宗鏡錄 46.3.7

46.3.7

Some rely on the substance apart from conditions and stubbornly cling to inherent nature. Some obliterate everything and guard their own foolishness. Some determine that persons and phenomena are naturally so, thereby falling into [the view of] causelessness. Some hold that object and wisdom combine, thereby generating a view of shared production. Some hold that mind and object are indistinguishably merged, confounding the principles of subject and object. Some cling to differentiating the real and the conventional, bound by the foolishness of the cognitive hindrance. Some guard the single suchness as unaltering, thereby falling into eternalism. Some determine that [things] are shifted by the four characteristics, thereby sinking into annihilationism. Some maintain that there is no cultivation, thereby rejecting the noble stages. Some say there is realization, thereby turning their backs on innate genuineness. Some indulge in the dependent and proper [retributions], thereby revolving along with worldly saṃsāra. Some revile birth and death, thereby losing true liberation. Some are confused about true emptiness, exalting causes and clinging to fruits. Some are blind to the reality limit, delighting in Buddhas and loathing Māra. Some cling to [teachings] spoken in accordance with suitability, guarding words as the truth. Some lose the true characteristic of sounds, seeking silence apart from words. Some venerate the scriptural vehicles and loathe the samādhi of one's own nature. Some propagate Chan contemplation and reject the explanation of the definitive meaning. Some vie for the extraordinary, merely seeking to extricate themselves, and suddenly sink into the ocean of consciousness. Some affect purity and solely seek the profound and esoteric, yet contrarily fall into the citadel of the [five] skandhas. Some generate superior intellectual understandings, gouging flesh into wounds. Some abide in the original purity of the nature, clinging to the medicine until it becomes an illness. Some search through texts and gather interpretations, drinking external waters. Some guard stillness and reside in leisure, sitting in the dust of phenomena. Some give rise to a grasping mind to speak of the unconditioned Mahāyāna. Some exercise calculating thoughts to probe the profound principle beyond things. Some discard words and give rise to views of wordlessness. Some preserve explanations and invite the mechanism of clinging to the pointing finger. Some identify dynamic function, dwelling at the root source of arising and ceasing. Some focus on memory, residing at the boundary of conscious ideation. Some contrive, losing the nature of perfect enlightenment. Some give rein [to things], marring the portal of entering the Way. Some arouse physical and mental vigor, thereby stagnating in the conditioned. Some guard doing nothing while leaving things to truth, thereby sinking into the bondage of wisdom. Some focus on deliberate reflection and diligent contemplation, thereby losing correct absorption. Some imitate unhindered spontaneity, thereby abandoning practice. Some follow defiling bonds, relying on the emptiness of original nature. Some cling to entanglements and hindrances, falsely applying elimination and severing. Some cherish and prize [realization], generating attachment to phenomena. Some act with contempt, reviling the seeds of Buddhahood. Some press forward in seeking, contravening their original mind. Some fall back, lapsing into negligence. Some have words and realization that contradict each other, thereby marring the ground of reality. Some each rely on substance or function separately, thereby contravening the Buddha Vehicle. Some delight in stillness and abide in emptiness, losing the nature of great compassion. Some obliterate conditions and loathe the provisional, violating the portal of natural functioning. Some cling to the view of self, being blind to the emptiness of persons. Some are confused about direct perception, stubbornly clinging to phenomena. Some have understanding unaccompanied by faith, fostering wrong views. Some have faith lacking understanding, nourishing ignorance. Some say the person is right but the teaching is wrong. Some claim the object is deep while wisdom is shallow. Some grasp, being confused about the nature of things. Some abandon, contravening what is directly real. Some separate, violating the cause. Some identify, obliterating the fruit. Some negate, slandering the actual. Some affirm, reviling the expedient. Some detest ignorance, turning their backs on the portal of immovable wisdom. Some loathe distinct objects, destroying the samādhi of the nature of phenomena. Some rely on the principle of sameness, generating arrogance. Some belittle distinct characteristics, demolishing the portal of expedient means. Some affirm bodhi, slandering the wheel of the true Dharma. Some