Huizhong said, All the sages do. It means that in the assembly where insentient beings speak dharma, all sages stand and listen. All sages and insentient beings actualize listening and actualize speaking. Insentient beings speak dharma for all sages. Is this sacred or ordinary? If you experience with your body the way insentient beings speak dharma, you will grasp with your body how all sages hear. As soon as you grasp this with your body, you can comprehend the realm of sages. In this way, you should practice the celestial path of going beyond ordinary and going beyond sacred.
Huizhong said, I don’t hear it. Do not suppose that these words are easy to understand. Does he “not hear” as he goes beyond ordinary and sacred? Or does he “not hear” because he tears apart the old convention of ordinary and sacred? Investigate this and let the words come through.
Huizhong said, This fortunate person doesn’t hear it. If I did, I would be equal to all sages. This presentation is not one or two phrases. The fortunate person is neither ordinary nor sacred. Is this a buddha ancestor? Because buddha ancestors go beyond ordinary and sacred, what all sages hear is not the same.
Huizhong said, Then you could not hear me expound dharma. Work on these words and prepare the enlightenment of all buddhas and sages. The essence is that insentient beings speak dharma, and all sages hear it; Huizhong speaks dharma, and this monk hears it. Day by day and month by month, make this matter the focus of your study. Now, ask Huizhong, “I am not asking you what happens when sentient beings hear it. But what happens at the precise moment when sentient beings hear the dharma expounded?”
Dongshan, who would later become High Ancestor Great Master Wuben, studied with his teacher Yunyan, Great Priest, Early Ancestor. Dongshan asked Yunyan, “Who can hear insentient beings speak dharma?”
Yunyan said, “Insentient beings hear insentient beings speak dharma.”
Dongshan asked, “Do you hear it, sir?”
Yunyan said, “If I heard it, you could not hear me speak dharma.”
Dongshan responded: “Being so, I don’t hear you speak dharma.”
Yunyan replied, “You haven’t been hearing me speak dharma. How could you hear insentient beings speak dharma?”
Dongshan responded by presenting this poem:
How splendid! How wondrous!
Inconceivable! Insentient beings speak dharma.
The ears never hear it.
Only the eyes do.
Dongshan asked, Who can hear insentient beings speak dharma? Investigate this question in detail throughout your life, throughout many lives. The question also can work as a statement. This statement is the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow. It is not merely transmitting mind with mind. This “transmitting mind with mind” is a common notion of beginning and advanced students. However, the key to practice is taking up the robe and transmitting it, taking up dharma and transmitting it. How can people nowadays master this matter in three or four months?
Dongshan had heard about the words of Huizhong, Insentient beings speak dharma. . . . All sages can hear it. But he inquired further: Who can hear insentient beings speak dharma? Is Dongshan agreeing or not agreeing with Huizhong? Is this a question or a statement? If Dongshan was not agreeing with Huizhong, why did he speak this way? If he was agreeing with Huizhong, why did he speak this way?
Yunyan said, Insentient beings hear insentient beings speak dharma. Transmit this blood vein and experience body and mind dropping away. Insentient beings hearing insentient beings speak dharma is essentially all buddhas hearing all buddhas speak dharma. In the assembly of beings, those who hear insentient beings speak dharma are insentient, whether they are sentient beings or insentient beings, ordinary or sacred.
With these essentials you should determine if past or present teachings are true or false. Even if a teaching was brought from India, if it has not been authentically transmitted by genuine masters, do not adopt it. Even if the lineage of teaching has lasted for thousands of years, if there is not an authentic succession from heir to heir, it’s not worth inheriting. Today, authentically transmitted teaching has already spread across the eastern lands. You can easily distinguish what is genuine or false.
When you hear, Sentient beings hear sentient beings speak dharma, accept this as the bones and marrow of all buddhas and ancestors. When you hear the words of Yunyan and Huizhong and wrestle with them, the sages who speak what all sages hear are insentient. Insentient beings who speak what insentient beings hear are sages. Since insentient beings speaking dharma are insentient, what they speak is insentient. This is how insentient beings speak dharma. This is how speaking dharma is insentient.
Dongshan responded: Being so, I don’t hear you speak dharma. Being so here refers to Yunyan’s words, Insentient beings hear insentient beings speak dharma. Because insentient beings hear insentient beings speak dharma, Dongshan said, I don’t hear you speak dharma. At this moment, Dongshan not only became part of the audience, but also revealed his towering determination to speak dharma for insentient beings. He not only experienced insentient beings speaking dharma, but he thoroughly took hold of hearing and not hearing insentient beings speak dharma. From there he experienced sentient beings speaking, not speaking, already having spoken, now speaking, and just speaking dharma. Furthermore, he clarified the hearing and the not-hearing of the dharma spoken by sentient beings and insentient beings.
Actually, hearing dharma is not limited to ear sense and ear consciousness. You hear dharma with complete power, complete mind, complete body, and complete way from before your parents were born, before the Empty Eon, through the entire future, the unlimited future. You can hear dharma with body first and mind last.
