六祖大師法寶壇經 1.142

1.142

seek the true. Or you may extensively establish training centers and preach about the errors of being and nonbeing. Such people will not be able to see the nature for eon after eon!

“Simply listen, and cultivate according to the Dharma. Also, do not think about the hundred things and be impeded with regard to the enlightenmentnature. If you listen to this explanation and do not cultivate, you will on the contrary generate false thoughts. Just cultivate according to the Dharma,

bequeathing the Dharma without abiding in characteristics. If all of you would be enlightened, rely on this for your preaching, rely on this for your functioning, rely on this for your practice, rely on this for [all] your actions; you would not lose the fundamental doctrine.

“When people inquire about the doctrines, when they ask of being, respond with nonbeing; when they ask of nonbeing, respond with being. When they ask of the ordinary, respond with the sagely, and when they ask of the sagely, respond with the ordinary. Through the two modes of speaking you will generate the doctrine of the middle. Respond to them one by one, and if there are any other questions, make up [your response] according to this and you will not go wrong. If someone asks you, ‘What is darkness?’, you should answer, ‘Brightness is the cause and darkness is the condition. When brightness disappears there is darkness. Brightness reveals darkness, and darkness reveals brightness.’ Through the modes of coming and going, you will create the doctrine of the middle. All other questions should be handled like this. Later, when you transmit the Dharma you may rely on this to develop material for teaching. Don’t lose the central doctrine!”

In the seventh month of the first year of the Taiji (“Great Ultimate”) [period], the forty-ninth hexagenary year, the Yanhe (“Extended Peace”) [year, or 712] (This year was changed during the fifth month to Yanhe. In the eighth month Xuanzong took the throne and [the year period] was changed to Xiantian [“Preceding Heaven”]. The following year [the year period] was changed to Kaiyuan [“Opening the Origin”]. The other text[s] have this as [occurring during] Xiantian, but this is incorrect.), the master ordered his followers to go to Guoensi in Xinzhou to construct a stupa. He had them hurry the work, and the unveiling was at the end of the summer the following year. On the first day of the seventh month [of 713] he assembled his followers and said, “I will depart from this world in the eighth month. If any of you have doubts, you should ask me about them soon, and I will resolve (literally, “destroy”) your doubts for you and make your delusions disappear. After I am gone, there will be no one to teach you.”

Fahai and the others listened, and everyone wept. Only Shenhui was emotionally unmoved and did not cry. The master said, “Young master Shenhui, you have become able to be unmoved before good and bad, before praise and blame, without generating sorrow and joy! You others have not attained

this—what Way can you have been cultivating all these years on this mountain? Who is it you’re crying for so sadly now? If you’re sorry for me, you don’t know where I’m going. I know myself where I’m going. If I didn’t know where I was going, I wouldn’t be announcing it to you in advance! You’re all crying because you don’t know where I’m going. If you knew where I was going, then you wouldn’t be crying. The Dharma-nature is fundamentally without generation and extinction, going and coming. You should all sit down, and I will recite a verse for you. It is called the ‘Verse of True and Provisional and Motion and Stillness.’ You should recite this verse, with the same meaning as mine. You should cultivate according to this, without losing the central doctrine.”

The assembly of monks bowed and requested that the master recite the verse. The verse went:

All [things] are without any truth.

Do not see them as true.

If you see the true,