The Ways of Zen 069117976X, 9780691179766

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The Ways of Zen

THE ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY OF CHINESE CLASSICS

The Illustrated Library of Chinese Classics brings together a series of immensely appealing and popular graphic narratives about traditional Asian philosophy and literature, all written and illustrated by C. C. Tsai, one of East Asia’s most beloved cartoonists. Playful, humorous, and genuinely illuminating, these unique adaptations offer ideal introductions to the most influential writers, works, and schools of ancient Chinese thought. The Ways of Zen Dao De Jing • Laozi The Way of Nature • Zhuangzi The Analects • Confucius The Art of War • Sunzi

The Ways of Zen Adapted and illustrated by C. C. Tsai Translated by Brian Bruya Foreword by Martine Batchelor

Copyright © 2021 by Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is committed to the protection of copyright and the intellectual property our authors entrust to us. Copyright promotes the progress and integrity of knowledge. Thank you for supporting free speech and the global exchange of ideas by purchasing an authorized edition of this book. If you wish to reproduce or distribute any part of it in any form, please obtain permission. Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to [email protected] Published by Princeton University Press 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu All Rights Reserved ISBN (pbk.) 978-­0-­691-­17976-­6 ISBN (e-­book) 978-­0-­691-­22051-­2 British Library Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data is available Editorial: Rob Tempio and Matt Rohal Production Editorial: Mark Bellis Lettering: Meghan Kanabay Text Design: C. Alvarez-­Gaffin Cover Design: Michael Boland Production: Erin Suydam Publicity: Alyssa Sanford and Amy Stewart Copyeditor: Shanti Fader Whitesides Cover Image Credit: C. C. Tsai This book has been composed in News Gothic Std and Adobe Fangsong Printed on acid-­free paper. ♾ Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Foreword by Martine Batchelor ix Introduction by Brian Bruya xiii Map xxi Zen Lineage Chart 1 xxii Zen Lineage Chart 2 xxiii Zen Lineage Chart 3 xxiv Zen Lineage Chart 4 xxv What Is Zen? Enlightenment of the Wave A Cup of Zen The Outcome of Enlightenment Transmission of the Lamp Passing on the Mind Seize the Moment Kashyapa and the Flagpole Zen’s Origin Story Huineng, Sixth Ancestor A Special Transmission Separate from the ­Scriptures Not Reliant on the Written Word Direct Pointing at One’s Mind Seeing One’s Nature, Becoming a Buddha Non-­Abiding Pointing at the Moon Sudden in the South, Gradual in the North Shenhui of Heze Huizhong of Nanyang Xuanjue of Yongjia

2 3 4 5 8 9 11 12 14 26 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 49 51 53

Huairang of Nanyue Xingsi of Qingyuan Mazu Daoyi, ANCESTOR MA Riding a Mule in Search of a Mule The Hunter’s Marksmanship Self-­nature How Could it Have Flown Away? Buddha of the Sun, Buddha of the Moon Baizhang’s Rules A Day Without Work Is a Day Without Food Zen of the Fox The Great Suppression No Self, No Other Because I’m Here Fire in the Embers Xiangyan Hits Bamboo The Mind Is the Buddha The Devil of Language Eating and Sleeping Self and Other Giving and Receiving Six in One Xiangyan up a Tree Follow the Flow Juzhi’s One-­finger Zen Juzhi Severs a Finger Grasping Emptiness Being and Nothingness A Mountain in a Mustard Seed What’s Not a Prime Cut?

56 58 60 63 64 66 68 69 70 72 73 75 77 78 79 80 82 83 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 95 96 97 98 99

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contents

Nanquan Kills a Cat Looking but Not Seeing Congshen of Zhaozhou Kicked by a Donkey Not a Stitch On The Dao Is in Dung If the Mind Is Pure, Everything Is Pure The Buddha-­nature of a Dog Dust Zhen Prefecture’s Big White Radishes Zhaozhou’s Stone Bridge Go Wash Your Bowl What Is Self-­cultivation? A Cypress Tree Becomes a Buddha The Many Return to the One What Is Zhaozhou? Zhaozhou Asks the Way to Zhaozhou The Cypress Tree Out Front There Is No Substitute Dropping Everything Have Some Tea If I Don’t Go to Hell, Who Will? Yixuan of Linji Cracking a Whip to Stop the Flow No Crutches, No Desires The Sweet Smell of Osmanthus Mind Like the Surroundings No Better Than a Clown A Water Buffalo through a Window With a Slight Fanning, the Fire Returns A Morning of Moon and Wind Easier Known Than Done What Isn’t the Buddha-­dharma? The Ordinary Mind Returning Empty-­handed Daowu of Tianhuang Chongxin of Longtan A Nun Becomes a Monk Xuanjian of Deshan

100 101 102 104 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 126 127 128 129 130 132 133 134 136 137 138 139 140 142 144 145

Jingqing and the Sound of Raindrops 149 Not Recognizing the True Self 150 The Sound of the Stream 151 Laughing with Heaven and Earth 152 Zen Can’t Be Spoken 153 Clouds in the Blue Sky, Water in a Bottle 154 Snowflakes Fall where They Should 155 What Are Life and Death? 156 Liangjie of Dongshan 158 Cold when Cold, Hot when Hot 162 The Road Begins Here 163 Fayan Wenyi 164 A Drop of Water from the Cao River 166 Emptiness 167 The Lamp Boy Comes Looking for a Flame 168 Wenyan of Yunmen 170 Every Day Is a Good Day 172 One Word Gate 173 Yunmen’s Three Lines 174 Same Destination, Different Paths 176 Three Pounds of Flax 177 The Mute and the Parrot 179 Master of Thy Self 180 Alpine Flowers Blossom Like Brocade 181 Danxia Burns the Buddha 182 CHANGING WITH the SURROUNDINGS 183 The Bodhisattva Shanhui 184 Standing for the Emperor 185 Three Traditions in One 186 Shanhui’s Poem 187 Being Your Own Master 188 Carrying a Woman Across a River 189 The Gates of Heaven 190 The Lamebrain Official 191 Black Bamboo, Red Bamboo 192 The Order of Life and Death 193 Vow of Silence 194 Everything Is Empty 195 The Buddha Is in the Home 196

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The Lost Student Enlightenment of the Thief Can’t Say It Zen in a Cup Disregarding Titles Self and Other Words Exceeding Actions Fate Is in Your Own Hands The Faster, the Slower The General’s Antique The Close Friend A Blind Man Carrying a Lantern Something Valuable A Blade of Grass, a Drop of Dew For No Reason Past, Present, Future The Great Wave BECAUSE I’M HERE Matter Is Empty

197 198 199 200 201 202 204 205 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 218 219

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The Weeping Lady 220 Mind Like a Mirror 221 Mountain Paths Don’t Change 222 Torn 223 Where Do We Go after Death? 224 The Swordless Sword 225 The Spider and the Monk 226 Rich and Poor 227 Do Not Grasp Either Extreme 228 Not Changing to Meet the Changes 229 Withered Tree Zen 231 Walking in the Rain 232 Difficult to Advance or Retreat 233 The Snake’s Two Heads 234 Rhapsody of the Frogs 236 The Spider’s Silk 238 Rashomon 242 Pronunciation Index

247

Foreword What Is Enlightenment? M a rti n e B a tc h e l o r

In The Ways of Zen, C. C. Tsai wonderfully depicts with humor as well as wisdom students looking for enlightenment in the wrong place or the wrong way. Enlightenment is an attractive notion. Nowadays, as in ancient times, people want to attain enlightenment or declare that they have done so. But what has actually been attained? When you meditate, you can experience various states in which you feel different from your usual self. Are these enlightened states? Do they give you enlightenment permanently? Modern Zen Master Kusan used to say that these were not an experience of awakening but merely a perception of the luminous nature of the mind. The Buddha achieved great meditative states through concentration exercises, but he did not feel that they were the ­answer to his predicament—­life, death, suffering. The B ­ uddha’s enlightenment was based on the dissolution of hatred, greed, and delusion, not on achieving any specific meditative states. In The Ways of Zen, Tsai’s illustrations and commentary make these challenging Zen stories accessible to new generations while pointing out that saying one is enlightened might prove the contrary. As Nagarjuna, a second-­ century philosopher monk, said very clearly: “I am free! I cling no more! Liberation is mine!” The greatest clinging Is to cling like this?1 Stephen Batchelor, trans., Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime (New York: Riverhead Books, 2001). 1 

A poem by an early Buddhist nun who was practicing at the time of the Buddha expresses well what the practice and the goal are: Although I left home for no home and wandered, full of faith, I was still greedy for possessions and praise . . . Life is short. Age and sickness gnaw away. I have no time for carelessness Before this body breaks. And as I watched the elements of mind and body Rise and fall away I saw them as they really are. I stood up. My mind was completely free. The Buddha’s teaching has been done.2 On the Zen path one must be careful of the expectations one has about enlightenment. As Zen Chinese poet Hanshan said: Body clothed in a no-­cloth robe, Feet clad in turtle’s fur boots, Susan Murcott, The First Buddhist Women: Translation and Commentary on the Therigatha (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1991). 2 

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I seize my bow of rabbit horn And prepare to shoot the devil Ignorance.3 Enlightenment is often associated with certain mystical images. People imagine that if they become enlightened suddenly it will be like pressing a switch and light will surround them, or that they will start floating in space. Or they might think that enlightenment will bring them ultimate peace and utter contentment, that it will solve all their problems and that they will never encounter any difficulties anymore. In the Avatamsaka Sutra, an important text for the Zen school, it is stated: “Sentient beings are Buddhas, Buddhas are sentient beings.”4 This implies that all beings have the nature of a Buddha and can awaken to it at any moment, which is a point that Tsai emphasizes in The Ways of Zen. But Buddhas must be humble and remember that they are also sentient beings and can make errors. In one second, you can be a Buddha; in the next second, you can be a deluded sentient being. At the root of Zen meditation, there is the moment of enlightenment of the Buddha. The root of the word “Buddha” is budh, which means “to awaken.” In the Zen tradition, there is a debate about whether practice and awakening are sudden or gradual. This debate is referred to several times in The Ways of Zen (e.g., pp. 46, 49, and 145). I would like to suggest that this is a false debate, as these two aspects, gradual and sudden, encompass the two essential facets of Zen practice. Zen meditation stands at the crossroads formed by the two dimensions intersecting. The gradual dimension represents the width of practice, and the sudden represents the depth. There is a gradual aspect to the practice. You put in effort, with patience and a long-­enduring mind. This bears fruit and you see some progress. Over time, meditation becomes easier, the mind is calmer and clearer. You become wiser and more compassionate. There is also a sudden dimension to the practice. Suddenly you have a flash of insight and you see clearly the Han-­Shan, Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T’ang Poet Han-­Shan, trans. by Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967). 4  Thomas Cleary, trans., The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Transla­ tion of the Avatamsaka Sutra (Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 1984). 3 

way things are. As you let go of certain mental and emotional habits, you have a glimpse of states of liberation. You do not consciously force yourself to do this; it just happens. Korean Zen Master Bojo advocated several sudden awakenings followed each time by gradual practice. He pointed out that before you can really step confidently and surely on the path, you need a sudden insight, however small, to show you the way and to give you faith. Because delusions and habits are powerful, you must patiently cultivate gradual practice to actually put into action the breakthrough you’ve had and embody it in the world in an experiential way. Two Chinese Zen poems describe these two dimensions. The first one is by Master Shenxiu and the second one by the sixth Zen ancestor Huineng, as mentioned in The Ways of Zen (pp. 29–30): The body is the wisdom tree, The mind like a bright mirror stand; Always strive to wipe it clean, Making sure that no dust lands. Wisdom has never been a tree, The bright mirror has no stand; There has never been anything, So where can dust land? Both dimensions are needed. If the practice is only thought about in terms of gradual development, you can become deter­ ministic and narrow. There is a very fixed set of instructions and results, and everyone has to fit into it. This approach can become too mechanistic and does not always allow for people’s differences. Following only the sudden dimension approach, on the other hand, could lead to ignoring ethics and morality. One way to reconcile the two could be to practice regularly without expecting any definite result while at the same time being open to awakening breaking through at any moment. Enlightenment cannot be reducible to a single ­experience and replicated as such. As shown in The Ways of Zen, enlightenment is a process of de-­grasping, of letting go, of shedding. It is not a permanent state that is transcendental and outside the conditions that one inhabits. One awakens to one’s own nature, not to something outside of it. One awakens to what

foreword 

is there and at this moment cannot be clearly seen. As Tsai comments on p. 127: By seeking the Buddha, we lose the Buddha; in seeking Bodhidharma, we lose Bodhidharma. The most precious thing there is resides inside you—­it is yourself. In pursuing external objects, we tend to lose sight of that.

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As illustrated in The Ways of Zen, awakening, or enlightenment, might not actually be what one thinks or hopes it is. In the opening panels of this book, Tsai depicts a fish surprised to learn that it is living in water. Looking for enlightenment is similar to a fish looking for water, and awakening is when it realizes it is already swimming in it.

Introduction B ri a n B ru y a

About the time Christianity began spreading across the Roman Empire, something momentous happened in China. Buddhist texts began trickling in from trade routes in the West, via what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan. That trickle turned into a flood, and by the time of the Tang Dynasty a half-­millennium later, China, the once-­Confucian country, viewed itself as ­Buddhist, with tens of thousands of temples and hundreds of thousands of monks and nuns. The historic nature of this change was momen­tous. Confucians valued family above all else, yet the very word for joining the Buddhist order was chu jia, “leaving the family.” Confucians valued government service, yet ­Buddhist clerics lived separate from society, even escaping to mountain temples. Confucians saw the individual as a member of an enduring ancestral lineage continuing indefinitely into the future, yet Buddhists saw the individual as an ephemeral traveler from one karmic lifetime to the next. Buddhist dominance didn’t last politically, but it did have a lasting philosophical impact. And yet the Buddhism of China was sort of like Chinese food in America—­adapted to local tastes. Seriousness was tinged with playfulness, humans were cosmic participants, and schools of Buddhist thought came to resemble ancestral lineages. The Buddhism of this book—­Zen Buddhism—­grew up in Tang Dynasty China (618–­907 CE) and later spread to Korea and Japan, and has more recently traveled to the Americas and Europe. Zen came to the West mostly from Japan, specifically from the Rinzai and Soto traditions. Both traditions come from and are named after Chinese Zen masters. This book retells

the story of the origin of Zen in China and illustrates some of its greatest episodes. Zen is famous for its stories, especially the distilled ones called koan in Japanese and gongan in Chinese, meaning something like “case,” as in case study or legal case. They are designed to get you thinking but also to take you away from your typical patterns of thinking. They can be funny but perplexing, intriguing but mystifying, startling and thought-­provoking. The illustrations in this book help enhance each of these aspects, so we can see the cypress tree that will become a Buddha (p. 115), the dog that doesn’t have the buddha-­nature (or does it?) (p. 109), and the monastery wall where Huineng pens his famous poem (p. 30). Philosophically, what should we think of the Zen stories in this book? How do we make sense of them? Once when an Indian yoga teacher of mine was explaining the practice of meditation, he said that when he was growing up it was common for his parents and teachers to tell him to concentrate on his math problems or concentrate on his reading—­to dhyan this and dhyan that. My yoga teacher’s point was that meditating—­dhyan—­is not something mysterious and outside of ordinary experience. Rather, it is nothing more than concentrating, or focusing the mind on a particular thing. About two thousand years ago, when Buddhism was transmitted from India to China, the term that was pronounced something like dhyan in India was passed straight into China—­something like dzyen in the Chinese of that period. The Chinese character representing that pronunciation is today pronounced something

xi v  

introduction

like chon, and spelled “Chan” in our alphabet. The Japanese version is spelled “Zen.” So Zen is nothing more than concentrating on something. There is nothing fundamentally mystical about it. This little bit of information can go a long way in coming to understand the often-perplexing stories in this book. In story after story, when a seemingly innocent question is asked, the student is blindsided with a response that seems totally out of left field, as if the teacher were trying to say, “Stop thinking so much! It’s not that complicated!” Is Zen complicated? It is, and it’s not. There is a story not in this book that is useful for understanding the stories that are in the book. The Song Dynasty Zen monk Weixin was giving a lecture to his students. He said: Thirty years ago, before I studied Zen, I saw a mountain as a mountain and a river as a river. Later, after I had acquired some knowledge, I had a bit more understanding and saw a mountain as not a mountain and a river as not a river. Today, in a place of retirement, it’s the same as before. A mountain is just a mountain, and a river is just a river. (Wu deng hui yuan) The arc of Weixin’s story is one from ignorance to book knowledge to experiential knowledge. The final step—­from book knowledge to experiential knowledge—­is the most difficult because it essentially involves forgetting (or transcending, or setting aside, or fully assimilating) the book knowledge—­ taking the final step by pushing away the ladder. Simply put, this book is about learning how to push away the ladder, then returning home with a new perspective. Zen is like an Escher staircase—­climbing it brings us back to where we started. For us, the ladder begins in India, specifically in a Hindu philosophy that sees an underlying reality to all things. We can think of this underlying reality as a spiritual essence. The Sanskrit term is Atman. You have an Atman that is who you are at the most basic level. I have an Atman that is who I am. Peel away all the layers, and the only thing left is Atman, the true reality of all things. When the Buddha came along about 2,500 years ago and pursued the most advanced philosophy of his

day, this is what he was taught. And yet, try as he might, he was unable to experience this Atman for himself. Finally, while meditating, he had a realization—­anatman, “no Atman”—­that there is no such thing as Atman, no underlying reality that defines each and every thing. Some scholars today dispute this version of events, claiming that where the Buddha lived, this version of Hindu philosophy was not yet prevalent.1 That’s okay, because other scholars now claim that the idea of a spiritual reality inside of things is something of a cultural universal, something that we all believe one way or another from the time we are children—­it’s just how humans naturally see the world, they say.2 I don’t know which of these sets of scholars is correct, but I do know that some influential ancient Greek and Roman thinkers also had a belief in something we would today call a “soul”—­an underlying reality that defines a thing. And, of course, Muslims, Christians, and Jews still believe this today. If one grows up in a culture with this kind of belief, then it will become a habitual way of understanding the world, and like all habits, it will be hard to break. This may be why the Buddha was frustrated for so long before his awakening and why the young monks in this book struggle and struggle. They see the world one way out of habit and convention, and although they know it’s not correct, they just can’t seem to turn the corner and see it for what it really is. It’s sort of like struggling to understand a math problem until it just clicks. There is a hilarious irony here because yet another set of scholars believes that the early Chinese are a counterexample to the claim that a belief in an essential underlying, spiritual reality is a cultural universal. These scholars say that the early 1  See, for example, Johannes Bronkhorst, Greater Magadha: ­Studies in the Culture of Early India (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2007) and Joseph Walser, “When Did Buddhism Become Anti-­Brahmanical? The Case of the Missing Soul,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 86, No. 1 (March 2018): 94–­125. 2  See, for example, Paul Bloom, Descartes’ Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human (New York: Basic Books, 2004) and Edward Slingerland, Mind and Body in Early China: Beyond Orientalism and the Myth of Holism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).

