大慧普覺禪師語錄 26

English (machine translation) 26

Language: English

26.1

Presented by the Subject Yunwen, Abbot of Nengren Chan Monastery on Jingshan, Song Dynasty, Successor to the Dharma and Chan Master Huiri

26.2

Reply to Supervising Secretary Jiang (Shaoming)

In a human life, over a hundred years of light and shade, how much time can there be? Arising from a humble home, you have served through pure and vital posts; you are a person of the first rank in enjoying worldly blessings. Being able to know shame, turning your mind toward the Way, and studying the supramundane Dharma for escaping birth and death, you are also a person of the first rank in seeking true advantage in the world. You must urgently apply hands and feet and cool your face, not allowing yourself to be ordered about by others; personally understand your original life and destiny, so that where you are going is distinct and clear—then you are a great hero who has finished the task both in the world and beyond the world. Hearing that you have been going day after day to discuss the Way with the Executive Policy Advisor, this is very good, very good. This gentleman has brought to rest the seeking mind, obtained the severed path of speech and the extinguished place of mental activity, eliminated diverging byways, caught sight of the ancients' methods, and is not ensnared by the ancients' expedient words. Seeing that he is like this, this mountain monk has never spoken a single word to him, fearing to compromise him. I am simply waiting until later, when he himself wants to speak with this mountain monk, and only then will our eyebrows knot together to address the matter; it does not just end like this. If a person studying the Way does not bring the seeking mind to rest, even if his eyebrows knot together with mine in discussing it, what benefit would there be? It would be nothing other than running around madly on the outside. An ancient said: 'Approaching the good is like walking in mist and dew; though it does not soak one's clothes, it constantly moistens.' Just speak frequently with the Executive Policy Advisor; this is my most earnest prayer. You must not recklessly distort the ancients' instructional teachings. For example, when Great Master Ma met the Venerable of Nanyue, he taught the Dharma, saying: 'It is like an ox hitched to a cart. If the cart does not move, is it right to hit the cart, or is it right to hit the ox?' When Master Ma heard this, he understood his return upon the words. How many people in various quarters preach the Dharma like thunder and lightning, like clouds and rain, yet cannot understand these few lines of words, mistakenly affixing names and terms and generating understanding following words! Seeing the fabricated commentary at the end of the letter to Zhoufeng, this mountain monk read it and could not help collapsing with laughter; along with those who speak of Tathāgata Chan and Patriarch Chan, they can all be indicted together and dealt with in one stroke. I have carefully examined the verse you sent; it is indeed superior to the two verses from the other day. From now on, you may stop this; writing verse after verse, when will there ever be an end? Take the Executive Policy Advisor: could it be that he does not know how to compose verses? Why is it that he has not written a single word? It is because one who recognizes the Dharma is cautious. Occasionally revealing the tip of a single hair, he naturally scratches this mountain monk's itch, like the phrase in his verse on the Image of Coming out of the Mountain: 'Everywhere meeting people, right to their face deceiving them.' This can serve as eye-clearing medicine for the monasteries; you will see it for yourself on another day, without needing this mountain monk to explain it away. Having recently seen your sudden transformation and vigorous effort for this matter, I wrote this letter, unconsciously going on at great length.

26.4

Reply to Bureau Director Fu (Jishen)

