Correspondence Among Dharma GroupsCW28:No.34Yogi C. M. Chen
IWhy do we need this correspondence? I will begin the first part by talking about the reasons why we need to study about the correspondence among Dharma groups. There are five reasons: 1. First, we have to develop our Right View and enlarge it and utilize it. Before we practice, we must study all the doctrines broadly and find the inter-connections among them, one to another. We must learn how to make the correspondences. Just like having many Chinese coins which are round outside with a square space inside: the businessman must count everyday all the coins he has earned and so he penetrates the coins with a chain in order to count the coins quickly and keep them in order so as to say "This is 1,000 coins, this is another 1,000 coins." In this manner the coins are easy to arrange and very easy to use. The understanding of the correspondences is just like the chain penetrating the center of the coins. Our knowledge is made up of so many diverse kinds of knowledge: psychology, biology, science, philosophy and religion. There are so many different kinds of knowledge, and if you know the correspondences among them, then you may very richly utilize them. Many scholars can repeat many sutras and shastras, but they cannot use them very well and cannot be compared with a computer. A computer is able to link together the different chains, and file the lists of kinds of connections. Everytime you put in new information, you immediately get another link. This is the skill of the computer and the ability of the use of correspondences through which you take this data from this image and that data from that image and are able to put together some new information connecting the two. In this way, from here you can get to there and from there, then get to another new place. So first enlarge your knowledge and make all the knowledge interconnected with one another and then we can use them, we can know more than one. As Confucius said, "If I talk to you about one leg of the table, and from that you do not know about the other three legs, then I will not bother to talk with you again." So with correspondence, from one you can know many. In Tibet, riches are measured not by counting coins but by counting bulls and horses. So the good businessman if he comes to Tibet and asks "What is the price of your bull?", he may get an answer of $100 for each. Then he has no need to ask how much is the price of a horse because he knows the horse's price is usually twice as much as the bull's, so he need not ask again. The businessman wants to keep some secret so he does not ask about what he really wants, instead he asks for another thing in order to get the correspondence with the one he needs to know about. This is the function of correspondence. 2. The second reason is to get rid of the volition of false view. You have to connect with all the knowledge, not just what you know now. You do not just keep your knowledge and not learn of other knowledge! To get rid of the volition of one's own prejudice, if you know the correspondences well, you will not keep your sectarianism. Suppose I am a Buddhist. I must also know Hinduism, Sufism, and Christianity. Why? Because I practice Buddhism, I want to convert everybody of all other religions to Buddhism, so I have to learn of their teachings. If you learn their knowledge and know the correspondences; what of this doctrine is like that teaching, you have no sectarianism. When you know everything about each, you can compare them with certain ideas. Then when you meet a Hindu, you can talk about Buddhism and Hinduism, the differences and correspondences; and when you talk with a Sufi, you talk about Sufi doctrine and Buddhist doctrine. In such a way everybody can be converted to Buddhism by you! For example, once I talked with a Christian about ascent. He had only read the New Testament and he knew Jesus ascended (flew-up) after his death, but he never had read the Old Testament. He said, "Buddha died, Krishna died, likewise Confucius died. It was only Jesus who ascended. So I do not believe in Buddha." I replied, "You know only the New Testament, you do not know the whole Bible and in the Old Testament it is written that Elijah ascended even before Jesus." He said, "I'm sorry." I said, "You do not have full knowledge, you are just foolish. You must know more about the Bible, the Old Testament as well as the New Testament." If you consider the correspondences among all of the ascents, ascent of the airplane, ascent of Christianity, ascent of Hinduism, ascent of Buddhism, you may then know their differences. Just like airplanes; some fly a hundred miles, some a thousand miles, some can land on the moon, some cannot land on the moon. They fly in many different ways. So to get rid of prejudice, to get rid of the volition of one's own narrow mind and narrow knowledge, you must know about the correspondences with other knowledge. When you talk or study about ascent, you must not only learn about ascent of the New Testament and Old Testament but also about Buddha's ascent. Buddha ascended to Heaven and gave a lecture to his mother and came back. If you do not know this, then you cannot make proper correspondences among them and you will fall into your prejudice and fall into the volition. Therefore to get rid of prejudice and volition or sectarianism you must know about correspondence. This is the second reason. 