六祖大師法寶壇經 1.69

1.69

sits without moving and without falsely activating the mind and that this is

the samādhi of the single practice. To have an interpretation such as this is

Number Four: Meditation and Wisdom

to be the same as an insentient object! This is rather to impede the causes and conditions of enlightenment!

“Good friends, one’s enlightenment (one’s Way, dao) must flow freely. How could it be stagnated? When the mind does not reside in the dharmas, one’s enlightenment flows freely. For the mind to reside in the dharmas is called ‘fettering oneself.’ If you say that always sitting without moving is it, then you’re just like Śāriputra meditating in the forest, for which he was scolded by Vimalakīrti!

“Good friends, there are also those who teach meditation [in terms of ] viewing the mind, contemplating tranquility, motionlessness, and nonactivation. You are supposed to make an effort on the basis of these. These deluded people do not understand, and in their grasping become mixed up like all of you here. You should understand that such superficial teachings are greatly mistaken!”

The master addressed the assembly, “Good friends, the correct teaching is fundamentally without either sudden or gradual—it is human nature that is either clever or dull. Deluded people cultivate gradually, while enlightened people suddenly conform [to the truth]. If you recognize your own fundamental mind and see your own fundamental nature, there will be no such distinctions! Thus it is that sudden and gradual are posited as provisional names.

“Good friends, since the past this teaching of ours has first taken nonthought as its central doctrine, the formless as its essence, and nonabiding as its fundamental. The formless is to transcend characteristics within the context of characteristics. Nonthought is to be without thought in the context of thoughts. Nonabiding is to consider in one’s fundamental nature that all worldly [things] are empty, with no consideration of retaliation—whether good or evil, pleasant or ugly, and enemy or friend, etc., during times of words, fights, and disputation.

“Within continuing moments of thought one should not think of the previous [mental] realm. If one thinks of the previous thought, the present thought, and the later thought, one’s thoughts will be continuous without cease. This is called ‘fettered.’ If one’s thoughts do not abide in the dharmas, this is to be ‘unfettered.’ Thus it is that nonabiding is taken as the fundamental.

“Good friends, to transcend all the characteristics externally is called

the formless. To be able to transcend characteristics is for the essences of

the dharmas to be pure. Thus it is that the formless is taken as the essence.

“Good friends, for one’s mind to remain undefiled within the sensory realms

is called nonthought. Within one’s own thoughts one should always transcend

the realms, one should not generate the mind relative to the realms. If one does

not think of the hundred things, then thoughts will be completely eliminated.

“It is greatly mistaken [to believe] that as soon as thought is eradicated,

one dies and is born in some other location. Think on this, you who are study-

ing the Way! If you cannot recognize your own mistakes regarding the mean-

ing of Dharma, how much will you mislead others! To be deluded oneself

and not see this is to slander the Buddhist scriptures! Thus it is that non-

thought is taken as the central doctrine.

“Good friends, why is it that nonthought is taken as the central doctrine?

If you depend merely on oral explanations of seeing the nature, [like a] deluded

person you will have thoughts relative to the realms and you will even acti-

vate false views regarding those thoughts. And from this will be generated

all the enervating defilements and false thoughts! There is in the self-nature

fundamentally not a single dharma that can be perceived. To think that there

were any would be a false explanation, a disaster, a false view of enervating

defilements. Therefore, this teaching takes nonthought as its central doctrine.

“Good friends, what is negated by the ‘non’ (wu)? What kind of thing

is ‘thought’? ‘Non’ means to be without the characteristic of duality, to be

without the mind of the enervating defilements. ‘Thought’ is to think of the