Now it is often said that there is originally no enlightenment but a teaching of enlightenment is created to construct this task. If you understand this way, you’re like parasites on a lion’s body, feeding yourselves on the lion’s flesh. Have you not seen how an ancient said, “If the source is not deep, the flow does not last. If knowledge is not great, vision is not far-reaching.” If you interpret it as a construct, how could Buddhism have reached the present day?6
Unfortunately, things were thus even in ancient times—how can we be proud these days? I beg those who have the will not to ignorantly imitate others. Guishan’s Admonitions says, “I humbly hope you develop a determined, intense will, open up a heart of extraordinary attainment, and in your conduct observe those who are superior; don’t selfishly follow the mediocre and the inferior. You need resolution in this life; consider that it does not depend on another.”7
Also, Zen Master Dazhi of Baizhang said, “If you want to know the meaning of buddha-nature, observe timing and conditions. Once the time is ripe, it is like suddenly understanding after having been confused, like suddenly remembering after having forgotten. Then you will have insight into yourself, which is not gotten from another.”8
Students should just take up the story they are concentrating on energetically, and some day it will naturally become obvious. It’s like someone from the countryside who wants to go to the capital city for the first time. As soon as he emerges into central territory, he may see the evenness of the roads or he may see the magnificence of the buildings or he may see the grandeur of the castles, things he’s never seen before, and erroneously imagine he’s in the capital city. But if he finds a knowledgeable guide who’s already been there, he won’t stop along the way, but will go right into the capital, paying no attention to the administrative halls or the imperial chambers, only really aiming to meet the ruler in person.
1. Vision does not refer to ocular visions or other sensory phenomena, but to mystical experiences; while rigorously distinguished from enlightenment, such phenomena are also definitively distinguished from makyo, hallucinations and delusions produced or potentiated by neurological stress in concentration.
2. “The fourth meditation” is characterized as having four elements: (1) neither pain nor pleasure, also rendered as neutrality of sensation; (2) relinquishment; (3) mindfulness; (4) single-mindedness. Beyond these are four formless states, also called four empty concentrations: (1) absorption in the infinity of space; (2) absorption in the boundlessness of consciousness; (3) absorption in infinite nothingness; (4) absorption in neither perception nor no perception. According to the traditional definition, the Buddhist arhat, or saint, masters these exercises and experiences but is not confined to them or defined by them.
3. In the time of the historical Buddha there were said to be ninety-six other schools of philosophy, of which six were particularly prominent. “The most evil devil” is Mara Papiyan, the Most Evil Destroyer, said to reside in the sixth sense, that is, the cognitive faculty. Mara Papiyan personifies the delinquent intellect, called most evil because of its capacity for creating confusion and delusion, and fostering greed and aggression.
4. “The abode of treasure” represents complete enlightenment; “the magical castle” represents peaceful nirvana.
5. Again, “the five natures” refer to the psychologies associated with the three vehicles plus those of indefinite nature and those with no such nature.
6. These quotes from Yuanwu are combined excerpts and paraphrases from his commentaries in The Blue Cliff Record, cases 77 and 71.
7. See “The House of Kuei-Yang” in The Five Houses of Zen for further excerpts from this work.
8. See The Five Houses of Zen on “Pai Chang” in “The House of Kuei-Yang”; see also The Pocket Zen Reader, pp. 35–52, 175, 219; Teachings of Zen, pp. 14–19; The Blue Cliff Record, cases 26, 70–72; Book of Serenity, case 8; and Unlocking the Zen Koan, case 2.
[ 4 ]
TRUE REALIZATION
In lofty-minded people who genuinely work on the path, when the effort of inner seeking builds up and the power of concentration is full, then ordinary ideation and conscious feelings are all inactivated; reason and speech come to an end, and even the searching mind disappears at the same time. Even the breath nearly stops. This is the time when the Great Way appears.
Students should be alert: At this time, don’t conceive a single thought of extraordinary understanding, and don’t conceive a single thought of retreating. Let go of body and mind and don’t seek anything at all. Bring the story you’ve been contemplating powerfully to mind, and let whatever states may appear be: if the perceptions of the two vehicles appear, let them be; if the perceptions of outsiders appear, let them be—knowing they aren’t real, you won’t fear them. Plunging in with your whole body, get your fill of the source, carefully avoiding exciting your mind to grasp and reject.
You need to let go of your body and relinquish your life therein only once. When the time comes, it happens suddenly, and you know this experience. This is called letting go of your grip over a sheer cliff, then after perishing, coming back to life. Suddenly, in an instant, you recognize the root source: your own nature, the nature of others, the nature of living beings, the nature of afflictions, the nature of enlightenment, the nature of Buddhas, the nature of spirits, the nature of bodhisattvas, the nature of the created, the nature of the uncreated, the nature of the ultimate end, the nature of the sentient, the nature of the insentient, the nature of ghosts, the nature of titans, the nature of beasts, hells, heavens, polluted lands, and pure lands—you see through them all at once, without exception, finishing the great task and passing through birth and death. How could it not be pleasant?
