After the Buddha had finished speaking the Wonderful Dharma Lotus Blossom Sutra, the Nirvana Sutra, the Buddha Bequeaths the Teaching Sutra, the Kṣitigarbha Sutra and others, he announced that he was going to enter nirvana. Every one of his disciples cried. Bodhisattvas cried, Arhats cried, and all the bhikṣus and common people cried even harder.

“Why did they cry? Did the Bodhisattvas and Arhats still have emotion?” one asks.

The deep, compassionate dharma which the Buddha spoke had been like milk which nourished them. They had drunk the dharma milk for many years, and now their source was going dry, so they cried.

Ananda cried hardest. Tears poured from his eyes, his nose ran, and he knew nothing but grief. He cried so hard he forgot everything. The Venerable Aniruddha, though blind, had the heavenly eye and the heavenly ear. When he heard everyone crying as though they had gone mad, he took Ananda aside and asked, “What are you crying about?”

“Ahh,” wailed Ananda, “the Buddha is going to nirvana and we will never get to see him again. What do you mean ‘What am I crying about?!”

The Venerable Aniruddha said, ”Don’t cry. You still have important things to do. Try to straighten up a little.”

Ananda said, “What important things? The Buddha is going to enter nirvana, what is left for me to do? I want to go with the Buddha.” He wanted to die with the Buddha.

“That won’t do. It is a mistake to talk like that.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

The Venerable Aniruddha said, “There are four questions you should ask the Buddha.”

“Four questions! Now that the Buddha is going to nirvana how can there still be questions? I can’t tell the Buddha not to enter nirvana, can I?”

“No.”

“What are the four questions?”

The Venerable Aniruddha said, “The first question: After the Buddha enters nirvana the sutras should be compiled. What words should we use to begin the sutras? What guide should there be?”

Ananda heard that and said, “That’s really important. As soon as I heard you say it, I knew I should ask about it. What other questions are there?”

“The second question: When the Buddha was in the world we lived with the Buddha. After the Buddha crosses over to extinction, after he enters nirvana, where should we dwell?”

Ananda dried his eyes and wiped his nose. He said, “That is also very important. Right. When the Buddha was in the world the entire group of twelve hundred fifty bhikṣus lived together with him. Now that he is going to enter nirvana where will we live? I should ask that. What’s the next question?” He was getting anxious because he could see that the questions were important.

“The third question: When the Buddha was in the world, the Buddha was our Master. Now that he is entering nirvana, whom should we take as Master? We should select one person from among us. We can’t manage without a Master!”

“Right. That also should be asked. What is the fourth question?”

“The fourth question is extremely important: When the Buddha was in the world, he could discipline the bad-natured bhikṣus.” Bad-natured bhikṣus are those who leave home and do not follow the rules. “After the Buddha enters nirvana who will discipline them?”

Ananda said, “Right again. Now the bad-natured bhikṣus will consider us their equals and we will not be able to discipline them. That is a real headache. Okay, I will go get the Buddha’s advice on these.”

Ananda went straight to the Buddha’s room. Although he had not washed his face, his eyes were dry and his nose clean, and he was not nearly as unsightly as when he had been crying. The Buddha was on the verge of entering samadhi, and Ananda had no time to waste. “Buddha?” he said, “World Honored One? I have some very important problems about which I need your advice. Can you answer me now?”

The Buddha already knew that his cousin and youngest disciple was coming to ask questions, and he said, “Certainly I can answer you. What are your problems?”

“These are not my problems, they are the Buddha’s problems, problems of Buddhadharma, problems of all the high masters! I can’t solve them, and so I have come seeking the Buddha’s compassionate instruction. I have heard many sutras and opened much wisdom, but now, faced with this momentous event, I can’t handle it. I need your advice, Buddha.”

“All right, speak,” said the Buddha.

“The first question is, after the Buddha enters nirvana we want to compile the sutras. What words should we begin them with to show that they are the Buddha’s?”

The Buddha said, “Use the four words ‘Thus I have heard.”

“Thus I have heard. Okay, I will remember,” said Ananda, “What’s the answer to the second question?”

“What is the second question? You haven’t asked it yet, Ananda.”

“I haven’t? Oh. The next question is where should we live? There are so many of us. How will we get along? Where will we dwell?”

“That is a small problem,” said the Buddha. “You should dwell in the Four Dwellings of Mindfulness.”

These are:

1. 1. Contemplation of the body as impure,
   2. Contemplation of feelings as suffering,
   3. Contemplation of thoughts as impermanent, and
   4. Contemplation of dharmas as devoid of self.