Such ways of hearing the dharma are all effective. Don’t think that you are not benefited by hearing the dharma if it does not reach your mind consciousness. Effacing mind, dropping body, you hear the dharma and see the result. With no mind and no body, you should hear dharma and benefit from it. Experiencing such moments is how all buddha ancestors become buddhas and attain ancestorhood.
Ordinary people cannot understand that dharma power transforms body and mind. The boundary of body and mind cannot be encompassed. When the effect of hearing dharma is planted in the field of body and mind, it never decays. It is bound to grow and bear fruit.
Foolish people may think that when we hear dharma, if we do not advance in understanding and cannot remember the teaching, there will be no benefit from it. They say it is essential to learn broadly and memorize extensively with our entire body and mind. They think that forgetting the teaching, absentmindedly leaving the place of instruction, creates no benefit and no accomplishment. They think in this way because they have not met a genuine teacher and encountered themselves. One who has not received authentic transmission face to face cannot be a genuine teacher. A genuine teacher is one who has received transmission authentically from buddha to buddha.
Indeed, to memorize in mind consciousness and not to forget is exactly how the power of hearing the dharma encompasses the mind and encompasses consciousness. At the very moment when this is done, you realize the power of encompassing body; encompassing past body, encompassing mind; encompassing past mind, encompassing future mind; encompassing cause and condition, action and result; encompassing form, essence, body, and activity; encompassing buddha; encompassing ancestor; encompassing self and other; and encompassing skin, flesh, bones, and marrow. The power of encompassing speech and encompassing sitting and lying down is manifest throughout the entire earth and sky.
The power of hearing dharma is not easy to know. But when we join the great assembly of buddha ancestors, and study their skin, flesh, bones, and marrow, there is no instant when the power of speaking dharma does not work, and there is no place where the power of hearing dharma does not extend. The tides of timelessness bring forth sudden or gradual effects. Thus, learning broadly and memorizing extensively are not to be abandoned. However, they are not the only key. Students should know about this. Dongshan understood it.
Dongshan responded by presenting this poem: How splendid! How wondrous! Inconceivable! Insentient beings speak dharma. Thus, insentient beings and their speaking dharma are both difficult to think about. What are the so-called insentient beings? Study that they are neither ordinary nor sacred, neither sentient nor insentient. Ordinary and sacred, sentient and insentient [in a usual sense], may be reached by thinking whether they are speaking or not speaking. Now it is inconceivable, splendid, and wondrous. What is splendid and wondrous cannot be reached by the wisdom and consciousness of the ordinary or the sacred. Heavenly beings and ordinary humans cannot assess it.
The ears never hear it. Even with heavenly ears or with dharma ears of all realms and all times, it cannot be understood through what is heard. Even with an ear on the wall or an ear on a stick, insentient beings speaking dharma cannot be heard, because it is not a sound that is the object of the ear. It is not that hearing with ears does not happen, but that it is impossible to hear even if we try for hundreds and thousands of eons. Insentient beings speaking dharma is the awesome manifestation of the single way beyond sound and form. Insentient beings speaking dharma is beyond the pit that ordinary beings and sages fall into.
Only the eyes do. Some people may think that this statement means that the coming and going of grass, trees, flowers, and birds viewed by humans are what eyes hear. This view is mistaken. It is not at all buddha dharma. There is no such understanding in the buddha dharma.
When we study Dongshan’s words Only the eyes do, it means we hear the voice of insentient beings speaking dharma with the eyes. We manifest the voice of insentient beings speaking dharma with the eyes. Investigate the eyes extensively. Because the voice heard by the eyes should be the same as the voice heard by the ears, the voice heard by the eyes is not the same as the voice heard by the ears. Do not think that eyes have ear organs. Do not think that eyes are ears. Do not think that voice appears in the eyes.
An ancient teacher [Xuansha] said, “The entire world of the ten directions is no other than a monk’s single eye.”
Don’t suppose that you can understand Dongshan’s words, Only the eyes do, by hearing it with a monk’s single eye. When you study the ancient teacher’s words, The entire world of the ten directions is no other than a monk’s single eye, the entire world of the ten directions is no other than a monk’s single eye. Furthermore, there are eyes on one thousand hands, one thousand true dharma eyes, one thousand ear eyes, one thousand tongue eyes, one thousand mind eyes, one thousand eyes throughout the mind, one thousand eyes throughout the body, one thousand eyes on top of a stick, one thousand eyes on the extremities of the body, one thousand eyes on the extremities of the mind, one thousand dead eyes in the midst of death, one thousand living eyes in the midst of life, one thousand eyes of self, one thousand eyes of other, one thousand eyes on top of eyes, one thousand eyes of study, one thousand vertical eyes, and one thousand horizontal eyes.
This being so, even if you study these entire eyes as the entire world, still it is not the embodiment of eyes. Urgently investigate hearing with the eyes insentient beings speaking dharma.
The meaning of Dongshan’s words is that insentient beings speaking dharma cannot be understood by ears. The eyes can hear the voice. Furthermore, there is hearing voice throughout the body and there is hearing voice wherever the body can reach. Even if you do not embody hearing the voice with the eyes, you should master with your body insentient beings hear insentient beings speaking dharma, and let go of insentient beings hear insentient beings speaking dharma.