3. The third is to unify every kind of knowledge and harmonized them, we must learn of correspondence. If you know correspondence, you know how to harmonize them, and then you will never lose anything but will get the whole truth. This is the third reason. 4. The fourth is that to increase our practice and realization of yoga, to know the measurement or degree of our own yoga accomplishment, what you already have and what you still need, you must have knowledge of their correspondences. Then your practice will be progressive. You will make your practice follow the proper sequence and you will get reasonable and fruitful realization. Otherwise, many foolish people say, "Oh, I can do this, I can do that." So if you know the correspondences well, you will not have foolish realizations and cheat yourself. This is the fourth reason. 5. The final reason is to enter into the Final Truth. To induce every Dharma to enter into the Final Truth, there must be correspondence. Buddhists say about the Final Truth, "Every Dharma is our teacher; every Dharma is Sunyata; every Dharma is a way to get to the Final Truth." If you know the correspondences well, you will believe it, otherwise how? They say that "In Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana doctrine, some get the final goal in this lifetime, some must take sixteen lives, while others must go through three kalpas. Why is it like this? Then how can we say everyone can reach full enlightenment at the same time, how does all the Dharma lead into Final Truth?" This can be known through the correspondences of the different Causes, Courses, and Times. So the reasons are not only reliable but very, very important. Many scholars know by remembrance, "I know this, I know that." I once talked with a friend who asked me some Sanskrit words. I said, "Please don't use me as a dictionary--use me as a man! If you use me as a man, then you get much more." Many, many scholars are just like dictionaries. Because a dictionary is word by word, it does not make correspondences among its contents. There is an explanation of this one and an explanation of that one but it does not interconnect them. By correspondence you can know all of them. You will get the right view and you will practice quite right and be wise and not stupid. This is the first part, the reasons why you must learn correspondence among Dharma groups. III will begin the second part by introducing the kinds of correspondences I will be talking about. There are many methods of correspondence but I will talk about the two correspondences which I use in my books and which are most important. One is to correspond the Dharma groups perpendicularly. That means from bottom to top, lower to higher, from shallow to profound, from superficial to deep. It is like a straight line. This kind of correspondence in my system utilizes Dharma groups of four. A group means some number, whether three, five, or ten, this is according to the Dharma itself. What then is the basic group of four I am referring to? The first is outwardly, the second is inwardly, the third is secretly, and the fourth is most secretly. All of these refer to quality. That means, from within the same group of things, we distinguish which is shallow, which is a little deeper, which is very deep, and which is most profound. In this way, you can know what the starting point, the middle points, and the final point are. This is very important. But before this, we must have the basis of the correspondence which is the second kind of correspondence I will talk about in which the Dharmas are arranged horizontally, one by one. The basis of this kind of correspondence is the Dharma groups of five. These are fundamentally five different things which have some relationship to each other, just like the five Buddhas correspond to the five wisdoms. Each thing has its own different four degrees of quality, which are the perpendicular correspondences. I will give several examples of each kind of correspondence so that you will get a clearer idea and knowledge of them. Some of the groups of five are the Five Buddhas, Five Elements, Five Wisdoms, Five Colors, and Five Forms. These are what I call horizontal, which means they are arranged serially one after the other. That means everywhere you can connect with them. The Dharma groups of four are not different things but four gradations of the same thing divided perpendicularly as a ladder. From this you can know in what way many things interconnect and also you have knowledge of this gradation from the lowest part to the highest part. I have now talked about the two kinds of correspondence which I have used to write many of my articles. Why did I choose the number five for the horizontal correspondence? One reason is because five is an auspicious number in Tibet and actually for all Buddhists. Even in China they called the Emperor the Royalty of "Chu-Wo", "Wo" meaning