introduction 

Chinese believed in something called Dao, which is more of a process than a thing, more of a dynamic patterning than a spiritual essence.3 So, could the medieval Chinese have had just the right way to see the world to begin with and then spent decades studying Buddhist texts and meditation just to find their way right back to where they started? Consider the episode on p. 139 of this book. The great monk Shitou (pronounced “sure-­toe”) is asked what he gained when he studied with the Sixth Ancestor Huineng. He says he didn’t gain anything. And when asked, well, why did he go in the first place, he says, “If I hadn’t gone . . . how would I know I never lacked anything?” This is learning as unlearning, acquiring knowledge for the purpose of forgetting it. We actually do this all the time when we learn a skill. My baseball coach used to tell me to just swing the bat and not try so hard to hit the ball. While I was concentrating on the other things he had taught me—­ holding the bat at a certain angle, right elbow up, stepping into the pitch—­I should have somehow been forgetting all that. Or not forgetting, exactly, but through practice, assimilating that knowledge—­converting it from “book knowledge” in my conscious mind to experiential knowledge that my body just performs without me thinking about it. The last step off the ladder in Zen Buddhism, pushing the ladder away, is the success of this kind of conversion—­from knowing intellectually that there is no spiritual essence of things to really getting it, to seeing and living in the world from this perspective. This talk about spiritual essence is buried so deep in this book that it is impossible to see on the surface. Atman, while translatable as “soul” or spiritual essence, is also translatable as “self,” and this is where we begin to get some traction. But wait a minute: Does that mean the Buddha claims that I don’t See, for example, David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Thinking from the Han: Self, Truth, and Transcendence in Chinese and Western Culture (Stony Brook, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998) and Francois Jullien, Detour and Access: Strategies of Meaning in China and Greece (New York: Zone Books, 2004). 3 

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have a self? Yes, this is what the Buddha claims. It is the most fundamental idea of Buddhist metaphysics. What does it mean to not have a self? Consider your plans for the weekend. Maybe you will go see a movie. Maybe you will help a friend move. Maybe you will catch up on things around the house. Maybe you’ll have a special family meal. Whichever it is, when you think about these plans, make them, carry them out, then evaluate how they went afterward, you will always be at the center of the events. Your perspective, desires, needs, anxieties, pleasures, and pains drive everything ahead. Your concerns are the motor that propels your life forward. In an early sutra, the Buddha says that a run-­of-­the-­mill person may be able to realize without trying too hard that the body is not the self. This may happen, for instance, if we suffer from an injury or illness. We still seem essentially the same, even though our body may have suffered a drastic change. However, it is much more difficult, the Buddha says, to realize that the mind is not the self.4 You can get a new perspective on the body, but how do you get a new perspective on the mind, when it is your mind that holds your perspective? This is what makes it so hard. The philosophical path of Buddhism is about acquiring the knowledge and skills to understand that the mind is not the self. The final step of kicking away the ladder is to realize deep down that fundamentally there is no you there. Does that sound hard? Brutally. And it is basically what this book is about—­how teachers incite students to take that step and how students finally succeed in doing it. Philip Kapleau, one of the first American teachers of Zen, collected some diary accounts of people who had experienced the sudden realization that we are talking about here. They can be shocking to read. Here is one: April 20, 1953: Attended S—­’s Zen lecture today. As usual, could make little sense out of it. . . . Why do I go on with these lectures? Can I ever get [enlightenment] listening to philosophical explanations of prajna and karuna and why A isn’t A and all the rest of that? What the hell is [enlightenment] anyway? . . . 4 

Assutava Sutta.

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introduction

September 3, 1953: Quit business, sold apartment furniture and car. . . . Tokyo, October 6, 1953: . . . strolled through [the monastery] gardens. . . . December 5, 1953: Pain in legs unbearable. . . . Why don’t I quit? . . . Why did I ever leave the United States? . . .5 Five years later, finally: August 5, 1958: . . . Threw myself into [thinking about nothingness] for nine hours with such utter absorption that I completely vanished. . . . I didn’t eat breakfast, [nothingness] did. I didn’t sweep and wash the floors after breakfast, [nothingness] did. . . .6 Here’s another diary account: Tears gushed out.  .  .  . I’m dead! There’s nothing to call me! There never was a me! . . . Everything my eyes fell upon was radiantly beautiful. . . . I feel a consciousness which is neither myself nor not myself.7 By my count, C. C. Tsai has given us at least nineteen depictions of enlightenment experiences in this book. Baizhang’s, for example, occurs on p. 68. He is out with his teacher Mazu when some wild ducks fly overhead. Mazu asks a simple question: “What are those?” Baizhang gives the obvious answer: “Wild ducks.” Mazu follows up with a more difficult question: “Where are they flying?” Baizhang musters his best Zen response: “Away.” To which Mazu responds by tweaking Baizhang’s nose so painfully that Baizhang suddenly experiences enlightenment. What the comic depiction doesn’t show is that Baizhang returns to his hut and weeps loudly. Not from the pain but from the expe­ rience of losing himself in that moment and the radical new perspective that it gives him—­a perspective absent the self. When you read the stories in this book, they are all pointing in this direction: how to realize deep down the basic Buddhist 5  Philip Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and Enlightenment (New York: Anchor Books, 2000), pp. 232–­242. 6  Kapleau, p. 253. 7  Kapleau, pp. 297–­298.

idea that your conventional way of seeing your self as the center of your existence is also the source of all your troubles. By overcoming that habit, you can live a life of simple freedom, joy, and beauty. But why joy instead of anguish and despair at the lack of meaning and divine consciousness in the world? Where is joy without a soul, without a cosmic plan? Actually, the teachers in this book don’t say there’s no soul. They say, like in the episode about a cypress tree, that the buddha-­nature underpins everything. Isn’t that like a cosmic divinity imbuing everything with meaning? Yes and no. This is where early Indian (Theravada) Buddhism meets Daoism and later Indian (Mahayana) Buddhism, and where the ideas get increasingly difficult to explain. But allow me to try. First, consider what an astronomer colleague of mine once said when I asked him about the shape of the universe. “Is it a sphere?” I asked. He told me that there is no way to use conventional ideas, like geometric forms, to accurately visualize the shape of the universe. You can only make sense of it through mathematics. But since most people can’t understand the sophisticated mathematics required, astronomers resort to metaphors, like the shape of a donut, to explain it to the rest of us. When astronomers tell us that we can’t understand something through conventional perspectives, does that make the subject matter mystical and divine—­ineffable and achievable only through a spiritual connection? Not necessarily. It just means it’s complicated. The Buddhist view of the universe is also complicated, all the more so in that different Buddhists have different ways of explaining and the explanations sometimes seem incompatible. Buddhists have overcome seemingly contradictory explanations by proposing what is called the Two Truths theory—­ namely, that two contradictory notions can both be true at the same time. The universe is the shape of a donut, for example, but it’s also not the shape of a donut. Karma really is a feature of the universe but really it’s not. Like in the diary entry above: A isn’t A. On p. 96 of this book, a layman asks a monk whether there are such things as Heaven and Hell. When the monk responds

introduction 

that there are, the man objects that a different monk had told him that there aren’t such things. So which is true? They’re both true. Ugh! Although many stories in this book are designed by the original authors to seemingly throw you for a loop, there are a few that speak in a more familiar, straightforward way. Let’s look at those as a way to understand the Two Truths theory and the wackier episodes in the book: • On p. 103, the monk Zhaozhou asks his teacher Nan­ quan, “What is the Dao?” Nanquan says it is “the ordinary mind.” • On p. 138, a monk asks his teacher, “How should I practice the Dao?” The teacher responds, “Eat when you’re hungry, and sleep when you’re tired.” • On p. 167, Yongming asks his teacher Fayan whether emptiness possesses the basic characteristics of all things. Fayan’s simple response is that it is empty. • On p. 178, after a monk has been sent in circles trying to find an answer to his question, “What is the Buddha?” his teacher Dongshan says, “Language cannot get at the root of things. Whoever insists on using language sacrifices the truth and will forever be confused.” We’ll begin understanding these stories by thinking about dirt, from three perspectives. From our typical, everyday perspective, dirt is inanimate. There is no vitality to it. It just sits there. From the perspective of subatomic physics, on the other hand, there are all kinds of movement and oppositional forces at play. Rather than stasis, it is fundamentally dynamic and, interestingly, mostly empty space. Now consider a reconfiguration of the components of dirt into the life of a plant that gets its nutrients from that dirt and then another reconfiguration into animals and humans. We humans are composed of the same atomic structures that compose dirt and are subject to the same forces; yet, rather than being inanimate, we are alive and, most importantly, conscious of our experience in the world. In the first episode above, the ordinary mind is the answer to the question, “What is the Dao?” The Dao can be understood

xvii

as the proper way of practice. It can also be understood metaphysically as the basic constituent forces of the universe—­ cosmic patterning. The answer is that the cosmos is conscious at many localized points, like you and me. Not in you and me, but as you and me. You are the cosmos coming to life, coming to consciousness, as am I. The buddha-­nature is like this. The second story is about actually practicing the Dao, which is for the ordinary mind to live an ordinary life. The underlying principles may be complicated and hard to understand, but really, when it comes right down to it, whether it has clicked for you or not, we are of this world and the meaning of our lives is to simply live in this world by living simply. What does the third episode mean by saying that all things are empty? A famous passage in the Heart Sutra, a favorite of Zen Buddhists, is that matter (the basic constituent of all things) is empty and emptiness is matter. This is sort of like the emptiness of the atoms mentioned above, but probably not in the way that you are thinking. Another deceptive model of physics is the typical toothpick and ping-pong ball depiction of the atom. The ping-pong balls that seem to be the substance of the atom are, themselves, reducible. To what? Not to anything that we can really hang our hat on and call the basic substance of the universe. The Buddha was not a physicist and would probably be as perplexed as the rest of us when trying to wrap his head around the specifics of subatomic physics, but he seemed to understand the concept of a universe that has nothing substantial at bottom. The term he used was shunyata, emptiness, and although he did not often stress it, later Maha­ yanists did, and it made its way prominently to China. Couple this with the idea that we live our lives from a perspective of resolute subjectivity. Descartes said, “I think. Therefore, I am,” purportedly proving that there is nothing more basic than consciousness—­we are alive, we are the center of our universe, there is meaning in the world; I think, I feel, I am experiencing the here and now. And yet, according to the ­Buddha, I am really nothing more than a reconfigured lump of dirt. In the last bullet point above, there is the question, “What is the Buddha?” What is the most revered figure in Buddhism? What does it mean to be enlightened, as the Buddha (“the

xv i i i  

introduction

awakened one”) was? It is to somehow realize, beyond the limits of language, that it is both true that I am alive and conscious and living a meaningful life at the same time that it is true that nothing substantial really exists in the universe—­it is all, we are all—­at bottom, empty. On p. 67, Yaoshan asks Mazu pointblank, “How can I directly point at my mind, see my nature, and become a Buddha?” Mazu answers cryptically, “Sometimes I tell it to raise the eyebrows and blink. Sometimes I don’t tell it to raise the eyebrows and blink. Sometimes, the one raising the eyebrows and blinking is it, and sometimes the one raising the eyebrows and blinking is not it.” Now we have the conceptual tools to understand this remark. When you realize that you are the cosmos come to life, you’re no longer locked into your own subjectivity. The mountain is a mountain—the mountain is a lump of dirt. The mountain is not a mountain—the mountain has the cosmic potential to be fully conscious. The mountain is just a mountain—even I, a fully conscious being, am, like the mountain, just a lump of dirt. We have come full circle. We have, intellectually and in the medium of language, anyway, kicked away the ladder. Life is at once both imbued with meaning—­joyful, liberating, lovely—­and also, at bottom, empty of any significance whatsoever. Now, when you return home, which perspective will you live by? Will you be like the weeping lady or the chuckling lady on p. 220? Attaining enlightenment—­ understanding these ideas through a profound experiential realization—­is difficult because we have been habituated to see ourselves as substantial and important. Seeing ourselves as the universe seeing itself, experiencing ourselves as the universe experiencing itself, requires practice. It requires breaking down the usual way of seeing and doing things. It requires study. It requires contemplation, concentration. It requires fellowship and dialogue. You will see all of these methods in this book, which is one reason it is entitled The Ways of Zen. The other reason for the title is the different approaches that the teachers take in guiding their students along a very unintuitive path. How do you get someone to make a radical shift in perspective? I remember math teachers trying to help me understand certain concepts in math. For some

teachers, if it didn’t click for me after one or two explanations, that would be the end of the conversation. The best teachers, however, were the ones who set me up to understand a concept by explaining related concepts and then, at the right time, gave me an explanation, a metaphor, or a problem that would help me finally understand. The teachers in this book are like a great math teacher. Usually, the stories only depict the final step, but the preliminary steps should be inferred. Teachers in this book would have lectured to groups of students and laypeople about the sutras and basic Buddhist concepts. At different times, students and teachers would also have recited the sutras, together or individually. They would certainly have had tea together. They lived together. Ate together. They saw each other’s foibles and potential. If a teacher’s own methods weren’t working, he would refer a student to another teacher at a different monastery. Specific methods may look cruel at first glance—­like bonking a monk on the head—­but the teachers saw themselves (and were seen by their students) as upholding the bodhisattva ideal—­putting off final nirvana until they have compassionately helped others to their own realization. One of the wonderful things about these comic illustrations is that we get to see the monastic context, which can help us imagine the lives they must have led between episodes. One kind of source text used for the episodes in this book is called a “lamp” text. Several collections of stories and biographies of monks were put together during the Song Dynasty. The first major one was called Zu tang ji—­Ancestral Hall Collection, published in the year 952. The word “ancestral” refers to great teachers of the past, and the connection from teacher to student was analogized to the connection between a father and son. Instead of blood ties, however, these were ties of understanding. The term “lamp” is used as a metaphor for the light of understanding that is passed on from teacher to student, beginning with the Buddha, in an unbroken string right up to the present day. Although some of these stories read like histories, we should keep in mind that their purpose is not to relate objective facts in the way that histories today attempt to do. When we read Plato’s dialogues or the parables of Jesus, for example, we don’t

introduction 

do so to learn what Meno really believed about memory or how much money a particular head of a household really lent to his slave in Jesus’ time. Instead, we read them for their ideas—­to understand their values and their perspectives on the world so that we can learn from them. The same attitude should be applied to the narratives here. Tsai makes it easy by beginning the book with a long-­ standing Zen saying: Not reliant on the written word, A special transmission separate from the scriptures; Direct pointing at one’s mind, Seeing one’s nature, becoming a Buddha. If you have trouble understanding any of the episodes in this book, thinking back to one of these lines in the context of the discussion above should help. Let’s look at one example from the book for each line of the saying. Not reliant on the written word. I count at least eight episodes where this is the basic message, one of which we already saw above (the final bullet point on p. xvii) The prime example in this book is on p. 45, in which the metaphor of pointing at the moon is used. As Tsai succinctly says in the final panel, “Language is merely a tool for pointing out the truth, a means to help us attain enlightenment. To mistake words for the truth is almost as ridiculous as mistaking a finger for the moon.” A special transmission separate from the scriptures. The prime example for this line is the episode on pp. 9–10, in which the Buddha passes on the wordless teaching to his student. Did this really happen? That’s not the point. The point is that understanding the ideas of Zen Buddhism requires going beyond the basic limits of language. It does not, however, mean that language or books don’t matter at all. Although Huineng was said to be illiterate, many other Zen masters were not only literate but very well read, and the training of a Zen monk involved reading sutras, reciting them, and discussing their contents. You have to climb the ladder before you can kick it away. Direct pointing at one’s mind. There is a story that will seem counterintuitive if you see Zen as fundamentally involving sitting in meditation. On p. 61, Huairang asks his student Mazu why

