宗鏡錄 97.52

97.52

Ven. Zhice was traveling in the northern lands when he met Chan Master Zhihuang, a disciple under the Fifth Ancestor, who had been cultivating concentration for twenty years. The Master asked, 'What are you doing here?' Huang said, 'Entering concentration.' The Master said, 'When entering concentration, do you enter with citta, or do you enter without citta? If you enter with citta, then all sentient beings have citta, and so they too should attain concentration. If you say you enter without citta, then all insentient things should also attain concentration.' Huang said, 'When I am right in the midst of entering concentration, I do not see a citta that has or does not have [existence].' The Master said, 'If you do not see a citta of being or nonbeing, then that is constant concentration; there should no longer be exiting or entering.' Huang had no reply. He asked in turn, 'Who is your teacher?' [Zhice] said, 'The Sixth Ancestor.' [Huang] asked, 'What method does your teacher consider to be Chan concentration?' The Master said, 'Wondrously serene and perfectly tranquil, substance and function are thusness. The five aggregates are fundamentally empty, and the six sense objects do not exist. Neither exiting nor entering, neither concentrated nor distracted. The nature of Chan is without abiding, free from abiding in the quiescence of Chan. The nature of Chan is unborn, free from generating the thought of Chan. Citta is like empty space, yet has not even the measure of empty space.' Hearing this explanation, Huang's doubts were not yet quelled. Thereupon he shook his staff and went south, going straight to Caoxi to pay homage to the Sixth Ancestor. The Ancestor also spoke as above. At these words, Huang was greatly awakened.