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Eighty-four Thousand Dharma-Doors 八萬四千法門

Eighty-four thousand is a symbolic number, which represents a countless number of Dharma-doors.

“In cultivation there are 84,000 Dharma-doors… Of those 84,000 Dharma-doors, ultimately which Dharma-door is number one? Of the 84,000 Dharma-doors, 84,000 are number one. What does that mean? It means, if a Dharma suits your potentials, then it is the number one Dharma. If it doesn't suit your potentials, then it is not number one for you. However, if it doesn't suit your potentials, it may suit someone else's potentials. Any Dharma that suits anyone's potentials is number one for that individual. Therefore, they are all number one Dharma-doors; all are nondual Dharma-doors. If you try to force a discrimination about which is best and say, 'This one is number one, that one is number two, and then there are the third, the fourth, counting up to 84,000,' no one would cultivate the 84,000th Dharma-door. Why not? Because it is the very last one. The way that people's minds work is that they want to be number one. Therefore, I don't pay attention to whether I'm right or not; I just call all the Dharma-doors spoken by the Buddha 'number one,' without any 'number two.' Whether you take a logical, psychological, philosophical, or scientific stance, all are number one. Each one is included in the 84,000 Dharma-doors. The same applies to each one of us. Each person is number one. There is no number two. For there to be a number two, you would have to tie two people together.

“You say, 'Now I understand! Now that you've spoken about this Dharma, Dharma Master, I have become Enlightened. What have I become Enlightened about? When a man and a woman marry, that counts as number two!'

“Not bad. Not only number two, it's even number three. A third one also appears. And so it would go, all the way up to 84,000. But if you don't count that way, then all are number one. Every single one is number one.…” (TT 107-108)

ALTERNATE TRANSLATIONS: myriad Dharma-doors

SEE ALSO: Dharma-door

Snippet from Wikipedia: Z

Z, or z, is the twenty-sixth and last letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its usual names in English are zed (), which is most commonly used in international English and zee (), only used in American, sometimes Canadian and Caribbean English and with an occasional archaic variant izzard ().

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Fair Use Sources:

• Buddhism A to Z - A Buddhist Encyclopedia
• 84,000 Dharma Doors - A Comprehensive Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Buddhism