26.5

Your letter states: 'In my early years I had faith in and turned toward this Path, but in my later years I have been obstructed by intellectual understanding, not yet having found a place of awakening and entry; I wish to know an expedient means for embodying the Path day and night.' Since I have received your utmost sincerity, I dare not hold myself aloof, and so, following the confession to conclude the case, I offer a few vines [of words]. Just this seeking awakening and entry is itself the intellectual understanding that obstructs the Path. What other intellectual understanding is there that acts as an obstruction to you, sir? In the end, what is called intellectual understanding? From where does intellectual understanding arrive? And who is the one being obstructed? In this single phrase alone, there are three inversions: saying yourself that you are obstructed by intellectual understanding is one; saying yourself that you are unawakened and willingly acting the part of a confused person is one; and further, remaining in confusion while keeping a mind that awaits awakening is one. Just these three inversions are the very root of birth and death. You must simply reach the point where not a single thought arises and the inverted mind is cut off; only then will you know that there is no confusion to break through, no awakening to await, and no intellectual understanding to obstruct—just like a person drinking water, who knows for himself whether it is cold or warm. After a long time it will naturally become so, and you will not form this kind of view. Just look upon the mind that can know intellectual understanding: does it still suffer obstruction or not? On the mind that can know intellectual understanding, are there still so many varieties [of things] or not? From ancient times, all masters of great wisdom have taken intellectual understanding as their companion, taken intellectual understanding as an expedient means, practiced equal compassion upon intellectual understanding, and performed all buddha-works upon intellectual understanding—like a dragon gaining water, or a tiger leaning against a mountain—never being troubled by it, simply because they recognized the place where intellectual understanding arises. Having recognized the place where it arises, this very intellectual understanding is the site of liberation, the place where birth and death are transcended. Since it is the site of liberation, the place where birth and death are transcended, then that which is known and understood is of its very essence quiescent and extinguished. When that which is known and understood is quiescent and extinguished, then that which can know and understand cannot but be quiescent and extinguished; bodhi, nirvāṇa, true thusness, and buddha-nature cannot but be quiescent and extinguished. What thing is there left to cause obstruction? In what place is there left to seek awakening and entry? Old Śākyamuni said: 'All karmas arise from the mind, therefore it is said that the mind is like an illusion; if one is free from this conceptual differentiation, then all realms of existence are extinguished.' A monk asked Master Dazhu: 'What is great nirvāṇa?' Zhu said: 'Not creating the karma of birth and death is great nirvāṇa.' The monk said: 'What is the karma of birth and death?' Zhu said: 'Seeking great nirvāṇa is the karma of birth and death.' An ancient worthy also said: 'When a practitioner of the Path in a single thought calculates birth and death, he falls into the demonic path; when in a single thought he gives rise to views, he falls into non-Buddhist paths.' Furthermore, Vimalakīrti said: 'Demons delight in birth and death, while the bodhisattva does not abandon birth and death; those of non-Buddhist paths delight in views, while the bodhisattva is unmoved among views.' This is precisely the model for taking intellectual understanding as a companion, taking intellectual understanding as an expedient means, practicing equal compassion upon intellectual understanding, and performing all buddha-works upon intellectual understanding. It is simply because they fully realized that the three asaṃkhyeya kalpas are empty, and that birth and death as well as nirvāṇa are both serene and quiescent. Since you have not yet reached this stage, you must under no circumstances be led into a ghost cave by false teachers talking nonsense, closing your eyebrows and shutting your eyes in vain imagination. Lately the ancestral path has fallen into decline, and this crowd is as numerous as hemp and millet—truly it is the blind leading the blind, dragging each other into the pit of fire, deeply pitiable. I hope that you will stiffen your backbone and not adopt this kind of attitude. Those who adopt this kind of attitude, though they temporarily restrain this stinking skin-bag and settle it down, consider it the ultimate; yet their mental consciousness flutters in confusion, just like wild horses. Even if the mental consciousness temporarily pauses, like pressing grass with a stone, it unintentionally sprouts again. To wish thereby to directly grasp unexcelled bodhi and arrive at the place of ultimate peace and joy—is that not difficult? I, Zonggao, was also once misled by this crowd; later, if I had not met a true and good spiritual friend, I would almost have spent my whole life in vain. Whenever I think of this, it is truly unbearable; therefore, not begrudging vocal karma, I exert all my strength to remedy this defect. Nowadays, if there is anyone with a slight awareness of what is wrong, if they want a direct and cutting-through understanding, they must have this single thought crack open with a pop! Only then can birth and death be resolved, and only then is it called awakening and entry. However, you must never harbor a mind that awaits the breaking open; if you harbor your mind in the place of breaking open, then for eternal kalpas there will be no time of breaking open. Just take the mind of vain imagination and inversion, the mind of thinking and differentiation, the mind that loves life and hates death, the mind of views and intellectual understanding, the mind that delights in quietude and detests commotion—press them down all at once, and right at the place where they are pressed down, look at a huatou. A monk asked Zhaozhou: 'Does a dog have buddha-nature or not?' Zhou said: 'No.' This single character is the weapon that demolishes so many evil knowledges and evil perceptions. You must not understand it in terms of existence and non-existence, you must not understand it in terms of principle, you must not think and calculate upon it at the sense-base of intellect, you must not dodge your roots where eyebrows are raised and eyes are blinked, you must not make a living on the road of words, you must not cast it into the armor of nothing-to-do, you must not undertake it where it is brought forth, and you must not cite evidence from written words. Just throughout the twelve double-hours and within the four deportments, constantly bring it to mind and constantly raise it: 'Does a dog have buddha-nature or not?' He said: 'No.' Without departing from daily life, try to do your practice like this; in a month or ten days you will see it for yourself. Matters of an entire prefecture across a thousand li will not be an obstacle at all. An ancient said: 'Here with me is the living intention of the Patriarchs; what thing can restrain it?' If you turn toward some other inclination apart from daily life, that is seeking water apart from waves, or seeking gold apart from vessels—the seeking will only take you farther away.