“The third question. You have been our Master, but when you enter nirvana who will our Master be? Will it be the oldest? Great Kāśyapa is the oldest. Will it be someone middle aged? That would be Ājñātakauṇḍinya. If it is to be the very youngest – I am the youngest, but I can’t be the Master. I can’t do it, Buddha.”

The Buddha said, “You don’t need to be Master, and neither does Ājñātakauṇḍinya or Great Kāśyapa.”

“Who will it be then?”

The Buddha said, “Take the Pratimokṣa as your master.” The Pratimokṣa is the Vinaya – precepts and rules. “Take the precepts as Master.”

The Buddha said that all people who have gone forth from home should take the Pratimokṣa as master. Therefore if you want to leave the home life you certainly must receive the precepts. If you do not receive the precepts, then you have no master. When one leaves home he should receive the Śramaṇera precepts, the Bodhisattva precepts, and the bhikṣu precepts. One who has taken only the śramaṇera precepts and the Bodhisattva precepts, but has not taken the bhikṣu precepts, has only partially left home. To leave home fully, one takes the complete precepts as Master.

“Now we have a Master,” Ananda said, “but among us there are bad-natured bhikṣus. While you have been in the world, you have managed them, Buddha. What should we do about them when you are gone?”

During the time of the Buddha there were six bhikṣus who were very rambunctious. They constantly interfered with others’ cultivation. If people were maintaining the precepts and rules, those bhikṣus tried to hinder them. Although those six bhikṣus did not follow the rules, not one of them was as disobedient as today’s average bhikṣu.

“What should we do about evil natured bhikṣus?” asked Ananda.

“Oh, that,” said the Buddha, “is very easy. You should be silent and they will go away. Don’t talk to them. After all, aren’t they bad? Aren’t they boisterous and disobedient? Ignore them. Don’t speak to them. They will become bored and leave on their own.”

Those are the Buddha’s answers to the four questions.

Thus I have heard. Those words are the first of the Six Requirements. It is essential that all who lecture or read sutras be quite familiar with the Six Requirements which are: belief, hearing, time, host, place and audience.

1. Thus is the requirement of belief,

2. I have heard is the requirement of hearing,

3. At one time is the requirement of time,

4. The Buddha is the requirement of a host,

5. In Sravasti in the Jeta Grove of the Garden of the Benefactor of Orphans and the Solitary is the requirement of a place,

6. Together with a gathering of great bhikṣus, twelve hundred fifty in all is the requirement of an audience.

The six requirements prove that a sutra was spoken by the Buddha. Since the requirements begin every sutra, they are called the “Common Preface.” The text which immediately follows them varies with each sutra, and so it is called the “Specific Preface.” In this sutra the Specific Preface is:

“At that time, at mealtime, the World Honored One put on his robe, took up his bowl, and entered the great city of Sravasti to beg for food. After he had finished his sequential begging within the city, he returned, ate the food, put away his robe and bowl, washed his feet, arranged his seat, and sat down.”

The Common Preface is also called both the “Foreword” and the “Postscript.” When lecturing sutras one can discuss this section as a foreword to the sutra and also as a postscript appended at a later date….

The six requirements are called the Postscript because they were not part of the original sutra. The Buddha did not say “Thus I have heard…” That text was added afterwards by the Venerable Ananda when the sutra division was compiled. The Postscript is also called the Prologue. Therefore the six requirements may be called the Foreword, the Prologue, and the Postscript.

The Buddha Instructed that all sutras he spoke should begin with the four words “Thus I have heard…” Those who investigate Buddhist sutras should know the history of those four words.

Sūtras provide a road to travel in cultivation. Going from the road of birth and death to the road of no birth and death, the common person penetrates to sagehood – to Buddhahood. One who wishes to walk that road must rely on the dharma to cultivate. The dharma is in the sūtras.

The word sūtra has many meanings.

1. It is called “an emanation” because it comes from the Buddha’s mouth.
2. Sutra is also called “a bright revelation” because it can illumine the whole world with its light.
3. Sutra is also called “a constant” because it is a method which never changes. Whether in the past or in the present, the sutra remains the same. Not one word can be taken out, not one added. It neither increases nor decreases.
4. The sutra “strings together.” Like beads on a string, the principles of the Buddhadharma are linked together in the lines of the sutra from beginning to end.
5. The sutra “attracts” living beings in the same way that a magnet draws iron filings. Living beings drawn to the sūtras come to have a thorough understanding of the Buddhadharma.
6. The sūtra is a “method” of cultivation held in veneration by living beings in the past, present and future.
7. Sūtra is also called a “bubbling spring.” The principles flow from the sūtras like water from a bubbling spring which moistens the entire earth, causing all living beings to be filled with the joy of dharma and to obtain delightful dhyana food.

The complete title of the sūtra is the Vajra Prajña Paramita Sūtra.