Even so, in order to test what you’ve experienced, call on a great Zen teacher who is definitely certain. An ancient said, “The heart of nirvana is easy to clarify; knowledge of differentiation is hard to illumine.” Don’t let undifferentiated knowledge obscure knowledge of differentiation.
It is like polishing a mirror: The moment its clear surface is exposed, it can distinguish all things. The coarse appears coarse, the fine appears fine; blue, yellow, red, white, pretty, ugly, big, small, square, round, long, short—they are reflected as they appear, without so much as a particle or tip of a hair left out.
When this occurs, if there is anything unclear, this just means that even though the clarity is there, residual defilement has not yet been removed; the traces of polishing are still there, blocking the reality. This is why we don’t conceive the notion we have already attained, and don’t think of stopping, but seek certainty with an enlightened teacher in order to test our attainment.
In ancient times, when Sushan first heard Xiangyan say, “The issue of speech is not sound; before form, there is no thing,” he experienced a liberating enlightenment and thought he had thoroughly comprehended. He promised, “When you have a place to live, mentor and elder brother, I will come see to firewood and water.” Later he also heard Zen Master Da-an of Guishan’s saying, “Propositions of being and nothingness are like vines clinging to a tree,” and went to Guishan especially for this, having “sold off a place mat a thousand miles away,” also thinking he was right.
Guishan was plastering a wall when Sushan asked, “‘Propositions of being and nothingness are like vines clinging to a tree’—is this your saying?”
Da-an said, “Yes.”
Sushan said, “Suppose the tree falls down and the vines die—where do the propositions wind up?”
Da-an put down the plaster trowel, laughed out loud, and went back to his room.
Sushan said, “I sold off a place mat a thousand miles away to come here just for this—why don’t you explain for me?”
Da-an called to an attendant, “Fetch some cash and give it to this midget acarya,” and said to Sushan, “Someday there will be a one-eyed dragon who will point it out for you.”
Later Sushan went to Mingzhao and brought up the preceding story. Mingzhao s
aid, “Guishan was correct start to finish, but he didn’t meet a connoisseur.”
Sushan said, “If the tree falls and the vines die, where do the propositions wind up?”
Mingzhao said, “You’re renewing Guishan’s laughter.”
Sushan was greatly enlightened at these words. He said, “Guishan had a sword in his laugh all along,” and bowed to him at a distance to repent of his error.
Then when Xiangyan appeared in the world, Sushan kept his earlier promise and went to call on him.
When Xiangyan went up in the teaching hall, a monk asked, “How is it when one does not seek the sages and does not esteem one’s own spirit?”
Xiangyan said, “Myriad impulses cease, the thousand sages do not accompany.”
Sushan, hearing this, made a sound as of vomiting.1
See how he first thought Xiangyan was somebody, but then when he knew the business of the Zen school, on hearing Xiangyan’s statement he was like an aristocrat hearing a field hand talk. This is why students should first visit an enlightened teacher as soon as they attain perception of essential nature, to get rid of confusion within enlightenment.
In olden times, Huanglong Sixin said, “When you have confusion, you need to attain enlightenment. Once you have attained enlightenment, you need to recognize confusion within enlightenment, and enlightenment within confusion.”2 You should realize that this is a good time to seek an enlightened teacher, an experience that tells you now you should cultivate practice. Master Baiyun said, “This matter requires enlightenment to attain it; after enlightenment, it is necessary to meet someone.”
You say, “Once enlightened, you’re at rest—why do you necessarily need to meet someone?” Those who have met someone after enlightenment will clearly have their own way of expression when it comes to expedient means of reaching out, and will not blind students. Those who have realized a dry turnip will not only blind their students, they themselves will tend to wound their hands on the point. It’s no wonder that teachers everywhere today mistakenly blind the eyes of students. Even though you need to see someone, don’t see anyone who is not a great Zen master with genuine certainty; otherwise you’ll get deluded, hindering your enlightenment.
When I was first traveling, I met several Zen masters whose teaching I wouldn’t say was entirely incorrect, but when compared to the likes of Yantou, Xuefeng, Dahui, and Xutang, there were discrepancies.3 So I always harbored doubt in my heart and did not completely trust them. I thought that Buddhism was already extinct in the present time and no one had accurate knowledge and accurate perception. I thought it would be better to go into the mountains alone and study and practice intensely as the ancients did, waiting for the time by myself.
Later, when I heard of the Way of my former teacher [Hakuin], I half believed and half doubted. I told myself that I couldn’t rely on what other people said but should hear him teach before I decide. Then when I received his instruction, it actually accorded with so much of what the ancestral teachers have said throughout the ages that my heart was filled with joy. From that point on I gave my life to seeking certainty, to this very day.