negate sentient beings, reviling the true Buddha body. Some cling to original wisdom, rejecting expedient knowledge. Some are confused about the correct source, clinging to teachings of transformation. Some stagnate in principle, drowning in the pit of the unconditioned. Some cling to phenomena, casting themselves into the net of the illusory. Some sever extremes and obliterate traces, violating the portal of dual illumination. Some guard correctness and preserve the middle, losing the purport of expedient means. Some cultivate concentration or wisdom one-sidedly, withering the sprouts of the Way. Some arouse practices or vows in isolation, burying the Buddha Way. Some perform unmade deeds to cultivate conditioned bodhi. Some cling with an unattached mind, practicing a facsimile of prajñā. Some tend toward pure characteristics, being confused about the true nature of defilement. Some abide in the correct status, losing the original emptiness of the conventional. Some establish the contemplation of signlessness, obscuring tathatā. Some give rise to a discerning mind, contravening the nature of phenomena. Some guard true explanations, generating views based on words—swallowing the nectar of immortality only to meet an early death. Some promote the perfect principle, generating an attached mind—drinking the finest ghee only for it to become poison. The above briefly outlines one hundred and twenty kinds of views and understandings. All of them are confusions regarding the source and loss of the essential purport, turning one's back on stillness and contravening truth, rubbing one's eyes to produce phantom flowers, forgetting one's head to recognize its shadow. It is like striking ice in search of fire, or climbing a tree to seek fish; it is fleeing into the void out of fear of one's shadow, or groping for the wind and clutching at lightning. A bitter seed does not yield sweetness; how could sand be the cause of cooked rice? None of them can harmonize and integrate through the nature of phenomena or unite within the single purport. Completely confused about expedient means, they all enter the entanglements of views. Failing to reach the correct source, they all cast themselves into the net of views. Dense and closely woven, it is difficult to escape—like dragging crooked wood through a dense forest; fierce and powerful, it is like a surging river sweeping away a scent-elephant. Therefore, heavenly demons and heterodox paths originally have no distinct species; through loss of mindfulness in practice, their streams diverged from this source. Hence we know that as long as there is anything one prizes, relies upon, or sets up as knowledge and understanding, so long as the slightest trace of a view is not extinguished, it all becomes heterodoxy. As a verse in the Avataṃsakasūtra says: 'Because phenomena have no inherent nature, / there is none that can comprehend them. / Understanding all phenomena in this way, / ultimately there is nothing understood.' Since phenomena have no self-substance, on what could one rely to form an understanding? It is like debating the size of a rabbit's horns, or discerning the length of a turtle's hair: principle and phenomena are both empty, serving only to invite ridicule from the whole world; emotional defilements naturally intervene, truly causing one to lose the Way before one's very eyes. As the Treatise on the Avataṃsaka says: 'When views remain, one is an ordinary being; when feelings perish, one is a Buddha.' The ancestral master said: 'There is no need to seek truth; one need only cease views.' The Lotus Sūtra says: 'This Dharma cannot be understood through thinking and discrimination.' The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment says: 'If with a discursive mind one seeks to fathom the Tathāgata's realm of perfect enlightenment, it is like trying to burn Mount Sumeru with the fire of a firefly—in the end it can never catch fire.' These are all conditioned, worldly minds; how could they probe the unconditioned, supramundane purport? As a virtuous master of old said: 'As for worldly affairs, it is not merely holding a plow and swinging an axe that is called worldly affairs. Letting the mind race after the five dusts and six desires while seated is itself worldly affairs. Furthermore, single-mindedly contemplating emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness is also worldly affairs. And feeling compassion for the suffering of common mortals, comforting and delivering them, is also worldly affairs. Only when one can be mindful from thought to thought of no-thought—neither thought nor no-thought—awakening within the one mind, does it cease to be worldly affairs.' Therefore, if someone has truly awakened to the source, they cannot even retain non-view and non-understanding; how could they further follow words and cling to concepts, giving rise to views and understandings?