xix

he is sitting in meditation. Remember, “Chan/Zen” means “to meditate,” so a teacher asking a student this question is like a basketball coach asking a player on the practice court why she is shooting baskets. Understanding this episode has to do with two related Buddhist ideas that we’ve touched on already. The first is the notion of attachment. One way of understanding habitual behavior is through the idea of attachment. We become comfortable in a particular way of doing things, a particular way of viewing things. Although some Zen teachers, especially in the Linji/Rinzai tradition, have expressed a low opinion of the value of meditation in actually achieving enlightenment, it is still fundamental to the training. Huairang’s point is to steer Mazu away from getting too caught up in meditation as a practice, something Huairang must have witnessed Mazu doing outside of this particular episode. The path of Buddhist practice means not being attached to anything, even to particular Buddhist ideas and ideals, such as the goal of enlightenment itself. The second important notion here is the nature of the mind. We saw above that it should not be equated with the self. So, “direct pointing at one’s mind” means understanding—­directly, experientially—­that your individual mind is not who you most fundamentally are. Seeing one’s nature, becoming a Buddha. This line is the most difficult of all. If your individual mind is not who you really are, then who are you really? The answer, as we saw above, is Dao, or buddha-­nature, which is not only who you really are but what everything really is—­something that is and is not at the same time. There is something delicious about the thought that as we trudge a long, arduous road, we are actually already at our destination—­we just have to look around and realize it. So, it’s really complicated, but at the same time it’s really not. For most of the books in the Illustrated Library of Chinese Classics ­series, the classic text underpinning the illustrated version is obvious: The Art of War, The Analects, the Dao De Jing, etc. For this one, there are more than thirty separate texts from which Tsai has drawn. A small number of them account for the majority of episodes. The story of Huineng and his predecessors, from pages 26 to 50, draws almost exclusively from

xx  

introduction

the Platform Sutra (the Yuan Dynasty version, with some parts coming from the Dunhuang version). Some of the stories of Huineng’s followers are also from the Platform Sutra, but after page 50, the “lamp” collections are largely the sources for the lineages ­descended from Huineng, up through page 188. The lamp collections most commonly drawn from are Jingde chuan deng lu and Wu deng hui yuan. Some stories come from koan collections, such as Wu men guan and Bi yan lu. The source of many of the Zhaozhou stories is a classic text dedicated to him. Because many of these stories have several versions told in different texts, the version depicted here may differ slightly

from a version you’ve seen elsewhere. For example, many versions of Zhaozhou’s dog story (see p. 109) told in English have only the part where Zhaozhou says “no.” The Wu men guan has that version. The longer version you see here is drawn from the Cong rong lu, another collection of koan. It’s hard to say whether one version of a story is more or less authentic than another. We have created a map and lineage charts for this edition to help you orient yourself to the scale of Zen across time and space. They are by necessity limited to people and places mentioned in this book. Many of the temples are still functioning today and welcome visitors.

Zen temple (associated monk) 0 0

200 miles 200 kilometers

Linji Temple Guanyin Temple (Zhaozhou)

Huilin Temple (Danxia) Heze Temple (Shenhui)

Shaolin Temple (Bodhidharma)

Changshou Temple (Huizhong of Nanyang) Pu'le Temple (Shouchu of Dongshan)

Qingliang Temple (Fayan Wenyi) Nanquan Temple

Yuquan Temple (Shenxiu) Longtan Temple Yaoshan Temple Gu‘de Temple (Xuanjian of Deshan) Miyin Temple (Lingyou of Guishan) Bo're Temple (Huairang of Nanyue)

Tianhuang Temple (Daowu) Xiangdao Temple (Baizhang)

Nantai Temple (Shitou Xiqian)

Dongshan Temple (Hongren)

Dayun Temple (Huihai of Dazhu)

Yangshan Temple

Kaiyuan Temple (Mazu Daoyi) Dongshan Temple Longxing Temple (Liangjie) (Xuanjue of Yongjia) Anyin Temple (Xingsi of Qingyuan) Dizang Temple (Luohan Guichen)

Guangtai Temple (Wenyan of Yunmen)

Baolin Temple (Huineng)

Faxing Temple (Yinzong)

Map of Zen Temples in Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty China

xxi

Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha 500 BCE 9–12

Kashyapa

Ananda

9–12

12

[…]

Prajnatara 60

Bodhidharma

ཥᆃ

arrived 527 15–21, 39

Huike

ᅰ̈́ 18–22

Sengcan

ྩᐾ 22–23

Daoxin

Lineage Charts Key

ལ‫ۑ‬

Blank box indicates monk not appearing in book

23–24

Hongren

ͩӇ

[…]

Box with bracketed ellipsis indicates multiple generations not appearing

( )

Parentheses indicate monk illustrated but not named in text

24, 27–29, 31–33

Shenxiu

আԣ 28–31, 33, 46

Huineng

౴঻ 638–713 24–50, 53–60, 166

Huiming

౴‫ا‬ 40

Zen Lineage Chart 1: The Buddha to Huineng

x xi i

Huineng

ᅰ঻ ౴঻ 638–713 24–50, 53–60, 166

Yinzong

τ‫ׅ‬ 35–38

Shenhui of Heze

மጎআ๡ 670–758 46–50

Huizhong of Nanyang

۷෍ᅰ‫׫‬ 677–775

46–48, 51–52

Xuanjue of Yongjia

ͼ࿂΁᙭ 665–713

46–48, 53–55

Huairang of Nanyue

۷᏶ᖩ᝖ 677–744

Xingsi of Qingyuan

‫ࢍی‬м‫݋‬ 660–740

46–48, 56–57, 60–62

46–48, 58–59, 139

Mazu Daoyi

Shitou Xiqian

ਠঅལɾ 707–786

57, 60–69

Zhichang

ನગ 98

ΔᏃҹት 59, 66–67, 139–141

Zen Lineage Chart 2: Huineng’s Heirs

xxiii

Mazu Daoyi

ਠঅལɾ 707–786

57, 60–69

(Youyuan

Huihai of Dazhu

Љ຀)

ʨग़ᅰऺ 63, 138

138

Lingyou of Guishan

80–81, 89

Huizang of Shigong

Δኔᅰᕅ

‫ࣤޞ‬ 88

68, 70–77

64–65, 96

Huangbo

఍໠

79–86, 159

࡜ᘷನෆ

Hongen

Рʔ

Niaoke

ʱ᝞ং

Zhixian of Xiangyan

Baizhang

Yangshan

ήʱ 83–86

Yixuan of Linji

92–94

Muzhou

ᒂᐡ໳΁

๡௢)

຿ϳ

d. 867

137

124–127

90

˭Ꮭ)

124

(Huitong

Zhizang of Xitang

ʨଋ

(Tianlong

෦ᐘ

136–137

Damei

170–171

Juzhi

ࡲࠒ 91–95

[…]

Yangqi

๫Ҵ 130–131

(Huitang

Shouduan of Baiyun

૷੫)

Ύෙϭၷ

128

130–131

(Wuzu

ˉঅ)

[…]

132

Shanneng

െ঻ 134–135

Dahui Zonggao

ʨᅰ‫لׅ‬ 133

Zen Lineage Chart 3: Mazu’s Legacy

x xi v

Panshan

о੫ನᕅ

ᇟʱ

96–97

99

(Jingcen

ದҵ) 129

Nanquan

۷‫ޛ‬ 100–103, 159

Congshen of Zhaozhou

ღϳન⩷ 778–863

100, 102–123

Wenyuan

́ხ 107

Shitou Xiqian

ΔᏃҹት 59, 66–67, 139–141

Weiyan of Yaoshan

Daowu of Tianhuang

ෙᜢዶᳱ 77–78, 160–161

Liangjie of Dongshan

‫ޣ‬ʱԯ៧ 807–869 158–162

140–143

Ꮭᆺઉ‫ۑ‬

[…]

782–865

78, 156–157

Jianyuan

ဿ຀ 156–157

182

Chongxin of Longtan

Daowu

ལѳ

˂ᓝ

748–807

66–67, 152–155

Yunyan Tansheng

Danxia

˭ߗལࣧ

ᗣʱાᛦ

142–144, 147–148

Xuanjian of Deshan

Qingfeng

ᅭʱ‫ⴒܬ‬

‫ی‬峯

780–865

168

124, 145–148

Shiyan

Xuansha

Qianfeng

ਦ峯

[…]

163

(Dalong

ʨᏝ) 181

݂ࣖ

Wenyan of Yunmen

ෙ‫́ۃ‬ਫ

΁Ӹ

180

864–909

150

170–175

Luohan Guichen

(Tianzhu Ziyi

ᗘ်ङഋ

Baling

˶௽

˭‫ڑ‬ʪᄭ)

164–165

176

183

Fayan Wenyi

164–169

167

Shouchu of Dongshan

‫ޣ‬ʱϭ‫ڶ‬ 177–178

ನ‫ۃ‬

885–958

ͼ‫ا‬ལᆻ

ᘇଡ 149

Zhimen

ٗ୦́८

Daoqian of Yongming

Jingqing

177–178

Xuanze

΁۱

[…]

168–169

Cishou

ิ֌ 179

Zen Lineage Chart 4: Shitou’s Legacy

xxv

NOT RELIANT ON THE WRITTEN WORD,

A SPECIAL TRANSMISSION SEPARATE FROM THE SCRIPTURES;

達磨西來不立文字教外別傳直指人心見性成佛。

《歸元直指集》

ZEN IS:

DIRECT POINTING AT YOUR MIND,

SEEING YOUR NATURE, BECOMING A BUDDHA.

—BODHIDHARMA

1

孔 子 曰 ： 「 魚 相 造 乎 水 ，人 相 造 乎 道 。 相 造 乎 水 者 ，穿 池 而 養 給 ； 相 造 乎 道 者 ，無 事 而 生 定 。 故 曰 ，魚 相 忘 乎 江 湖 ，

人 相 忘 乎 道 術 。」

《莊子》

2

A BABY FISH ONCE ASKED AN ELDER FISH: I KEEP HEARING EVERYONE TALK ABOUT THIS THING CALLED “THE SEA.” JUST WHAT IS THE SEA?

WHAT IS ZEN?

THE SEA IS WHAT SURROUNDS YOU. BUT WHY CAN’T I SEE IT?

THE SEA IS WITHIN YOU AND ALL AROUND YOU. YOU WERE BORN IN THE SEA AND WILL DIE IN THE SEA. THE SEA ENVELOPES YOU, JUST LIKE YOUR OWN SKIN DOES.

CONFUCIUS SAID, “FISH FORGET THAT THEY LIVE IN LAKES AND RIVERS; PEOPLE FORGET THAT THEY LIVE IN THE MAGIC OF THE DAO.” PEOPLE LIVE IN A SEA OF ZEN, YET THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS. WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW WHAT ZEN IS?

PLEASE, READ ON …

ENLIGHTENMENT OF THE WAVE

OH, HOW I SUFFER SO. THE OTHER WAVES ARE SO BIG, AND I’M SO TINY. SOME WAVES ARE SO WELL OFF, AND MY LIFE IS SO LOUSY.

A WAVE IS JUST YOUR TEMPORARY FORM. YOU’RE REALLY WATER!

IT’S BECAUSE YOU HAVEN’T SEEN CLEARLY YOUR “ORIGINAL FACE” THAT YOU THINK YOU SUFFER.

WATER?

I’M NOT A WAVE? THEN WHAT AM I?

WHEN YOU REALIZE THAT YOUR FUNDAMENTAL NATURE IS WATER, YOU WON’T BE CONFUSED ABOUT BEING A WAVE, AND YOUR SUFFERING WILL GO AWAY.

OH, I GET IT! I’M YOU, AND YOU’RE ME. WE’RE BOTH PART OF A GREATER SELF!

PEOPLE SELFISHLY THINK THAT THEY BELONG ONLY TO THEMSELVES, SO THEY COMPARE THEMSELVES WITH OTHER PEOPLE AND THEN THEY THINK THAT THEY ARE SUFFERING. IN FACT, THOUGH, EVERY PERSON IS A PART OF NATURE. THINK ABOUT IT …

3

ONE DAY, A SCHOLAR WENT TO SEE A ZEN MONK NAMED NANIN TO INQUIRE ABOUT ZEN. NANIN TREATED HIS GUEST TO A CUP OF TEA.

A CUP OF ZEN

HE POURED THE TEA INTO A CUP, AND WHEN THE CUP WAS FULL, HE KEPT RIGHT ON POURING.

YOU ARE LIKE THIS CUP— FULL OF YOUR OWN THOUGHTS AND IDEAS. IF YOU DON’T FIRST EMPTY YOURSELF, HOW CAN I TEACH YOU ABOUT ZEN? I UNDERSTAND.

4

THAT’S ENOUGH! IT’S FULL!

IF YOUR MIND IS FILLED WITH YOUR OWN PREJUDICES, THE TRUTH THAT OTHERS SPEAK CAN’T BE HEARD. WHEN ENGAGING IN CONVERSATION, MOST PEOPLE ARE IN A HURRY TO EXPRESS THEIR OWN OPINION, AND AS A RESULT, THEY DON’T HEAR ANYTHING BUT THE SOUND OF THEIR OWN VOICES.

EVER SINCE ANCIENT TIMES, MANY PEOPLE HAVE LEFT THEIR HOMES AND LOVED ONES TO ENTER THE GATES OF BUDDHISM AND STUDY ZEN MEDITATION.

THE OUTCOME OF ENLIGHTENMENT

THEY EXPEND A GREAT AMOUNT OF TIME AND ENERGY IN DISCIPLINED CONTEMPLATIVE TRAINING, BUT WHAT IS IT THAT THEY GAIN?

NOTHING.

IF THIS QUESTION WERE POSED TO ENLIGHTENED ZEN MASTERS, THEY WOULD MOST LIKELY ANSWER:

WHEN WE STOP DIFFERENTIATING, HALT OUR DELUSIONS, AND PUT AN END TO ALL THOUGHTS, THE TWO HINDRANCES OF DISCURSIVE THOUGHT AND INTENTION WILL DISSOLVE. AND NATURALLY, AS OUR MINDS FILL WITH PEACE, THERE WILL BE “NOTHING” WE WON’T UNDERSTAND.

5

IF YOU ENGAGE IN SELF-CULTIVATION WITH THE DESIRE TO SEVER THE ROOTS OF DEFILEMENT AND ERRONEOUS THINKING, IT IS NOT ONLY TO ATTAIN THE TRANQUIL REALM OF TRUE EMPTINESS, WHICH INVOLVES NO-THOUGHT, NO-IDEA, NO-MIND, NO-SELF, ETC.; IT IS ALSO IN PURSUIT OF THE WONDERFUL WISDOM THAT IS EXPERIENCED IN AND GROWS FROM A WAY OF LIFE THAT IS DIFFERENT FROM THE ORDINARY. IN THAT REALM, THE WHOLE WORLD IS SEEN FROM ONE PERSPECTIVE AND THERE ARE NO DICHOTOMIES; IT IS THE TRUE WORLD WHERE THE SELF AND OTHER, AS WELL AS GOOD AND EVIL, ARE ALL TRANSCENDED. “IN CONFUSION, THE THREE REALMS EXIST; AFTER ENLIGHTENMENT, THE TEN DIRECTIONS ARE EMPTY.” BUT HOW DO WE ATTAIN THE REALM OF NOTHINGNESS AND EMPTINESS?

EMPTY

6

THE WAYS OF ZEN

7

案 《 周 書 異 記 》。 周 昭 王 即 位 二 十 四 年 。 甲 寅 歲 四 月 八 日 。 江 河 泉 池 忽 然 泛 漲 。 井 水 溢 出 山 川 震 動 。 有 五 色 光 入

貫 太 微。 遍 於 西 方 盡 作 青 虹 色。 太 史 蘇 由 曰。 有 大 聖 人 生 於 西 方。 一 千 年 外 聲 教 及 此。 昭 王 即 勅 鐫 石 記 之。 埋

於南郊天祠前。此即佛生之時也。

《釋迦方志》

8

TRANSMISSION OF THE LAMP

PLEASE DIVINE WHETHER THIS IS A GOOD OMEN OR A BAD OMEN.

IT IS SAID THAT ON THE EIGHTH DAY OF THE FOURTH LUNAR MONTH OF THE REIGN OF KING ZHAO OF THE ZHOU DYNASTY, THE RIVERS SUDDENLY FLOODED, THE EARTH SHOOK, AND THE SKY LIT UP WITH DAZZLING COLORS.