26.6

Another [letter]

26.7

I have learned that lately you have been mindful of this great matter of the causal condition, courageous, vigorous, pure, and unmixed, at which I rejoice beyond measure. In the midst of blazing activity throughout the twelve double-hours, have you definitely attained resonance, or not? Between the two sides of waking and sleeping, have you attained oneness, or not? If not, you must never solely sink into emptiness and turn toward stillness—the ancients called this making a ghost's living under the black mountain, with no time of breakthrough to liberation to the end of the future. Yesterday I received your letter of instruction, and privately worried that you must have already become attached to the samādhi of quiet excellence; and upon inquiring of the Grand Academician, I found it was indeed as I expected. In general, gentlemen who have more than enough experience dealing with worldly matters, after being stuck in defiling worldly toil for a long time, suddenly receive someone's instruction to apply their efforts in quietude and silence; when they suddenly attain an unburdened mind, they immediately recognize it and take it as ultimate peace and joy. Little do they know that it is like pressing grass with a stone: though for a short time they feel that signs of activity have ceased, alas, the roots and trunk are still there, so how could there ever be a time of penetratingly realizing quiescent extinction? To have true quiescent extinction appear before you, you must suddenly make a leap right out from the midst of blazing arising and ceasing; without moving a single hair, you instantly stir the great river into ghee and transform the great earth into gold, having the freedom to let go or snatch away, kill or bring to life at the critical juncture, with nothing inadmissible in benefiting others or benefiting oneself. The ancient sages called this the dhāraṇī gate of inexhaustible treasuries, the gate of sport in supernatural powers of inexhaustible treasuries, and the gate of liberation as-one-wishes of inexhaustible treasuries—how is this not the capability of a true great hero? Yet it is not brought about by external force; it is entirely the ordinary portion of our own mind. I hope that you will quickly muster your spirit, resolve upon this, and thoroughly and greatly awaken, so that your mind is bright and clear like hundreds of thousands of suns and moons, and the worlds of the ten directions are clearly understood in a single thought without the slightest hair-tip of divergent thoughts; only then will you attain resonance with the ultimate. If you can truly be like this, not only will you gain strength on the road of birth and death, but in the future, when you once again hold the balance of state and set your sovereign above Yao and Shun, it will be as easy as pointing to the palm of your hand.

26.8

Another [letter].

26.9

Your letter states: 'For a beginner, gaining a little effort in quiet sitting is also fine in itself.' It also says: 'I dare not vainly form a view of quietude.' This is what the yellow-faced old fellow called: 'Like a person plugging his own ears and shouting at the top of his voice, hoping others will not hear.' This is truly making obstructions and difficulties for oneself. If the mind of birth and death is not yet broken through, and throughout the twelve double-hours of daily life you are murky and benighted, like a dead person whose soul has not dispersed, what spare time do you seek to attend to quietude or attend to commotion? In the Nirvāṇa assembly, when the butcher Guang'e laid down his butcher's knife, he immediately became a buddha; was he making effort in quietude? Was he not a beginner? When you see this, sir, you will certainly think it is not so, and will surely assign him as an ancient buddha's manifestation, saying that people today do not have this power. If you hold such a view, you do not believe in your own extraordinary excellence, and willingly make yourself an inferior person. In this gate of ours, we do not discuss beginners or late learners, nor do we ask about long-standing practitioners or advanced masters; if you want genuine quietude, you must break through the mind of birth and death without setting out to make effort; when the mind of birth and death is broken through, it will naturally be quiet. The quiet and serene expedients spoken of by the ancient sages were precisely for this reason. It is simply that the false teachers of the degenerate age do not understand the ancient sages' words of expedient means. If you have complete faith in this mountain monk, try looking at the huatou of a dog having no buddha-nature in the midst of commotion; setting aside for now whether you awaken or not, right when your mind is disturbed and agitated, casually bring it to mind and raise it, and see: does it still feel quiet or not? Does it still feel effective or not? If you feel it is effective, then you must not cast it aside. When you want to sit quietly, just burn a stick of incense and sit quietly; when sitting, do not allow yourself to fall into dullness, nor allow yourself to fall into agitation. Dullness and agitation were rebuked by the ancient sages. When sitting quietly, as soon as you perceive these two kinds of illnesses appearing before you, just bring up the huatou of a dog having no buddha-nature; without having to exert strength to expel the two kinds of illnesses, they will immediately settle down at once. As the days and months go deep, as soon as you feel it saving effort, that is the place where you gain strength. You also do not need to make effort in quietude; just this is the effort. When Assistant Administrator Li was previously in Quannan, when we first met, he saw that this mountain monk forcefully refuted the false Chan of silent illumination which blinds people's eyes. At first he was displeased, half doubtful and half angry. Suddenly hearing this mountain monk chant a verse on the huatou of the cypress tree in the courtyard, he abruptly broke through the lacquer tub; in a single laugh, everything was settled, and only then did he believe that when this mountain monk opened his mouth, one saw his heart, without the slightest deception, and that it was not a matter of contending over self and other; thereupon he repented before this mountain monk. He is present over there now; please try asking him whether this is so or not. Senior Monk Daoqian has gone to Futang; I wonder whether he has arrived there yet? This person has suffered even more hardship in practicing Chan; he also spent over ten years in withered Chan, and only in recent years has found a place of peace and joy. When you meet him, try asking him: 'How do you do your practice?' Having once been a wanderer, he has special compassion for travelers; he will surely pour out his heart with utmost sincerity.

