A Dharma Talk by Most Venerable Thích Thanh Từ at Chân Không Thiền Monastery on August 02, 2000.
My Purpose When I Established Chân Không Thiền Monastery
....During the time when I practiced intensively in my recluse hut, I tried to find out the way to liberate us from birth and death which the Buddha taught His disciples. Thanks to my great efforts in practicing in the hut, I found the ultimate purpose of Dharma practice. I then decided to open the hut, and started to build this monastery to guide monks, nuns, and Buddhist laypeople to practice and attain the ultimate purpose the Buddha taught.
Why did I name this monastery Chân Không ? Some ridiculed me, saying that whoever wanted to get to this monastery must wear bare feet (in Vietnamese one of the meaning of “Khong” is “bare”, and “Chan” means “feet”), because the name means "wearing no shoes."
Actually, Chân Không implies profound meanings which ordinary people can hardly perceive. I will explain the meanings to you today, so that you may understand my purpose.
When we become monks and nuns, we must know the way to follow, and to attain our ultimate goal. The ultimate goal of Buddhist practitioners is to achieve liberation from birth and death. We practice to be liberated from birth and death. But what helps us to do that? This is a very important question.
The ordinary people can hardly understand the meanings implied in the name Chân Không. Only those who have studied sutras in depth may find no difficulties in understanding it. In Buddhism we usually say, “Chân không diệu hữu,”(”In the Void there are a myriad of appearances”) –Void in nature, but a myriad of possible appearances in action and use. There would be no appearances if there were no Void. Thus, Void is the nature of multiple appearances. Such is my explanation in words. Now I would like to compare Void to water in the sea, and appearances to waves. Waves come from water, but water is not waves. Water by itself has no waves. Because the wind blows, there are waves on the water surface. Thus, waves are the apparent form of water in action in the wind condition. But the nature of water is all over the surface of the ocean, not limited to the waves.
Void is never born nor perished, so if we successfully practice the Way, and become one with it, we will no longer be born nor perished. In other words, we are liberated from birth and death. Those who would like to attain this ultimate goal must practice in depth, so as to realize and attain Void, and live with it. That is the state of liberation from birth and death.
That is why in my poem entitled "Chân Không," I began with these lines:
Void is unchanged by nature;
Illusory appearances always change.
Void refers to the unchanged and imperishable nature in all sentient being, but which we usually forget, and we live with the illusory, transient appearances instead. Because we perceive the unreal and illusory as the real, we get stuck, and perpetually dwell in the realm of birth and death. This is my explanation of the term Void. As for the importance of Void, I will quote stanzas by patriarchs, so that you may learn how they realize it, and announced its important role.
(To be continued)
Source:
http://www.thientongvietnam.net/kinhsach-thike/dirs/tmdoitoi/index.pdf