OKAY!

IT’S A GOOD OMEN ABOUT A GREAT SAGE BEING BORN IN A COUNTRY FAR TO THE WEST.

HOWEVER, IN APPROXIMATELY A THOUSAND YEARS, THE TEACHINGS OF THIS GREAT SAGE WILL BE TRANSMITTED TO OUR COUNTRY.

WILL HE AFFECT MY EMPIRE?

NO, HE WON’T …

ONE DAY ON VULTURE PEAK, THE FOUNDER OF BUDDHISM, SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA (SHAKYAMUNI THE BUDDHA), WAS PREPARING TO SPEAK.

SUDDENLY, HE PULLED OUT A FLOWER, WATCHING FOR THE REACTION OF HIS DISCIPLES. NOT UNDERSTANDING THE BUDDHA’S INTENT, THEY SAT THERE SILENTLY.

世尊昔在靈山會上。拈花示眾。是時眾皆默然。惟迦葉尊者破顏微笑。

PASSING ON THE MIND

ONLY THE VENERABLE KASHYAPA BROKE INTO A SMILE.

THE SAUVASTIKA (PRONOUNCED WAN IN CHINESE) ON THE BUDDHA’S FOREHEAD AND ELSEWHERE IN THIS BOOK, IS AN ANCIENT INDIAN SYMBOL OF GOOD FORTUNE AND COMMONLY USED IN CHINESE BUDDHISM.

9

世尊云。吾有正法眼藏涅槃妙心實相無相微妙法門。不立文字教外別傳。付囑摩訶迦葉。

《無門關》

10

MY METHOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT IS TO SEE THROUGH EVERYTHING, TO EMBRACE EVERYTHING, AND TO APPROACH THINGS WITH A HAPPY HEART, SEEING CLEARLY THEIR ORIGINAL FACE.

THIS MYSTERIOUS DHARMA TRANSCENDS BOTH LANGUAGE AND RATIONAL PRINCIPLES.

LOGICAL THINKING CANNOT BE USED TO ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT. INSTEAD, ONE MUST USE INTUITION.

JUST NOW, THE VENERABLE KASHYAPA REVEALED HIS UNDERSTANDING. THEREFORE, I SHALL PASS ON TO HIM THE ZEN MIND.

ZEN IS ENLIGHTENMENT PROCEEDING FROM THE RESONANCE BETWEEN THE PRINCIPLES OF AN UNPOLLUTED UNIVERSE AND THE MIND OF AN UNPOLLUTED LIFE, ALLOWING THE UNPOLLUTED MIND TO CONTINUE ON IN PEACEFUL CONTENTEDNESS.

WRONG.

SEVENTY YEARS.

WRONG.

HOW LONG IS A PERSON’S LIFE?

《 四 十 二 章 經 》、《 佛 説 處 處 經 》

SEIZE THE MOMENT

SIXTY.

LIFE IS BUT A BREATH.

NO.

FIFTY?

DON’T GET MIRED IN THE WORLDS OF YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW. INSTEAD, LIVE IN THE WORLD OF TODAY. WHEREVER YOU ARE AND WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING, EXPERIENCE THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS AROUND YOU AT THAT MOMENT.

佛 問 諸 沙 門 ：「 人 命 在 幾 間 ？ 」對 曰 ：「 人 在 世 間 極 可 五 十 歲 。」佛 言 ：「 莫 說 是 語 。」復 有 一 比 丘 言 ：「 可 三 十 歲 。」

HOW LONG IS A PERSON’S LIFE?

佛 復 言 ： 「 莫 說 是 語 。」 復 有 一 比 丘 言 ： 「 可 十 歲 。」 佛 言 ： 「 人 命 在 呼 吸 之 間 耳 。」

SHAKYAMUNI ASKED HIS DISCIPLES:

11

迦葉因阿難問云。世尊傳金襴袈裟外。別傳何物。葉喚云。阿難。難應諾。葉云。倒却門前剎竿著。

《無門關》

12

KASHYAPA AND THE FLAGPOLE

DURING THE GATHERING ON VULTURE PEAK, SHAKYAMUNI PASSED HIS ROBE AND ALMSBOWL ON TO KASHYAPA.

ON A LATER DAY, ANANDA ASKED THE VENERABLE KASHYAPA:

ANANDA!

BESIDES THE BROCADE ROBE, WHAT ELSE DID SHAKYAMUNI GIVE YOU?

YES?

IT’S LATE. GO TAKE DOWN THE FLAGPOLE OUT FRONT.

THE ORDINARY MIND IS THE DAO. YOU NEEDN’T TRACK THROUGH AN ILLUSORY WORLD TO FIND THE PRINCIPLES OF BUDDHISM. JUST PAY ATTENTION TO THE DETAILS OF LIFE AND LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE, THAT’S ALL.

菩提本無樹，明鏡亦非臺，本來無一物，何處惹塵埃？

《六祖大師法寶壇經》

WISDOM HAS NEVER BEEN A TREE, THE BRIGHT MIRROR HAS NO STAND; THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANYTHING, SO WHERE CAN DUST LAND?

13

ZEN’S ORIGIN STORY

14

第 二 十 八 祖 菩 提 達 磨 者 。南 天 竺 國 香 至 王 第 三 子 也 。姓 剎 帝 利 。本 名 菩 提 多 羅 … … 。師 汎 重 溟 凡 三 周 寒 暑 達 于 南 海 。

A MONK FROM INDIA NAMED BODHIDHARMA ARRIVED ON THE SHORES OF SOUTHERN CHINA.

實梁普通八年丁未歲

IN THE YEAR 527, THE EIGHTH YEAR OF THE PUTONG REIGN OF THE LIANG DYNASTY …

15

九 月 二 十 一 日 也。 廣 州 刺 史 蕭 昂 具 主 禮 迎 接。 表 聞 武 帝。 帝 覽 奏 遣 使 齎 詔 迎 請。 十 月 一 日 至 金 陵。 帝 問 曰。 朕

即 位 已 來。 造 寺 寫 經 度 僧 不 可 勝 紀。 有 何 功 德。 師 曰。 並 無 功 德。 帝 曰。 何 以 無 功 德。 師 曰。 此 但 人 天 小 果 有

漏之因。如影隨形雖有非實。帝曰。如何是真功德。答曰。淨智妙圓體自空寂。如是功德不以世求。

16

ON THE TWENTY-FIRST DAY OF THE NINTH MONTH, HE CAME ASHORE IN GUANGZHOU.

ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE NEXT MONTH, BODHIDHARMA ACCEPTED EMPEROR WU’S INVITATION TO THE CAPITAL AT NANJING.

AT THE SAME TIME, EMPEROR WU OF THE LIANG DYNASTY WAS HIMSELF INFATUATED WITH BUDDHISM. HE OFTEN WORE BUDDHIST CLOTHES, ATE VEGETARIAN MEALS, AND CHANTED BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES.

EVER SINCE ASCENDING THE THRONE, I HAVE SUPPORTED MONKS, BUILT TEMPLES AND MONASTERIES, AND COPIED THE SCRIPTURES. HOW MANY KARMIC MERITS SHALL I RECEIVE FOR THESE?

NONE TO SPEAK OF.

THESE ARE BUT MINOR EARTHLY ACHIEVEMENTS. THEY ARE WORTH NO MERITS.

TRUE MERIT IS THE MOST PERFECT AND PURE WISDOM, THE ORIGINAL SUBSTANCE OF WHICH IS EMPTINESS AND QUIESCENCE. YOU CANNOT OBTAIN IT BY WORLDLY MEANS.

OH, I AM INDEED BLIND …

SEND ZHAO GUANGWEN TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE YANGTZE TO FIND HIM!

IT’S NO USE. EVEN IF ALL THE PEOPLE OF THE COUNTRY WERE TO PURSUE HIM, HE WOULD NOT RETURN.

武 帝 不 了 達 摩 所 言 ，變 容 不 言 。達 摩 其 年 十 月 十 九 日 ，自 知 機 不 契 ，則 潛 過 江 北 ，入 于 魏 邦 。志 公 特 至 帝 所 問 曰 ：「 我

YOUR MAJESTY MUST BE BLIND—UNABLE TO SEE WHAT IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.

聞 西 天 僧 至 ，今 在 何 所 ？ 」梁 武 帝 曰 ：「 昨 日 逃 過 江 向 魏 。」志 公 云 ：「 陛 下 見 之 不 見 ，逢 之 不 逢 。」梁 武 帝 問 曰 ：

NONE OTHER THAN THE BODHISATTVA AVALOKITESHVARA, TRANSMITTER OF THE BUDDHA-MIND.

「 此 是 何 人 ？ 」 志 公 對 曰 ： 「 此 是 傳 佛 心 印 觀 音 大 士 。」 武 帝 乃 恨 之 曰 ： 「 見 之 不 見 ， 逢 之 不 逢 。」 即 發 中 使 趙 光

WHY? WHO IS HE?

HE WENT ACROSS THE RIVER INTO NORTHERN WEI.

WHERE IS THAT HIGH MONK FROM INDIA LIVING NOW?

文 往 彼 取 之 。 志 公 云 ： 「 非 但 趙 光 文 一 人 ， 闔 國 取 亦 不 迴 。」

ON THE NINETEENTH DAY OF THE MONTH, BODHIDHARMA, REALIZING HIS DIFFERENCES WITH EMPEROR WU, DEPARTED LIANG AND CROSSED THE YANGTZE RIVER INTO NORTHERN WEI.

17

當 後 魏 孝 明 太 和 十 年 也。 寓 止 于 嵩 山 少 林 寺 ……。 師 常 端 坐 面 牆。 莫 聞 誨 勵。 時 有 僧 神 光 者 ……。 其 年 十 二 月

九 日 夜 天 大 雨 雪 。光 堅 立 不 動 。遲 明 積 雪 過 膝 。師 憫 而 問 曰 。汝 久 立 雪 中 。當 求 何 事 。光 悲 淚 曰 。惟 願 和 尚 慈 悲 。

開 甘 露 門 廣 度 群 品。 師 曰。 諸 佛 無 上 妙 道。 曠 劫 精 勤。 難 行 能 行 非 忍 而 忍。 豈 以 小 德 小 智 輕 心 慢 心。 欲 冀 真 乘

徒勞勤苦。光聞師誨勵。潛取利刀自斷左臂。

18

HE SPENT HIS DAYS FACING A WALL, CONCENTRATING HIS ENERGY, PUTTING AN END TO ALL KARMIC CONDITIONS. AFTER CROSSING THE YANGTZE, BODHIDHARMA ARRIVED AT SHAOLIN TEMPLE ON SONG MOUNTAIN IN HENAN PROVINCE.

ON THE NINTH DAY OF THE TWELFTH MONTH OF THE TENTH YEAR OF THE TAIHE REIGN, SHENGUANG, A MONK SEEKING THE DHARMA, STOOD OUTSIDE ALL NIGHT LONG. WHAT ARE YOU AFTER, STANDING THERE SO LONG IN THE SNOW?

WHEN THE BUDDHAS WERE SEEKING THE HIGHEST ENLIGHTENMENT, THEY NEVER HESITATED TO SPEND UNLIMITED TIME IN SELF-CULTIVATION. YOU COME SEEKING THE GREAT DHARMA WITH BUT THE SLIGHTEST DETERMINATION. I THINK YOUR WISHES WILL BE DIFFICULT TO FULFILL.

I WISH FOR YOU TO OPEN THE NECTAR GATES AND PROVIDE DELIVERANCE FOR ALL CREATURES. PLEASE TEACH ME THE BUDDHA-DHARMA.

NGH!

YES! BECAUSE ALL DHARMAS ARE EMPTY AND QUIESCENT, THE BODHISATTVA DOES NOT STIR HIS THOUGHTS. BY NOT STIRRING HIS THOUGHTS, HE IS ABLE TO ASCEND TO THE SHORES OF NIRVANA.

SO THE FIRST ZEN ANCESTOR BODHIDHARMA ACCEPTED SHENGUANG AS HIS DISCIPLE AND GAVE HIM THE NEW NAME HUIKE.

置 于 師 前 。師 知 是 法 器 。乃 曰 。諸 佛 最 初 求 道 為 法 忘 形 。汝 今 斷 臂 吾 前 。求 亦 可 在 。師 遂 因 與 易 名 曰 慧 可 。光 曰 。

IF YOU DO REACH IT, HOW CAN YOU CONSIDER IT YOUR MIND?

I’VE SEARCHED LONG, BUT I CANNOT REACH MY MIND.

THERE, I JUST SETTLED YOUR MIND. DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW?

HAND OVER YOUR MIND, AND I’LL SETTLE IT.

諸 佛 法 印 可 得 聞 乎 。師 曰 諸 佛 法 印 匪 從 人 得 。光 曰 。我 心 未 寧 。乞 師 與 安 。師 曰 。將 心 來 與 汝 安 。曰 覓 心 了 不 可 得 。

PLEASE SETTLE MY MIND.

師曰。我與汝安心竟。

IN SEEKING THE DHARMA, THE BUDDHAS DID NOT TAKE THEIR BODIES AS BODIES OR THEIR LIVES AS LIVES. CUTTING OFF YOUR ARM LIKE THAT IS A GOOD START.

19

迄 九 年 已 欲 西 返 天 竺。 乃 命 門 人 曰。 時 將 至 矣。 汝 等 蓋 各 言 所 得 乎。 時 門 人 道 副 對 曰。 如 我 所 見。 不 執 文 字 不

離文字而為道用。師曰。汝得吾皮。尼總持曰。我今所解如慶喜見阿閦佛國。一見更不再見。師曰。汝得吾肉。

20

IN THE YEAR 536, BODHIDHARMA, FEELING THAT IT WAS TIME FOR HIM TO LEAVE, CALLED TOGETHER HIS DISCIPLES.

WE SHOULDN’T CLING TO LANGUAGE, YET WE SHOULDN’T DISPENSE WITH IT, EITHER. WE SHOULD TAKE LANGUAGE AS A USEFUL TOOL IN THE QUEST FOR ENLIGHTENMENT.

FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND, IT IS LIKE TAKING JOY IN SEEING THE LAND OF THE BUDDHA AKSHOBHYA—ONCE YOU GET A GLIMPSE, YOU NEEDN’T LOOK AGAIN.

I WANT EACH OF YOU TO TELL ME ABOUT YOUR PROGRESS TOWARDS ENLIGHTENMENT.

YOU HAVE ATTAINED MY SKIN.

YOU HAVE ATTAINED MY FLESH.

YOU HAVE ATTAINED MY MARROW.

THEREAFTER, HUIKE BECAME THE SECOND ANCESTOR OF ZEN BUDDHISM AND CONTINUED BODHIDHARMA’S WORK OF THE DELIVERANCE OF ALL SENTIENT BEINGS.

HA HA HA HA HA HA.

道 育 曰 。四 大 本 空 五 陰 非 有 。而 我 見 處 無 一 法 可 得 。師 曰 。汝 得 吾 骨 。最 後 慧 可 禮 拜 後 依 位 而 立 。師 曰 。汝 得 吾 髓 。

IT WAS FINALLY HUIKE’S TURN. HE BOWED ONCE TO BODHIDHARMA, THEN STOOD THERE UNMOVING.

乃 顧 慧 可 而 告 之 曰 。昔 如 來 以 正 法 眼 付 迦 葉 大 士 。展 轉 囑 累 而 至 於 我 。我 今 付 汝 。汝 當 護 持 。并 授 汝 袈 裟 以 為 法 信 。

YOU HAVE ATTAINED MY BONES.

各有所表宜可知矣。

THE FOUR ELEMENTS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN EMPTY, AND THE FIVE AGGREGATES OF EXISTENCE DO NOT REALLY EXIST—THERE IS NO SINGLE DHARMA IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.

21

至 北 齊 天 平 二 年 有 一 居 士 年 踰 四 十 不 言 名 氏。 聿 來 設 禮 而 問 師 曰 弟 子 身 纏 風 恙。 請 和 尚 懺 罪。 師 曰。 將 罪 來 與

汝懺。居士良久云。覓罪不可得。師曰。我與汝懺罪竟。宜依佛法僧住。曰今見和尚已知是僧。未審何名佛法。

師 曰。 是 心 是 佛。 是 心 是 法。 法 佛 無 二。 僧 寶 亦 然。 曰 今 日 始 知 罪 性 不 在 內 不 在 外 不 在 中 間。 如 其 心 然 佛 法 無

二 也。 大 師 深 器 之。 即 為 剃 髮。 云 是 吾 寶 也。 宜 名 僧 璨。 其 年 三 月 十 八 日 於 光 福 寺 受 具。 自 茲 疾 漸 愈。 執 侍 經

二載。大師乃告曰。菩提達磨遠自竺乾以正法眼藏密付於吾。

22

IN THE YEAR 559, A CERTAIN LAY BUDDHIST CAME TO SEEK THE ADVICE OF HUIKE.