five. The number Wo is very high. When we make a divination, if we meet five, it is a very good number, a good omen because it is an auspicious number. This is the first reason. The second reason is that the most important Dharma number is five. I can say this is not by superstition but by scientific calculation; it is not just according to my own interest or opinion. I have compiled a scientific statistic from the great Chinese Buddhist Dictionary in which there are many entries of Dharma groups. I cannot talk today about all of them, but I will just give you the following numbers that are found therein: seven, six, five, four. I counted all the entries of those four numbers in that dictionary. The group of four was entered 486 times, the group of five 579, the group of six 258, and for seven I found only 187. So among these four numbers the largest number of entries was the group of five. It occupies so many entries--five this and five that, 579 times altogether! That is why it can be said that many pages of the dictionary are occupied by the Dharma groups of five. These statistics show that the group of five is a very important number for the Dharma. Another reason for the use of five is that it is also an auspicious date. The full moon date which is the 15th day has five in its number,and the 25th is the date in Tibet when they used to offer the Dakinis, so whatever connects with five is always auspicious. Today is a full moon date which has a five in it and that is why I am talking on this subject now and will give you some examples. All the fives are very important. First of all we study the five Dhyani Buddhas. In the three periods, past, present, and future, are many Buddhas. Some sutras mention 1,000 Buddha names, some 10,000 Buddhas, so the Buddhas are great in number. Buddhas also foretold that every sentient being will be a Buddha. Since many Buddhas have come and many will come in the future, how do we classify them? Suppose we take men as an example. In India men are classified in four groups. Some are the officers, governors, maharajas; some are the soldiers; some are the Brahmins, priests; some are the working men and servants. In China, the old tradition has five classifications of men: First, scholars (Shih); second, farmers (Nong); third, laborers (Kong); fourth, businessmen (Shang); and fifth, soldiers (Bin). So even many Buddhas can also have their categories based on their merits, according to their correct biographies. Of the five Dhyani Buddhas, the first is the central Buddha, then the East, South, West, and North. These are their positions, i.e., in the four directions and the center. The central Buddha is named Vairocana, the East, Aksobhya; the South, Ratnasambhava; West, Amitabha, and North, Amoghasiddhi. Vairocana means the "Great Sun" Buddha. Aksobhya means "Non-Moving" Buddha. Ratnasambhava means "Gem Producer", and Amoghasiddhi means "Achievement Without Voidness", while Amitabha's name has a two-fold meaning, "Boundless Light" and "Boundless Life", for he shines light boundlessly without limitation. In this way all the Buddhas' merits are gathered into these five. You can get long life, you can get achievement, you can produce gems, and you are non-moving with good meditation. The inward one, the center, is a center of the Universe, the Buddha of the Universe, just like the sun shining everywhere. So this is the basis of the classification of the Buddhas. Our teachings are from the Buddha and the Buddha's five kinds of merit and his characteristics of power, wisdom and great compassion are gathered in these five. We have named the hermitage here for Adi Buddha who is the teacher of these five Buddhas. He is included within the five for we are not talking of a group of six. There are many other Dharma groups of five. All of them can correspond with the five Buddhas. We have now talked about the five Buddhas and their five positions i.e. the center, east, south, west, and north. This helps determine the positions of our fire sacrifices. It explains why our sacrifice to the Buddha of Healing was offered toward the eastern direction, as we know he is in the Eastern Buddhaland so we must face the east and sit on the west. There are five purposes of Homa; the eastern direction is for the purpose of reducing; southern, increasing; western, inducing; northern, subduing; while the center is for full Enlightenment. Hence the five Buddhas correspond with these five kinds of Homas. When the direction is right, then the function will come out correctly. You may wonder why sometimes our fire sacrifice is done facing North. This is because there are also four Gods and each has the duty to protect his own continent which are four in number and face the four directions separately. The God of Wealth is the God of the northern direction so we have to face toward the north when offering a sacrifice to him, then we can get his blessings. Just as in our society you get money from a bank by facing directly the teller, not turning your back toward him, so you must face the proper God or Buddha and to do this you must know the correspondence. If you know the correct correspondence you can do