廬山蓮宗寶鑑 10.12

10.12

An ancient master of virtue said: 'In the womb it is the body; in the world it is called a human. In the eyes it is called seeing; in the ears it is called hearing. In the nose it smells fragrances; on the tongue it speaks; in the hands it grasps; on the feet it runs. Manifesting everywhere, it covers the sands of worlds; drawn together, it resides in a single speck of dust. Those who recognize it know it is the Buddha-nature; those who do not recognize it call it the spirit-soul.' Recently, there are fools who do not understand Buddhist principles and stealthily infiltrate our teaching, taking esoteric transmission as their sole doctrine, falsely preaching that the six gates see the nature, pointing to the four-element physical body as the Buddha-body, and fabricating thirty-six passes and seventy-two signs. Concocting bizarre matters, they deceive and confuse good people, falsely claiming that a twitch of flesh on this side means someone is coming, or an ache over there means something is about to happen, asserting that they have foreknowledge of good and bad fortune, calamity and blessing. When the foolish hear this, they assume it is the efficacious responsiveness of the Buddhadharma, whole-heartedly believing it, making donations and offerings, transmitting these heterodox words, and keeping them earnestly in mind without ever letting them go for a moment. Little do they know that the one true Buddha-nature is pure and serene; it is only because there is a false body that there is false consciousness, which covers over the original nature so that its radiance is not seen. When a single thought-moment of mind is empty, that is called awakening to the Path. Therefore, the *Śūraṅgama-sūtra* says: 'To establish cognition within knowing and seeing is the root of fundamental ignorance; when knowing and seeing are free from seeing, that is nirvāṇa.' For this reason, the patriarchs established the teaching taking solely the buddhānusmṛti-samādhi as the orthodox doctrine, never binding people with even the slightest hair of real phenomena. Who would have expected that these ignorant commoners, straying from the school and blind to its tenets, would abandon loyalty and filial piety instead of practicing them, turn their backs on benevolence and righteousness instead of cultivating them, and, under the guise of the Lotus School, practice disparate dharmas? Greedily seeking unseen responses and confusing people with the bizarre, heterodox demons and monstrous spirits possess their bodies, disturbing their correct faith so that they are entirely captured by māras. Is this not tragic! In general, those who cultivate pure karma must properly discern heterodoxy and orthodoxy as their primary duty, investigate the mind, firmly resolve in sincerity to remember the Buddha and practice buddhānusmṛti, and vow to be born in the Pure Land, taking care not to seek anything else. Dhyāna Master Zhijue Shou said: 'Do not pick at the branches and sprouts; you must seek out the ancestral root. Open wide, and fundamental ignorance will be instantly cleared; serene, and the dust of passions will wash itself away.' This can truly be called: 'Directly cutting through to the root is what the Buddhas seal; / picking leaves and seeking branches is not for me.'