Keqin’s words The monkey is white do not conflict with the other monkey’s being black. Thus, [Keqin comments that] Xuefeng and Xuansha hurl insightful flashes at each other as spirits emerge and demons vanish. Although there is a path that Xuefeng travels together with Xuansha, yet does not enter together with Xuansha, is it the case that the flames are all buddhas, or that all buddhas are the flames? Xuansha’s mind interchanges black and white, emerging and vanishing like spirits and demons, while Xuefeng’s voice and form do not remain in the realm of black and white. Further, see that Xuansha’s statement is just right, beyond just right; and Xuefeng’s statement takes it up and releases it.
Keqin has a statement that is not the same as Xuansha’s and not the same as Xuefeng’s: Blazing flames in the spreading sky are buddhas expounding dharma; the spreading sky in blazing flames is dharma expounding buddhas. This statement has been truly an illumination for those who have studied ever since. Even if you do not notice the blazing flames, if you are covered by the spreading sky, you have your share and others have theirs. Wherever the entire sky covers, there are always blazing flames. Even though you dislike these blazing flames and look somewhere else, how could it be otherwise?
Rejoice! Although your skin bag was born far from the sages, and although this moment is distant from the sages, you have encountered the transforming guidance of the spreading sky that can still be heard. Although buddhas expounding dharma has been heard, how many layers of ignorance we have suffered from because of not having heard the statement dharma expounding buddhas! Accordingly, it is simply that all buddhas in the three times are expounded by dharma throughout the three times, and all dharmas in the three times are expounded by buddhas throughout the three times.
It is the spreading sky alone that cuts apart the tangle of twining vines amid the winds. A single statement crushes both Vimalakirti and those who are not Vimalakirti, and nothing remains.
Thus, dharma expounds buddha, dharma practices buddha, dharma verifies buddha. Buddha expounds dharma, buddha practices buddha, buddha makes buddha. This is all the awesome presence of active buddhas. Throughout heaven and earth, throughout past and present, what they have attained is not insignificant, what they have clarified is not to be utilized casually.
Written in the middle of the tenth month, the second year of the Ninji Era [1241], at the Kannondori Horin Monastery by Monk Dogen.
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THE BUDDHAS’ TEACHING
THE ACTUALIZED EXPRESSION of all buddhas is the buddhas’ teaching. Because buddha ancestors express this teaching for all buddha ancestors, it is authentically transmitted for the sake of teaching. This is turning the dharma wheel. Within the eyeball of this dharma wheel, you actualize all buddha ancestors and have all buddhas enter pari-nirvana.
These buddha ancestors invariably emerge in a single particle and enter nirvana in a single particle. They emerge in the entire world and enter nirvana in the entire world. They emerge in a single moment and emerge in the ocean of multiple eons. And yet, their emergence in a single particle in a single moment lacks no merit. This cannot be replaced by their emergence in the entire world, in the ocean of multiple eons.
This being so, do not say that buddhas who attain the way in the morning and enter nirvana that evening lack merit. If you say that one day contains little merit, then eighty years of human life is not long enough. When you compare the eighty years of human life with ten or twenty eons, it would be like one day and eighty years, and the merits of this buddha and that buddha could not be discerned. If you compare the merit of a long eon and timeless life with the merit of eighty years, there would be no room for doubt.
In this way, the buddhas’ teaching is the buddha who teaches. It is the merit thoroughly experienced by buddha ancestors. It is not that buddhas are high and broad and their teaching of dharma is low and narrow.
Know that if buddhas are large, their teaching is large; if buddhas are small, their teaching is small. Thus, know that buddhas and their teaching cannot be measured as large or small. It is beyond the aspects of wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral. It is not a teaching for oneself or others.
A teacher says:
Old Man Shakya expounded the teaching of the sutras throughout his lifetime. In addition, he authentically transmitted the dharma of one mind, the supreme vehicle, to Mahakashyapa. This has been passed down from person to person. Due to this, his teaching is a groundless theory presented in accordance with the capacity of listeners. Meanwhile, the dharma of one mind is the true nature of reality. This authentically transmitted single mind is called transmission outside of scriptures. It does not equal words in the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching. Because this mind is the supreme vehicle, it is called directly pointing to the human mind, seeing original nature, and becoming a buddha.
This statement is not at all a work of buddha dharma. It has no vital path of leaping beyond and no awesome presence wherever the body reaches.
Even if those who make such a statement were to call themselves pioneering teachers hundreds and thousands of years in the future, regard them as neither clarifying nor mastering buddha dharma or the buddha way. Why? Because they don’t know the Buddha, the teaching, the mind, inside, or outside. The reason is that they have never heard buddha dharma.