As this teaching has been transmitted, Rujing, my late teacher, Old Buddha Tiantong, said, “Gourd with its tendrils is entwined with gourd.”
This is the speaking dharma of insentient beings, which transmits Yunyan’s true eye, his bones and marrow. Because all speaking dharma is insentient, insentient beings speak dharma. This is a venerable example. Insentient beings are those who speak dharma for insentient beings.
What do you call insentient beings? Know, those who hear insentient beings speak dharma are thus. What do you call speaking dharma? Know, those who do not know insentient beings are thus.
Touzi, Great Master Ciji of Shu Province, whose priest name was Datong, was an heir of Cuiwei, Zen Master Wuxue. Touzi was called Old Buddha Touzi by Mingjiao [Xuedou Zhongxian]. He was once asked by a monk, “What is insentient beings speaking dharma?”
Touzi replied, “Don’t bad-mouth them.”
What Touzi says here is indeed the dharma standard of the old buddha, a settling point of the ancestral teaching. Insentient beings speaking dharma and the speaking dharma of insentient beings are equally beyond bad-mouthing. Know that insentient beings speaking dharma is the totality of buddha ancestors. It is not known by followers of Linji or Deshan. Only buddha ancestors penetrate this.
Presented to the assembly of the ancient Yoshimine Temple, Yoshida County, Echizen Province, on the second day, the tenth month, the first year of the Kan gen Era [1243].
55
DHARMA NATURE
WHEN YOU STUDY buddha dharma with a sutra or with a teacher, you come to realization without a teacher. Coming to realization without a teacher occurs due to dharma nature.
Even if you have knowledge by birth, you should always look for a teacher and inquire about the way. Even if you have beyond-knowledge by birth, you should always practice in the endeavor of the way. Who does not have knowledge by birth? And yet, study a sutra and follow a teacher.
Know that to encounter a sutra or a teacher and experience dharma-nature samadhi is called the knowledge by birth of dharma-nature samadhi through encountering dharma-nature samadhi. This is acquiring knowledge of a past life, acquiring the three miraculous powers, and realizing unsurpassable, complete enlightenment.
You encounter knowledge by birth and study knowledge by birth. You encounter knowledge without a teacher and spontaneous knowledge, and authentically transmit knowledge without a teacher and spontaneous knowledge.
Without having knowledge by birth, you cannot hear dharma nature and you cannot realize dharma nature even if you encounter a sutra or a teacher. The great way is not like someone who drinks water and therefore knows whether it is cold or warm.
All buddhas, all bodhisattvas, and all sentient beings clarify the great road of all dharma nature with the power of knowledge by birth. That you clarify the great road of dharma nature with a sutra and a teacher is no other than clarifying dharma nature by yourself.
Sutras are dharma nature that is you yourself. A teacher is dharma nature that is you yourself. Dharma nature is a teacher. Dharma nature is you yourself. Because dharma nature is you yourself, it is not you tempted by those outside the way or a group of demons. Dharma nature has no outside-the-way and no demons. It is just that you have a morning meal, you have a midday meal, and you have tea.
However, those who call themselves students for two or three decades keep being dumbfounded upon hearing a discussion on dharma nature; they pass their lives in this way. Those who call themselves longtimers in monasteries, who are seated in a bent-wood teaching chair, can only climb in and out of a pit of confusion with their bodies, minds, and environs when they hear the voice of dharma nature and see its form. Their reaction proves that they mistakenly think that dharma nature emerges even after the three realms and the ten directions we live in collapse. They also mistakenly think that such dharma nature is separate from all phenomena in this mome
nt.
The meaning of dharma nature is not like that. All phenomena and dharma nature go beyond arguments about whether they are the same or different, about whether they are identical or separate. What is not past, present, and future, not permanent or impermanent, not form, perception, feeling, inclination, and discernment, is dharma nature.
Mazu, Zen Master Daji of Jiangxi, said, “No sentient beings have the need to come out of dharma-nature samadhi for innumerable eons. They stay in dharma nature forever, wearing a robe, eating a meal, and exchanging words. These activities of the six sense organs and all other activities are no other than dharma nature.”
The dharma nature spoken of by Mazu is dharma nature speaking of dharma nature. It practices together with Mazu. It practices together with dharma nature.
I hear this. So how should I not speak of it? Dharma nature rides on Mazu [meaning Horse Ancestor]. A person takes a meal, and a meal takes a person.
Once being dharma nature, you don’t leave dharma-nature samadhi. You don’t leave dharma nature before being dharma nature. You don’t leave dharma nature after being dharma nature. Dharma nature, together with immeasurable eons, is dharma-nature samadhi. Dharma nature is called immeasurable eons.
Thus, just this right now is dharma nature. Dharma nature is just this right now. Wearing a robe and eating a meal is dharma-nature samadhi wearing a robe and having a meal. Dharma nature that is a robe is actualized. Dharma nature that is a meal is actualized. Dharma nature no other than eating is actualized. Dharma nature no other than wearing is actualized.
Treasury of the True Dharma Eye Page 69
