark in that room, light up your light.

I was gonna say match; I was gonna say candle; I was gonna say lighter; nobody carries lighters. We don’t smoke like that anymore; we don’t have matches and candles. We do have cell phones with flashlights. Light up your cell phone flashlight, poof! That light wins, banishes the dark.

So Guan Yin Bodhisattva name and image, mantra and presence does the same to our minds. It is the flashlight in the darkness of the fear in our mind. That’s how it works. You have to do it, but if you do, that’s what happens.

Now, we’re turning towards the Three Poisons. You have weighty desires. The Sutra in Chinese specifies sexual desire, but there are other desires that can poison the mind. Desire for wealth, sex, fame, food, sleep. All can do it. Anger that arises from that desire unsatisfied and then stupidity, which can often be the result of angry deeds or words after desire is unsatisfied.

Those all melt away for the same reason. Although the poisons are there in the mind, we are living beings. Guan Yin name, vibration, light, goodness, vows, virtue, strength, 念彼觀音力 (Niàn bǐ guānyīn lì), be mindful of the strength of Guan Yin, that’s all enough to purify, to banish those poisons.

It really works that way.

I have a wonderful, wonderful song to share. There’s a turkey outside my door talking to me. Speak up. Hey, wait unless the sun rises and we’ll feed ya.

Paramitas of Bodhisattva’s power tools operate by antidote. They are the cure for troubles that we, living beings, have. The first of the paramitas is generosity, the act of giving, being generous in your donations, in your offerings, in your gifts.

They say, if there were no afflictions, there wouldn’t be any Dharma, but because we living beings have afflictions, therefore, because things go wrong, afflictions means troubles, worries, the blues, the black smoke out the tailpipe of your car, that’s an affliction and that’s why the Buddhadharma exists is to antidote, to cure, to heal, to fix what ails you.

So because living beings are stingy, because we have greed and I want more, more and more and more— I’m not satisfied or enough. So that’s an affliction. That doesn’t help us at all. It’s a pain. It’s a misery. It doesn’t satisfy. And so generosity, giving is the antidote to that kind of greed, that desire.

The author, John Steinbeck, that’s a quick transition wasn’t it? John Steinbeck, one of my favorite authors, I read everything that John Steinbeck ever wrote. He in The Grapes of Wrath—some people call it the Great American novel—we’ll see; In The Grapes of Wrath, the Joads family are on their truck; they’ve left Oklahoma. They’re heading for California and have the whole family including grandma in a rocking chair on the truck and it’s a mighty hard road that my poor hands have hold. My poor feet have traveled a hot dusty road.

So my goodness, there are two boys in the truck; there’s a big brother and a little brother. They’re both, I guess about maybe ten and eight? And the scene in Steinbeck’s novel is the family truck pulls up to a country store. The country store is the only place for miles and miles that will offer a drink of water, some gasoline and sundries, things you need to the travelers who are just in caravans of these similar trucks and cars escaping the dust bowl. Oh, what a story! In this particular scene, the Joads family’s truck pulls up and dad gets to work doing what he’s got to do to keep the truck running. Mom has to attend to the elders and the two boys jump out of the truck and zoom! they’re over into the store plastering their faces to the candy counter. And if you have ever been to one of these country stores, you know that chances are the sweets are in a white porcelain display with a round lazy Susan type display that is motorized and it turns. There are the salted cashews, hmm. There are the jujubes, hmm. There are the licorice barrels, hmm. Oh my! Maybe even some good and plenty in the pink and black boxes, remember? Good and plenty. These kids, of course, they’re poor. These are poor kids, they just don’t have anything, but they have hopes and dreams. And they’re staring at the candies and salivating.

Now in this roadside store, there’s also a little cafe section. Set aside a couple of tables and here are two truck drivers drinking coffee and the kids, they’re watching the scene and the waitress who is running the store—she’s probably about 15 or maybe a little older and she’s the daughter of the owner— the kids are drooling as they look at the penny candies. Penny candies are these big sticks of sugar, right? You tried to bite down on them and you’d break your tooth. They’re just maybe six inches long and pure sugar. And oh, kids can lick on them for days until they get down to the last sticky nub, which they carry in their fist.