When we speak of buddhas, those who don’t know the origin and effect of buddhas and their boundaries of coming and going cannot be called disciples of the Buddha. To talk only about this authentically transmitted single mind, while excluding authentic transmission of the buddhas’ teaching, is not to know buddha dharma. They do not know the single mind of the buddhas’ teaching. They have not heard of the single mind of the buddhas’ teaching.
They speak of the buddhas’ teaching outside of the single mind. Their single mind is not the single mind. They speak of the single mind outside of the buddhas’ teaching. The buddhas’ teaching they speak of is not the buddhas’ teaching. Even if they have inherited the mistaken view of transmission outside the teaching, their words and truth do not fit each other because they do not yet know inside from outside.
How can buddha ancestors who have transmitted the treasury of the true dharma eye person to person not transmit the buddhas’ teaching person to person? Furthermore, how would Old Man Shakya set up a teaching that is not a work of the buddha house? If Old Man Shakya lets the teaching be transmitted from person to person, which buddha ancestors can deny the teaching? Thus, what is called the supreme vehicle is the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of teaching, the great treasury and small treasury [Mahayana and Hinayana canons].
Know that what is called buddha mind is the Buddha’s eyeball, a broken wooden dipper. Since it is all things and the three realms, it is mountains, oceans, lands, the sun, the moon, and stars. The buddhas’ teaching is myriad things in all places. What is called outside is right here, arriving right here.
Since authentic transmission is conducted from self to self, the self is within authentic transmission. You authentically inherit one mind from one mind. Thus, there is one mind in authentic transmission. The dharma of one mind, the supreme vehicle, is mud, stone, sand, and pebbles. Since mud, stone, sand, and pebbles are one mind, the mud, stone, sand, and pebbles are mud, stone, sand, and pebbles. If you speak of the dharma of one mind, the supreme vehicle, you should understand it like this.
However, those who talk about transmission outside the teaching do not understand this meaning. So, do not believe the wrong view of transmission outside the teaching and thereby misunderstand buddhas’ teaching.
If these people were right, the buddhas’ teaching should be called transmission outside the mind. If we were to say so, neither one phrase nor half a verse of the buddhas’ teaching would have been transmitted to us. If we do not say transmission outside the mind, we should not say transmission outside the teaching.
Mahakashyapa is already the head of the dharma treasury as the heir of Shakyamuni Buddha. He authentically inherited the tr
easury of the true dharma eye and upholds the buddha way. It is biased to say that he should not have authentically inherited the buddhas’ teaching.
Know that if you authentically inherit one phrase, you authentically inherit one dharma. If you inherit one phrase, you inherit mountains and you inherit waters. You cannot be separated from this very place.
Shakyamuni Buddha authentically transmitted his treasury of the true dharma eye, unsurpassable enlightenment, to Mahakashyapa alone and to no one else. Authentic transmission was unquestionably to Mahakashyapa. Thus, all those who study truth in buddha dharma in the past and present always investigate thoroughly with buddha ancestors to determine the authenticity of teaching from the past. They do not ask others for this. Those who are not authenticated by buddha ancestors are not buddha ancestors. Those who want to be authenticated should be authenticated by buddha ancestors. The reason is that the original teachers of mastering the dharma wheel are buddha ancestors.
Buddha ancestors alone, being past and present buddhas, clarify and authentically transmit the expression of existence and nonexistence as well as the expression of emptiness and form.
Baling was once asked by a monk, “Is the heart of an ancestor the same as the heart of the teaching?”
Baling said, “When it is cold, a rooster climbs the tree and a duck gets into water.”
Study this expression, encounter the ancestral meaning of the buddha way, see, and hear the teaching of the buddha way. This monk was in fact asking whether or not the heart of an ancestor is truly the heart of an ancestor. Baling’s answer addresses a distinction, but it is not the same as the distinction discussed by those who are bound by distinction. In this way, because the heart of an ancestor and the heart of the teaching are beyond distinction, distinction is addressed. Baling’s answer is just like saying, “Don’t ask about distinction.”
Xuansha was once asked by a monk, “If the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching are not essential, what is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from India?”
Xuansha replied, “The Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching are not essential; nothing is essential.”
The monk asked this question with the assumption, as is commonly understood, that the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching are mere details in buddha dharma. He wanted to know the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from India [the heart of buddha dharma], which he assumed should be other than these details. The monk did not understand that the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching are the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from India. Further, how could he have understood that the complete assemblage of eighty-four thousand dharma gates is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from India?
Investigate this thoroughly now. How can the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching not be essential? And, if they are essential, what are the guidelines? Is it possible that the study of the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from India is actualized even when the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching are disregarded? The monk’s question was not without significance.
Xuansha said, The Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching are not essential; nothing is essential. This statement is a dharma wheel. Study thoroughly that when this dharma wheel is turned, the buddhas’ teaching abides in the buddhas’ teaching.
