Fusatsu Talk: The Three Supreme Methods

“The dharma is good in the beginning, good in the middle, good in the end,” the sutras say. But how do we bring this complete path to life and claim it as our own? Listen as Zuisei points the way to making this path of liberation intimate and personal—without making it about ourselves. Focusing on the Three Supreme Methods, Zuisei illuminates this essential Mahayana teaching and set of practices as one precious and perfect whole.

This talk draws on the wisdom of Patrul Rinpoche, The Path of Purification, and more.

This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. Scroll below for audio, video and transcript. Please note that this recording includes the whole Fusatsu Ceremony.

Transcript

This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.

The Three Supreme Methods

In the sutras it is said that “the Dhamma is good in the beginning, good in the middle, good in the end, possessed of meaning and letter, and complete in everything.” The reason, Buddhaghosa says in his Path of Purification, that the Buddha’s teaching is good in the beginning is because it takes virtue, the ethical teachings, and concentration as the basis for one’s wellbeing. It’s good in the middle because it results in insight and the development of the path. It’s good in the end because it leads us to nirvana, liberation.

So, it’s good in the beginning, because it lays out a path of practice. Good in the middle, because that path leads to wisdom. Good in the end, because wisdom turns into liberation. But, it’s also good in the beginning because it’s inspiring. It’s good in the middle because it’s consistent with what the Buddha saw. It’s good in the end because it leads to peace, to tranquility. And, it’s good because it’s whole—one consistent piece, one dharma, one path, one result. And this is what the Buddha’s teaching is in and of itself, but it’s also what we cause it to be. With our own practice, we let the dharma be good in the beginning, good in the middle, good in the end. How? This is what I want to talk about tonight.

Patrul Rinpoche was a very well-loved, very revered Tibetan teacher. He lived for most of the 19th century, and his teachings were collected after his death in a couple of books, one of them The Words of My Perfect Teacher. In it he says that whenever we’re encountering the dharma—through reading, listening, practicing—we should apply the three supreme methods:

Before we begin, we give rise to bodhicitta, the aspiration for enlightenment. We deliberately prepare our mind and our body to receive the dharma, and we remind ourselves of why we’re doing this to begin with. Sometimes, studying and practicing the dharma is hard. Sometimes it’s very detailed or confusing or even a little overwhelming. So it helps to remind ourselves: this is what I said I wanted to do, and this is why I want to do it. Life is very challenging, and I want to be able to live it as well as I can. I want to be loving and generous with the people I meet. And to do that, I need to be present, to not get lost in my head. I want to be able to see what’s in front of me and not my projections, my wish for what I’d like things to be. I want to not hurt and I want to help others not hurt. Buddhism presents me with a way to do all this, so let me remember that I chose to be on the path, and that I want to walk it, patiently and courageously. Let me remember my original intent, so I don't get discouraged or distracted as I go along and things come up.

This setting of aspiration we do every single morning when one of us does our dedication at the end of zazen:

Wherever precious bodhicitta has not arisen, may it bloom,
Where it has arisen may it not fade, but increasingly flourish.

Another translation is:

May bodhicitta precious and sublime,
Arise where it has not yet come to be;
And where it has arisen may it not decline,
But grow and flourish ever more and more.

Apparently this verse comes from Patrul Rinpoche’s commentary on Shantideva’s The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. He said that we could summarize the chapter on bodhicitta with this prayer.

You may have noticed there’s no I in this aspiration. It doesn’t say, May I wake up for the sake of everyone—although that’s a wonderful and valid aspiration. This one says, Wherever there is darkness, may there appear a little light. May the wish to wake up arise wherever it’s not present, and where it is, let it continue and grow. This is how we help the dharma be good in the beginning. This is how we counter that most mysterious of inclinations to keep doing, keep choosing the things that cause us suffering despite the fact that we really want that same suffering to stop.

