Transference of the treasury of inexhaustible merit and virtue

K5 Transference of the treasury of inexhaustible merit and virtue.

Sutra:

Worlds and Tathagatas include one another without any obstruction. This is called the Transference of a Treasury of Inexhaustible Merit and Virtue.

Commentary:

Worlds and Tathagatas include one another without any obstruction. Worlds are the very body of the Tathagata; the very body of the Tathagata is itself the worlds. The wonderful function of spiritual penetrations enables them to contain one another. Nor is there any hindrance for either, nor anything contrived about it. This is called the Transference of a Treasury of Inexhaustible Merit and Virtue.

The Emperor Wu of Liang is a case in point of someone who was attached to the idea of creating merit. When he encountered the Patriarch Bodhidharma, he asked him, "I have built many grand temples. I have commissioned a tremendous number of people to enter the Sangha. I have made extensive vegetarian offerings. I've built bridges, improved highways, and much more. Tell me, how much merit have I accrued?"

Who would have guessed that the patriarch would scowl and retort, "None whatsoever."

The emperor was duly affronted and refused to have anything more to do with the patriarch. Actually, Patriarch Bodhidharma was intent upon saving the emperor. But because the emperor's karmic obstructions were so heavy he missed his chance, even though he was face to face with the first patriarch of China. It was like the saying, "Guan Shi Yin Bodhisattva was right before him and he didn't even recognize him." The "Mind from the West" was right before the Emperor Wu of Liang and he failed to see him.

Why did he need rescuing by Patriarch Bodhidharma? It's because the patriarch knew that the emperor had a disaster in store for him. He was hoping to wake him up so he would either leave the home life and cultivate or at least yield the throne to someone else, thereby avoiding having to starve to death. Basically the emperor was a devout believer in Buddhism, and during his reign Buddhism flourished because he used his imperial position to spread the Buddhadharma, building temples all about the land. The majority of the population was Buddhist during that reign period. But he had created some heavy karma in past lives. In a former life the emperor was a bhikshu who cultivated in the mountains. At one point he began to be visited every day by a monkey who stole the fruits and vegetables he had planted. Pretty soon there wasn't much left for him to eat. Because of that, he trapped the monkey in a cave and sealed the opening with a boulder. He had originally intended to leave it there for a few days to teach it a lesson and then let it go. The trouble was that he forgot about it, and the monkey starved to death in the cave.

In his life as an emperor, then, the monkey was reborn as a monkey-spirit who led an army and attacked Nan Jing. After conquering Nan Jing, the monkey-spirit locked the emperor in a tower, removed all food, and left him to starve. The bhikshu's retribution for having starved a monkey to death was that the monkey returned in a later life when the bhikshu was an emperor and starved him to death.

Patriarch Bodhidharma saw that the emperor had amassed a lot of merit and virtue, and he thought that the emperor might make use of the merit to lessen the offense. But in order for that to happen, the causes and conditions had to be right as well. That's why Patriarch Bodhidharma was so severe with him. But the emperor thought himself a mighty monarch to whom a penniless monk had no right to talk in such a way, so he shunned the patriarch. Although Patriarch Bodhidharma wanted to save him, there was nothing he could do but leave, since the emperor would have nothing to do with him and did not seek to be saved. In the end, the emperor starved to death at the hands of the monkey-spirit.