六祖大師法寶壇經 1.136

1.136

師見諸宗難問咸起惡心，多集座下愍而謂曰：「學道之人，一切善念惡念應當盡除。無名可名，名於自性，無二之性，是名實性。於實性上建立一切教門，言下便須自見。」諸人聞說，總皆作禮，請事為師。

One day the master announced to the assembly, “I have a thing without

head or tail, without name or title, without front or back. Do you know what

it is?”

Shenhui came forth and said, “It is the fundamental source of the buddhas.

It is my buddha-nature.” The master said, “I told you it was without name

or title, but you have called it the fundamental source, the buddha-nature.

You’ve just covered your head with thatch. You’ve become a follower

with only discriminative understanding.”

After the patriarch’s extinction, Shenhui entered Changan and Luoyang

and widely disseminated the sudden teaching of Caoqi. He wrote the Expla-

nation of the Central Doctrine, which circulated widely. (This is the Chan

Master of Heze[si (“Lotus Marsh Monastery”)].)

Number Nine: Proclamations

The master, seeing that many of those who would ask about the schools with evil intentions had gathered beneath his dais, took pity on them and said, “Students of the Way, you should eliminate all good and evil thoughts! That there are no names that can be named is to name the self-natures. The nondual nature is called the true nature. It is upon the true nature that all the teachings are established. At these words, you should see for yourselves!” When they heard this explanation, they all did obeisance and requested that he be their teacher.

Number Nine: Proclamations On the fifteenth day of the first month of the first year of the Shenlong [“Divine Dragon” period, 705, Empress Wu] Zetian and [Emperor] Zhongzong issued a proclamation that said, “We have invited the two masters Shenxiu and Laoan to the palace to receive our offerings, [with the suggestion that] the occasion of ten thousand possibilities always reaches its ultimate in the single vehicle. The two masters demurred, saying, ‘In the south there is Chan Master Huineng, who has intimately received the robe and Dharma from Great Master Hongren. He transmits the mind-seal of the Buddha, and you should invite and inquire [of the Dharma] of him.’ We are now sending Palace Attendant Xie Jian to hurry [to Caoqi] with Our invitation. We wish the master, in his compassionate consideration, to ascend quickly to the capital.”

The master memorialized to the throne, excusing himself on account of illness [and saying,] “I wish to live out my life in the forests.”

Xie Jian said, “The virtuous Chan monks of the capital all say, ‘If you wish to understand the Way, you must sit in meditation and cultivate samādhi. It has never happened that anyone attained emancipation without relying on meditation.’ I wonder, what is the Dharma that you teach?”

The master said, “One is enlightened to the Way through the mind. How could it depend on sitting? A sutra says, ‘To say that the Tathāgata sits or lies down is to practice a false path. Why? Because he is without coming and without going.’ To be without birth and without extinction is the pure meditation of the Tathāgata. For the dharmas to be quiescent is the Tathāgata’s pure sitting. Ultimately there is no realization, so how could it possibly [depend on] sitting?”

Xie Jian said, “When your disciple returns to the capital, my imperial masters will certainly ask me [about you]. Please, in your compassion, indicate

for me the essentials of the mind, so I may transmit them to the two palaces

and the students of the Way in the capital. It would be like a single lamp

lighting a hundred or a thousand lamps—the darkness would become entirely

bright, brilliant without limit.”

The master said, “The Way is without bright and dark. Bright and dark

are complementary ideas, so even the ‘brilliant without limit’ has a limit.

This is because it depends on the positing of names (i.e., categories). The

Vimalakīrti Sutra says, ‘The Dharma is without comparison, because it is

without mutuality.’”

Xie Jian said, “‘Bright’ is a metaphor for wisdom, and ‘dark’ is a

metaphor for the afflictions. If perchance students of the Way do not use the

illumination of wisdom to destroy the afflictions, how will they be able to

escape beginningless samsara?”

The master said, “The afflictions are bodhi. They are nondual and not

separate. If one [tries to] use the illumination of wisdom to destroy the afflic-