六祖大師法寶壇經 1.15

1.15

tivation and no enlightenment, no cause and no result,” boring away at trivia and vying to offer their own explanations; [such people are] mistaken as to the teachings of the Perfected Man. Ah, they abandon the precepts, meditation, and wisdom and hence necessarily drift off into murky space, and there is nothing I can do about them!

How utterly unfortunate, those sentient beings who inundate their minds and float along with their consciousness, consciousness and action driving each other, following the various directions (i.e., modes of existence) with no stop from the [very] beginning. They become phenomena, they become forms, they are born along with humans and [the myriad] things, rampant throughout heaven and earth, so numerous they could never be counted. Those who attain human form are truly only one in a hundred million, and those who as humans are able to become enlightened are virtually nil. The Sage [Śākyamuni] pondered this and generated a great variety [of teachings], but there are still those under heaven who have not attained wisdom. The Sage, in order to save such as these, used many methods to heal them, but there are still those under heaven who have not awoken. The clever have disrupted themselves with wisdom, the fools have hung themselves with stupidity, and the average people have beclouded themselves in blankness. They are moved to respond to things, becoming happy at them and angry at them, sad about them and pleased about them, and their impediments increase by the myriad. Like [those] walking in the dark of night, they know not where they go. Hearing the words of the Sage, they speculate upon them and become aggrieved by them, as if they are trying to look afar through a fog. They talk about being and talk about nonbeing, they talk about not being and talk about not nonbeing, [and then] they talk about being again and talk about nonbeing again. But they only become more obscured by their improper views, and until the end of their days they never understand. The ocean is what it is because there is water, and the fish and dragons who live and die in the ocean do not see the water. The Way is what it is because of the mind, and such persons speak of the Way all the time but never see the mind. How sad!

The mind is fundamentally subtle and wondrous, abstruse and remote, difficult to illuminate and difficult to reach. Thus it is [not easy to understand].31 The Sage [Śākyamuni] has secreted himself [in nirvana], and for a hundred generations, even though there were written transmissions, [the people of this

world] under heaven were not able to understand and experience [the enlight-

enment of which they speak]. Therefore the central doctrine of the Platform

Sutra specified and straightforwardly described the mind, so that all under

heaven were for the first time able to render correct their [fundamental]

natures and [karmically endowed] life forces. It is as if you eliminate the

clouds and mists and see the great sky, or as if you climb Mount Tai and can

see all around without restriction.

According to Wang [Wenkang], who borrowed from a profane text to

say, “With a single change [the mantle] passed from Qi to Lu, and with a

single change it changed from Lu to the Way.”32 This saying is close [to the

truth]. The Nirvana [Sutra] says, “From the Deer Park in the beginning to

the Ajivatā River at the end, for fifty years [the Buddha] never spoke a sin-

gle word.” The manifestation of the Dharma is not done in words, and this

saying is to prevent us from seeking his message in words. [The Nirvana

Sutra also] says, “Rely on the Dharma, do not rely on the man”—this is

because the Dharma is true and the man (i.e., Śākyamuni) is provisional. It

says, “Rely on the meaning, do not rely on words”—this is because the

meanings are real and the words provisional. It says, “Rely on wisdom, do

not rely on knowledge”—this is because wisdom is the ultimate and knowl-

edge is false. It says “Rely on sutras that are comprehensive in meaning,

do not rely on sutras that are not comprehensive in meaning”—this is because