宗鏡錄 92.23

92.23

Answer: It corresponds to the highest of superior capacities. If one has already attained, one verifies and certifies it by relying on the Buddha’s intent; if one has not yet entered, one draws on the teachings and principles to illuminate it. Furthermore, if one is a person of perfect penetration, one does not wait for further explanations: the noble wisdom of self-realization is beyond speech and indication; the wondrous nature of tathatā is beyond attainment and audition. If one is benighted and obscure, one must rely on assistance to accomplish it, illuminating the mind by means of teaching and principle, and experiencing the Way through verbal expressions. When the source is understood, the teachings cease; when the Way is manifested, words are emptied. In the peerless true mind, both object and cognition are extinguished. Only thus does one enter the mirror of the source and penetrate deeply the profound gate, truly able to listen to the Buddha expounding the sūtras and intimately discussing the wondrous principle, which may be called attaining the nature of all dharmas and penetrating the origin of the one mind. As the Śūraṅgamasūtra says: ‘Ānanda, having received the Buddha's compassionate deliverance and profound instruction, wept, clasped his hands, and addressed the Buddha, saying: “Although I have received such wondrous sounds from the Buddha and awakened to the wondrously luminous mind, which is originally the fully complete, eternally abiding ground of the mind; yet as I awaken to the sounds of the Dharma presently spoken by the Buddha, I currently look up to it with faith by means of the mind that conditions objects. Having merely obtained this mind, I do not yet dare to acknowledge it as the original ground of the mind. May the Buddha take pity on me and proclaim the complete sound to uproot my doubts, so that I may return to the unsurpassed Way.” The Buddha told Ānanda: “You and the others still listen to the Dharma with a mind that conditions objects, so this Dharma is also conditioned; you have not attained the nature of dharmas. It is like a person pointing to the moon with a finger to show it to someone; that person ought to see the moon by means of the finger. If he instead looks at the finger and takes it to be the substance of the moon, this person not only loses the orb of the moon, but also loses his finger. Why is that? Because he takes the pointing finger to be the bright moon. Not only does he lose the finger, but he also does not know light from darkness. Why is that? Because he takes the substance of the finger to be the bright nature of the moon, and thus understands nothing of the two natures of light and darkness. You are also like this. If you take the mind that discriminates the sound of my preaching the Dharma to be your mind, this mind should naturally possess a discriminating nature apart from the discriminated sounds. For instance, suppose a traveler stops overnight at an inn; he pauses briefly and then leaves, never staying permanently. But the manager of the inn goes nowhere at all; he is called the master of the inn. This is also like that. If it were truly your mind, it would go nowhere. How could it lack a discriminating nature apart from sound? In this way, not only does the mind that discriminates sound lack a discriminating nature apart from forms when it discriminates my appearance, but even when all discrimination is completely absent, neither form nor emptiness—which Kauśika and others obscurely took to be the primal matter (pradhāna)—apart from all conditioned dharmas, it has no discriminating nature. Then the natures of your mind each have that to which they return; how can it be the master?”’ The commentary says: Ānanda said, ‘Yet as I awaken to the sounds of the Dharma presently spoken by the Buddha, I currently look up to it with faith by means of the mind that conditions objects. Having merely obtained this mind, I do not yet dare to acknowledge it as the original ground of the mind.’ Ānanda still recognized the mind that conditions objects when listening to the sounds of the Buddha's preaching, mistaking it for the eternally abiding true mind and taking it as the Buddha’s definitive meaning. The Buddha said that if one listens clinging to the mind of causes and conditions, one only obtains dharmas of causes and conditions, because dharmas change according to emotions and objects arise following the mind. Furthermore, if one insists that the mind conditioning the Buddha’s voice is one’s own mind, then when the sound of the Dharma being preached ceases, the discriminating mind should be extinguished; this mind is like a guest, because it does not stay permanently. Nowadays, many are deluded about the original hearing of their own nature, merely following the hearing of subject and object and constantly pursuing other sounds in transmigration. These sounds are dharmas produced in response to causes and conditions; they do not truly exist. Names are established merely because of sounds, and expressions exist because of names. If one turns around and returns to the original hearing, one casts off the realm of sound-dust. Since the realm that is cast off is already empty, how can the name of that which casts off be established? Then both that which casts off and that which is cast off are empty, because powerful memory and much learning are merely the boundary of consciousness and conceptualization, not originally real. If one sees the nature by means of hearing, then much learning has the merit of helping to reveal it; if one turns one's back on the nature and pursues hearing, accumulating learning turns into the fault of erroneous thinking. Therefore Mañjuśrī's verse says: ‘Now in this Sahā world, / the treatises on sound find clear proclamation. / Sentient beings are deluded about their original hearing; / following sound, they therefore transmigrate. / Even though Ānanda has a powerful memory, / he cannot avoid falling into erroneous thoughts. / Is it not from following what is submerged? / Reversing the flow, one attains the non-delusive. / Ānanda, listen attentively: / Relying on the Buddha's majestic power, / I proclaim the King of Vajra, / the wondrous, inconceivable, / true samādhi of the Mother of Buddhas. / You hear dust-mote Buddhas' / secret gates of all kinds; / if the outflow of desires is not first eliminated, / accumulating hearing becomes an error. / Bringing hearing to bear on the Buddhas, / why not hear your own hearing? / Hearing does not arise naturally; / it has a name due to sound. / Turning hearing back, it is detached from sound; / what name could be given to that which is detached? / Once one sense-faculty returns to its source, / all six faculties attain liberation. / Seeing and hearing are like illusory cataracts; / the three realms are like flowers in the sky. / When hearing returns, the root of the cataract is eliminated; / when dust dissolves, awareness is completely pure.’ Therefore we know that if the ear faculty returns to its original source, all six faculties become extinguished and calm, because the six faculties share the same one mind. Why is that? In the eye it is called seeing, and in the ear it is called hearing. When one absorbs function and returns it to the faculty, seeing and hearing are like illusory cataracts; when one absorbs objects and returns them to the mind, the three realms are like flowers in the sky. Then the cataracts are extinguished and dust dissolves, awareness is complete and the mind is pure. One who understands in this way is one who sees the moon by means of the finger and clarifies the source by relying on the teachings. As for clinging to the finger as the moon, deluding the mind and pursuing the texts, it is as the sūtra says: ‘It is like a person pointing to the moon with a finger to show it to someone; that person ought to see the moon by means of the finger. If he instead looks at the finger and takes it to be the substance of the moon, this person not only loses the orb of the moon, but also loses his finger.’ The twelve divisions of teachings of the three vehicles are like the finger pointing at the moon. If one can see the moon, one clearly knows what is being pointed out. If one clarifies the mind through the teachings and sees the nature through words, one knows that verbal teachings are like a finger, and the mind-nature is like the moon. One who directly awakens to the Way never gets stuck in words; one who truly sees the moon no longer preserves the finger. If, when reading the sūtras and listening to the Dharma, one does not resolve them all back into oneself, but merely follows the lines, sentences, and collection of names, that is looking at the finger and taking it to be the substance of the moon. This person not only fails to see his own nature, but also fails to distinguish the scriptural texts. Deluded about both finger and moon, both teaching and contemplation are lost. Therefore the sūtra says: ‘This person not only loses the orb of the moon, but also loses his finger.’ Furthermore, having lost the finger, he not only fails to understand the true and the false of his own mind, but also does not recognize the refutations and expressions of the teaching. Confused and inverted, he cannot distinguish direction: like a bird speaking of emptiness, or a rat uttering ‘identical’, resembling a form's echo—how could this accord with the correct source? Therefore the sūtra says: ‘Not only does he lose the finger, but he also does not know light from darkness. Why is that? Because he takes the substance of the finger to be the bright nature of the moon, and thus understands nothing of the two natures of light and darkness.’ Thus the Zhengdao ge says: ‘In my early years, I accumulated learning; / I also searched the commentaries and investigated the sūtras and treatises. / Discriminating names and characteristics without rest, / I vainly exhausted myself counting the sands entering the sea. / Then I was severely rebuked by the Tathāgata: / what benefit is there in counting another's treasures? / Looking back on my stumbling, I realize it was a vain pursuit; / for many years, in vain I was a traveler in the wind and dust. / Their lineage is wrong, / their understanding is mistaken; / they do not grasp the Tathāgata’s perfect and sudden code. / The two vehicles are diligent, but lack the mind for the Way; / non-Buddhists are clever, but lack wisdom. / They are also foolish, / and also childishly ignorant; / upon an empty fist and pointing finger, they generate real conceptions. / Clinging to the finger as the moon, they exert effort in vain, / creating phantom delusions among faculties, objects, and dharmas. / Not seeing a single dharma is indeed the Tathāgata; / only then is one entitled to be called Avalokiteśvara.’ Therefore, if it is the true mind, it does not pursue other sounds to give rise to discrimination; serenely and constantly illuminating, its nature is inherently clear. Like the manager of the inn, he goes nowhere at all. How could it lack a discriminating nature apart from forms and sounds? This requires obtaining the core meaning: only when intimately seeing the nature does one know that apart from sounds, forms, and all conditions, the nature is inherently eternally abiding and does not rely on the knowledge and views produced by external dusts. Then one awakens to the fact that from beginningless time, all [delusions] came from clinging to sound as hearing and thereby generating inversion. Therefore Mañjuśrī's verse says: ‘Reverse the organ of your inverted hearing, / turn hearing back to hear your own nature: / when the nature is accomplished, it is the unsurpassed Way; / perfect penetration is truly like this.’ If it is neither form nor emptiness, entirely devoid of discrimination, a person who does not see the nature will, upon arriving here, completely fall into annihilation. He then becomes like the non-Buddhist Gośālika and others: his own eyes not opened, he obscurely takes it to be the primal matter (pradhāna), regarding gloomy, dark, and oblivious nescience as the ultimate. From this, he further establishes twenty-five principles, losing the real mind and becoming of non-Buddhist stock. Or there may be those in the Chan school who have not attained the core meaning, or people studying the Dharma who give rise to the view of emptiness: many brush away both mind and object as completely empty, clinging to non-discrimination and taking wild understanding and blind ignorance to be the ultimate Way. Yet, seeking the nature of dharmas is not apart from causes and conditions; extinguishing the false mind to grasp the true mind is for those of excessive pride and beginners—one must not equate them indiscriminately, but must make distinctions. As the sūtra says: ‘Apart from all conditioned dharmas, it has no discriminating nature. Then the natures of your mind each have that to which they return; how can it be the master?’ Ānanda said: ‘If the natures of my mind each have that to which they return, then why does the wondrously luminous original mind spoken of by the Tathāgata have nothing to which it returns? Please have pity and explain it to me.’ The Buddha told Ānanda: ‘Now as you look at me, the essence of seeing is luminous and original. Although this seeing is not the wondrous, essence-luminous mind, it is like a second moon, not a reflection of the moon. You should listen attentively; I shall now show you the ground of no-return. Ānanda, when this great lecture hall opens wide to the east and the orb of the sun ascends into the sky, there is bright radiance. In the middle of the night during the dark moon, when clouds and fog are murky and dark, it is dim and gloomy again. Through the gaps of doors and windows, one again sees open passage. Between walls and eaves, one again observes obstruction. Where discrimination occurs, one again sees conditions. In the midst of stubborn voidness, emptiness is everywhere pervasive. In the phenomenon of dense haze, turbid dust gathers. When clear weather disperses the mists, one again observes purity. Ānanda, look at all these changing characteristics; I will now return each to its original source. What are the original sources? Ānanda, of these changes, light returns to the orb of the sun. Why? Without the sun there is no light; the cause of light belongs to the sun, and therefore it returns to the sun. Darkness returns to the dark moon, open passage returns to doors and windows, obstruction returns to walls and