The meaning of Xuansha’s reply is that the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching are the buddha ancestors’ dharma wheel, which turns in the place where there are buddha ancestors and in the place where there are no buddha ancestors. It turns equally before and after the time of ancestors.
Further, the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching have the function of turning buddha ancestors. At the very moment of asking the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from India, this dharma wheel is nothing is essential. Nothing is essential doesn’t mean not to utilize or break this dharma wheel. This dharma wheel turns in nothing is essential.
See that Xuansha did not say that the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching did not exist; he said that they were not essential. Because they are not essential, they are the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching. Because they are the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching, they are beyond the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching. Thus, Xuansha said, the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching are not essential.
Let me offer an outline of the Three Vehicles and the Twelve Divisions of the teaching.
The Three Vehicles:
The first of the Three Vehicles is the Shravaka Vehicle. This vehicle is attained through the four noble truths. They are: The truth of suffering; the truth of the causes of suffering; the truth of the cessation of suffering; and the truth of the [eightfold] path. By learning and practicing these truths, you become free from birth, aging, sickness, and death, and fully experience pari-nirvana.
To say that the truths of suffering and the causes of suffering are ordinary and the truths of ceasing suffering and the path are primary in practicing the four noble truths is a view of scriptural commentators. In the practice of buddha dharma, all four noble truths are understood only by buddha and buddha; all four noble truths are things in their own conditions; all four noble truths are reality; all four noble truths are buddha nature. This being so, they do not require a discussion about not being born or not being created, because in the four noble truths nothing is essential.
The second vehicle is the Pratyeka-buddha Vehicle. This is a path to reach pari-nirvana by observing the twelvefold causation. It consists of: ignorance, inclination, discernment, name and form, six objects of perception, contact, feeling, craving, grasping, becoming, birth, decay and death.
When you observe these twelve causes, you examine them from the viewpoint of subject and object, cause and effect, in the past, present, and future. In this examination, the turning of the wheel is not essential at all; cause and effect are not essential at all.
Know that if ignorance is one mind, inclination and discernment, and so on, are one mind. If ignorance perishes, inclination and discernment, and so on, perish. If ignorance is nirvana, inclination and discernment, and so on, are nirvana. We say so because birth is itself perishing. Ignorance is a phrase of expression. Discernment, name and form, and so on, are also like this.
Know that ignorance, inclination, and so on, are no other than [Qingyuan’s statement]: “I have a hatchet. I live with it in this mountain.” [I am intimate with what I have.] Ignorance, inclination, and so on, are no other than “When I left the monastery, I asked the abbot to give me the hatchet.”
The third vehicle is the Bodhisattva Vehicle. It is to achieve unsurpassable, complete enlightenment through the teaching, practice, and realization of the six paramitas. Achieving them is not creating, not not-creating, not initiating, not newly making, not achieving for a long time, not original practice, and not not-making. It is just achieving unsurpassable, complete enlightenment.
The six paramitas [realizations] are: the paramita of giving, the paramita of precepts, the paramita of patience, the paramita of effort, the paramita of meditation, and the paramita of prajna [wisdom beyond wisdom]. These are all unsurpassable enlightenment, beyond any discussion of not-born and not-created.
It is not necessarily that the paramita of giving comes first and the paramita of prajna comes last. A sutra says, “A bodhisattva of sharp capacity makes prajna first and giving last. A bodhisattva of dull capacity makes giving first and prajna last.” However, the paramita of patience can come first, and the paramita of meditation can come first. Thirty-six [six times six] paramitas can be actualized. From one basket [container], another basket is reached.
Paramita means “arriving at the other shore” [of enlightenment]. Although the other shore does not have the appearance or trace from olden times, arriving is actualized. Arriving is the fundamental point. Do not think that practice le
ads to the other shore. Because there is practice on the other shore, when you practice, the other shore arrives. It is because this practice embodies the capacity to actualize all realms.
The Twelve Divisions of the teaching:
Sutra—a scripture in prose
Geya—a teaching reiterated in verse
Vyakarana—a prediction of enlightenment
Gatha—a verse for chanting
Udana—a teaching expounded not in response to a question
Nidana—an explanation of causes [of unwholesome things]
Avadana—a parable
Itivrittaka—a past life [of a disciple of the Buddha]
Jataka—a past life [of the Buddha]
Vaipulya—a broad teaching
Adbhuta-dharma—an unprecedented [magical] story
Upadesha—a philosophical discussion
The Tathagata personally expounded conditional and real matters of the world of skandhas, surroundings, and perceptions for sentient beings. This is called a sutra.
He also reiterated his explanation of these matters in verses of four, five, six, seven, or eight syllables. This is called a gaya.
Or he personally predicted a future event of a sentient being, such as a dove or a sparrow becoming a buddha. This is called a vyakarana.
The Tathagata explained matters of the world in a solitary verse. This is called a gatha.
Treasury of the True Dharma Eye Page 40