26.10

Another sheet to Assistant Administrator Li (Hanlao)

26.11

When Bureau Administrator Fu was previously in Sanqu, he once sent a letter asking about the Path. In response, I spun out some vines and descended into the grass not a little; yet he still stagnates in the place of silent illumination, having definitely been led into a ghost cave by false teachers without a doubt. Now I have received his letter again, and he again clings to quiet sitting as fine; being stuck and mired like this, how could he practice Jingshan Chan? In my letter answering him this time, I have again spun out vines at length, not begrudging vocal karma, to painfully root it out; yet I do not know whether he is willing to turn his head around and look at the huatou in his daily life or not. An ancient sage said: 'Better to break the precepts as high as Mount Sumeru than to be perfumed by a false teacher with a single false thought.' If a mustard seed's amount [of false thought] enters emotional consciousness, it is like oil entering flour, never to be extracted; this gentleman is an example of this. If you meet with him, try taking the vines of my reply to him and let him look at it, and thereby make an expedient means to rescue this person. Among the four methods of attraction, attraction through colleagueship is the most powerful; you should broadly open this dharma gate and cause him to enter with faith. Not only will this save this mountain monk half the effort, but it will also enable him to have full faith and be willing to leave his old cave.

26.12

Reply to Vice Minister Chen (Jiren)

