六祖大師法寶壇經 1.116

1.116

The meditator Zhihuang first studied under the Fifth Patriarch and considered himself to have attained correct absorption. He dwelt in a hut and sat continuously for twenty years. The Master's disciple Xuance was traveling in the region north of the Yellow River, and hearing of Zhihuang's reputation, he visited the hut and asked, "What are you doing here?"
Zhihuang said, "Entering samādhi."
Xuance said, "When you speak of entering samādhi, do you enter with mind or without mind? If you enter without mind, all insentient grasses, trees, tiles, and stones should attain samādhi; if you enter with mind, all sentient creatures possessing consciousness should also attain samādhi."
Zhihuang said, "When I am properly entering samādhi, I do not perceive a mind of existence or non-existence."
Xuance said, "Not perceiving a mind of existence or non-existence is precisely constant samādhi. How could there be entering or emerging? If there is entering and emerging, it is not the great samādhi."
Zhihuang had no reply. After a long pause, he asked, "Whose succession do you inherit?"
Xuance said, "My teacher is the Sixth Patriarch of Caoxi."
Zhihuang said, "What does the Sixth Patriarch consider to be dhyāna and samādhi?"
Xuance said, "What my teacher teaches is wondrously clear and completely tranquil, essence and function just as they are. The five aggregates are fundamentally empty, and the six dusts are non-existent; neither emerging nor entering, neither concentrated nor distracted. The nature of dhyāna is without abiding, free from abiding in the calm of dhyāna; the nature of dhyāna is unarisen, free from giving rise to thoughts of dhyāna. The mind is like space, yet without any measure of space."
Having heard this discourse, Zhihuang went straight to call upon the Master. The Master asked, "Virtuous one, where do you come from?"
Zhihuang recounted the prior circumstances in full. The Master said, "It is truly as he said. You only need to have your mind be like empty space, without attaching to the view of emptiness; function responsively without obstruction, be without mind in motion or stillness, forget feelings of the ordinary and the sacred, have both subject and object eradicated, and nature and marks just as they are—then there is no time when you are not in samādhi." (One edition lacks the thirty-five characters beginning from "You only need...", saying only: "The Master, pitying him for having come from afar, thereupon bestowed instruction and resolution.")
Thereupon Zhihuang experienced great awakening; the mind he had attained over twenty years left no trace behind. That night, the gentry and commoners north of the Yellow River heard a voice in the sky saying, "Chan Master Huang has attained the Way today."
Zhihuang later paid homage and took leave, returning to the north of the Yellow River to convert and guide the four assemblies.
A monk asked the Master, "Who attained the fundamental intention of Huangmei?"
The Master said, "One who understands the Buddha-Dharma attains it."
The monk said, "Has the upādhyāya attained it?"
The Master said, "I do not understand the Buddha-Dharma."