everything very reasonably and fruitfully. Next I speak of the correspondence of the five colors. The central color is blue, just like the sky. The east is white, the south is yellow, the west is red and the north is green or black. Why do they correspond like this and how can you utilize it? The center, just like the sky, covers everywhere so it is blue. It is the universe and we get full enlightenment thereof. The east is just like the early morning time when the sun rises in the east and is bright white. So the east can purify something, and that is also why it is white and the direction for the reducing Homa. Yellow is in the south because our leading Gem is Gold which is yellow and the south is connected with Ratnasambhava the "Gem Producer." The west is red because Amitabha's color is red and Amitabha's world is also said to be the greatest pleasure world which means Love. Amitabha is very skillful in love and has sixty-four wives and many dakinis. All wear the red color which is a color symbolizing a beautiful young girl's face. The north is green because green symbolizes peace and everyone knows the green color is peaceful. Plants and grass are green as well as the leaves of trees. I remember in China the postmen used to wear a green uniform so they could pass peacefully through a battlefield during a war as the color green is peaceful. Nobody can forbid him to pass through, so everything is achieved when there is peace. The Achievement Buddha is in the north and he has the peaceful power. Power is not necessarily cruelty, as was used by Mao who did not believe in God. Tara is a very merciful Buddhess and she is green. When Buddha was in Bodhi Gaya before he accomplished full Enlightenment, there were many wrathful demons and lustful girls who made trouble for him. But Tara sat on Budhha's head and just laughed at them seven times, HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Then, all the demons and their evil family became powder and vanished and the Buddha thereby got full Enlightenment. So Tara is called the Green Tara as her great compassion is powerful and achieved by laughter, not by force. This achievement is therefore in the north. For everything you want achievement in, you must agree with others, be kind to others and have great compassion. Then everybody will obey and really love you! These are the five colors which correspond with the five Buddhas. Modern science emphasizes the macrocosm and the microcosm, that is the greater outside, the Universe, and the small reflection inside our bodies. This can relate to correspondences between the five Buddhas and the five chakras of our body. The middle is the heart chakra. It is said that everything is from the heart and the mind is the heart. This is the seat of the eighth consciousness. It covers everything so it is in the center. For everybody who is born, birth is like the sunrise which is in the east. Thus Aksobhya Buddha, the Eastern Buddha, corresponds with the head chakra because the body is represented by the head. When we talk, we preach the Buddha Dharma and use the energy of our lungs along with the throat and the mouth, from which we then utter sounds. The Western Buddha, Amitabha, is the leader of the Dharma Department of Speech and therefore the throat chakra. The navel chakra is one relating to merits and is just like a gem. That is why it is the seat for Ratnasambhava, the Southern Buddha. The fifth chakra is the private reproductive parts and this is called the chakra of holy karma through which every holy karma of salvation will be achieved. This seat is for Amoghasiddhi. So there are certain reasons for these five chakras corresponding to the five Buddhas. Now we will talk about the five poisons. The middle one is the poison of ignorance. Every poison is based on ignorance. Ignorance is the poison of poisons, because if one is stupid or foolish then many other poisons will be gathered by it. That is why ignorance is in the middle. Whenever someone gets angry, the anger arises from the mind, just like the sun shines and eventually it increases heat, just like the power of the sun. That is why anger corresponds with the East. The poison of pride says, "When I have much money and I am rich, then I am proud"; that is why the Ratnasambhava Buddha in the South corresponds with this poison. The poison of lust is in the West because it is connected with love and with Amitabha who is the leader of the Lotus Department, and the Lotus Dakinis are more lustful and beautiful than others. The poison of doubt or envy is connected with the Achievement Buddha in the North because he does so many kinds of karma which might cause some envy to happen. These are the five poisons. When the poison is connected with its respective Buddha, it becomes a great Poison and is then with the Sunyata and not with the Self. Hence the Great Poison can purify these human poisons. So if you know the correspondences, you can utilize them to help yourself. When you visualize Ratnasambhava, you can cure your pride; when you visualize the Eastern Buddha Aksobhya you can cure your anger; visualizing Amitabha can cure your lust, and visualizing the Achievement Buddha