In the present time, teachers all over misguide and blind students, because their attainments have not reached the realm personally realized by the ancients. As for the transcendental, when have they ever dreamed of it? Even though it is not that there are originally two or three Buddhisms, there are shallow and deep, crude and fine. It’s just because students don’t have enough power of faith, they haven’t eliminated cognition of states, and they have not extirpated residual habits, that brings about so many distinctions in Buddhism. If even the ancients were like this, how could people now not be so?
A long time ago Master Dongshan provisionally defined five ranks to indicate the essentials of the school.4 The rank of the absolute is emptiness. The rank of the relative is the temporal. This is not teaching the Tendai contemplation of truths.5 In that contemplation of truths, first you contemplate the truth of emptiness to break your hold on the idea of existence. Next you contemplate temporal truth to eliminate the sense of lingering in emptiness. When the barriers of being and nothingness are gone, views of emptiness and temporal existence are both forgotten and real essence appears—this is called the truth of the real characteristics of the middle way.
This is a remedial method opposing subject and object. Based on the substance and function of real nature, while provisionally using them to define the terms, one gradually gets to know a part of the principle in nature by means of the power of contemplation. Therefore it is only on reaching the truth of the middle way that one first sees nature with three contemplations in one mind.6
So this teaching of five ranks has been set up to enable those who have seen nature to investigate the deep meanings successively, so as to develop the capacity of great Dharma kings with great vision. How could it be a commonplace doctrine?
What are referred to here as empty and temporal are different names for real nature. The basic substance of real nature is empty and pure; there is nothing to it to name, but the label of emptiness is imposed on it. There is nothing that does not appear in the substance of inherent nature, according to differentiations; the label of temporal is imposed on this.
“The relative within absolute,” or “relative absolute,” means that even when you see nature accurately, though your insight into yourself is penetrating, your degree of power is weak, and so you are still not completely clear about differentiations. It is like the mirror having some dust left on it, so objects are not thoroughly clear in detail. It is also like reading by moonlight; it’s not quite clear what the ideograms are. Therefore the verse says,
The relative within the absolute:
At midnight, before the moon shines,
Don’t wonder at meeting without recognition;
Aversion of the past is still hidden in the heart.
This means that even if you see real nature, when it is not yet completely clear you ultimately don’t get out of the domain of past ignorance. For this reason the rank of absolute within the relative, or relative absolute, was defined to clarify this point.
If you want to enter absorption in this absolute within the relative, you must study the stories that are hard to penetrate. “The absolute within the relative” means that seeing nature is perfectly clear, without any defilement, and the subtle patterns of differentiation appear in everything. As differentiation becomes clear, the fundamental becomes even clearer; and as the fundamental is clarified, differentiation becomes as clear as can be. When both are perfectly clear, and as a result there is no reflection between them, this is called the absolute within the relative. The verse says,
The absolute within the relative:
A woman who got up late is at the antique mirror—
Clearly she sees her face, but there’s no more reality;
She doesn’t mistake the reflection for her head anymore.
Students have been immersed in false views so long that when they first see real nature, differentiations are still not clear for that reason. It’s like a woman who woke up late now facing an antique mirror: You clearly see everything, this and that as clear as can be, and yet there are no images—noumenon and phenomena are completely merged, nature and characteristics are not separated. This is said to have no reality, just as when you see your face in the mirror all your features show, so you mistake the image in the mirror for your own head. Whoever acknowledges the mirror of cognition then misses the fundamental substance. But this doesn’t refer to the mirror of the other kinds of knowledge; once you see nature with perfect clarity, all knowledge and unhindered intelligence appear. This is the mirror of knowledge.
Therefore, if the function of intelligence is not clear, the fundamental has not been penetrated; when the function of intelligence is clear, you inevitably get stuck in the mirror of cognition. When you get here, you need to seek a different way out. And don’t make the mistake of saying that not acknowledging anything at all is
right; even if you actually get to the point where you don’t acknowledge anything, the garden of Zen is still beyond the horizon. You must be intensely conscious of your everyday experience in the noumenon of seeing nature, inwardly feeling for some reason. Don’t think it’s easy—the rank of coming from within the absolute is our school’s final transcendent way out. So it is said, “Within nothingness is a road out of the dust.” “Within nothingness” means when all is complete and everything is done and you seek to advance your practice, after all, nothing is attained. This is called the point where the road ends. You have to go through it too and have a life beyond, for your previous attainment is still not out of the dust. It is only when you reach this road that you get out of the dust. Therefore it is totally impossible to discuss what comes after this—finding the road out to a life beyond is just to be investigated and determined on your own.
Old Master Dongshan provisionally defined terms and made so many explanations only to have you know there is layer after layer of deep meaning; this is not even Dongshan’s fundamental intent, so why add rationalizations to increase others’ worries? On the whole, it’s really hard to find even one or two individuals who successfully pass through “coming from within the absolute,” so now in further defining the ranks of arrival in both and attainment in both, it is really possible to see the unique state of Great Master Dongshan. Xuedou’s eulogy says, “His outreach was after all like a myriad-fathom cliff.”7 He can be said to know what he’s talking about.
The Undying Lamp of Zen Page 6
