六祖大師法寶壇經 1.12

1.12

In the past, when the Sage was about to enter cessation, he instructed the Turtle Clan outside the teachings with the essentials of the transmitted Dharma, wishing that people would not linger in traces and forget to return, but rather that later generations would grasp the root and rectify the branches. Therefore the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says: 'I have the unsurpassed true Dharma, which I have entirely entrusted to Mahākāśyapa.' The way of Heaven lies in the easy; the way of Earth lies in the simple; the way of the Sage lies in the essential. The essential is what is called the utmost wonder. When the way of the Sage is taken as essential, it becomes the pivot of the gate to the dharmadhātu, the confluence of immeasurable meanings, and the primordial cart of the Mahāyāna. Does not the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra say: 'You should know that this wondrous Dharma is the secret essential of all Buddhas'? Does not the Avataṃsaka Sūtra say: 'With few expedients, bodhi is swiftly accomplished'? How sharp and vast is the essential in the way of the Sage! For this reason, the school of the Platform Sūtra honours its mind-essential. This mind: as if luminous, as if dark; as if empty, as if efficacious; as if tranquil, as if alert. Is there a thing? Is there no thing? Call it a single thing, yet it fills the ten thousand things; call it the ten thousand things, yet it is unified in a single thing. A single thing is like the ten thousand things; the ten thousand things are like a single thing: this is what can be conceived. When it comes to being inconceivable and ineffable, the world calls it profound understanding, spiritual accord, absolute non-duality, silent embodiment, or obscure communion; all of these are departed from and cast aside, cast aside and cast aside again—how could one reach its subtlety? If someone has truly obtained it alone and resembles the utmost person, who could doubt it! Extending and broadening it, there is nowhere it does not apply; probing and tailoring it, there is nothing to which it is not appropriate. Applied to witnessing one's nature, what is seen is most intimate; applied to cultivating the mind, where one arrives is most correct; applied to exalting virtue and discerning delusion, the true and the false are easily manifested; applied to transcending the world, the Buddha Path is swiftly accomplished; applied to saving the world, defilements easily cease. This is why the school of the Platform Sūtra moves broadly throughout the world without growing weary. Those who speak of 'mind itself is Buddha' from a shallow perspective—how they fail to know its measure! Probing the earth with a broken awl, they make the earth shallow; looking at the sky through a roof leak, they make the sky small. Could heaven and earth truly be so? Yet among the hundred schools, though some might contend for victory, they are not its equal. That the utmost person penetrates and unifies it, harmonizing with the various sūtras, can clearly be seen. The utmost person transforms and communicates it; it is not something pre-determined by names and cannot be measured. Therefore, his overt teachings have order and principle; his esoteric teachings have neither beginning nor end. Those with sharp natural capacities attain its depth; those with dull natural capacities attain its shallowness. Can it be imitated? Can it be debated? If one must resort to analogies, it is the perfect and sudden teaching, the Supreme Vehicle, the pure chan of the Tathāgata, and the orthodox lineage of the Bodhisattva Piṭaka. When commentators call it profound learning, is that not detailed? When the world calls it the School of the Ancestors, is that not appropriate? When the Platform Sūtra states that 'samādhi and prajñā are the foundation', this is the beginning of proceeding toward the Way. Samādhi is tranquility; prajñā is clarity. Using clarity to contemplate, using tranquility to settle: settling the mind, one can embody the mind; contemplating its Way, one can speak of the Way. 'Ekavyūha-samādhi' refers to the single mark of the dharmadhātu; it means that although the myriad goods differ, they are all rectified in a single practice. Taking animitta as the essence honours the great precepts. Taking 'thoughtlessness as the principle' honours the great samādhi. Taking non-abiding as the foundation honours the great prajñā. Precepts, samādhi, and prajñā are the Way of attainment for the three vehicles. The wondrous mind is the great resource of precepts, samādhi, and prajñā. Using one wondrous mind to unite the three dharmas, it is therefore called great. The formless precepts are the precept that one must attain correct awakening. The 'four great vows' are: wishing to deliver, one delivers from suffering; wishing to sever, one severs the cause of suffering; wishing to learn, one learns the Way; wishing to accomplish, one accomplishes complete cessation. Extinction has nothing to extinguish, therefore there is nothing that is not severed; the Way has no way to traverse, therefore there is no one who is not delivered. The formless repentance is to repent what is not to be repented. The three refuges are taking refuge in the One; the One is that from which the triratna emerges. Speaking of mahāprajñā refers to the utmost center of the mind. Prajñā is the expedient of the sage, the great wisdom of the sage; it can indeed make tranquil and clarify, make provisional and make real. Because of its tranquility, the world can extinguish all evils; because of its clarity, the world can assemble all goods; because of its provisionality, the world can engage in great action; because of its reality, the world can abide in great non-action. Utmost indeed is prajñā! Without prajñā, the way of the Sage is neither clear nor accomplished; without prajñā, the affairs of the world are neither suitable nor proper. When the actions of the utmost person are stimulated by prajñā, are they not far-reaching! That my Dharma is spoken for people of the highest faculties is appropriate. Using a light vessel for a heavy load, it cannot bear it; giving a small amount of a grand square, it is an excess. What has always been silently transmitted and entrusted refers to the esoteric teaching. The esoteric is not an absence of words and dark realization; it is authentic and profound. Those who do not understand this Dharma and hastily slander it, saying that for hundreds of kalpas and thousands of lifetimes they sever the Buddha-nature seed, do so to prevent the world from losing its mind.