佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄 8.44

8.44

These six consciousnesses are established by the doctrinal schools as the primary source. The mountains, rivers, the great earth, sun, moon, and stars all arise due to them. Coming, they serve as the vanguard; departing, they bring up the rear. The ancients said: "The three realms are mind-only; myriad phenomena are consciousness-only." If one realizes the Buddha-stage, the eight consciousnesses are transformed into the four wisdoms; the doctrinal schools call this changing the name without changing the essence. Sense faculties, objects, and consciousness are three: the preceding objects originally do not discriminate; the ultimate sense faculties can give rise to consciousness; and consciousness can reveal forms and discriminate—that is the sixth, mental consciousness. The seventh consciousness is manas-consciousness; it grasps and clings to all shadow-phenomena in the world, causing people to suffer affliction and fail to attain freedom and ease—all this is the seventh consciousness. Reaching the eighth consciousness, it is also called the ālaya-consciousness, and also called the repository consciousness, storing all good and bad seeds. This monk knew the meaning of the teachings, so he brought it to ask Zhaozhou: "Does a newborn infant still possess the six consciousnesses or not?" Although a newborn infant possesses the six consciousnesses—the eyes can see and the ears can hear—it has not yet discriminated the six dusts: good and bad, long and short, right and wrong, gain and loss; at such a time it is entirely unaware. A practitioner of the Way must return to being like an infant: honor and disgrace, fame and fortune, adverse emotions and favorable circumstances can none of them move him. Seeing colors with the eyes is like being blind; hearing sounds with the ears is like being deaf; like an idiot, like a dolt, his mind is unmoving like Mount Meru. This is the place where patch-robed monks genuinely find strength. An ancient said: "Covering the head with a patched robe, the ten thousand affairs cease; / at this moment this mountain monk understands nothing at all." If you can be like this, only then will you have a slight measure of accord. Even so, how could the slightest bit deceive him? Mountains are still mountains, and waters are still waters. There is no fabrication, no conceptual deliberation. Just as the sun and moon move across the great void without ever stopping for a moment, neither do they say, "We have so many names and characteristics"; like heaven covering all, like earth upholding all, because they are without mind, they nurture the myriad things; neither do they say, "We have so many meritorious deeds." Because heaven and earth are without mind, they endure. If there were a mind, there would be limits. One who has attained the Way is also like this: applying effort within effortless function, he receives all adverse conditions and favorable circumstances with a compassionate mind. Reaching here, the ancients still rebuked it, saying: "When completely, clearly understood, there is nothing to be understood; / at the mysterious, mysterious place, one must directly scold." They also said: "When every matter is clear and every object understood, / the adept hearing of it is inwardly startled." They also said: "Entering the sagely and transcending the mundane without making a sound; / a sleeping dragon is ever fearful of the green pool's clarity. / If human life could always be like this, / how could the great earth preserve a single name?" Yet although it is like this, one must still leap out of the lair before one is done. Have you not seen it said in the teachings: "The bodhisattva of the eighth ground, the Immovable Ground, with effortless wisdom turns the great wheel of Dharma within a single dust-mote; at all times, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, unconfined by gain and loss, he naturally flows into the ocean of sarvajñā"? For patch-robed monks, reaching here, one must not be attached; just be at ease according to the occasion—when meeting tea, drink tea; when meeting rice, eat rice. Regarding this transcendent matter, one cannot affix the word "fixed," nor can one affix the word "unfixed." Master Shishi Shandao instructed the assembly, saying: "Do you not see that when an infant leaves the womb, when did it ever say, 'I can read the teachings'? At such a time, it does not even know whether there is the meaning of Buddha-nature or no Buddha-nature. When it grows up, it then learns various intellectual interpretations and says, 'I am capable, I understand,' not knowing that these are the afflictions of adventitious dust. Among the sixteen contemplations, the infant's practice is foremost. The babbling and cooing symbolizes that a practitioner of the Way is free from the mind of discrimination, grasping, and rejecting; hence infants are praised and used as a metaphor. If one says the infant is the Way, people nowadays misunderstand." Nanquan said, "At eighteen, I knew how to make a living." Zhaozhou said, "At eighteen, I knew how to break up the house and scatter the family." He also said, "I was in the south for twenty years; except for the two times of gruel and rice, all was a misapplication of mind." Caoshan asked a monk, "'A bodhisattva in samādhi hears a fragrant elephant crossing a river distinctly'—from what sūtra does this come?" The monk said, "The Nirvāṇa Sūtra." Caoshan said, "Did he hear it before samādhi or after samādhi?" The monk said, "The venerable monk has flowed away." Caoshan said, "Catch it below the rapids." Also, the Śūraṅgama Sūtra says: "Entering stillness and merging with stillness, one enters the boundary of consciousness." Also, the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra says: "The arising of marks produces grasping and obstruction; the arising of thoughts produces delusion; the arising of continuous flow chases delusion and turns in transmigration." If one reaches the effortless ground, one is still within the mark of continuous flow; one must emerge from the third, the arising mark of continuous flow, before one is joyful and free. Therefore Guishan asked Yangshan, "How is Jizi?" Yangshan said, "Does the venerable monk ask about his view, or ask about his practice? If you ask about his practice, I do not know; if it is his view, it is like pouring water from one pitcher into another." If one can be like this, one can be a master of a region. Zhaozhou said, "Hitting a ball on swift water"—it was already rolling smoothly, and when hit on swift water, it passes in the blink of an eye. For example, as the Śūraṅgama Sūtra says: "Like swift water running, looked upon it seems calm and still." An ancient said: "Like swift flowing water, the stream flows without fixed stopping; each [drop] is unaware of the other, and all phenomena are likewise." Zhaozhou's reply was completely of this intent. The monk also asked Touzi, "'Hitting a ball on swift water'—what is its meaning?" Touzi said, "Flowing uninterrupted thought after thought." Naturally it matched his question precisely. The ancients' practice was close-knit and continuous; their replies were as one, requiring no further calculation. The moment you ask him, he already knows where you fall. Although the infant's six consciousnesses are effortless, how can one prevent them from being uninterrupted thought after thought, like densely flowing water? In replying this way, Touzi can truly be said to have clearly distinguished the incoming wind. Xuedou's verse says: Swift (pronounced shi, meaning rapid).