26.13

You informed me: "I wish to pay heed to this matter of the great cause, but my capacity is extremely dull." If it is truly thus, I must offer congratulations to you. The reason most scholar-officials nowadays cannot, in this matter, make hundreds of settlements and thousands of conclusions and directly penetrate through to liberation, is simply that their faculties are too sharp and their views are too many; seeing an ancestral master merely open his mouth and move his tongue, they already understand it in a moment. For this reason, they are conversely not as good as those of dull faculties, who lack so many evil cognitions and perceptions. When such a one suddenly collides [with the truth] and is triggered upon a single pivot or circumstance, under a single word or phrase, then even if Master Bodhidharma came forth and exhausted a hundred kinds of spiritual penetrations, he could do nothing to him—simply because there is no [fabrication of] principle that can obstruct him. Those of sharp faculties are instead obstructed by their sharpness, unable to attain the snap of breaking or the pop of bursting open. Even though they learn through intelligence and conceptual understanding, in their own fundamental task they can exert no strength. Therefore the Venerable Nanquan said: "Lately there are too many Chan masters; one cannot find a single foolish and dull person." The Venerable Zhangjing said: "The ultimate truth transcends words, yet people of the time do not understand; they forcefully practice other matters, taking them as meritorious abilities, unaware that their own nature is fundamentally not an objective realm of dust. It is a subtle and wondrous gate of great liberation; all its discernment and awareness are unstained and unhindered. Such radiance has never ceased or been abandoned; from past kalpas until now, it has indeed not changed. Like the sun disk shining far and near, although it reaches all colors, it does not blend with anything; the luminous candle of wondrous brightness does not depend on forging. Because they do not understand, they grasp at worldly appearances; this is merely like rubbing one's eyes and vainly giving rise to flowers in the sky, wearing oneself out in vain and fruitlessly passing through kalpas. If you can reflect backward, there is no second person; all actions and deeds do not detract from the true mark." You say yourself that your faculties are dull; try reflecting backward like this and see: does that which can know dullness still have dullness or not? If you do not turn the light back to reflect inward, but merely cling to your dull faculties and further produce afflictions, that is to heap illusion upon illusion, to add more flowers in the sky upon flowers in the sky. Only listen to me: that which can know that one's faculties are dull is decidedly not dull. Although you must not cling to this dullness, neither can you abandon this dullness to investigate. Grasping and rejecting, sharpness and dullness, lie with the person, not with the mind. This mind is one substance, not two, with the buddhas of the three periods; if there were two, then the Dharma would not be impartial. Receiving teachings and transmitting mind is merely false and illusory; seeking the true and searching for the real only leads to further discrepancy. As long as you know the mind of one substance and not two, it decidedly does not lie between sharpness and dullness, grasping and rejecting. Then you should see the moon and forget the finger, directly cutting it in two with a single blow. If you further hesitate, thinking ahead and calculating behind, then that is to produce real understanding upon an empty fist and pointing finger, to falsely conjure monsters within the dharmas of faculties and realms, and vainly to imprison and cling to yourself within the aggregates and realms without ever having an end. In recent years there is a kind of false master who preaches silent illumination Chan, teaching people to pay no attention to anything during the twelve periods of the day, to "rest away and pause away," not allowing them to make a sound lest they fall into the present. Time and again, scholar-officials driven by their intelligence and sharp faculties mostly dislike noisy places. When suddenly instructed by such false masters to sit quietly, they find it saves effort and immediately take it to be right; they no longer seek wondrous awakening, but merely take silence as the ultimate standard. Spared not the karma of speech, I have exerted all my strength to remedy this harm. Now that you somewhat know the error of this, I hope you will only investigate in the place where your doubt cannot be broken, never letting go of it whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down. A monk asked Zhaozhou: "Does a dog have buddha-nature or not?" Zhou said: "No (Wu)." This single word is a knife that breaks the doubting mind of birth and death. The handle of this knife is solely in one's own hand; you cannot have another strike for you—you must strike yourself before it works. Only if you can cast away your life will you be willing to strike yourself. If you cannot cast away your life, then just press on in the place where the doubt cannot be broken; when you suddenly become willing to cast away your life, it is finished in a single stroke. At that time you will finally believe that the time of stillness is the time of noise, the time of noise is the time of stillness, the time of speech is the time of silence, and the time of silence is the time of speech. You will have no need to ask others, and naturally you will not be taken in by the nonsense and babble of false masters. This is my most earnest prayer. Formerly, Zhu Shiying once wrote a letter to the Venerable Zhenjing of Yun'an, asking: "The Buddha-dharma is supremely wondrous. In daily life, how should one use the mind, and how should one investigate it? I hope for your compassionate instruction." Zhenjing said: "The Buddha-dharma is supremely wondrous and without duality, but before one reaches the wondrous, there are relative strengths and shortcomings. If one reaches the wondrous, then the person who has awakened to the mind knows in accordance with reality that his own mind is ultimately and originally an accomplished buddha, in accordance with reality at ease, in accordance with reality peaceful and happy, in accordance with reality liberated, in accordance with reality pure. And in daily life, he uses only his own mind; the transformations of his own mind he takes up and uses, without asking whether it is right or wrong. Conjecturing and deliberating in the mind is already wrong. When one does not conjecture in the mind, each and every thing is natural and true, each and every thing is clear and wondrous, each and every thing is like a lotus flower unattached to water; the purity of the mind transcends them. Therefore, because of being deluded about one's own mind, one becomes a sentient being; because of being awakened to one's own mind, one becomes a buddha. Yet sentient beings are precisely buddhas, and buddhas are precisely sentient beings; it is due to delusion and awakening that there are this and that." Nowadays, practitioners of the Way mostly do not believe in their own minds, do not awaken to their own minds, do not attain the clear and wondrous functioning and enjoyment of their own minds, and do not attain the peace, joy, and liberation of their own minds. Outside the mind they falsely imagine there to be Chan and the Way, falsely establish the extraordinary, and falsely give rise to grasping and rejecting. Even if they cultivate, they fall into the realm of the non-Buddhists' and two vehicles' dhyāna-quiescence and annihilationist views. This is what is meant by "cultivating while fearing falling into the pit of annihilationism and eternalism." Those with annihilationist views extinguish the originally wondrous and bright nature of their own mind, exclusively attaching to emptiness outside the mind and stagnating in dhyāna-quiescence; those with eternalist views do not awaken to the emptiness of all dharmas, but cling to the conditioned dharmas of the world, taking them to be ultimate. Those false masters teach scholar-officials to collect the mind and sit quietly, to pay no attention to anything, to "rest away and pause away." Is this not using the mind to rest the mind, using the mind to pause the mind, using the mind to direct the mind? If one cultivates like this, how could one not fall into the realm of the non-Buddhists' and two vehicles' dhyāna-quiescence and annihilationist views? How could one make apparent the clear and wondrous nature of one's own mind, and enjoy ultimate peace and joy? As for the marvel of its pure liberation and transformations in accordance with reality, one must see it and awaken to it for oneself; then naturally one will not be turned around by the words and phrases of the ancients, but will be able to turn around the words and phrases of the ancients. It is like placing a pure maṇi jewel into muddy water: even after hundreds of thousands of years it cannot be defiled, because its fundamental substance is inherently pure. This mind is also like this: just when deluded, it is confounded by the dusts of worldly toil, but this substance of mind has fundamentally never been confounded; this is what is called being "like a lotus flower unattached to water." If you suddenly awaken to this mind as originally an accomplished buddha, ultimately at ease, and peaceful and happy in accordance with reality, its various wondrous functions also do not come from the outside, because it is fundamentally complete in itself. The yellow-faced old fellow said: "There is no fixed dharma named anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, nor is there any fixed dharma that the Tathāgata can speak." If you fix upon the fundamental substance as truly possessing such a thing, then that too is wrong. Having no alternative, because of delusion, awakening, grasping, and rejecting, various principles are spoken; these are merely skillful means spoken for those who have not reached the wondrous. In fact, in the fundamental substance there are no various things. I ask you to merely apply your mind like this: throughout the twelve two-hour periods of the day, you must not cling to birth-and-death and the Buddha-way as existent, nor must you dismiss birth-and-death and the Buddha-way into nonexistence. Merely observe: "Does a dog have buddha-nature or not?" Zhaozhou said: "No (Wu)." You must on no account deliberate under the root of intellect; you must not make a living on words and language; you must not take it up where the mouth opens; and you must not understand it in the spark struck from a stone or the flash of lightning. Does a dog have buddha-nature or not? No. Merely investigate like this. Nor must you use your mind to wait for awakening or wait for resting and pausing. If you use your mind to wait for awakening and wait for resting and pausing, then you will have even less connection to it.

