少室六門 1.91

1.91

Question: As the Wen Shi Jing (Sūtra on the Bathhouse) states, bathing the Saṅgha obtains immeasurable blessings. Here, merit is brought about only by relying on concrete matters. How can this correspond to contemplating the mind?
Answer: Bathing the Saṅgha is not a conditioned, worldly affair. The World-Honoured One once taught the Wen Shi Jing for his disciples, intending them to accept and uphold the method of bathing. The 'bathhouse' is the body itself. Thus, one lights the fire of wisdom, warms the water of the pure precepts, and bathes the tathatā-Buddha-nature within the body, accepting and upholding seven methods to adorn oneself. The monks of that day were endowed with keen faculties and superior wisdom; all awakened to the sage's intent, practiced in accordance with the teaching, accomplished merit, and together attained the holy fruition. Today's sentient beings do not fathom these matters; applying worldly water to wash their physical bodies, they claim to rely on the sūtra—how could this not be an error? Furthermore, the tathatā-Buddha-nature is not a mortal form or the dust and defilement of affliction; originally it is without marks. How could one use physical water to wash the unconditioned body? The matter does not correspond; how could one awaken to the Way? If you wish to purify the body, you must contemplate that this body is originally born from the impurities of greedy desire, filled and packed with stench and filth inside and out. If you wash this body seeking purity, it is like washing a ditch: only when the ditch is exhausted would it be pure. Testing it by this, one clearly knows that washing the exterior is not what the Buddha taught. Therefore, worldly affairs are used as an analogy for the true principle, implicitly speaking of the merits of seven items of offering. There are seven items. What are the seven? First, pure water; second, kindled fire; third, bath-powder; fourth, tooth-sticks; fifth, pure ash; sixth, ghee-ointment; seventh, inner garments. These seven items are presented as metaphors for seven dharmas. Through these seven dharmas, all sentient beings bathe and adorn themselves, able to eliminate the defilement of the poisonous mind and ignorance. The seven dharmas are: first, pure precepts, which wash away offenses, just as pure water washes off all dust and defilement; second, wisdom, which observes inside and out, just as kindled fire warms pure water; third, discernment, which selects and casts away all evils, just as bath-powder cleanses grease and dirt; fourth, truthfulness, which cuts off all false thoughts, just as tooth-sticks eliminate foul breath; fifth, right faith, which is resolute and without doubt, just as pure ash rubbed on the body blocks the wind; sixth, gentleness, which patiently endures and gladly receives, just as ghee-ointment softens the skin; seventh, shame and conscience, which repents of all evil karmas, just as inner garments cover the unsightly body. The seven dharmas above are the secret meaning in the sūtra, spoken entirely for those of the Mahāyāna with keen faculties, not for ordinary people of meager wisdom and low inferiority. Therefore people of today cannot understand or awaken. I observe that those of shallow knowledge today recognize only concrete forms as merit: squandering wealth, harming life on water and land, vainly building statues and stūpas, uselessly toiling laborers, piling wood and stacking mud, painting in blue and green, exhausting mind and effort, harming oneself and deluding others. Having no sense of shame, when could they ever awaken? Seeing the conditioned, they are avidly attached; hearing of the unconditioned, they are blank as if lost. Greedy for the small benevolence of the present world, how could they realize the great suffering of the future? Such cultivation is futile toil. Turning away from the right and returning to the heterodox, who says one obtains blessings? If only one can collect the mind to illuminate within, with insight clearly perceiving outside, permanently putting an end to the three poisons, and closing off the six thieves so that they do not invade, then naturally merits numerous as the sands of the Ganges, various adornments, and countless Dharma-gates will each be accomplished. Transcending the ordinary and realizing the sage is visible right before one's eyes and not distant; awakening is in an instant, why trouble oneself until old age? The true gate is profound and secret; how could it be fully described? I have briefly set forth contemplation of the mind, speaking a small part of it. And so a gāthā is spoken: