A Detailed Exposition of the Vimalakirti Sutra 

by Grandmaster Lu, Living Buddha Lian Sheng of the True Buddha School 

Translated into English by the True Buddha School Vimalakirti Translation Team 

Discourse 30, 3 September 2022 - Chapter One—Buddhaverse (Continued) 

Chapter One—Buddhaverse

They understood the profundity of the origination of causes and conditions,^[1] and cut off all wrong views. They do not lean toward existentialism or nihilism, and had no more traces of habitual tendencies. They displayed the fearlessness of a lion’s roar in their speech which resonated like thunder. They had transcended immeasurability and measurability.

We will now talk about the Vimalakirti Sutra. Last week I talked about the phrase:      

They displayed the fearlessness of a lion’s roar in their speech which resonated like thunder.

When Vimalakirti does not speak, his silence is akin to thunder. When Manjusri Bodhisattva shuts his mouth, he radiates rays of prajna light. They are thunder and light; even when they don’t speak the dharma, they are likened to thunder and light.

The meaning of Lei Tsang Temple is “The Temple of Hidden Thunders,” a name bestowed by Golden Mother and related to Vimalakirti. It stores thunder during times of silence, only to radiate light in action and roar like thunder. Our thunders are concealed, thus the name, Hidden Thunders. It appears quiet when hidden, but at full play, its sounds of thunders echo throughout.

They displayed the fearlessness of a lion’s roar in their speech which resonated like thunder.

When they speak dharma, they move people’s hearts; when Grandmaster speaks—just like thunder—it trembles people’s hearts. At times, people become so touched that they are moved to tears, having merely listened to the teaching. 

The next phrase goes,

They had gone beyond immeasurability and measurability.

Typical commentaries explain this phrase to mean being unbound by time and spatial dimension; they explained, “When the great bodhisattvas speak dharma, they are not restricted by time and space.”

I find Sakyamuni Buddha to be truly incredible. Why? Because the Buddha stated, “A mouthful of clean water contains 84,000 microbes. If you do not chant mantra, [drinking water] is just like killing sentient beings.” Two thousand and six hundred years ago in India, Sakyamuni Buddha already knew that there were microorganisms in water. What were microorganism? Back then, science hadn’t advanced to such a point. Yet, Sakyamuni Buddha knew that there were microorganisms in water. He was remarkable! He knew about things as minuscule as bacteria to things as vast as the universe. 

The Buddhist sutras speak about three-thousand-great-thousand worlds, which are not discussed in most other religions that speak of only one heaven, one human world, one hell, and no reincarnation. But Sakyamuni Buddha talked about three-thousand-great-thousand worlds. In his era, there were no telescopes to observe the sky and no microscopes to see microbes. To discover such things, one would normally require telescopes found in astronomic observatories! Yet, without them, he knew about the three-thousand-great-thousand worlds.

How did he know about the solar system? A solar system is one small-thousand-world. Three thousand small-thousand-worlds—3,000 solar systems—make up one medium-thousand-world. And 3,000 medium-thousand-worlds make up one great-thousand-world. The three-thousand-great-thousand worlds refer to 3,000 of these great-thousand-worlds. And there are more than just one three-thousand-great-thousand worlds—there are countless! Do you know how big the whole universe is? No, you don’t! Could you have imagined it on your own? Of course, not.

But Sakyamuni Buddha knows and speaks about it; therefore, he is extraordinary. He is a buddha, and a buddha is a buddha! He can see everything, from the most minuscule germs to the vastest infinite world. The Buddha knows everything! And his knowledge was recorded in the Buddhist sutras.

With his eyes closed, he knew, “From here, passing through one billion buddhaverses to the West, there is a world called the Western Pureland of Utmost Bliss.” He stated it in the Amitabha Sutra. There are one billion buddhaverses between here and Sukhavati—the Western Pureland of Utmost Bliss. Just imagine how far that is! Let alone the three-thousand-great-thousand worlds that are so vast beyond imagination.

How big is it? It is immeasurable, so much that you cannot even imagine it with your human brain. Yet the Buddha knows! And so do the great bodhisattvas, who have reached the state of buddha-in-waiting. Their dharma teaching is likewise immeasurable: They can speak on something extremely remote, such as the distance from our saha world to Sukhavati or how long it will take to travel such a distance. That is immeasurability.

Today’s advanced science allows us to document Mars’ surface with satellites, although it requires a considerable amount of time and effort to achieve it. It takes time to travel there, and it would be very difficult to measure the time if we were to reach all the planets and travel to the end of the solar system. And our solar system is merely one small-thousand-world.

Yet, Sakyamuni Buddha is beyond measurability. He talked about the three-thousand-great-thousand worlds, which is impossible to measure, both in terms of spatial and time dimensions. Such is the dharma spoken by the great bodhisattvas, too!

Grandmaster has the transcendent power of knowing past and future lives [one of the six transcendent powers]. So Grandmaster knows about his past lives. Some people related to the present Sheng-Yen Lu were also related to the past Sheng-Yen Lu or will be to the future Sheng-Yen Lu. Past lives do exist, but do you know your past lives? Most people don’t.

The great bodhisattvas know their past 500 lives and their future 500 lives. They know about the past, the present, and the future—the three times. How vast is that? Beyond measure! It is impossible to measure the extent of its time and space. 

The Chinese dynasties spanned from Tang, Yu, Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, the Four Kingdoms of Wei, Jin, the Northern and Southern Dynasties, then Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing, to the present day for thousands of years. Of these, I had lived in the Zhou Dynasty, Han Dynasty, Western Xia Dynasty, Tang Dynasty, Ming Dynasty... I shouldn’t talk about the details because Golden Mother reminded me not to say too much about it.

Many people with spiritual acuity also know about their past lives. What is this? This is: 

They had gone beyond immeasurability and measurability.

It is beyond measure. Knowing about the past 500 lives and the future 500 lives refers to time, and the past, present, and future also represent time, while the three-thousand-great-thousand worlds represent space. Who can measure them? No one, as it is impossible to measure. This is how I explain the phrase. Yet, most explanations would simply be “they are not restricted by time and space.” 

The Buddha was indeed remarkable. He talked about the three-thousand-great-thousand worlds and the most minuscule 84,000 germs. Whereas human beings are so insubstantial, they only know about one moon and one mountain. When I was little, I remember reading a poem written by a great Confucian master, Wang Yangming, when he was still very young.

        One says the moon is small

        when the moon is far and the mountain is near

        But in the eyes as vast as the sky

        the moon is much bigger

So when the mountain is [near and] tall and the moon is [far and] small, one says the moon is small. But he who knows the vast sky knows that the moon is much bigger, even when the mountain looks bigger. 

By the same token, Sakyamuni Buddha’s eyes transcend space and time. The expression “throughout the three times across all ten directions” relates to this. In Buddhism, throughout the three times refers to the stream of continuum of the past, present, and future, representing time, as Buddhadharma can connect the past, present, and future. And across all ten directions, representing space, means that all ten directional dharma realms can be understood.

Om mani padme hum.

[1] pratītya-samutpāda 

Next discourse on the Vimalakirti Sutra: Discourse 31, 4 September 2022 - Chapter One—Buddhaverse (Continued)

Previous discourse on the Vimalakirti Sutra: Discourse 29, 28 August 2022 - Chapter One—Buddhaverse (Continued)

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Full webcast of 2022.09.03 Padmakumara Group Practice (Ling Shen Ching Tze Temple, Redmond, USA) and dharma discourse with English interpretation: https://youtu.be/M4lhiAAOEws