Oh my, and so the kids say, “how much are them candies?” And the waitress looks at the kids and she says, “Well, how much have you got?” Kids say, “We’ve only a penny between us.” She looks at them, she looks at the candies on the counter. She says, “Well, these candies are two for a penny.” And of course they’re not. They’re a penny each, but they’ve only a penny between them. So the two kids go, “Well, can we buy two?” And she pulls two big all-day candies out of the dispenser. They hand her the sticky penny from the bottom of the linty pocket of their jumper and they run off to the back of the truck. Disappear among the mattresses down at the bottom of the truck and start licking on their penny candy. Of course, their sister says, “Give me some, give me some.” So the truck drivers look at the waitress and say, “hey, them candies ain’t two for a penny.” She looks at them and says, “what’s it to you?” So she’s done some, a good deed. Well, the truck drivers finished their coffee and straightened their clothes, headed for the door and said goodbye.

And she goes over to their chairs, she says, “hey, hey you left too much money?” The truck drivers turn back and say, “So what’s it to you?” And out they go. They pay it forward. Generosity, right? It overcomes greed. And Kris Kristofferson, bless his heart! Yes, Kris Kristifferson captured Steinbeck’s story in a wonderful song called “Here Comes That Rainbow Again” (Banjo music – Dharma Master Heng Sure played the banjo and sang the song).

Here Comes That Rainbow Again

Kris Kristofferson

The scene was a small roadside cafe,

The waitress was sweeping the floor,

Two truck drivers drinking their coffee,

Two Okie kids by the door.

“How much are them candies?” they asked her;

“How much have you got?” she replied.

“We’ve only a penny between us;”

“Them’s two for a penny” she lied.

Chorus:

The daylight grew heavy with thunder,

With the smell of the rain on the wind;

Ain’t it just like a human–

Here comes that rainbow again.

One truck driver called to the waitress,

After the kids went outside,

“Them candies ain’t two for a penny;”

“So what’s it to you?” she replied.

In silence they finished their coffee;

They got up and nodded goodby,

She called, “Hey, you left too much money;”

“So what’s it to you?” they replied.

Chorus:

The daylight grew heavy with thunder,

With the smell of the rain on the wind;

Ain’t it just like a human–

Here comes that rainbow again.

Songs that arise from literature, preserving some of humanity’s best moments.

So the time has come. We have just cracked the first one of Guan Yin’s three “Dispelling Three Kinds of Poison” and we’ll get back next week to the anger and the delusion part. We talked about greed a bit.

Today, we talked about courage, bestowing courage and fearlessness and this large black bird just landed outside my window. BANG! Halfway through the song, I didn’t know it was a turkey. I would go, whoa! Who’s trying to break into my house? Courage is like that. Fear is like that. Sometimes it keeps us alive; other times “Namo Guan Yin Bodhisattva.”

Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, not to mention India and Nepal and countries surrounding Southeast and East Asia are suffering hugely from the Coronavirus. So as Buddhists, we have something to do about that, which is reciting Medicine Buddha’s Mantra for Anointing the Crown of the Head. So what do you say? Join in, let’s do that now.

(Banjo music)

Om namo bhagavate bhaisajyaguru

Vaidurayaprabharajaya tathagataya

Arhate samyaksambuddhaya tadyatha: om

Bhaisajye bhaisajye bhaisajya samudgate svaha om

(3x)

Thank you everybody for sharing with me an hour of investigation into the Lotus Sutra’s telling of the story of Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva, the Awakened Being Who Hears the Sounds, the Cries of the World and who says if you recite my name, “Namo Guan Shi Yin Pusa,” I will deliver you from fear.

I’m going to ring the bell three times, make three half bows to the Buddhas and Guan Yin. (Rings bell). Make three bows to Master Hua. Bow in respect to the Venerable Master. (Rings bell). Alrighty. There we go. See you all next week. Stay well, stay safe, stay healthy. Amituofo. Bye-bye everybody.

Contributors of this transcribing this lecture:Vera Cristofani, Ng Swee Tuo, Lin Lau, Wenbo Yin, Bach_Nguyen, Hong Anh Nguyen , Bernie Moloney, Yan Ming, Peggy Yeh, Susan Chai