Mahayana Buddhism

The supreme state of Mahayana Buddhism is known as "Threefold Emptiness"—the emptiness of the giver, the emptiness of the receiver, and the emptiness of the gift. The original intent of this wisdom, which points directly to the ultimate reality of the universe, was to break the barriers between the individual and all things, allowing life to reconnect with the vast cosmic source. However, in the long passage of time, this wisdom of emptiness gradually materialized into various tangible precepts and expectations within the secular world.

Historically, out of a yearning for compassion, Emperor Wu of Liang promoted vegetarianism among monks and nuns in the Central Plains. Later generations also came to regard "abstaining from meat" and "fasting after noon" as the fundamental thresholds for pure spiritual practice. The original intention of these precepts was to reduce harm to all beings and to minimize reliance on material desires. Yet, when practitioners become overly attached to these forms, the discriminative mind easily arises—the ego that thinks, "I am practicing," or "I can endure." The emptiness of the three spheres is thus inadvertently filled by an obsession with "purity," confining the inherent vastness and inclusivity of life into a narrow, rigid box.

Imagine that endlessly long road winding between India and Zhendan—crossing the Himalayas, traversing barren glaciers and deserts. In that era of extremes, Bodhidharma, who came from the West to transmit the Dharma, and the later Tang Monk Xuanzang, who traveled West to seek it, faced the harshest tests of nature. When a mortal body of flesh and blood stepped into the eight-hundred-li River of Sand in the Moheyan Desert or climbed the oxygen-deprived glaciers of the Pamir Mountains, life was stripped of all its cultural and dogmatic decorations, returning to its purest state of existence.

In those desperate environments where a drop of water was as precious as gold, if one were overly bound by the exact hour of "fasting after noon" or obsessed with verifying whether the food met the standard of "threefold pure meat," that fragile body carrying the lineage of the Dharma would have simply vanished into the wind and sand. In order to pass on the seeds of awakening across heaven and earth, they chose to completely surrender to the physical laws of the universe. Whatever was offered in their alms bowl, they accepted with gratitude; whenever nature bestowed food, they used it to nourish their physical body right then. For them, swallowing the air-dried meat and cheese offered by nomadic people, without distinguishing between the secular and the sacred, transcended the scrutiny of dogmatic rules and the constraints of time.

This was in no way a craving rooted in killing, but rather the deepest respect for "life" as a raft to cross the river of suffering. They did not cling to the purity or longevity of this fleshly vessel, nor did they ever deny the physical body's value in this world. Eating that food was solely to allow the shell carrying the ultimate truth to walk one more mile. This unconditional, non-discriminating acceptance dissolved the secular, rigid dichotomy of "pure" and "impure," manifesting the Threefold Emptiness of great compassion that is one with all things.

Therefore, when Bodhidharma stepped into the Central Plains and faced Emperor Wu of Liang—a man who had spent his life building temples and forging statues—he calmly stated: "No merit whatsoever." This was not a cold denial, but a compassionate awakening. Bodhidharma saw the Emperor’s inner thirst for spiritual achievement. With these few words, he attempted to help the sovereign unload the heavy burden of "desiring to become a saint," guiding him back to the inherent, self-sufficient emptiness within his own heart.

Bodhidharma crossed the Yangtze River on a single reed and went north to face the wall at Shaolin. There, the Dharmadhatu revealed its compassion for the Dharma lineage of the Central Plains in another profound way. Amidst a heavy blizzard, Shenguang stood outside Mount Shaoshi. Facing Bodhidharma’s interrogation regarding his determination to seek the Dharma, Huike did not argue with words; instead, he severed his own left arm with a sharp blade and offered it before the master.

In the 6th century, devoid of medical facilities, this single slash meant surrendering his life and death entirely to heaven and earth. This was absolutely not a rejection of life or a pathological act of self-destruction; rather, it was the ultimate manifestation of the Mahayana teaching to break the illusion of a lifespan. People often lose the freedom of life because their excessive fear of death makes them cling desperately to their physical shells. Huike's severed arm actively cut off the greedy attachment that the physical body must remain eternally whole. He still cherished life immensely, for he needed this maimed body to inherit and pass on the Dharma; yet, he was no longer trapped by the fear of death. It was exactly this absolute resolve—merging life and death into the vastness of the universe—that injected a powerful, mind-directing force into early Zen Buddhism.

