Apology and Correction

I want to apologize and correct something I said at the  class held in San Francisco at Hua Zang Si last week. The English translation from Imparting the Absolute Truth through the Heart Sutra  stated that “Thus, students, group initiations are permissible. [However,] Group learning of dharmas is absolutely unacceptable because it does not accord with the karmic affinity people in the group have with the dharma that is being transmitted.” I misread this and questioned if the translation was correct. When I asked our translator Bodi Wentu, he informed me that it was absolutely correct and when I read it more carefully, I agree. I knew better and should not have questioned the translation. I did suggest that adding a “however” might help us English readers and I think he will do that in the next translation.

We do receive group initiations, but we cannot learn the dharma as a group because we may have very different karmic affinity to the dharma. I know of cases where different people received very different understandings from the same group initiation.  They actually hear different things and sometimes see different things. When I saw the flashing lights while the Buddha Master was transmitting the Dharma of Cultivation in 2008, I saw yellow lights, but others saw red lights, and some did not see any lights at all. It is often like that, especially concerning holy manifestations. This is more than some being confused and some being correct. It is actually different for different people. This is such an important concept, I wanted to make a big deal out of my mistake. It helps us to be more humble (myself included) about what we “think” about something and to eliminate this very destructive habit of “being right” and the other guy “being wrong.” This sense of “right” and “wrong” is a very negative habit of ordinary people that Bodhisattvas do not have and a point our Buddha Master is often reminding us of.

I want to quote from the translation of the rest of that paragraph to emphasize the principle the Buddha Master is making:  “Even if a dharma is transmitted in such a group setting, it is still a false dharma, or it is an ordinary, popular dharma. At the very least, it is a dharma that goes against karmic affinity and does not correspond with the recipients. That is because it is impossible that all of the recipients have the same karmic affinity with that dharma. There is extremely profound mystery in this. In short, you can learn dharma and become accomplished only by relying on cultivation. This is the principle.” Ponder that.

Again, I repent of my error and want to emphasize that these translations I have the privilege of reading are still preliminary and subject to error both in translation and in reading. I still believe that even given that caveat, they will help living beings and pray that I am able to do so and bear the risk of so doing. At another recent class one of the bilingual Chinese students who was following my English reading of the translation while reading the original Chinese questioned the translation of another sentence. I checked with Bodi Wentu on that as well and was told that the various members of the translation team did not agree on that matter either. I am sharing this to remind everyone that  these preliminary translations are still preliminary and no doubt include translation errors. However, they are still the best dharma that we have in this world and we should be very very grateful to those who are working so hard to give us translations.

CLICK for article on San Francisco Class of January 11, 2020.