We let the dharma be good in the middle when we deliberately turn toward that goodness. That’s why we offer incense or flowers and water and the light of a candle. That’s why we go to the trouble of setting up an altar, and creating a sacred corner in our home. Do an experiment: For a week, get up and do zazen on your bed, in your pajamas—just wake up and start sitting. Then, the following week, get up, wash your face, get dressed, get yourself some coffee or tea, maybe read a little dharma, then offer incense or flowers at your altar, take your seat, and begin. Then let me know what you see.

We cause the dharma to be good in the middle by wholeheartedly throwing ourselves into our practice. If we’re sitting, we just sit, letting go of the chatter that would pull us away, that will entertain us but keep us ensnared. This is where we say, having brought myself to this place, this seat, let me give my practice all of my attention and energy. Let me not squander this opportunity by only half-doing what I vowed to do and then wondering why practice seems so hard, why it seems to not be working—or just to feel like a drag.

In a way, the second supreme method ensures that we leave no room for regret. We step in, we commit, and we let whatever practice we’re doing unfold in us without interference from the fickle mind. This is where we recognize that our doubt, our hesitation, our tiredness doesn't have to stop us from doing what we truly want. The alarm goes off to get up for morning zazen and a voice says, “Agh, no! I don’t want to!” But if we listened to and acted upon every passing thought, this world would be very frightening—more than it already is at times.

We know enough not to listen to certain voices, or to put them in perspective, to take them into account as part of a larger whole. Here, our discipline reminds us that we want to do what we have to do. We choose to get up so we can sit before going to work, or as we begin our day because we know, in the long run, that this will help us. So we’re trading in brief momentary discomfort for lasting ease. Well, when you put it that way…It’s not much of a contest, is it?

Finishing our practice, we don’t let it just peter out. We don’t get up from our seat and switch off our mind before moving into the rest of our day. We deliberately end, just as we deliberately began, this time by offering the merit of our practice, letting it extend outward so its benefits can reach everyone. Merit, in Buddhism, is good karma; it’s the energy generated by good actions, good words, good thoughts. I think of it very simply as goodness—the goodness that comes from this thing we’ve done.

Remember the three pure precepts—refrain from harm, practice good, actualize good for others? Dedicating the merit is one way to actualize good for others. It’s one way to remember that when I practice, I don’t just practice for me. So I take whatever goodness I’ve accrued from sitting, from doing liturgy, from writing a letter to the newspaper or doing other good work, and I dedicate the merit of that action so it multiplies. So it doesn’t fade but increasingly flourishes.But just as we can accumulate merit through our good actions, we can also erase it, as it were, through harmful ones.

A moment of anger, for example, is said to have the power to destroy kalpas of actions. And remember, a kalpa is longer than the period of time it would take a man to wear down a rock a league wide, a league long, a league high, by rubbing it with a silk cloth once every hundred years. That's a lot of destruction! That’s why we take care to tame our mind. When it comes to anger, I think taming is the appropriate verb. We tame the mind as it bucks in aversion or jealousy or greed and we say, There, there, settle down. This isn’t about you, don’t make it about you, let it go, let it pass.

Boasting about what we’ve done also destroys the goodness of our acts. It’s like wearing your underwear on the outside (this is my image—this isn’t in the sutras). It’s ugly, it’s awkward, it’s bad etiquette. And, in Buddhism, it’s a little more than that—it’s detrimental. It sets you back on the goodness you’ve created, so it’s just not worth it. It simply spoils a good thing. And it’s just plain unnecessary. We can let goodness speak for itself, we don’t need to stamp our name on it.

So, we begin well, and therefore let the dharma be good in the beginning. We practice well as we’re practicing, and then the dharma is good in the middle. And we end well as we wrap up, letting the dharma be good in the end. One precious, perfect whole.

Explore further

01 : Path of Purification: Visuddhimagga (pdf) by Bhadantácariya Buddhaghosa, translated Bhikkhu Ñáóamoliby by Patrul Rinpoche

02 : Death by Distraction; Life by Attention with Zuisei Goddard

03 : Fusatsu Talk: Walking on the Ground of Reality with Zuisei Goddard

The Three Supreme Methods, a Fusatsu talk by Zen Buddhist teacher Zuisei Goddard.