26.14

Another

26.15

You instructed me: "Ever since receiving your letter, whenever I encounter unavoidable situations in the midst of turmoil, I always examine myself, yet I have not had the effort of exerting strength." This very place that cannot be avoided is itself the effort! If you further exert strength to examine yourself, you will turn away from it and be far off. Formerly, the Old Master of Huayan in Weifu said: "The Buddha-dharma is in the place of daily activities, in walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, in drinking tea and eating food, in speaking and inquiring of one another, in all that is done and undertaken. When you raise a thought and stir contemplation, that again is not it." Right at the place that cannot be avoided, by all means avoid giving rise to a thought, stirring contemplation, and thinking of examining yourself. The Ancestral Master said: "When discrimination does not arise, the empty radiance illuminates by itself." Furthermore, Layman Pang said: "In daily affairs there is no difference, / Only I myself harmonize naturally. / In nothing is there grasping or rejection; / In nowhere is there obstinate discord. / For whom are the red and purple titles? / The hills and mounds are free from any speck of dust. / Spiritual penetrations and wondrous functions— / Hauling water and carrying firewood." Moreover, the ancient sages said: "As long as there is discrimination and calculation in the mind, all views and measurements of one's own mind are dreams." Remember this well: when it cannot be avoided, do not further conjecture with the mind. When you do not conjecture with the mind, everything is readily apparent. Nor do you need to pay attention to sharpness, nor do you need to pay attention to dullness; it has nothing whatsoever to do with sharpness or dullness, nor does it have anything to do with stillness or turmoil. Right at the time when it cannot be avoided, you will suddenly drop your cloth bag, and unwittingly clap your hands and laugh aloud. Remember this, remember this: if one uses a single hair's breadth of effort to attain verification in this matter, it is like trying to grab and rub empty space with one's hand—it only increases one's own toil. When responding to circumstances, simply respond; when you want to sit quietly, simply sit quietly. When sitting, do not cling to the sitting as ultimate. Nowadays, false masters mostly take silent illumination and quiet sitting to be the ultimate dharma, confusing and misleading later generations. Fearless of incurring resentment, I forcefully denigrate it in order to repay the Buddha's kindness and save people from the degenerations of the Final Age.

