Things Pertaining to Bodhi: The Thirty-seven Aids to Enlightenment

195 Pages·2010·1.107 MB·English

by  Sheng Yen

“Chan Master Sheng Yen is a great teacher.”
—Master Thich Nhat Hanh
“Master Sheng Yen is a true spiritual practitioner of deep and
broad learning.”
—His Holiness the Dalai Lama
ABOUT THE BOOK
The Thirty-seven Aids to Enlightenment are a set of
fundamental teachings of Buddhism in the form of a list. The
list’s seeming simplicity belies the fact that it is actually a kind of
road map to enlightenment for anyone who follows it with
diligence and sincerity. The Thirty-seven Aids comprise seven
groups of practices conducive to awakening. Each of the seven
groups is itself a list of enlightenment factors, which add up to a
total of thirty-seven: (1) The Four Foundations of Mindfulness,
(2) The Four Proper Exertions, (3) The Four Steps to Magical
Powers, (4) The Five Roots, (5) The Five Powers, (6) The
Seven Factors of Enlightenment, and (7) The Noble Eightfold
Path. Master Sheng Yen’s down-to-earth teachings take the
reader on a progression through each of the practices,
illustrating how they relate to the reader’s own path toward
enlightenment.
CHAN MASTER SHENG YEN (1930–2009) was a widely
respected Taiwanese Chan (Chinese Zen) master who taught
extensively in the West during the last thirty-one years of his life,
with twenty-one centers throughout North America, as well as
dozens of others throughout the world. He has co-led retreats
with the Dalai Lama, and he is the author of numerous books in
Chinese and English, including Song of Mind , The Method of
No-Method , and his autobiography, Footprints in the Snow .
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THINGS PERTAINING TO BODHI
The Thirty-seven Aids to Enlightenment
CHAN MASTER
Sheng Yen
SHAMBHALA
Boston & London
2011
FRONTISPIECE : Master Sheng Yen (1930–2009) writing the Chinese character for
Chan .
Photo provided by Dharma Drum Mountain Cultural and Educational Foundation.
Used by permission; all rights reserved .
SHAMBHALA PUBLICATIONS, INC.
HORTICULTURAL HALL
300 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02115
www.shambhala.com
© 2010 Dharma Drum Publications
Cover design by Jim Zaccaria
Cover photo by Sabine Steinmüller
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher.
The author gratefully acknowledges permission to reprint “The Last Admonition,”
from The Maha Parinibbana Sutta , translated from the Pali by Sister Vajira and
Francis Story (Kandy, Sri Lanka, Buddhist Publication Society, 1998).
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Shengyan, 1930–2009
Things pertaining to bodhi: the Thirty-seven aids to enlightenment / Chan Master
Sheng Yen.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
“Dr. Rebecca Li’s concurrent oral translation of Master Sheng Yen’s lectures, on
which this book is based”—Introd.
eISBN 978-0-8348-2305-1
ISBN 978-1-59030-790-8 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Enlightenment (Buddhism)—Requisites.
2. Spiritual life—Buddhism. I. Title.
BQ4399.S54 2010
294.3′4422—dc22
2010003327
Contents
Acknowledgments
Editor’s Introduction
1. The Four Foundations of Mindfulness
2. The Four Proper Exertions
3. The Four Steps to Magical Powers
4. The Five Roots and the Five Powers
5. The Seven Factors of Enlightenment
6. The Noble Eightfold Path
Editor’s Afterword
Appendix: The Thirty-seven Aids to Enlightenment
Glossary
Index
E-mail Sign-Up
Acknowledgments
TEACHER : Chan Master Sheng Yen
ORAL TRANSLATION : Dr. Rebecca Li
TRANSCRIPTION : Chang Wen Fashi, Bruce Rickenbacher, Sheila
Sussman
EDITOR : Ernest Heau
PUBLICATIONS : Iris Wang
We join our palms in gratitude to Master Sheng Yen, who
serenely crossed over to nirvana on February 3, 2009, in Taiwan
.
Editor’s Introduction
THE SUBJECT OF THIS BOOK is the body of teachings of the Buddha
known in the Pali dialect as the bodhipakkhiya , and in Sanskrit as
bodhipakshika . The term translates literally as “things pertaining to
bodhi (enlightenment),” or the “factors of bodhi.” The Chinese name
for this body of teachings is sanshiqi dao ping , literally, “thirty-seven
aspects of the way.” However, the teachings have also been referred
to as “the thirty-seven factors of enlightenment,” or “the thirty-seven
aids to enlightenment.” The latter is the usage adopted in Dr.
Rebecca Li’s concurrent oral translation of Master Sheng Yen’s
lectures, on which this book is based. In his monumental book on the
bodhipakkhiya, the Theravada monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu refers to
the teachings as “wings to awakening.” 1 The title we have given to
Master Sheng Yen’s treatment of the subject, Things Pertaining to
Bodhi , was chosen for brevity as well as allegiance to the original
term, bodhipakshika. In this introduction, for convenience and
brevity, we will refer to the teachings as the bodhipakshika.
Between 1977 and 2006, it was Master Sheng Yen’s practice to
alternate between three-month stays at Dharma Drum Mountain, the
monastery he founded in Jinshan, Taiwan, and the Chan Meditation
Center in Queens, New York. On Sunday afternoons between May
1999 and November 2003, when he was in New York, the Master
gave freely of his energies to teach on the bodhipakshika. These
lectures have been compiled and edited into this posthumous
volume.
One of the first things to note about the bodhipakshika is that the
teachings they comprise were not given by the Buddha in their
totality at any one time or in any one sutra. Rather, the disparate but