can cure your envy or doubt. So if you know the correspondences accurately then the medicine for the particular poison is very easy to find, and you can know how to cure your own body with your own medicine. As the five chakras have already been related to the five Buddhas and again to the five poisons, you can also use the deep breathing. You practice deep breathing and concentrate on that chakra and that chakra's poison will be purified with the help of the Buddha who sits on that chakra. If you use the correspondence of the Buddhas with these chakras, then you will get a method to get rid of the five poisons. That is why knowing the correspondence is so important. I will stop here concerning the Dharma groups of five. IIIThere are also many correspondences for the Dharma groups of four. These correspondences are very common and you can get them from some other sources or books. As there are so many I will have no time to give you every example. As previously mentioned, the groups of four concern the quality of the Dharma and are just as important as the groups of five. I will choose just a few important examples. I have already said that the group of four is quite different from the group of five because now we talk about quality not the quantity, about the gradients of one thing, not the description of different things. These four are arranged perpendicularly from bottom to top. From the group of five arranged horizontally you know every kind of Dharma. From the perpendicular, you know how each Dharma has its level of shallow and profound. First let me begin with a funny parable. Our Chinese people eat at a round table and do not eat separately. One big dish is used for many persons. Each has his own chopsticks and just takes freely from the dish arranged in the center of the table. Now outwardly, you just have some meat between your chopsticks. This is one gradient. Inwardly, it has come into your mouth. Secretly is when in your heart you think of some meat which may be in the bowl on the surface. Most secretly is when you suggest to yourself that there might be some tasty piece at the very bottom of the bowl, but you are not sure. So there are four pieces of meat. Even in the same dish there are four corresponding ladders. Through these four degrees of correspondence we can come to know everything completely and perfectly, not only touch its surface. To study every kind of Dharma from its shallow to its profound level you should not be like the dragonfly. The dragonfly passes the pond and just touches the water superficially. This kind of knowledge is just like that of a person who just reads the newspaper and magazines and never studies deeply. You must go deeper. Just how deep? You must pass through all these four degrees, then you will get the Perfection. I can give you the principle of the four degrees. The first Outward one is just physical. This physical level is what the scientists work on. Their procedure of study is on the physical level. The principle of the Inward is just psychological. It connects with the mind, the spirit, or the metaphysical. The Secret deals with the harmonization of both sides or opposites, Yin and Yang, Shakti and Shakta in their respective religions, and with Great Compassion and Deep Wisdom as found in Buddhism only. Outwardly they seem opposite and as if they contradict each other, but the secret degree harmonizes these two opposites through sexual intercourse. Sexual intercourse contains both sides, the vagina contracts inside, and the penis expands outside. Outwardly they seem very contradictory and opposite, but they can be connected together and harmonized through Vajra Love. So the third degree is harmonization. The fourth Most Secret principle is the Final Truth, the Great Perfection. That means you must be united perfectly with the Final Truth. We now talk about the self. There are four degrees of self. The first degree of self is the self of evil. The evil self is just like Mao's struggles. Even Communists struggle with their evil selves. That was why Mao killed Libue. The second is the lower inward self which only cares for food and clothing and all the other physical comforts. The higher secret self has some light in meditation which makes him as a God, but a God is still an object of pride. Most secret is the No Self. Gautama Buddha had no-self, that was why it is only He who is with the Final Truth. It is perfect. So from these four you will know that the self has degrees which are very different. There are many other groups of four. I would like to talk just about philosophy, about Sunyata. There are four sentences concerning how to think of the truth of Sunyata. The first one is "no production by oneself." The second one is "no production by others." The third is "no production by both." The fourth is "no production without conditions." These are the four sentences on how to think of the truth. That means everything is not produced by self, is not produced by others, is not produced by both and is not produced without conditions. So if you really know these four sentences one by one, you may get the Final Truth, you may get the conditions. That is why