HAND ME YOUR SINS, AND I’LL PROVIDE THE ABSOLUTION.

I MUST HAVE DONE HORRIBLE THINGS IN PREVIOUS LIVES TO SUFFER THE AFFLICTIONS I HAVE NOW. PLEASE ABSOLVE ME OF MY SINS!

I’VE LOOKED SO LONG, AND YET I JUST CAN’T FIND THE SINS.

THE ABSOLUTION IS COMPLETE. NOW YOU MAY TAKE REFUGE IN THE THREE TREASURES: THE BUDDHA, THE DHARMA, AND THE MONASTERY.

I GET IT. THIS THING CALLED SIN ISN’T INSIDE OR OUTSIDE, OR EVEN IN-BETWEEN.

I KNOW ABOUT THE MONASTERY, BUT WHAT ARE THE BUDDHA AND THE DHARMA?

I ACCEPT YOU AS MY DISCIPLE AND SHALL TRANSMIT TO YOU THE ORTHODOX DHARMA. I HEREBY NAME YOU SENGCAN.

THE MIND IS THE BUDDHA. IT IS ALSO THE DHARMA. THERE IS REALLY NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE BUDDHA AND THE DHARMA.

SENGCAN SUCCEEDED HUIKE TO BECOME THE THIRD ANCESTOR OF ZEN BUDDHISM.

大 集 群 品， 普 雨 正 法， 會 中 有 一 沙 彌， 年 始 十 四， 名 道 信， 來 禮 師 而 問 師 曰 ：「 如 何 是 佛 心？」 師 答 曰 ：「 汝

WITH THIS, THE MONK ACHIEVED ENLIGHTENMENT AND WENT ON TO BECOME THE FOURTH ANCESTOR OF ZEN BUDDHISM, DAOXIN.

NO ONE TIED ME UP.

今 是 什 摩 心 ？ 」 對 曰 ： 「 我 今 無 心 。」 師 曰 ： 「 汝 既 無 心 ， 佛 豈 有 心 耶 ？ 」 又 問 ： 「 唯 願 和 尚 教 某 甲 解 脫 法 門 。」

WHO TIED YOU UP?

師 云 ： 「 誰 人 縛 汝 ？ 」 對 曰 ： 「 無 人 縛 。」 師 云 ： 「 既 無 人 縛 汝 ， 即 是 解 脫 ， 何 須 更 求 解 脫 ？ 」 道 信 言 下 大 悟 ，

THEN WHY DO YOU NEED A METHOD OF RELEASE?

IF YOU DON’T HAVE A MIND, WHY WOULD THE BUDDHA HAVE A MIND?

在師左右八九年間。後於吉州具戒，卻歸省覲於師

WHAT KIND OF MIND CAN BE CONSIDERED BUDDHA-MIND?

RIGHT NOW, I AM OF NO-MIND.

I WOULD APPRECIATE IT IF YOU COULD POINT OUT A METHOD OF RELEASE.

WHAT KIND OF MIND IS YOUR PRESENT MIND?

《 景 德 傳 燈 錄 》、《 祖 堂 集 》

ONE DAY, WHEN SENGCAN HAD GATHERED HIS DISCIPLES TOGETHER TO TEACH THE DHARMA, A YOUNG MONK STEPPED FORWARD.

23

THE FOURTH ANCESTOR DAOXIN WAS SUCCEEDED BY HONGREN, THE FIFTH ANCESTOR, WHO THEN PASSED ON THE ROBE AND ALMSBOWL TO HUINENG, THE SIXTH ANCESTOR. FOURTH ANCESTOR DAOXIN

FIFTH ANCESTOR HONGREN

THE SIXTH ANCESTOR HUINENG CAN BE CALLED THE TRUE ANCESTOR OF ZEN IN CHINA, AS HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE VIBRANCY AND FLOURISHING OF CHINESE ZEN BUDDHISM.

24

WISDOM HAS NEVER BEEN A TREE, THE BRIGHT MIRROR HAS NO STAND; THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANYTHING, SO WHERE CAN DUST LAND?

TRUE GENIUSES ARE NOT OF THIS WORLD. THE SIXTH ANCESTOR HUINENG WAS THIS KIND OF GENIUS. HE, LAOZI, ZHUANGZI, CONFUCIUS, AND MENCIUS WERE GREAT MEN OF THE SAME STRAIN.

HIS THINKING, HIS WORDS, AND HIS ACTIONS WERE COMPILED BY DISCIPLES INTO A SHORT BOOK CALLED THE PLATFORM SUTRA OF THE SIXTH ANCESTOR, THE ONLY CHINESE BUDDHIST WORK TO ATTAIN THE STATUS OF A SACRED SCRIPTURE IN CHINA.

PLATF

ORM S UTRA

THE PLATFORM SUTRA IS A HEARTFELT BOOK FROM A TRULY GENUINE PERSON. EVERY WORD, EVERY SENTENCE, IS AS FRESH AND PENETRATING AS WATER FROM A CLEAR SPRING.

25

「 此 身 不 幸 ，父 又 早 亡 。 老 母 孤 遺 ，移 來 南 海 ，艱 辛 貧 乏 ，於 市 賣 柴 。 時 ，有 一 客 買 柴 ，使 令 送 至 客 店 ； 客 收 去 ，

惠能得錢，

26

HUINENG, SIXTH ANCESTOR HUINENG WAS BORN IN THE YEAR 638 IN GUANGDONG PROVINCE AND HAD THE LAY SURNAME LU.

PLATFO

RM SU

TRA

HIS FATHER DIED WHILE HUINENG WAS STILL YOUNG, LEAVING THE FAMILY IN POVERTY. COMING FROM AN HONEST AND HARD-WORKING HOME, HUINENG SUPPORTED HIMSELF BY PEDDLING FIREWOOD.

“THE WAY OF GREAT LEARNING IS IN ILLUMINATING LUMINOUS VIRTUE.”

FOR THIS REASON, HE NEVER HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO ATTEND SCHOOL. HERE’S YOUR FIREWOOD.

JUST PUT IT RIGHT THERE. HERE’S THE MONEY.

HUINENG THEN PUT HIS MOTHER UNDER THE CARE OF A NEIGHBOR …

AFTER MORE THAN THIRTY DAYS OF WALKING, HE ARRIVED AT HUANGMEI AND IMMEDIATELY WENT TO MEET HONGREN.

AND DEPARTED FOR HEBEI TO STUDY THE BUDDHA-DHARMA.

HUANGMEI MOUNTAIN

WHERE ARE YOU FROM, AND WHY ARE YOU HERE?

「 却 出 門 外 ，見 一 客 誦 經 。 惠 能 一 聞 經 語 ，心 即 開 悟 ，遂 問 ：『 客 誦 何 經 ？ 』客 曰 ：『《 金 剛 經 》。』復 問 ：『 從 何 所 來 ，

I STUDIED WITH THE FIFTH ANCESTOR HONGREN AT HUANGMEI MOUNTAIN IN HEBEI.

持此經典？』客云：『我從蘄州黃梅縣東禪寺來。其寺是五祖忍大師在彼主化，門人一千有餘；我到彼中禮拜，

WHERE DID YOU STUDY THE BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES?

聽 受 此 經 。 大 師 常 勸 僧 俗 ， 但 持 《 金 剛 經 》， 即 自 見 性 ， 直 了 成 佛 。』 惠 能 聞 說 ， 宿 昔 有 緣 ， 乃 蒙 一 客 ， 取 銀 十

DIAMOND SUTRA.

兩 與 惠 能 ， 令 充 老 母 衣 糧 ， 教 便 往 黃 梅 參 禮 五 祖 。「 惠 能 安 置 母 畢 ， 即 便 辭 違 。 不 經 三 十 餘 日 ， 便 至 黃 梅 ， 禮 拜

THE DIAMOND SUTRA.

五祖。祖問曰：『汝何方人？欲求何物？』

EXCUSE ME, WHAT SUTRA IS THAT YOU’RE RECITING?

“ABIDING IN NOTHING, LET THE MIND COME THROUGH … ”

27

「 惠 能 對 曰 ： 『 弟 子 是 嶺 南 新 州 百 姓 ， 遠 來 禮 師 ， 惟 求 作 佛 ， 不 求 餘 物 。』 祖 言 ： 『 汝 是 嶺 南 人 ， 又 是 獵 獠 ， 若

為 堪 作 佛？』 惠 能 曰 ：『 人 雖 有 南 北， 佛 性 本 無 南 北 ； 獵 獠 身 與 和 尚 不 同， 佛 性 有 何 差 別？』 …… 祖 云 ：『 這

獦 獠 根 性 大 利 ！ 汝 更 勿 言 ， 著 槽 廠 去 。』 … … 「 祖 一 日 喚 諸 門 人 總 來 ： 『 吾 向 汝 說 ， 世 人 生 死 事 大 ， 汝 等 終 日 只

求 福 田， 不 求 出 離 生 死 苦 海 ； 自 性 若 迷， 福 何 可 救？ 汝 等 各 去， 自 看 智 慧， 取 自 本 心 般 若 之 性， 各 作 一 偈， 來

呈 吾 看 。 若 悟 大 意 ， 付 汝 衣 法 ， 為 第 六 代 祖 。』

28

I AM FROM GUANGDONG AND HAVE COME TO STUDY UNDER YOU IN THE HOPES OF SOMEDAY BECOMING A BUDDHA.

PEOPLE DISTINGUISH SOUTH FROM NORTH. ARE YOU SAYING THAT BUDDHA-NATURE DOES AS WELL? PEOPLE DIFFER IN FORM, BUT OUR BUDDHA-NATURES ARE IDENTICAL.

HMM…

BEING FROM GUANGDONG, YOU ARE BUT A SOUTHERN BARBARIAN. HOW CAN YOU BECOME A BUDDHA?

FOR A SOUTHERN BARBARIAN, YOU’RE PRETTY SHARP. I’LL SEND YOU OUT BACK AND PUT YOU IN CHARGE OF GRINDING RICE. THANK YOU.

HUINENG’S FIRST EIGHT MONTHS AT HUANGMEI MOUNTAIN PASSED IN AN INSTANT.

I WANT YOU ALL TO WRITE DOWN YOUR VIEW OF ENLIGHTENMENT IN A SHORT POEM. IF ONE OF YOU HAS TRULY ATTAINED ENLIGHTENMENT, I WILL PASS ON THE ROBE AND ALMSBOWL TO HIM.

THEN, ONE DAY, HONGREN FELT THAT THE TIME HAD ARRIVED TO TRANSMIT THE DHARMA.

CAN YOU TAKE ME TO SEE IT?

SURE.

SHENXIU. HE WROTE IT ON THE WALL.

WHO WROTE THAT?

THE BODY IS THE WISDOM TREE, THE MIND LIKE A BRIGHT MIRROR STAND; ALWAYS STRIVE TO WIPE IT CLEAN, MAKING SURE THAT NO DUST LANDS.

HERE IT IS.

OH.

「 眾 得 處 分， 退 而 遞 相 謂 曰 ：『 我 等 眾 人， 不 須 澄 心 用 意 作 偈， 將 呈 和 尚， 有 何 所 益？ 神 秀 上 座， 現 為 教 授 師，

FANTASTIC. “THE BODY IS THE WISDOM TREE, THE MIND LIKE A BRIGHT MIRROR STAND; ALWAYS STRIVE TO WIPE IT CLEAN, MAKING SURE THAT NO DUST LANDS”!

必 是 他 得 。 我 輩 謾 作 偈 頌 ，枉 用 心 力 。』 … … 神 秀 作 偈 成 已 ，… … 是 夜 三 更 ，不 使 人 知 ，自 執 燈 ，書 偈 於 南 廊 壁 間 ，

WONDERFUL.

呈 心 所 見 。 偈 曰 ： 『 身 是 菩 提 樹 ，心 如 明 鏡 臺 ，時 時 勤 拂 拭 ，勿 使 惹 塵 埃 。』 … … 門 人 誦 偈 ，皆 歎 善 哉 。 復 兩 日 ，

YES.

有 一 童 子 於 碓 坊 過 ，唱 誦 其 偈 ； 惠 能 一 聞 ，便 知 此 偈 未 見 本 性 ，雖 未 蒙 教 授 ，早 識 大 意 。遂 問 童 子 曰 ：『 誦 者 何 偈 ？ 』

THE BODY IS THE WISDOM TREE, THE MIND LIKE A BRIGHT MIRROR STAND; ALWAYS STRIVE TO WIPE IT CLEAN, MAKING SURE THAT NO DUST LANDS.

童 子 曰 ： 『 … … 神 秀 上 座 ， 於 南 廊 壁 上 … … 。』 童 子 引 至 偈 前 禮 拜 ， 惠 能 曰 ： 『 惠 能 不 識 字 ， 請 上 人 為 讀 。』

AMONG HONGREN’S DISCIPLES, ONE SHENXIU WAS RECOGNIZED BY ALL TO BE THE ONE MOST LIKELY TO RECEIVE THE ROBE AND ALMSBOWL.

29

「 時 ，有 江 州 別 駕 ，姓 張 名 日 用 ，便 高 聲 讀 。 惠 能 聞 已 ，遂 言 ： 『 亦 有 一 偈 ，望 別 駕 為 書 。』 別 駕 言 ： 『 汝 亦 作 偈 ？

其 事 希 有 。』 惠 能 向 別 駕 言 ： 『 … … 下 下 人 有 上 上 智 ， 上 上 人 有 沒 意 智 。 若 輕 人 ， 即 有 無 量 無 邊 罪 。』 別 駕 言 ：

『 汝 但 誦 偈 ，吾 為 汝 書 。 汝 若 得 法 ，先 須 度 吾 。 勿 忘 此 言 。』 惠 能 偈 曰 ： 「 菩 提 本 無 樹 ，明 鏡 亦 非 臺 ； 本 來 無 一 物 ，

何 處 惹 塵 埃 ？ ﹂ 書 此 偈 已 ，徒 眾 總 驚 ，無 不 嗟 訝 ，各 相 謂 言 ： 『 奇 哉 ！ 不 得 以 貌 取 人 ，何 得 多 時 ，使 他 肉 身 菩 薩 。』

30

THE BODY IS THE WISDOM TREE, THE MIND LIKE A BRIGHT MIRROR STAND; ALWAYS STRIVE TO WIPE IT CLEAN, MAKING SURE THAT NO DUST LANDS.

YOU CAN READ A POEM? THAT’LL BE THE DAY!

SOMETIMES IT IS THE LOWLIEST PERSON WHO POSSESSES THE HIGHEST WISDOM; AND IT IS THE HIGHEST PERSON WHO HAS THE LEAST KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING.

WHOEVER WROTE THIS HAS YET TO ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT. I HAVE A POEM MYSELF. CAN YOU WRITE IT ON THE WALL FOR ME?

WISDOM HAS NEVER BEEN A TREE, THE BRIGHT MIRROR HAS NO STAND; THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANYTHING, SO WHERE CAN DUST LAND?

YEAH, OKAY …

WISDOM HAS NEVER BEEN A TREE, THE BRIGHT MIRROR HAS NO STAND; THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANYTHING, SO WHERE CAN DUST LAND? LET’S GO.

WISDOM HAS NEVER BEEN A TREE, THE BRIGHT MIRROR HAS NO STAND; THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANYTHING, SO WHERE CAN DUST LAND? A LIVING BODHISATTVA!

MY GOODNESS!

FABULOUS!

WOW, THAT’S DEEP.

HUINENG KEPT THE MIDNIGHT APPOINTMENT AS PLANNED, AND HONGREN EXPLAINED TO HIM THE DIAMOND SUTRA. HE THEN HANDED OVER THE ROBE AND ALMSBOWL TO HUINENG AND TRANSMITTED THE TEACHINGS OF SUDDEN ENLIGHTENMENT.

WHEN BODHIDHARMA CAME FROM THE WEST, NOBODY BELIEVED WHAT HE SAID. THIS LED TO THE TRADITION OF THE PASSING ON OF THE ROBE AND ALMSBOWL AS TESTAMENT.

「 祖 見 眾 人 驚 怪 ， 恐 人 損 害 ， 遂 將 鞋 擦 了 偈 ， 曰 ： 『 亦 未 見 性 。』 眾 以 為 然 。 次 日 ， 祖 潛 至 碓 坊 ， 見 能 腰 石 舂 米

THE FOLLOWING DAY, HONGREN QUIETLY WENT OVER TO HUINENG’S WORK AREA.

YES, SIR!

……。 祖 以 杖 擊 碓 三 下 而 去。 惠 能 即 會 祖 意， 三 鼓 入 室 ； 祖 以 袈 裟 遮 圍， 不 令 人 見， 為 說《 金 剛 經 》 ……。 祖

TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT, COME TO MY QUARTERS.

知 悟 本 性， 謂 惠 能 曰 ：『 昔 達 磨 大 師， 初 來 此 土， 人 未 之 信， 故 傳 此 衣， 以 為 信 體， 代 代 相 承 ；』 三 更 受 法，

THIS POEM IS UNENLIGHTENED. PLEASE WIPE IT OFF.