26.16

Reply to Auxiliary Academician Zhao (Daofu)

26.17

I have fully noted each item of your instruction. The Buddha said: 'All who have a mind can attain Buddhahood.' This mind is not the worldly mind of defilements and deluded thoughts; it refers to bringing forth the supreme, great bodhicitta—if one has this mind, there are none who do not attain Buddhahood. When scholar-officials study the Way, they mostly create obstacles and difficulties for themselves because they lack determinate faith. The Buddha also said: 'Faith is the origin of the Way and the mother of merits, nurturing all good dharmas, severing the net of doubts to emerge from the torrent of craving, and disclosing the supreme path of nirvāṇa.' He also said: 'Faith can increase the merits of wisdom; faith can surely reach the Tathāgata's stage.' Your instruction says: 'With dull faculties I have not yet awakened thoroughly, and so for now I plant the buddha-seed in the field of the mind.' Although these words are simple and close at hand, they are also profound and far-reaching; if only you manage a willing mind, you will certainly not be deceived. Nowadays, people who study the Way often rush where things are relaxed and relax where things are urgent. Layman Pang said: 'One day a snake enters the crotch of your cloth trousers; let me ask the ancestral teacher, what season is it then?' Of yesterday's events, there are still things you cannot recall today; how much less will the events of past lives be free of forgetting? If you are determined to penetrate thoroughly in this life, doubting neither the buddhas nor the patriarchs, doubting neither birth nor death, you must have determinate faith and possess determinate resolve, thought after thought as if saving your head from fire. Proceeding in this manner, if you have not yet penetrated thoroughly, only then can you be spoken of as having dull faculties. If on the spot you say to yourself, 'My faculties are dull, and I cannot penetrate thoroughly in this life; I will just plant the buddha-seed to form a karmic affinity,' this is wishing to arrive without walking—it cannot possibly be. I always tell those who have faith in this Way that as you gradually feel an effortless place in your daily activities throughout the twelve periods of the day, that is where you gain strength in studying the Buddha. The place where you yourself gain strength cannot be known by others, nor can it be brought out for others to see. Practitioner Lu said to Senior Monk Daoming: 'If you reflect back upon your own original face, the secret meaning is entirely with you'—this is it. The 'secret meaning' is precisely the place where you gain strength in daily activities, and the place of gaining strength is precisely the effortless place. The worldly affairs of defilement—taking up one and dropping another—are endless and inexhaustible, never leaving you throughout the four deportments, because from beginningless time you have formed deep affinities with them; whereas with prajñā wisdom, from beginningless time you have formed shallow affinities. Hearing a spiritual friend speak of it for the first time, you feel as though it is hard to understand; but for one who from beginningless time has had shallow affinities with defilements and deep affinities with prajñā, what is there that is hard to understand? Just make what is deep shallow, make what is shallow deep; make what is unfamiliar familiar, and make what is familiar unfamiliar. As soon as you realize you are deliberating on defiling affairs, do not use effort to dispel them; right at the point of deliberation gently turn the huatou, which saves limitless effort and also gains limitless strength. I ask you, sir, just to press on in this way, without keeping in mind the expectation of awakening; then suddenly you will awaken of yourself. I imagine you meet daily with the Vice Director of the Right; besides playing weiqi, have you ever spoken with him about such matters? If you only play weiqi and have never spoken about such matters, right where black and white are not yet distinguished, overturn the board and scatter the pieces, and then ask him for that one move. If he cannot produce it, he is a truly dull-rooted fellow; for now let the matter rest.