eaves, conditions return to discrimination, stubborn voidness returns to empty space, dense haze returns to dust, and clear brightness returns to fine weather. Everything that exists in all the worlds does not go beyond these categories. As for the luminous nature of the essence of seeing by which you see these eight kinds [of things], to what would you have it return? Why? If it returned to light, then when there is no light, you would no longer see darkness. Although light, darkness, and the like have various differences, seeing has no difference. Whatever can be returned naturally is not you; that which cannot return to anything from you, if not you, what is it? Thus know that your mind is originally wondrous, luminous, and pure. You delude and confuse yourself, losing the original and undergoing transmigration, constantly adrift and drowning in birth and death. Therefore the Tathāgata calls you pitiable.’ Thus we know that the essence-of-seeing luminous mind of all sentient beings at this very moment is neither definitively true nor false: when obscured, it is coarse; when illuminated, it is wondrous. Simply within these eight kinds of non-return, one clearly sees that the nature is eternally abiding. Why follow objects in transmigration, lose the original true constancy, sink forever in the wheel of suffering, and drift perpetually in the ocean of death? That the Great Sage took pity on this is indeed something to lament and marvel at! Ānanda manifested the arising of doubts in order to smash emotional clinging; Śākyamuni subtly expounded, pointing straight to the source of awakening. It can be called not changing one's ordinary mortal body yet suddenly becoming a noble body; revealing the perfect and constant right within arising and ceasing. The passages throughout the Record of the Mirror of the Source all verify this completely. Furthermore, Venerable Mazu of Jiangxi asked Lecture Master Liang: ‘What sūtras and treatises do you specialize in?’ He replied: ‘I lecture on thirty sūtras and treatises.’ The Master said: ‘Right when you are lecturing, what do you use to lecture?’ He replied: ‘I use the mind to lecture.’ The Master said: ‘The mind is like a leading actor, and the intention is like a supporting actor. How can they understand lecturing on those sūtras?’ He replied: ‘It cannot be empty space lecturing, can it?’ The Master said: ‘Yet it is empty space that can lecture.’ At these words, the lecture master was greatly awakened. Thereupon he descended the steps and bowed, sweat pouring over his forehead. The Master said: ‘What is this dull-rooted ācārya doing making bows?’ The lecture master returned to his monastery and said to his disciples: ‘Throughout my life's studies, I thought that no one in the world was my match. Today, with one spit, the old elder of Kaiyuan Monastery has wiped it all away clean. All this time, I have been deceiving you.’ Thereupon he dismissed his disciples, entered the Western Mountains, and was heard from no more. Also, a scholar once asked Venerable Mazu: ‘Just as water has no sinews or bones, yet can carry a boat of ten thousand bushels, what about it?’ The Master said: ‘Here I have neither water nor boat; what sinews and bones are you talking about?’ Also, a student asked Venerable Longtan: ‘I have long admired Longtan (Dragon Pool), but now that I have arrived, why do I see neither dragon nor pool?’ The Master said: ‘Yet you have arrived at Dragon Pool in person.’ Also, the lay official Attendant Wang asked the former Venerable Dongshan: ‘Among the fifty-two stages of bodhisattvas, why do we not see the bodhisattva of Wondrous Awakening?’ The Master said: ‘Yet the Attendant sees him in person.’ Therefore, the Great Master Zhiyi propagated the teachings throughout his life: though he broadly gave instructions, he only revealed the correct source. As he says in the Zhiguan: ‘To what does the ultimate point back? The path of words is cut off; the realm of mental activities is extinguished; it is eternally tranquil like space.’ And in the Guanxin lun he says: ‘Furthermore, pained at heart for the disciples of our school: they have followed along for years and observed the mind for quite a while, yet they have failed to examine and interrogate the mind. Consequently, untainted by the inner Dharma, they cling to external words and letters, running about stealing notes and comments, wandering in vain carrying sūtras and treatises. Why not cut off speech and set aside texts, break open a single mote of dust, and read the great thousandfold scrolls of sūtras?’ If one can listen to the Dharma, lecture on the sūtras, uphold the source, and engage in questions and answers as described above, one will only then harmonize with the patriarchs' intent and accord with the Buddha's mind. Encountering this capacity, one can return to the mirror of the source.