人盡不知，便傳頓教及衣鉢，

WISDOM HAS NEVER BEEN A TREE, THE BRIGHT MIRROR HAS NO STAND; THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANYTHING, SO WHERE CAN DUST LAND?

31

「 云 ：『 汝 為 第 六 代 祖， 善 自 護 念， 廣 度 有 情， 流 布 將 來， 無 令 斷 絕 ……。 法 則 以 心 傳 心， 皆 令 自 悟 自 解 ……。

衣 為 爭 端 ， 止 汝 勿 傳 。 若 傳 此 衣 ， 命 如 懸 絲 。 汝 須 速 去 ， 恐 人 害 汝 。』 … … 祖 令 上 船 … … 云 ： 『 合 是 吾 渡 汝 。』

惠 能 云 ：『 迷 時 師 度， 悟 了 自 度 ； 度 名 雖 一， 用 處 不 同。 惠 能 生 在 邊 方， 語 音 不 正， 蒙 師 傳 法， 今 已 得 悟， 只

合 自 性 自 度 。』 祖 云 ： 『 如 是 ， 如 是 ！ 以 後 佛 法 ， 由 汝 大 行 。 汝 去 三 年 ， 吾 方 逝 世 。 汝 今 好 去 ， 努 力 向 南 。 不 宜

速 說 ， 佛 法 難 起 。』

32

WITH THE PASSING OF THE ROBE AND ALMSBOWL, IT IS EASY FOR QUARRELS TO ARISE, SO YOU SHOULD QUICKLY LEAVE THESE PARTS.

NOW YOU ARE THE SIXTH ANCESTOR OF ZEN BUDDHISM. I TRUST THAT YOU WILL SERVE WELL. YOU MUST TRANSMIT THE DHARMA AND PASS ON THE TEACHINGS.

I’LL DELIVER YOU ACROSS THE RIVER.

WHEN I WAS CONFUSED, YOU DELIVERED ME. SINCE MY ENLIGHTENMENT, I AM ABLE TO DELIVER MYSELF.

FROM THIS DAY FORWARD, THE BUDDHA-DHARMA WILL FLOURISH BECAUSE OF YOU. IN GOING TO THE SOUTH, IT WILL BE DIFFICULT AT FIRST. WAIT FOR THANK YOU THE RIGHT TIME, THEN FOR YOUR SPEAK THE DHARMA. INSTRUCTION.

FINE.

UPON RECEIVING THE ROBE AND ALMSBOWL FROM HONGREN, HUINENG HEADED SOUTH.

MY ROBE AND ALMSBOWL HAVE BEEN TRANSMITTED SOUTHWARD. A CAPABLE (NENG) PERSON HAS RECEIVED THEM.

“A CAPABLE PERSON.” THAT MUST MEAN HUINENG GOT THEM.

CAN A SOUTHERN BARBARIAN GET THE ROBE AND ALMSBOWL?

「『 有 情 來 下 種 ，因 地 果 還 生 ，無 情 既 無 種 ，無 性 亦 無 生 。』 … … 惠 能 辭 違 祖 已 ，發 足 南 行 … … 。 問 ： 『 誰 人 傳 授 ？ 』

曰 ： 『 能 者 得 之 。』 眾 乃 知 焉 。

A SENTIENT BEING PLANTS A SEED, BECAUSE OF SOIL IT RETURNS TO LIFE; WITHOUT SENTIENCE, THERE ARE NO SEEDS, WITHOUT SELF-NATURE, THERE IS NO LIFE.

33

「逐後數百人來，欲奪衣鉢。……惠能後至曹溪，又被惡人尋逐。乃於四會，避難獵人隊中，凡經一十五載，時

與獵人隨宜說法。

34

HE GAVE THEM TO THAT ILLITERATE DUMMY WHO GROUND THE RICE. LET’S GO GET THEM BACK! LET’S GET HIM!

BUT HUINENG HAD ALREADY VANISHED INTO THE SOUTHERN COUNTRYSIDE. NO ONE COULD FIND HIM, UNTIL FIFTEEN YEARS LATER …

BONG BONG

BONG

TODAY, I, YINZONG THE DHARMA TEACHER, SHALL SPEAK ABOUT THE NIRVANA SUTRA.

JUST THEN, A BANNER IN THE COURTYARD BEGAN TO FLAP IN THE WIND.

LOOK AT THE WIND BLOWING!

「 … … 遂 出 至 廣 州 法 性 寺 ， 值 印 宗 法 師 講 《 涅 槃 經 》。 時 有 風 吹 旛 動 ， 一 僧 曰 ： 『 風 動 。』

BONG

IN THE YEAR 676 AT FAXING TEMPLE IN GUANGZHOU …

35

「 一 僧 曰 ： 『 旛 動 。』 議 論 不 已 。 惠 能 進 曰 ： 『 不 是 風 動 ， 不 是 旛 動 ， 仁 者 心 動 。』 一 眾 駭 然 。 印 宗 延 至 上 席 ， 徵

詰奧義。見惠能言簡理當，不由文字，宗云：『行者定非常人……』惠能曰：『……明佛性，是佛法不二之法。

如 高 貴 德 王 菩 薩 白 佛 言 ： 「 … … 善 根 有 二 ： 一 者 常 ， 二 者 無 常 ， 佛 性 非 常 非 無 常 … … 非 善 非 不 善 。」』 印 宗 聞 說 ，

歡 喜 合 掌 ， 言 ： 『 某 甲 講 經 ， 猶 如 瓦 礫 ； 仁 者 論 義 ， 猶 如 真 金 。』

36

NO, NO, NO.

IT’S CLEARLY THE BANNER THAT IS MOVING.

THE BANNER!

IT’S THE WIND.

IT IS NEITHER THE WIND NOR THE BANNER, BUT YOUR OWN MIND THAT IS STIRRING.

THE WIND!

WOULD THIS LAYMAN PLEASE COME FORWARD TO SPEAK?

LAYMAN, YOUR UNDERSTANDING SEEMS QUITE PENETRATING. WOULD YOU CARE TO SPEAK OF THE BUDDHA-DHARMA?

ALL RIGHT. AS FOR THE ROOTS OF GOODNESS, THERE ARE TWO KINDS: ONE THAT IS CHANGING AND ONE THAT IS UNCHANGING. BUDDHA-NATURE, HOWEVER, TRANSCENDS BOTH CHANGING AND UNCHANGING, GOOD AND NOT GOOD.

MY LECTURE WAS AS WORTHLESS AS RUBBLE, AND YOUR EXPLANATION AS PRECIOUS AS PURE GOLD.

W!

WO

YOUR DISCIPLES SEEK GUIDANCE FROM THE SIXTH ANCESTOR!

「 宗 云 ： 『 … … 久 聞 黃 梅 衣 法 南 來 ， 莫 是 行 者 否 ？ 』 惠 能 曰 ： 『 不 敢 。』 宗 於 是 作 禮 ， 告 請 傳 來 衣 鉢 出 示 大 眾 。

THAT’S RIGHT.

宗復問曰：『黃梅付囑，如何指授？』

I HEARD THAT HONGREN’S ROBE AND ALMSBOWL HAD BEEN TRANSMITTED SOUTH. ARE YOU THE ONE WHO RECEIVED THEM?

37

「 於 是 為 惠 能 剃 髮 ， 願 事 為 師 。 惠 能 遂 於 菩 提 樹 下 ， 開 東 山 法 門 。」

《六祖大師法寶壇經》

38

YINZONG THEN SHAVED HUINENG’S HEAD AND FORMALLY ORDAINED HIM. AND HE HIMSELF TOOK HUINENG AS HIS TEACHER.

THE FOLLOWING YEAR, HUINENG WENT TO THE AREA NEAR THE CAO RIVER AND, THROUGH THE SUPPORT OF HIS MANY FOLLOWERS, CONSTRUCTED BAOLIN TEMPLE. IT WAS HERE THAT HE BEGAN SPREADING THE DHARMA.

THE WAY OF PERFECT WISDOM IS MIND-TO-MIND TRANSMISSION, WHEREAS BOOKS AND SCRIPTURES ARE JUST A CONVENIENT METHOD OF OPENING YOUR MIND TO SELF-ENLIGHTENMENT.

達磨西來不立文字教外別傳直指人心見性成佛。

THESE FOUR LINES HAVE BEEN ATTRIBUTED TO BODHIDHARMA BUT WOULD EVEN MORE ACCURATELY DESCRIBE HUINENG’S THINKING.

《歸元直指集》

NOT RELIANT ON THE WRITTEN WORD, A SPECIAL TRANSMISSION SEPARATE FROM THE SCRIPTURES; DIRECT POINTING AT YOUR MIND; SEEING YOUR NATURE, BECOMING A BUDDHA.

EVEN THE WISEST OF ALL TEACHERS CANNOT STUFF THEIR OWN ENLIGHTENMENT INTO ANOTHER PERSON’S MIND. THEY CAN ONLY ACT LIKE A MIDWIFE AND WAIT FOR THE RIGHT TIME TO LEND A HELPING HAND.

39

「一僧……名惠明……為眾人先，趁及惠能……。惠明至，提掇不動，乃喚云：『行者！行者！我為法來，不為

衣 來 。』 惠 能 遂 出 ， 坐 盤 石 上 。 惠 明 作 禮 云 ： 『 望 行 者 為 我 說 法 。』 惠 能 云 ： 『 汝 既 為 法 而 來 ， 可 屏 息 諸 緣 ， 勿

生 一 念 。 吾 為 汝 說 。』 明 良 久 。 惠 能 云 ： 『 不 思 善 ，不 思 惡 ，正 與 麼 時 ，那 箇 是 明 上 座 本 來 面 目 ？ 』 惠 明 言 下 大 悟 。

復 問 云 ： 『 上 來 密 語 密 意 外 ，還 更 有 密 意 否 ？ 』 惠 能 云 ： 『 … … 汝 若 返 照 ，密 在 汝 邊 。』 明 曰 ： 『 惠 明 雖 在 黃 梅 ，

實 未 省 自 己 面 目 。 今 蒙 指 示 ， 如 人 飲 水 ， 冷 暖 自 知 。 今 行 者 即 惠 明 師 也 。』」

《六祖大師法寶壇經》

40

AFTER HIS HASTY DEPARTURE FROM HUANGMEI, HUINENG WAS PURSUED BY A MONK NAMED HUIMING.

I HAVE NOT COME FOR THE ROBE AND ALMSBOWL. I COME INSTEAD SEEKING THE DHARMA. PLEASE TEACH ME.

IF YOU FORSAKE ALL EXTERNAL CONDITIONS AND CUT OFF ALL THOUGHTS, I WILL TEACH YOU THE DHARMA.

A SPECIAL TRANSMISSION SEPARATE FROM THE SCRIPTURES

DO NOT THINK OF GOOD. DO NOT THINK OF EVIL. NOW, WHAT IS YOUR ORIGINAL FACE?

OH … REFLECT ON YOUR ORIGINAL NATURE AND THE SECRETS WILL BE REVEALED TO YOU!

DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER SECRETS YOU CAN TELL ME?

THANK YOU, THANK YOU SO MUCH! I’M A NEW PERSON NOW. I UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING!

WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE DIFFER IN THAT WISDOM IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DIRECTLY TRANSMIT TO ANOTHER PERSON. IT MUST BE EXPERIENCED AND PUT INTO PRACTICE BY YOUR ENTIRE MIND AND BODY.

I WILL.

EMPTY EMPTY

SOMEONE WHO CLINGS TO EMPTINESS OFTEN SLANDERS THE SCRIPTURES AND FAVORS FORSAKING ALL WRITINGS.

EMPTY EMPTY

IF WE WERE TO REALLY FORSAKE ALL WRITINGS, THEN WE WOULD EVEN HAVE TO FORSAKE THE PHRASE “NOT RELIANT ON THE WRITTEN WORD,” SINCE THIS IS ALSO FROM A WRITING.

THOUGHT IS A LANGUAGE WITHOUT SOUND, AND WORDS ARE THE SYMBOLS OF LANGUAGE. TOO MUCH LANGUAGE OR THOUGHT, HOWEVER, IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH FUNDAMENTAL WISDOM.

師 言 ： 「 此 三 十 六 對 法 ，若 解 用 即 道 ，貫 一 切 經 法 ，出 入 即 離 兩 邊 。 自 性 動 用 ，共 人 言 語 ，外 於 相 離 相 ，內 於 空 離 空 。

GENUINE EMPTINESS IS LIMITLESS TRUTH. THE MANY DHARMAS ARE IN ONE’S MIND.

若全著相，即長邪見；若全執空，即長無明。執空之人有謗經，直言不用文字。既云不用文字，人亦不合語言。

TING WRI

只 此 語 言 ， 便 是 文 字 之 相 。 又 云 ： 『 直 道 不 立 文 字 。』 即 此 不 立 兩 字 ， 亦 是 文 字 。」

ONE SHOULD “MAKE ONE’S NATURE GENUINELY EMPTY,” YET NOT CLING TO EMPTINESS. IF YOU COMPLETELY EMPTY YOUR MIND WHILE MEDITATING, IT WILL BE JUST A FOOLISH EMPTINESS, DEAD AND WITHERED.

《六祖大師法寶壇經》

NOT RELIANT ON THE WRITTEN WORD

WE SHOULD NOT CLING TO THE WORDS IN THE SCRIPTURES, AND WE SHOULDN’T THINK THAT OTHERS CAN ATTAIN RELEASE BY RELYING ON OUR WORDS.

41

祖 說《 金 剛 經 》。 至『 應 無 所 住 而 生 其 心 』，惠 能 言 下 大 悟 ，一 切 萬 法 ，不 離 自 性 。 遂 啟 祖 言 ：『 何 期 自 性 ，本 自 清 淨 ；

何 期 自 性 ， 本 不 生 滅 ； 何 期 自 性 ， 本 自 具 足 ； 何 期 自 性 ， 本 無 動 搖 ； 何 期 自 性 ， 能 生 萬 法 。』 祖 知 悟 本 性 ， 謂 惠

能 曰 ： 『 不 識 本 心 ， 學 法 無 益 ； 若 識 自 本 心 ， 見 自 本 性 ， 即 名 丈 夫 、 天 人 師 、 佛 。』

《六祖大師法寶壇經》

42

DIRECT POINTING AT ONE’S MIND

IT IS ONLY THROUGH THE MIND THAT WE CAN REALIZE THE SELF. IT IS ONLY THROUGH THE MIND THAT WE COULD STEP INTO HELL.

WITHOUT THE MIND, THERE IS NEITHER GOOD NOR EVIL, FORSAKING NOR CLINGING, CONFUSION NOR ENLIGHTENMENT, PERFECT WISDOM NOR DISTRESS.

MIND IS NOT A STATIC ENTITY, BUT A PROCESS IN MOTION, LIKE WATER. SOMETIMES IT IS CLEAR, OTHER TIMES TURBID; SOMETIMES IT IS STILL, OTHER TIMES IT RUSHES ALONG.

THE MIND’S POWER OF ENLIGHTENMENT IS ALWAYS FLOWING AND NEVER STOPS IN ONE PLACE.

“ABIDING IN NOTHING, LET THE MIND COME THROUGH.” DO NOT BE SULLIED BY MATERIAL THINGS OR LET MATERIAL THINGS ENSLAVE YOU OR ORDER YOU AROUND. IN THIS WAY, THE MIND WILL BE FREED.

THE DAO CAN MAKE US CAREFREE, BUT A MIND THAT INSISTS ON CLINGING TO THINGS TURNS THE OUTSIDE WORLD INTO ONE’S OWN SHACKLES.

善 知 識！ 自 性 能 含 萬 法 是 大， 萬 法 在 諸 人 性 中。 若 見 一 切 人、 惡 之 與 善， 盡 皆 不 取 不 捨 亦 不 染 著， 心 如 虛 空，

LIGHT AND DARKNESS, BEING AND NOTHING, GOOD AND BAD, LIFE AND DEATH—ARE ALL RELATIVE. “SELF-NATURE” TRANSCENDS RELATIVITY YET INCLUDES IT. IF YOU CAN COMPREHEND THIS, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO TRANSFORM YOUR OWN NATURE INTO A BUDDHA.

名之為大，故曰摩訶。善知識！迷人口說，智者心行。又有迷人，空心靜坐，百無所思，自稱為大。此一輩人，

A MIND STUCK IN CONFUSION CONSTANTLY GIVES RISE TO BAD THINGS AND WILL THEREFORE NEVER BE ENLIGHTENED. ONE THOUGHT TOWARDS GOODNESS GIVES RISE TO WISDOM, THUS ALLOWING ONE TO REALIZE BUDDHAHOOD.

IF THE MIND THINKS OF GOOD THINGS, THEN ONE ASCENDS TO HEAVEN.

不 可 與 語， 為 邪 見 故。 善 知 識！ 心 量 廣 大， 遍 周 法 界， 用 即 了 了 分 明， 應 用 便 知 一 切。 一 切 即 一， 一 即 一 切。

A WICKED MIND BECOMES A VILE SERPENT. A MERCIFUL MIND BECOMES A BODHISATTVA.