26.18

Reply to Judicial Investigator Xu (Shouyuan)

26.19

The Yellow-Faced Old Fellow said: 'Faith is the origin of the Way and the mother of merits, nurturing all good dharmas.' He also said: 'Faith can increase the merits of wisdom; faith can surely reach the Tathāgata's stage.' If you wish to travel a thousand leagues, the first step is the beginning. Bodhisattvas of the ten grounds sever obstacles and realize the dharma gates by entering first from the ten faiths, and afterward ascend to the Ground of the Dharma Cloud and achieve correct awakening; this is because the initial Joyful Ground produces joy on account of faith. If you are determined to straighten your backbone and become an immeasurable person beyond the world and within it, you must be cast of raw iron to accomplish it; if you are half-bright and half-dark, half-believing and half-unbelieving, you will definitely never accomplish it. This matter is without personal sentiment and cannot be transmitted; you must personally comprehend and awaken before you have a share in heading toward it. If you manage it from other people's mouths, there will be no rest for eternal eons. By all means, throughout the twelve periods of the day, do not let it pass in vain. Rising day after day, in your functional applications it is perfectly round and smooth, not the least bit different from Śākyamuni and Bodhidharma. It is simply that the person oneself does not see through it and does not penetrate it, leaping whole-bodied into sound and form, and then seeking to stick one's head out from within them—which misses the connection all the more. Nor does this matter lie in consulting spiritual friends for a long time and traversing the monasteries far and wide before one can accomplish it. How many are there nowadays in the monasteries whose hair is white and teeth yellow without accomplishing it, and how many are there who newly enter the monasteries, and with a single turning turn around with everything fully settled? There is earlier and later in generating the mind, but no earlier or later at the time of awakening. Formerly, Commandant Li Wenhe studied with Cizhao of Shimen; under a single phrase he undertook it and everything was fully settled. He once presented a verse to Cizhao, saying: / 'To study the Way, one must be a person of iron, / Taking hold, the mind-ground is at once settled; / Directly grasp supreme bodhi, / Never minding any right or wrong.' / Just press on from beneath your feet; once dead, then let it rest. Do not think behind or ponder ahead, and do not produce afflictions, for afflictions obstruct the Way. Take care, take care.

26.20

Another [to Judicial Investigator Xu]

26.21

You possess right faith and establish right resolve; this is indeed the basis for becoming a buddha and acting as a patriarch. I have therefore given you the dharma-name 'Zhanran' (Pellucid); like water that is pellucid and motionless, it is empty, luminous, and shines of itself, without laboring mental effort. Worldly and world-transcending dharmas are not separate from the pellucid, without the slightest leak. Just using this seal to imprint everywhere, there is neither right nor wrong; each and every thing is liberation, each and every thing is bright and wondrous, each and every thing is genuine. When applied, it is pellucid; when not applied, it is also pellucid. An ancestral master said: 'Wherever there is mental discrimination and calculation, the measures of one's own mind's views are all dreams.' If mental consciousness is extinct and silenced, without a single movement of thought, this is called correct awakening. Once awakening is correct, then in daily activities throughout the twelve periods of the day, seeing forms, hearing sounds, smelling scents, tasting flavors, perceiving tangibles, knowing phenomena, walking, standing, sitting, lying down, speaking, staying silent, moving, and resting, there is nothing that is not pellucid, and naturally one does not form inverted thoughts: having thoughts and having no thoughts are both completely pure. Once purity is attained, in movement the function of the pellucid is revealed, and in non-movement one returns to the essence of the pellucid. Although essence and function differ, the pellucid is one. It is like cleaving sandalwood: slice by slice, each is sandalwood. Nowadays there is a sort of fabricated fellow who is not solid under his own feet, and only instructs people to collect the mind and sit quietly, sitting until they extinguish their breath; such people are called truly pitiable. I ask you only to apply effort like this. Although I give you this instruction, it is truly out of unavoidable necessity. If there were truly such a thing as applying effort, that would defile you. This mind has no real substance; how could it be rigidly collected and held? If you intend to collect it, where will you place it? Since there is nowhere to place it, there is no time or season, no past and no present, no ordinary person and no sage, no gain and no loss, no quietude and no disturbance, no birth and no death, nor any name of 'pellucid', nor any essence of 'pellucid', nor any function of 'pellucid', nor anyone who speaks of 'pellucid' like this, nor anyone who receives the explanation of 'pellucid' like this. If you can see through thoroughly in this way, Jingshan has not devised this name in vain, and you have not received this name in vain. How about it, how about it?

26.22

Letters of Chan Master Dahui Pujue, Fascicle Twenty-Six

Linked texts (1)

大慧普覺禪師語錄 — Classical Chinese