宗鏡錄 25.11

25.11

Answer: "This citta is the Buddha" is affirmative expression (vyatireka-pratipakṣa / vidhi); it directly reveals the phenomenon, causing one to personally realize one's own citta and see the nature clearly. "Neither citta nor Buddha" is negative expression (apoha / pratiṣedha); it protects against faults and negates errors, removes doubt and breaks attachment, and strips away those of emotional views who rely on secondary comprehension and falsely identify intellectual understanding, because both citta and Buddha are unobtainable. Hence it is said: "Neither citta nor Buddha." This wipes away the subjective citta below, provisionally establishing the gate of the Sudden Teaching that annihilates [all] and leaves nothing to rely upon, where the path of speech is cut off and the realm of mental activity is extinguished; thus it is also an entry path for one capacity. As for the Perfect Teaching: regarding this very dharma wherein emotional [views] are exhausted and the substance is revealed, it has negation and affirmation; it is neither identical nor separate; substance and function subsume each other; principle and phenomena are unhindered. Present-day scholars neither possess the eye of wisdom nor have heard much; they are biased toward words of negation, failing to see the principle of the perfect and eternal. Unable to distinguish servant from master, how can they separate the true from the false? It is like abandoning the ocean to keep a bubble, casting away gold to pick up gravel, scooping up foam as treasure, or grasping a stone as a pearl. Therefore a sūtra says: "For example, a foolish thief casts away gold and treasures, and carries away broken tiles and gravel." It speaks of this. Now this compilation is undertaken precisely for this reason. Furthermore, both "citta" and "Buddha" are worldly designations; "affirmation" and "negation" are discriminatory views. In vain discussions and false imaginings, how could one attain the true refuge? Therefore the ancestral master said: "If one says 'this citta is the Buddha,' it is like an ox having horns; if one says 'neither citta nor Buddha,' it is like a hare lacking horns." Both are provisional names on the side of duality. If, relying on the name to invoke the substance, one opens to enlightenment regarding the original citta, realizes one's own true knowing, and is clear and free of confusion, then in the end one will not mistake the name and be stuck in the substance, nor give rise to a citta of attainment; rejection and acceptance will completely perish, and right and wrong will suddenly cease. Nor does one exclusively separate from it to falsely give rise to views of transcending speech, nor does one exclusively identify with it to fall into the reproach of clinging to the finger. As the Huayan Lun says: "Being stuck in names, names are established; discarding words, speech is born." Both are turning one's back on awakening to merge with dust, abandoning oneself to follow objects. If one truly and personally examines and presently realizes one's own source, there is not even the wisdom-citta that is able to realize, nor the subtle principle that is realized; how much less could there still remain the false thoughts of being able to know, being able to understand, having attainment, or having an aim? In recent times there are those who improperly dabble in the Chan school without grasping its purport; transmitting it to one another, they disbelieve the words "this citta is the Buddha," judging them to be what is spoken by the doctrinal vehicles that have not yet attained the profound and abstruse, [saying,] "I myself have the matter of transcendence in the ancestral school." Exclusively valuing the saying "neither citta nor Buddha," they all point to a deer and call it a horse; hoping for awakening, they meet with delusion; grasping the shadow as real, they take illness to be the Dharma. They only want their school's style to be sharp and austere and their exchanges to be pointed and novel; releasing wild wisdom, they hold to foolish meditation; confused about expedients, they go against the ancestral source. Establishing standards and relying on conceptual reason is like gold mixed with counterfeit; retaining rules and fixing boundaries is like milk diluted with water. Exclusively striving for verbal performance and relying on superficial comprehension in the sense-organ of the intellect, this is entirely because subject and object have not perished and names and characteristics have not been broken. If one truly sees the nature, citta and objects become naturally empty; hiding one's tracks and concealing one's light, one practices covertly and functions in secret. Thus, totally unawakened to the Way, they only chase falsehood in saṃsāra, giving rise to views of dharmas and self while disparaging the superior; relying on erroneous intellectual understanding, they crush beginners; they revile the correct scriptures spoken from the golden mouth, discard the practice of auxiliary paths with perfect causes, denounce the bodhi of the Two Vehicles, and extinguish the wholesome seeds of humans and devas. Merely desiring to be superior persons who explore the abstruse, they imitate unhinderedness and non-cultivation, unaware that they instead fall into ignorance and become heterodox proponents of the view of emptiness. Merely watching the shadows and traces, they never investigate the perfect and eternal; accumulating views unceasingly, they vainly exhaust themselves. Just as when Confucius, lost at the ford, questioned the fisherman; the fisherman said: "There was a man who feared his shadow and disliked his tracks, so he ran swiftly without stopping, until his strength was spent and he died. He did not know that staying in the shade stops the shadow, and resting in stillness stops the tracks. His foolishness was extreme!" Why not make the Way one's single citta, cease disputes, and eliminate errors? Naturally, one will transcend measurement and surpass emotional views, returning to purity and simplicity. If one nourishes oneself with the Way, one will not fail; if one aids others with the Way, one will not deceive; if one governs the state with the Way, the state will be peaceful; if one cultivates the family with the Way, the family will be secure. Therefore, one must not forget the Way even for an instant. Hence the Daodejing says: "Therefore, when the Way is lost, virtue appears; when virtue is lost, benevolence appears; when benevolence is lost, righteousness appears; when righteousness is lost, propriety appears. Now propriety is the thinning of loyalty and good faith, growing thinner day by day, and is the beginning of disorder." Zhuangzi says: "If the five colors are not disordered, who would make patterns? If the five tones are not disordered, who would make the pitch-pipes? If white jade has no flaw, who would make sacrificial vessels? Destroying the uncarved block to make utensils is the fault of the artisan; destroying the Way and virtue to practice benevolence and righteousness is the fault of the sage. If the ruler can burn tallies and break seals, thieves and robbers will cease on their own; break the bushels and snap the balances, and the people will not contend. When sages are born, thieves and robbers arise; when sages die, thieves and robbers cease." Thus we know that benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and good faith benefit few under heaven, but harm many under heaven. How could that compare to revealing such an inconceivable, great, majestic, and broad Dharma-gate? It universally shades the ten directions and equally moistens all living beings; it can be called deeply penetrating the subtle purport and secretly uniting with the true refuge. Like a fragrant elephant crossing a river, every step reaches the bottom; like Yang Youji nocking his arrow, every shot pierces the willow leaf. All are texts that hit the mark; all are discourses that fathom the source. This is the meaning of the Perfect and Sudden, not a provisional gate. Like the moon in water appearing suddenly, it has neither coming nor going; like a bright mirror illuminating suddenly, how could it have beginning or end? As the commentary and subcommentary on the Śūraṅgama says: "If one hears this sūtra, one immediately awakens to the fact that all sentient beings in dust motes and pore-hairs are all within my original enlightenment. Tracing all things to be without self-nature, ignorance is eliminated; if ignorance is eliminated, one suddenly realizes [the truth] all at once, which is sudden attainment, not attained through cultivation. Just like Avalokiteśvara entering the flow and forgetting what was perceived, and Ānanda rejoicing that without passing through asaṃkhyeyas he obtained the dharmakāya, these are all sudden."