IF THE MIND THINKS OF BAD THINGS, THEN ONE DESCENDS INTO HELL.

去來自由，心體無滯，即是般若。

OUR SELF-NATURES WERE ORIGINALLY PURE. GOODNESS AND BADNESS AROSE FROM OUR MINDS.

MOST PEOPLE THINK THAT LIGHT AND DARKNESS ARE DIFFERENT, BUT A WISE PERSON UNDERSTANDS THAT THE ORIGINAL NATURES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS ARE THE SAME.

《南宗頓教最上大乘摩訶般若波羅蜜經六祖惠能大師於韶州大梵寺施法壇經》

SEEING ONE’S NATURE, BECOMING A BUDDHA

43

善 知 識 ！ 我 此 法 門 ，從 上 以 來 ，先 立 無 念 為 宗 ，無 相 為 體 ，無 住 為 本 。 無 相 者 ，於 相 而 離 相 。 無 念 者 ，於 念 而 無 念 。

無 住 者 ，人 之 本 性 。 於 世 間 善 惡 好 醜 ，乃 至 冤 之 與 親 ，言 語 觸 刺 欺 爭 之 時 ，並 將 為 空 ，不 思 酬 害 ，念 念 之 中 不 思 前 境 。

若前念今念後念，念念相續不斷，名為繫縛。於諸法上念念不住，即無縛也。此是以無住為本。

《六祖大師法寶壇經》

44

NON-ABIDING WHETHER ONE HAS LEFT ONE’S FAMILY TO JOIN THE ORDER MAKES NO DIFFERENCE. WHAT MATTERS IS WHETHER YOU CLING TO THINGS IN THE EXTERNAL WORLD.

IF YOU CLING TO THINGS IN THE EXTERNAL WORLD, YOU WILL BE LIKE A WAVE, EXPERIENCING GAIN AND LOSS, AND THEN SUFFERING WILL ARISE.

IF YOU DO NOT CLING TO THINGS IN THE EXTERNAL WORLD, YOU WILL BE LIKE TRANQUIL WATER, MOVING FREELY, WITH NO GENERATION OR DISSOLUTION. THIS IS BLISSFUL PARADISE.

NOT ONLY SHOULD THE MIND LET GO OF BAD THINGS, BUT IT SHOULD ALSO FORSAKE GOODNESS. IF YOU CAN TRANSCEND GOOD AND BAD, ALONG WITH ALL RELATIVE OPPOSITES, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO ACHIEVE A GENUINE MIND THAT DOES NOT STIR.

KEEP FIRM CONTROL OVER THE MIND; DON’T LET IT BE LED ASTRAY BY THE SUPERFICIAL THINGS AROUND YOU. IF THE MIND DOESN’T WAVER, IT WON’T BE LED ASTRAY. WHEN YOU VIEW RELATIVE OPPOSITES, REMEMBER TO RENOUNCE THEM AS SUCH—DON’T LET THE MIND LINGER EVEN FOR A MOMENT.

I CAN USE MY FINGER TO POINT AT THE MOON, BUT MY FINGER IS NOT THE MOON, AND YOU DON’T NEED MY FINGER TO SEE THE MOON, DO YOU?

AND WORDS CAN BE COMPARED TO A FINGER.

LANGUAGE IS MERELY A TOOL FOR POINTING OUT THE TRUTH, A MEANS TO HELP US ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT. TO MISTAKE WORDS FOR THE TRUTH IS ALMOST AS RIDICULOUS AS MISTAKING A FINGER FOR THE MOON.

有 姑 為 尼 ， 名 無 盡 藏 ， 常 誦 《 大 涅 槃 經 》。 師 暫 聽 ， 即 知 妙 義 ， 遂 為 解 說 。 尼 乃 執 卷 問 字 ， 師 曰 ： 「 字 即 不 識 ，

THE TRUTH AND WORDS ARE UNRELATED. THE TRUTH CAN BE COMPARED TO THE MOON …

義 即 請 問 。」 尼 曰 ： 「 字 尚 不 識 ， 焉 能 會 義 ？ 」 師 曰 ： 「 諸 佛 妙 理 ， 非 關 文 字 。」

IF YOU CAN’T EVEN READ THE WORDS, HOW CAN YOU UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH BEHIND THEM?

佛 告 阿 難 ：「 汝 等 尚 以 緣 心 聽 法 ，此 法 亦 緣 非 得 法 性 。如 人 以 手 指 月 示 人 ，彼 人 因 指 當 應 看 月 ； 若 復 觀 指 以 為 月 體 ，

I’VE BEEN STUDYING THE NIRVANA SUTRA FOR YEARS AND YEARS, AND THERE ARE STILL SOME PASSAGES THAT I DON’T QUITE UNDERSTAND. COULD I ASK YOU TO EXPLAIN THEM TO ME?

《 六 祖 大 師 法 寶 壇 經 》、《 大 佛 頂 如 來 密 因 修 證 了 義 諸 菩 薩 萬 行 首 楞 嚴 經 》

POINTING AT THE MOON

I’M SORRY, BUT I CAN’T READ. IF YOU CAN READ THE PASSAGES OUT FOR ME, I’LL SEE IF I CAN HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THEM.

此人豈唯亡失月輪，亦亡其指。

ONE DAY, A NUN NAMED WUJINZANG ASKED HUINENG:

45

世 人 盡 傳 南 宗 能、 北 宗 秀， 未 知 根 本 事 由， 且 秀 禪 師 於 南 都 荊 州 江 陵 府 當 陽 縣 玉 泉 寺 住 持 修 行， 惠 能 大 師 於 韶

州城東三十五里漕溪山住持修行。法即一宗，人有南北，因此便立南北。

《南宗頓教最上大乘摩訶般若波羅蜜經六祖惠能大師於韶州大梵寺施法壇經》

46

SUDDEN IN THE SOUTH, GRADUAL IN THE NORTH

WITH THE TANG CAPITAL OF CHANG’AN AS ITS CENTER OF ACTIVITY, THE TEACHINGS OF SHENXIU FLOURISHED AND BECAME KNOWN AS THE NORTHERN TRADITION OF ZEN BUDDHISM.

GRADUAL ENLIGHTENMENT

SUDDEN ENLIGHTENMENT

IN CONTRAST, HUINENG’S TEACHINGS BECAME KNOWN AS THE SOUTHERN TRADITION. SHENXIU PROMOTED GRADUAL ENLIGHTENMENT, WHILE HUINENG EMPHASIZED SUDDEN ENLIGHTENMENT. THUS AROSE THE NORTHERN VERSUS SOUTHERN SCHISM IN ZEN.

AMONG HUINENG’S DISCIPLES, THERE WERE FIVE WHO STOOD OUT FROM THE REST. THEY WERE:

HUAIRANG OF NANYUE

XUANJUE OF YONGJIA XINGSI OF QINGYUAN

HUIZHONG OF NANYANG

SHENHUI OF HEZE

WHAT PRINCIPLE IS IT YOU ARE ALL SEEKING? WHO IS IT YOU ARE CRYING FOR?

ALL EXCEPT SHENHUI WHO SAT THERE QUIETLY, NOT SHEDDING A TEAR.

ONLY SHENHUI HAS TRANSCENDED THE CONCEPTS OF GOOD AND BAD. ONLY HE HAS ATTAINED THE REALM WHERE HE IS UNMOVED BY PRAISE AND CRITICISM AND WHERE HE DOES NOT EXPERIENCE FEELINGS OF SADNESS AND HAPPINESS.

太 極 元 年 壬 子 … … 次 年 … … 集 徒 眾 曰 ： 「 吾 至 八 月 ，欲 離 世 間 … … 。」 法 海 等 聞 ，悉 皆 涕 泣 。 惟 有 神 會 ，神 情 不 動 ，

HIS DISCIPLES BEGAN TO WEEP …

亦無涕泣。師云：「神會小師却得善不善等，毀譽不動，哀樂不生；餘者不得。

IN THE YEAR 713, HUINENG ANNOUNCED THAT IT WOULDN’T BE LONG BEFORE HE PASSED AWAY.

47

「 數 年 山 中 竟 修 何 道？ 汝 今 悲 泣， 為 憂 阿 誰？ 若 憂 吾 不 知 去 處， 吾 自 知 去 處。 吾 若 不 知 去 處， 終 不 預 報 於 汝。

汝 等 悲 泣 ， 蓋 為 不 知 吾 去 處 ； 若 知 吾 去 處 ， 即 不 合 悲 泣 。 法 性 本 無 生 滅 去 來 。」 … … 師 端 坐 至 三 更 … … 奄 然 遷

化……。師春秋七十有六。

《六祖大師法寶壇經》

48

I KNOW WELL WHERE I AM GOING. HOW ELSE WOULD I BE ABLE TO TELL YOU AHEAD OF TIME?

THE DHARMA-NATURE CAN NEITHER BE CREATED NOR DESTROYED.

YOU ARE ALL CRYING BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE I’M GOING. IF YOU KNEW, YOU WOULDN’T CRY.

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT ON THE THIRD DAY OF THE EIGHTH MONTH, HUINENG PASSED AWAY AT THE AGE OF SEVENTY-SIX.

BONG FROM THEN ON, CAOXI BECAME HOLY GROUND FOR ZEN BUDDHISM, AND HUINENG’S SOUTHERN TRADITION OF SUDDEN ENLIGHTENMENT GRADUALLY EVOLVED INTO FIVE DISTINCT TRADITIONS.

BONG

BONG

SIR, WHEN YOU MEDITATE, DO YOU SEE OR NOT?

BONK BONK BONK

FOR SUCH A YOUNG MONK, YOU’RE PRETTY SHARP.

WHEN I HIT YOU, DOES IT HURT OR NOT?

荷澤寺神會。釋神會。姓高。襄陽人也……。會之敷演顯發能祖之宗風。使秀之門寂寞矣。

IF YES, YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT ITS MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT IS. SEE IF YOU CAN TELL ME.

THIS THING OF WHICH YOU SPEAK IS NON-ABIDING. ITS MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT IS OPENING ONE’S EYES AND SEEING.

有 一 童 子 ，名 神 會 ，襄 陽 高 氏 子 。年 十 三 ，自 玉 泉 來 參 禮 。師 曰 ：「 知 識 遠 來 艱 辛 ，還 將 得 本 來 否 ？ 若 有 本 則 合 識 主 。

FROM XIANGYANG IN HUBEI PROVINCE, SHENHUI’S LAY SURNAME WAS GAO. HE WAS INSTRUMENTAL IN PRESERVING HUINENG’S TEACHINGS AND POPULARIZING ZEN. HE ALSO SUCCEEDED IN PROMOTING THE SOUTHERN TRADITION OF SUDDEN ENLIGHTENMENT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE NORTHERN TRADITION OF GRADUAL ENLIGHTENMENT.

HAVING COME FROM SO FAR AWAY, DID YOU BRING YOUR MOST FUNDAMENTAL THING?

試 說 看 。」會 曰 ：「 以 無 住 為 本 ，見 即 是 主 。」師 曰 ：「 這 沙 彌 爭 合 取 次 語 ？ 」會 乃 問 曰 ：「 和 尚 坐 禪 ，還 見 不 見 ？ 」

SHENHUI FIRST STUDIED UNDER HUINENG WHEN HE WAS ONLY THIRTEEN.

師以柱杖打三下，云：「吾打汝痛不痛？」

SHENHUI OF HEZE (670–758)

49

對 曰 ： 「 亦 痛 亦 不 痛 。」 師 曰 ： 「 吾 亦 見 亦 不 見 。」 神 會 問 ： 「 如 何 是 亦 見 亦 不 見 ？ 」 師 云 ： 「 吾 之 所 見 ， 常 見

自 心 過 愆 ， 不 見 他 人 是 非 好 惡 ， 是 以 亦 見 亦 不 見 。 汝 言 ： 『 亦 痛 亦 不 痛 。』 如 何 ？ 汝 若 不 痛 ， 同 其 木 石 ； 若 痛 ，

則 同 凡 夫 ，即 起 恚 恨 。 汝 向 前 見 、不 見 是 二 邊 ，痛 、不 痛 是 生 滅 … … 。」 神 會 禮 拜 悔 謝 。 便 為 門 人 ，不 離 漕 溪 山 中 ，

常在左右。

《 宋 高 僧 傳 》、《 六 祖 大 師 法 寶 壇 經 》

50

IT HURTS, AND YET IT DOESN’T.

HOW DO YOU SEE AND NOT SEE AT THE SAME TIME?

I SEE, AND YET I DON’T.

WHAT I SEE ARE MY OWN FAILINGS, AND WHAT I DON’T SEE ARE OTHER PEOPLE’S RIGHT AND WRONG, GOOD AND BAD. AS FOR YOU, IF IT DOESN’T HURT, YOU HAVE NO FEELING, LIKE WOOD OR ROCK. IF IT DOES HURT, YOU HAVE A MIND FULL OF RESENTMENT JUST LIKE COMMON PEOPLE.

SEEING AND NOT SEEING ARE THE SIMULTANEOUS HOLDING OF TWO POSITIONS. FEELING AND NOT FEELING PAIN BELONG TO THE REALM OF GENERATION AND EXTINCTION.

UPON HEARING THIS, SHENHUI FELT EMBARRASSED AND IMMEDIATELY BOWED TO HUINENG. HE WOULD BECOME HUINENG’S MOST PIOUS DISCIPLE.

AFTER STUDYING UNDER HUINENG, HE WENT TO BAIYA MOUNTAIN IN NANYANG, WHERE HE LIVED FOR MORE THAN FORTY YEARS, NOT ONCE STEPPING FOOT OFF THE MOUNTAIN.

IN THE YEAR 761, EMPEROR SUZONG INVITED HIM TO THE CAPITAL TO ACCEPT THE POST OF NATIONAL TEACHER.

ONCE, DURING A MEETING WITH THE EMPEROR, ALTHOUGH THE EMPEROR ASKED MANY QUESTIONS, HUIZHONG REFUSED TO EVEN LOOK AT HIM.

西 京 光 宅 寺 慧 忠 國 師 者 越 州 諸 暨 人 也 。姓 冉 氏 。自 受 心 印 居 南 陽 白 崖 山 黨 子 谷 。四 十 餘 祀 不 下 山 門 。道 行 聞 于 帝 里 。

LAY SURNAME RAN, HUIZHONG WAS FROM ZHEJIANG. HE WAS ONE OF HUINENG’S FIVE GREATEST DISCIPLES.

唐肅宗上元二年勅中使孫朝進。齎詔徵赴京。待以師禮……。又問師。師都不視之。

HUIZHONG OF NANYANG (677–775)

51

曰朕是大唐天子。師何以殊不顧視。師曰。還見虛空麼。曰見。師曰。他還眨目視陛下否。

《景德傳燈錄》

52

I AM THE SON OF HEAVEN, EMPEROR OF THE GREAT TANG! HOW DARE YOU NOT LOOK AT ME?!

HAS EMPTY SPACE EVER BLINKED AN EYE AT YOU?

HAS HIS MAJESTY SEEN EMPTY SPACE BEFORE?

YES.

永 嘉 玄 覺 禪 師， 溫 州 戴 氏 子。 少 習 經 論， 精 天 台 止 觀 法 門。 …… 後 於《 維 摩 經 》 悟 佛 心 宗， 未 有 證 明 者。 ……

PERHAPS YOU SHOULD EXPERIENCE “NO GENERATION” AND TRY TO UNDERSTAND “NO HASTE.”

GENERATION AND EXTINCTION ARE IMPORTANT, AND HASTE DESCRIBES THE IMPERMANENCE OF THINGS.

曹 溪 有 六 祖 大 師， 四 方 雲 集， 並 是 受 法 者。 …… 覺 遂 …… 來 參， 繞 師 三 匝， 振 錫 而 立。 師 曰 ：「 夫 沙 門 者， 具

YOU POSSESS THE THREE THOUSAND DIGNIFIED DEPORTMENTS AND EIGHTY THOUSAND REFINED BEHAVIORS. WHERE DO YOU COME FROM WITH SUCH GREAT VIRTUE, MAKING HASTE TO GENERATE AN IMPRESSION OF IMPORTANCE?

AT THEIR FIRST MEETING, XUANJUE WALKED THREE CIRCLES AROUND HUINENG.

三 千 威 儀 、八 萬 細 行 。 大 德 自 何 方 而 來 ，生 大 我 慢 ？ 」 覺 曰 ： 「 生 死 事 大 ，無 常 迅 速 。」 師 曰 ： 「 何 不 體 取 無 生 ，

FROM YONGJIA IN ZHEJIANG PROVINCE, HIS LAY SURNAME WAS DAI. HE INITIALLY STUDIED UNDER THE TIANTAI SECT AND WAS ACCOMPLISHED IN MEDITATION. LATER, HE WENT TO SEE HUINENG TO VERIFY WHAT HE HAD LEARNED.