Guided by this force, early Zen schools used the most unadorned manual labor, such as sweeping floors and cleaning toilets, to dissolve the arrogance of practitioners. They used the sudden strike of the Xiangban to shatter the brain's addiction to sacred illusions. Behind all these seemingly harsh methods lay the immense compassion of the patriarchs—they could not bear to see their disciples trapped in the illusions of the ego, and thus used real physical pain and labor to repeatedly yank them back to the present moment, forging a true connection with authentic life.

However, all things are subject to arising and ceasing, and the flow of the Dharma lineage is no exception. As times changed, formless Zen teachings turned into written texts, and profound inner experiences gradually evolved into verbal philosophical debates. To accommodate the spiritual needs of a broader spectrum of sentient beings, strict ascetic practices softly morphed into convenient skillful means for soothing the mind, such as burning incense and praying for blessings. This was not a simple degeneration, but a natural evolution of the Dharma, adapting to different karmic conditions to guide different sentient beings.

If we turn our gaze to that harsh, unforgiving wasteland Bodhidharma once traversed—Tibet—we will witness another compassionate connection forged by the Dharmadhatu. Facing howling winds and earth-shattering quakes that tore the land apart, the Dharmadhatu, through the vows of the Nepalese Princess Bhrikuti and the Tang Princess Wencheng, brought earthquake-resistant architectural wisdom and massive timber to the plateau, building sturdy sanctuaries for fragile sentient beings. For those yogis practicing in solitude in the wilderness, the Dharmadhatu bestowed the yak. Its butter nourished their lives, its dung ignited warmth, and after death, its carcass was offered in charity to the soaring eagles. This was a closed loop of life—devoid of fear, in perfect harmony with nature.

In the freezing depths of extreme cold, the Dharmadhatu bestowed the esoteric secrets of Consort Practice and Inner Heat. This is a form of cosmic alchemy that transforms humanity's most primal biological energy into the light of awakening. Guided by the intense heat generated during the climax with a female practice consort, the yogi channels the powerful thermal energy and desire of life not outward for release, but inward into the central channel, transforming it into a raging fire of wisdom that burns away ignorance. The physical body sweats profusely in the blizzard, while the true nature of the mind merges with the Dharmadhatu in the non-duality of bliss and emptiness. This is the deepest resonance between life energy and cosmic frequency.

Naturally, such practices—which require an extraordinarily high state of mind—inevitably faced deviation and distortion as they were handed down. Just as Zen in the Central Plains evolved into formalities, Tibetan Tantra also experienced its own cycles of rise and fall. Yet the compassion of the Dharmadhatu never ceased. When the ancient lineages of the East and the West encountered their respective bottlenecks, the cosmic gears of karma turned once again—"When the iron bird flies, the secret Dharma shall go West."

When the monumental shifts of the era forced Tibetan monks to step out of the plateau, that current of esoteric mantras, transcending language, was pushed into a Western world accustomed to logical thinking. Those Sanskrit syllables, vibrating directly through the body, mind, and spirit, gently yet precisely pierced through the defenses of rationality. They became a potent medicine for modern people to release anxiety and reconnect with cosmic consciousness.

Looking down upon this vast, boundless map of the global flow of the Dharma lineage, we witness the resilience of life and the deep affection of the universe. The rise, evolution, and even the fading of all Dharma gates are never tragedies; they are the processes of the great cosmic life continuously breathing and adjusting its frequency.

The compassion of the Dharmadhatu is omnipresent. It materialized into that broken alms bowl that did not shun meat in order to sustain life; it materialized into Patriarch Huike’s severed arm that shattered the fear of death. It exists in the sharp strike of the Xiangban that awakens one to the present moment, and it burns in the unquenchable inner fire amidst the roaring blizzard. Ultimately, all these forms will return to emptiness—and this emptiness exists precisely so that, after letting go of all judgments and attachments, we can truly and gently embrace this vast, magnificent universe.