六祖大師法寶壇經 1.147

1.147

「心地含諸種，普雨悉皆萌，
頓悟華情已，菩提果自成。」

sonal] benefit, and if you are relaxed and quiet and emptily melded with the pallid and simple, this is called the samādhi of the single characteristic.

“If in all your walking, standing still, sitting, and lying down you have a pure and unified straightforward mind, not moving [from the] place of enlightenment, truly creating a pure land, this is called the samādhi of the single practice.

“Those who accomplish both samādhis are like the earth bearing seeds, which it stores and nourishes during their maturation into fruit. So is it with the [samādhis of] the single characteristic and single practice. My preaching the Dharma to you now is like the timely rains that moisten the great earth, and your buddha-natures are likened to the seeds: encountering this watering, [your buddha-natures] will all begin to grow. Those who partake of my meaning will definitely attain bodhi! Those who rely upon my practice will certainly realize the wondrous fruit! Listen to my verse, which says:

The mind-ground stores the various seeds,

Which all sprout through the universal rain.

With the flower of sudden enlightenment, intelligence is ended,

And the fruit of bodhi forms of itself.

After the master spoke this verse he said, “The Dharma is nondual, and the mind is likewise. The Way (dao, enlightenment) is pure and without the various characteristics. You should all be careful not to contemplate purity or make the mind empty. The mind is pure and cannot be grasped or rejected. You should all make an effort! Go well, according to your needs.” The members of the congregation then bowed and dispersed.

On the eighth day of the seventh month, Great Master [Huineng] suddenly addressed his followers, saying, “I am going to return to Xinzhou. Get a boat

ready quickly!” The large congregation then cried out, trying their best to

get him to stay.

The master said, “The appearance of the buddhas is like their manifesta-

tion of nirvana. Where there is coming, there must be going; this is an ever-

lasting rule. There must be some location towhich this skeletal form will revert.”

The congregation said, “When you leave here, how soon will you return?”

The master said, “Leaves fall and revert to roots. I cannot say when I

will return.”

They asked further, “To whom has the storehouse of the eye of the cor-

rect Dharma been transmitted?”

The master said, “Those who are enlightened have attained it; those who

are without mind have penetrated it.”

They asked again, “Won’t there be some difficulties in the future?”

The master said, “Five or six years after my nirvana, a person will come

to take my head. Listen to my prediction, ‘On the head cultivating intimacy,

in the mouth a need for repast. Encountering the difficulty of sufficiency,

with willows the officials.’”

[Huineng] also said, “Seventy years after I go, two bodhisattvas will

come from the East, one a monk and one a layman. They will simultane-

ously establish my teaching and make it flourish, decorating the monaster-

ies and making many transmissions.”

[The members of the congregation] asked, “We do not know through

what generations the transmission has proceeded from the appearance of the

buddhas and patriarchs of the past. Please reveal this to us.”

The master said, “The ancient buddhas have responded to the world in

numbers unmeasurable and beyond calculation. For the moment, [however,]

we take seven buddhas as the beginning: Vipaśyin Buddha, Śikhin Buddha,

and Viśvabhū Buddha of the ornamentation eon of the past; and Kraku-

cchanda Buddha, Kanakamuni Buddha, Kāśyapa Buddha, and Śākyamuni