the Sunyata means everything is gathered from conditions. These are the four things to know about the Sunyata. There is also the Dharma group of four dependencies. The first is to depend upon the Dharma, not personality. The second is that we should not depend upon words but on meanings. Third we should depend upon the meaning of finished but not the meaning of unfinished teachings. For example, most of the Hinayana doctrines are unfinished. You cannot say it is not truth, for it is truth. It is Buddha's talk but he kept his talk at the level of the listeners and did not finish his talk. He just talked a little for your present degree of understanding. For example, Hinayana says a woman is your enemy, you should not love her. You must first visualize girls as a corpse or skeleton and after you have accomplished the skeleton visualization then you can see the worldly woman. Whenever you meet a girl you just meet a skeleton, not a flesh girl. This is the Hinayana method of relating to women. But there are some other visualizations about girls. Buddha talked again and in Mahayana Buddha also said that a girl is our mother. We should treat every girl with all honor, "This is my mother, I have to serve and bow down before my mother." This is Mahayana, but still, this is unfinished doctrine. So there is a meaning of woman even better than that of the Mahayana which is practiced in Vajrayana. The girl is Buddha's mother! You have to pay most respect to her, even more than to Buddha, for without her, there is no Buddha! You must worship her. I have made a ritual on how to worship the Dakini. I worship her two breasts, her eyes, her vagina, and her entire holy body. I have many reasons for worshipping her body which I have written about in one of my Chinese works. It makes the Dakini very comfortable and our inspirations will be blessed thereby. Many girls ask me, "Do you think a girl can become Buddha?" I reply, "A girl can give birth to a Buddha, why cannot she become Buddha herself?" If you really represent the Sunyata, you might become a Buddha. There is an initiation of Dorje Palmo who is a female Buddha. It is very important. And there is the Prajna Paramita Mother who is a representative of Sunyata. Sunyata is the mother of Buddha. There is such an image of the mother worshipped by the Lama. Tara is mother too. Once in an Australian Buddhist Society many Mahayanist monks got together to talk about this question. They didn't learn Tantra so they all said there is no female Buddha. This was quite wrong. Every female may become a Buddha. This has been taught by Buddha in the Dragon King Sutras as you may all have read. I wrote a letter to that Australian Society and advised them to learn Tantra. If you know Vajrayana, you know Buddha can be male, Buddha can be female. A female can produce Buddha, so how can she not be Buddha herself? So the Vajrayana contains the finished doctrine concerning women because she is shown therein as very high, you can get no higher than the mother of Buddha. So Hinayana is not finished and neither is Mahayana, but Vajrayana is finished. We should depend on the finished doctrine, we should not depend on unfinished doctrine. This is the third dependency. The fourth dependency is that we should depend upon wisdom but not on consciousness. This is the Final Truth. Consciousness is only psychology. Actually when consciousness is transformed into wisdom then one becomes Buddha. So there are four dependencies which are also one-by-one deeper and deeper. The first dependency on Dharma but not on man means we depend upon reason not personality. But this is still outward and concerns personality, the outward self. The second concerns with knowledge itself which is inward, and you will depend upon the meaning but not the words. Sometimes explanations of words are wrong. This is a more profound doctrine. Third, we depend upon the finished meaning, but not the unfinished meaning. This is more secret. Further, you will depend upon wisdom which is not easily to be gotten. Only the Buddha has the five wisdoms, so this is the final most profound one. These four proceed from lower to higher, and if we know this, we can study everything without going the wrong way. and you will make no mistake and nobody can cheat you. Another group of four is that there are four personalities of disciples. The Buddha calls them the four horses. Outwardly, the lowest is a horse which must be whipped hard and have its bones pained before it will run. Inwardly, the second one you have to strike and give some pain to its skin before it will run. The secret one is when you need only touch its hair and it will run. And most secretly if you silently come to the horse with a stick and he just sees its shadow, it will run quickly without you even touching it; this is the best horse of all. It is very important that we know how to make correspondence among the things or persons of the same kind. For example, once I heard some guru correspond Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana with the Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya. This cannot be done because the Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya is one person with three virtues. But Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana are three yanas. You cannot make one person with three different names correspond with the three yanas. The three yanas should correspond with three persons, i.e. Arhat, Bodhisattva, and Buddha. From Hinayana you can get the degree of Arhat, from Mahayana you may become a Bodhisattva, and from Vajrayana achieve Buddhahood. These can correspond rightly. But this cannot be done with the same person because the same person is in each of the Yanas and there is no suitable correspondence between the Trikayas and Triyanas. So the correspondence must be made with some reason. IVIn conclusion I would like to talk about the functions of the Dharma groups of five and four. First I will talk about my Tantric diet which utilizes the five chakras, five organs, five times, five medicines, and five foods. Our great Guru Padmasambhava taught us that the main life energy goes upward through the five chakras within the bright-increasing-moon half of the month: i.e. the first, second and third days relate to the bottom Private Parts Chakra, then each chakra successively occupies three days moving upward until the Head Chakra which occupies the 13th, 14th, and 15th days. Again from there three days are used for each chakra proceeding downward starting with the Head Chakra on the 16th, 17th, and 18th and ending with the Private Parts Chakra which concludes the dark-waning-moon half of the month. During the whole month there are approximately 30 days and during each of the three days I introduce certain herb medicines into my diet containing meats for certain chakras and organs. My friend, Mr. Johnson practiced this and felt it was also very good for his health. Chinese herbs have different forms and colors as related to different organs. So the function of such food works very nicely and their merit has been very exactly proven. For example, seacucumbers are in the form of a penis and are of an almost black color which is a color for the Private Parts Chakra. It can benefit the reproductive organs if you know to take it on certain dates as taught by our Guru, that is the first, second and third days of the lunar month. By doing this, your sexual power can be increased; this is for elderly persons but not for the youth whose power is too strong. For the heart there is a Chinese herb shaped like a heart and red in color symbolizing blood. It should be taken on the 7th, 8th, and 9th days. I always say that everything should be taken in moderation, not too much, nor too little. You can take everything, even a little poison, but nothing you can take too much of. You should take the right herbs on the right days in certain quantity. On the next three days you take other herbs and meats. It is well to fix the moderation principle for yourself. Eat fish heads on the 13th, 14th and 15th days as certain fish heads are much bigger and the brain is also growing perfectly on those days. If you take it on those three days your brain will gain health and you will be wiser than before. Now I will talk about the functions from the group of four. It can be used to distinguish Hindu Tantra from Buddhist Tantra. Many Hindus say, "Buddhist Tantra is based upon Hindu Tantra. They are the same." If you skillfully study the four different bodies through correspondence you will not say so. Every man has four-fold bodies. Outwardly is the flesh body. Inwardly the meditative body which is the body of meditation and visualization. The Tantric body is the inward body, but most Hindus and some Buddhists mistake it as a flesh body. They say these three main nerves and five chakras connect with the spinal column. Actually the spinal column is in the flesh body--Buddhists have their median nerve in their secret body because the median nerve is a nerve of wisdom of Sunyata. Hinduism does not know of Sunyata and hence they cannot find their secret body of wisdom. Much the more so with their most secret body which is the Dharmakaya, which has its Cause of Sunyata and Course of Ch'an. Another example of the function of the group of four can point out the mistakes of modern science of space. The mud or earth is the outward space, the fairies thereof live inwardly in the space, the Pureland of Buddha is the secret space, and the Dharmakaya is the most secret space. The spacemen who landed on the moon brought back only some mud. The men of literature were disappointed to say there is "No beautiful fairy in the moon at all." But if they know about the inward space of the moon which is the space the fairy lives in, they would not be disappointed. Suppose that planet Venus sends some spacemen to this globe and brings some mud of this earth back. Could they say there is no Buddha Gautama on that earth at all? Buddha Gautama died three thousand years ago, but his Dharmakaya is still here which is a body of the most secret one. Hence if you thoroughly know the correspondences of the Dharma group of four, you can know everything with its four qualities, from the roughest to the most refined. Thank you. [Home][Back to main list][Back to Chenian][Go to Dr. Lin's works] |