Requesting the Buddhas to Abide: Do Not Wait for the Lamp to Go Out to Learn the Room Was Lit

7.8 Requesting the Buddhas to Abide: Do Not Wait for the Lamp to Go Out to Learn the Room Was Lit

The seventh vow, requesting the Buddhas to abide in the world.

Having asked the Buddha to teach, one must yet ask the Buddha — do not go. Samantabhadra says:

Further, good son! To request the Buddhas to abide in the world is this: all the Buddhas, the Tathāgatas, throughout the realm of dharma and the realm of empty space, in the ten directions and three times, numerous as the dust of all buddha-fields, who are about to manifest parinirvāṇa — and the bodhisattvas, śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, learners and adepts, down to all good teachers whatsoever — I entreat them all not to enter nirvāṇa, but to remain through kalpas numerous as the dust of all buddha-fields, for the benefit and joy of all sentient beings.

All the Buddhas about to manifest their entry into extinction — I entreat them: do not enter nirvāṇa; abide longer in the world, through kalpas as the dust of buddha-fields, to benefit and gladden beings. The verse sings:

When the Buddhas wish to show nirvāṇa, I entreat them with utmost sincerity: abide for kalpas many as the dust of lands, to benefit and gladden every being.

This Vow Requests More Than the Buddhas

Look at the reach of this vow — wider than the last. Those entreated not to enter nirvāṇa are not the Buddhas only; they are "the bodhisattvas, śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, learners and adepts, down to all good teachers whatsoever."

Everyone who can teach a person toward the Way stands within the entreaty. For ordinary beings such as we are, this vow in fact lands very near: the teacher beside you willing to instruct you, the good friend who leads you in reciting the Buddha's name — these are where the "abiding" of the Dharma is lodged.

This sounds ordinary, but in the doing it is the hardest. Toward the good teacher one sees daily, a person most easily grows slack — feeling he is always there, always available to be asked, one does not hurry to ask, does not listen with care; and only on the day he is gone, no longer there, does one regret not having asked one more question, not having walked one more stretch of road with him. Requesting the Buddhas to abide, brought down into daily life, is the reverse of this: while the teacher is still here, draw an inch nearer; while the good friend still leads you in reciting the Buddha, treasure it an inch more; while this place of practice is still open, support it an inch more — honor, protect, and never slight any who speak the Dharma beside you. Do not wait for the lamp to go out to learn the room was lit.

Why the Dharma Is Worth Such Keeping: Even the Buddha Reveres the Dharma

Beneath requesting the Buddhas and good teachers to abide lies one more stratum: what is it about the "Dharma" to be kept that makes it worth such keeping? In the Saṃyukta Āgama stands the Buddha's own answer.

When the Buddha had newly attained perfect awakening, He reflected thus: among ascetics and brahmins of the world, devas, Māras, and Brahmās, there is none who surpasses Me in precepts, concentration, wisdom, and liberation, whom I might revere and serve and dwell in dependence upon —

only the true Dharma, by which I awakened of myself and became a fully perfect Buddha: that I shall honor and revere, serve and venerate, and dwell in dependence upon.

Only this true Dharma, which let Me awaken of Myself and become a Buddha, is what I would revere, honor, depend upon, and dwell by. The Brahmā king, knowing the Buddha's thought, appeared in praise and spoke a verse:

The perfect Buddhas of the past, and the Buddhas yet to come, and the present Buddha, World-Honored One, who can dispel the sorrows of beings — all of them revere the Dharma, dwelling in reliance on the true Dharma. Such reverence as this is the Dharma of all Buddhas.

Past, future, and present — the Buddhas of the three times, not one but reveres the Dharma and abides by it; such reverence is itself the way of all Buddhas. Even the Buddha takes the Dharma as what He reveres and depends upon. Then this vow of requesting the Buddhas to abide is, at bottom, the keeping — on behalf of all beings — of the one thing the Buddhas of the three times alike depend upon.

Buddha-Recollection Is the Ordinary Person's "Requesting the Buddhas to Abide"

This vow holds, for one who recites the Buddha, the deepest piece of news.

The Buddha entered nirvāṇa two thousand five hundred years ago. But has the Buddha truly "gone"? Samantabhadra says, entreat the Buddha not to enter nirvāṇa. An ordinary person cannot stay the Buddha's manifest extinction; yet he has one way to make the Buddha abide in the world — recollecting the Buddha.

Where does the Buddha abide? In the heart that recollects Him. In the moment you recollect the Buddha, the Buddha "abides" on your heart, as if before your eyes; while that one Name in your heart goes unbroken, the Buddha, with you, has not for one day entered extinction. As said before, the Buddha you recollect is, in the end, your own deepest heart — and so "requesting the Buddhas to abide," brought down onto one who recites the Buddha, is this: to keep that one thought up, joined and unbroken, so that the Buddha does not leave your heart for an instant.

This stratum matters especially in the Dharma-ending age. The Buddha has long been in extinction; good teachers grow harder to meet, generation by generation; in time to come the sūtras and the Dharma will gradually withdraw, and those who can lead you in practice will grow fewer and fewer. But there is one thing none can take, none can extinguish — that one Buddha-name on your own lips. The scriptures say that in the time to come, when the way of the sūtras is perishing, the Buddha out of compassion will keep the Sūtra of Measureless Life and this one Buddha-name especially, to abide in the world a hundred years, and broadly deliver beings. See — in the very end, the one "requesting the Buddhas to abide" on behalf of all beings is nothing else but this one Name, recited thought after thought without break. Whether the Buddha abides in the world hangs, in the end, on whether there are still people willing to recite this one line.

This vow closes, again, on those eight words: "moment by moment continuous, without interruption; my actions of body, speech, and mind without weariness." Moment by moment continuous — and the Buddha abides moment by moment. Let the recollection break, and the room goes dark; let the recollection go unbroken, and that lamp stays lit all along.

The Buddha, oneself, others, the Dharma — all are settled. Three vows of the ten remain — following the Buddha constantly in study, accommodating sentient beings, dedicating all universally — the close of the whole vow-king, and its deepest breath. From the next vow, we walk it to the end.