了無速乎？」

XUANJUE OF YONGJIA (665–713)

53

曰 ：「 體 即 無 生 ，了 本 無 速 。」師 曰 ：「 如 是 ，如 是 ！ 」玄 覺 方 具 威 儀 禮 拜 ，須 臾 告 辭 。 師 曰 ：「 返 太 速 乎 ？ 」曰 ：

「本自非動，豈有速耶？」

54

IN ALL THE WORLD, EXPERIENCE IS WITHOUT GENERATION, AND UNDERSTANDING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HASTE.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR INSTRUCTION. I MUST TAKE LEAVE NOW.

WELL SAID, WELL SAID.

P

CLA P

CLA P

CLA

WHY SUCH HASTE TO RETURN?

I HAVEN’T EVEN MOVED. WHAT HASTE IS THERE TO SPEAK OF?

XUANJUE STAYED AT BAOLIN TEMPLE FOR JUST ONE NIGHT, AND THEREAFTER PEOPLE CALLED HIM “ONE NIGHT JUE.”

師 曰 ：「 誰 知 非 動 ？ 」曰 ：「 仁 者 自 生 分 別 。」師 曰 ：「 汝 甚 得 無 生 之 意 。」曰 ：「 無 生 豈 有 意 耶 ？ 」師 曰 ：「 無

ALL RIGHT.

“DISTINCTION” ALSO HAS NO MEANING.

《六祖大師法寶墰經》

IF THERE IS NO MEANING, HOW CAN WE MAKE A DISTINCTION?

HOW CAN “NO GENERATION” HAVE MEANING?

EXCELLENT. EXCELLENT. PLEASE STAY JUST ONE NIGHT.

YES, YOU REALLY UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF “NO GENERATION.”

YOU BROUGHT UP THE DISTINCTION!

意 ， 誰 當 分 別 ？ 」 曰 ： 「 分 別 亦 非 意 。」 師 曰 ： 「 善 哉 ！ 少 留 一 宿 。」 時 謂 一 宿 覺 。

WHO KNOWS THERE IS NO MOTION?

55

懷 讓 禪 師 ，金 州 杜 氏 子 也 。年 十 五 往 荊 州 玉 泉 寺 。依 弘 景 律 師 出 家 。初 謁 嵩 山 安 國 師 ，安 發 之 曹 溪 參 扣 。讓 至 禮 拜 ，

師 曰 ：「 甚 處 來 ？ 」曰 ：「 嵩 山 。」師 曰 ：「 什 麼 物 ？ 恁 麼 來 ？ 」曰 ：「 說 似 一 物 即 不 中 。」師 曰 ：「 還 可 修 證 否 ？ 」

曰 ： 「 修 證 即 不 無 ， 污 染 即 不 得 。」

56

HUAIRANG OF NANYUE (677–744) FROM JIN PREFECTURE IN SHAANXI PROVINCE, HIS LAY SURNAME WAS DU. HE LEFT HIS FAMILY FOR THE ORDER AT FIFTEEN AND BEGAN BY STUDYING THE VINAYA SUTRAS. UNSATISFIED, HOWEVER, HE WENT TO SONG MOUNTAIN TO STUDY UNDER HUAIAN, WHO SUGGESTED HE GO TO CAOXI TO STUDY UNDER HUINENG.

WHAT IS IT THAT HAS COME?

WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?

FROM SONG MOUNTAIN.

TO SAY IT’S A THING IS NOT CORRECT.

IS THERE NEED FOR CULTIVATION AND VERIFICATION?

I DARE NOT SAY THAT THERE ISN’T, BUT I CAN SAY THAT IT WOULD NOT LEAD TO DEFILEMENT.

師 曰 ： 「 只 此 不 污 染 ， 諸 佛 之 所 護 念 。 汝 既 如 是 ， 吾 亦 如 是 。」 讓 豁 然 契 會 ， 遂 執 侍 左 右 一 十 五 載 ， 日 臻 玄 奧 。

HIS MOST FAMOUS DISCIPLE WAS MAZU DAOYI.

後往南嶽，大闡禪宗。

HE THEN WENT TO NANYUE, WHERE HE SUCCEEDED GREATLY IN DISSEMINATING ZEN.

SO HUAIRANG TOOK HIS PLACE AS HUINENG’S DISCIPLE AND STUDIED WITH HIM FOR FIFTEEN YEARS.

《 六 祖 大 師 法 寶 墰 經 》、《 景 德 傳 燈 錄 》

YOUR VIEWS ARE THE SAME AS MINE. THAT WHICH WOULDN’T BE DEFILED IS THAT WHICH THE BUDDHAS AND BODHISATTVAS WISH US TO BE MINDFUL OF PROTECTING.

57

吉 州 青 原 山 行 思 禪 師 本 州 安 城 人 也。 姓 劉 氏 幼 歲 出 家。 每 群 居 論 道 師 唯 默 然。 後 聞 曹 谿 法 席 乃 往 參 禮。 問 曰。

當何所務即不落階級。祖曰。汝曾作什麼。師曰。聖諦亦不為。祖曰。落何階級。曰聖諦尚不為。何階級之有。

祖深器之。會下學徒雖眾師居首焉。

58

XINGSI OF QINGYUAN (660–740)

AT HIS FIRST MEETING WITH HUINENG, HE ASKED:

FROM JI PREFECTURE IN JIANGXI PROVINCE, HIS LAY SURNAME WAS LIU. HE LEFT HOME TO JOIN THE ORDER AT A VERY YOUNG AGE, AND HE WAS OF A QUIET DISPOSITION.

WHAT WORK HAVE YOU ACCOMPLISHED LATELY?

IF I HAVEN’T EVEN WORKED ON THE NOBLE TRUTHS, WHAT LEVEL IS THERE TO SPEAK OF?

I HAVEN’T EVEN WORKED ON THE NOBLE TRUTHS.

GOOD, GOOD. VERY GOOD.

WHAT CAN WE DO TO KEEP FROM SLIPPING INTO THE LEVELS OF RELATIVISM?

AND WHAT LEVEL HAS THIS WORK BROUGHT YOU TO?

HUINENG WAS IMPRESSED BY HIS DEPTH AND REGARDED HIM AS HAVING ACCOMPLISHED THE MOST OF ALL OF HIS STUDENTS.

HE HAD A SINGLE OUTSTANDING DISCIPLE, SHITOU XIQIAN.

ALTHOUGH HE WAS BUT ONE, HE WAS SUFFICIENT. “THOUGH HORNS ARE NUMEROUS, A UNICORN SUFFICES.”

師既得法。住吉州青原山靜居寺……。有沙彌希遷……師曰。眾角雖多一麟足矣。

《景德傳燈錄》

LATER, XINGSI WAS SENT TO QINGYUAN MOUNTAIN IN JI PREFECTURE TO SPREAD THE DHARMA. THERE, HE DISSEMINATED THE TEACHINGS OF HUINENG.

59

江 西 馬 祖 嗣 讓 禪 師。 師 諱 道 一， 漢 州 十 方 縣 人 也。 祖 曰 ：「 …… 西 天 二 十 七 祖 般 若 多 羅 記 汝 ： 佛 法 從 汝 邊 去，

向 後 馬 駒 踏 殺 天 下 人 。」 唐 開 元 中 習 禪 定 於 衡 嶽 傳 法 院 。 遇 讓 和 尚 。

60

MAZU DAOYI, ANCESTOR MA (707–786) FROM CHENGDU IN SICHUAN PROVINCE, HIS LAY SURNAME WAS MA. OF ALL THE BUDDHIST MONKS THROUGHOUT HISTORY, HE MAY BE THE ONLY ONE TO HAVE GONE BY HIS LAY SURNAME.

AFTER HUAIRANG’S ENLIGHTENMENT, HUINENG ONCE SAID TO HIM:

THE TWENTY-SEVENTH ANCESTOR OF INDIAN ZEN, PRAJNATARA, PROPHESIED THAT AMONG YOUR DISCIPLES THERE WOULD BE A STRONG HORSE (MA) THAT WOULD RANGE ACROSS THE LAND.

MAZU LEFT HOME TO JOIN THE ORDER AT THE YOUNG AGE OF TWELVE. HE WENT TO NANYUE AND TOOK HUAIRANG AS HIS TEACHER.

I’M MAKING IT INTO A MIRROR!

HUAIRANG TOOK UP A TILE AND BEGAN TO POLISH IT.

HOW CAN POLISHING A TILE MAKE IT INTO A MIRROR? WHY ARE YOU POLISHING THAT TILE? IF POLISHING A TILE CAN’T MAKE IT INTO A MIRROR, HOW CAN SITTING IN MEDITATION MAKE YOU INTO A BUDDHA?

THEN WHAT SHOULD I DO TO BECOME A BUDDHA?

馬 和 尚 在 一 處 坐 ， 讓 和 尚 將 塼 去 面 前 石 上 磨 。 馬 師 問 ： 「 作 什 摩 ？ 」 師 曰 ： 「 磨 塼 作 鏡 。」 馬 師 曰 ： 「 磨 塼 豈 得

TO BECOME A BUDDHA.

成鏡？」師曰：「磨塼尚不成鏡，坐禪豈得成佛也？」馬師曰：「如何即是？」

EXCUSE ME, WHY ARE YOU LEARNING TO MEDITATE?

61

師 曰 ： 「 如 人 駕 車 ，車 若 不 行 ，打 車 即 是 ，打 牛 即 是 ？ 」 師 又 曰 ： 「 汝 為 學 坐 禪 ，為 學 坐 佛 ？ 若 學 坐 禪 ，禪 非 坐 臥 。

若 學 坐 佛 ， 佛 非 定 相 。 於 法 無 住 ， 不 可 取 捨 ， 何 為 之 乎 ？ 汝 若 坐 佛 ， 卻 是 殺 佛 。 若 執 坐 相 ， 非 解 脫 理 也 。」

《祖堂集》

62

DO YOU WANT TO LEARN TO SIT IN MEDITATION OR TO SIT IN BUDDHAHOOD? IF YOU WANT TO LEARN TO SIT IN MEDITATION, YOU WON’T FIND IT THROUGH RECLINING THERE.

IT’S LIKE AN OX PULLING A CART. IF THE CART DOESN’T MOVE, DO YOU STRIKE THE CART? OR DO YOU STRIKE THE OX?

IF YOU ARE LEARNING TO SIT IN BUDDHAHOOD, YOU MIGHT AS WELL BE KILLING THE BUDDHA. IF YOU INSIST ON SITTING IN SOMETHING, YOU WILL NEVER BE ENLIGHTENED. I SEE.

AFTER LEAVING HUAIRANG, MAZU WENT ON TO JIANGXI PROVINCE WHERE HE BECAME ABBOT OF A MONASTERY. OF HUAIRANG’S SIX MOST ACCOMPLISHED DISCIPLES, ONLY MAZU WAS GIVEN THE TRANSMISSION OF THE MIND.

AND IF YOU WANT TO SIT IN BUDDHAHOOD, YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT BUDDHAHOOD DOESN’T HAVE ANY SPECIFIC POSTURE.

IT WAS AFTER THIS THAT MAZU FINALLY ATTAINED ENLIGHTENMENT, AND HE FOLLOWED HUAIRANG FOR A FULL TEN YEARS.

BECOMING A BUDDHA IS A MATTER OF ENLIGHTENMENT. ONE NEED NOT BECOME MIRED IN ANY FORMALITIES TO UNDERSTAND THE REALITY OF LIFE.

WHY HAVE YOU COME?

BUT I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HERE. WHAT BUDDHA-DHARMA IS THERE TO SEARCH FOR?

I COME IN SEARCH OF THE BUDDHA-DHARMA. YOU HAVE YOUR OWN TREASURE AND YET YOU COME SEEKING IT FROM ME.

WHAT’S MY TREASURE?

BUDDHAHOOD IS WITHIN YOU—DON’T YOU KNOW THAT?! HOW CAN I GIVE IT TO YOU?

UNDERSTANDING THE TRUTH AND DISCOVERING THE SELF DEPEND ENTIRELY ON ONESELF. PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS “RIDING A MULE IN SEARCH OF A MULE.” THE FARTHER THEY GO FROM HOME, THE MORE CONFUSED THEY BECOME.

越 州 大 珠 慧 海 禪 師 … … 。初 至 江 西 參 馬 祖 。祖 問 曰 。從 何 處 來 。曰 越 州 大 雲 寺 來 。祖 曰 。來 此 擬 須 何 事 。曰 來 求 佛 法 。

FROM DAYUN TEMPLE IN YUE PREFECTURE.

祖 曰 。自 家 寶 藏 不 顧 拋 家 散 走 作 什 麼 我 遮 裏 一 物 也 無 。求 什 麼 佛 法 。師 遂 禮 拜 問 曰 。阿 那 箇 是 慧 海 自 家 寶 藏 。祖 曰 。

WHERE DO YOU COME FROM?

即 今 問 我 者 。是 汝 寶 藏 。一 切 具 足 更 無 欠 少 。使 用 自 在 。何 假 向 外 求 覓 。師 於 言 下 自 識 本 心 不 由 知 覺 。踊 躍 禮 謝 。

MAZU ONCE ASKED HUIHAI OF DAZHU:

《景德傳燈錄》

RIDING A MULE IN SEARCH OF A MULE

63

撫 州 石 鞏 慧 藏 禪 師 。本 以 弋 獵 為 務 。惡 見 沙 門 。因 逐 群 鹿 從 馬 祖 庵 前 過 。祖 乃 逆 之 … … 。祖 曰 。汝 是 何 人 。曰 獵 者 。

祖曰。汝解射否。曰射射。祖曰。汝一箭射幾箇。曰一箭射一箇。祖曰。汝不解射。曰和尚解射否。

64

THE HUNTER’S MARKSMANSHIP

HUIZANG OF SHIGONG WAS ORIGINALLY A HUNTER, AND THE LAST THING HE WANTED TO SEE WAS A MONK.

ONE DAY, WHEN HE WAS CHASING DOWN A KILL, HE RAN INTO MAZU.

WHAT ARE YOU?

HOW MANY CAN YOU GET WITH ONE ARROW?

I’M A HUNTER.

ONE ANIMAL PER ARROW.

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO SHOOT?

HA HA HA … YOU DON’T KNOW THE FIRST THING ABOUT SHOOTING.

OF COURSE I CAN SHOOT.

THEN YOU UNDERSTAND SHOOTING?

WHY DON’T YOU TAKE AIM AT YOUR OWN CONFUSION?

YOU HAVE IMMEASURABLE CONFUSION AND DISTRESS, BUT FROM NOW ON, YOU WILL BE COMPLETELY FREE OF THEM.

HUIZANG THEN GAVE UP HIS BOW AND JOINED THE ORDER, WITH MAZU AS HIS TEACHER.

I WOULDN’T KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN.

TAKING AIM AT AN ANIMAL CAN RESOLVE BUT A MOMENT’S HUNGER. TAKING AIM AT THE MIND’S CONFUSION CAN RESOLVE A LIFETIME OF DISTRESS AND SUFFERING.

祖 曰 。解 射 。曰 和 尚 一 箭 射 幾 箇 。祖 曰 。一 箭 射 一 群 。曰 彼 此 是 命 。何 用 射 他 一 群 。祖 曰 。汝 既 知 如 是 。何 不 自 射 。

MY TARGET IS THE CONFUSION OF ALL BEINGS.

《景德傳燈錄》

WE’RE ALL LIVING THINGS. HOW CAN YOU BEAR TO SHOOT A WHOLE HERD?

I CAN GET A WHOLE HERD WITH ONE SHOT.

HOW MANY CAN YOU GET WITH ONE SHOT?

曰若教某甲自射。即無下手處。祖曰。遮漢曠劫無明。煩惱今日頓息。藏當時毀棄弓箭。自以刀截髮投祖出家。

OF COURSE I DO.

65

澧 州 藥 山 惟 儼 禪 師 。首 造 石 頭 之 室 。便 問 … … 。甞 聞 南 方 直 指 人 心 。見 性 成 佛 。實 未 明 了 。伏 望 和 尚 慈 悲 指 示 。頭 曰 。

恁麼也不得。不恁麼也不得。恁麼不恁麼總不得。子作麼生。師罔措。頭曰。子因緣不在此。且往馬大師處去。

師稟命恭禮馬祖。

66

IN THEIR TIME, MAZU AND SHITOU XIQIAN WERE THE TWO MOST PROMINENT ZEN MASTERS IN ALL OF CHINA. RATHER THAN SEEING EACH OTHER AS RIVALS, THEY OFTEN RECOMMENDED STUDENTS BACK AND FORTH.

SELFNATURE

YAOSHAN WAS ORIGINALLY A STUDENT OF SHITOU XIQIAN.

I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO FULLY UNDERSTAND THE LINES, “DIRECT POINTING AT YOUR MIND, SEEING YOUR NATURE, BECOMING A BUDDHA.” COULD YOU EXPLAIN THIS FOR ME?

IT’S WRONG TO AFFIRM IT, IT’S WRONG TO DENY IT, AND IT’S WRONG TO BOTH AFFIRM AND DENY IT. NOW WHAT?

I…I DON’T KNOW.

I DON’T THINK YOU ARE MEANT TO BE HERE. WHY DON’T YOU GO TO MAZU?

OKAY. SO YAOSHAN WENT TO TAKE MAZU AS HIS TEACHER.

ONE’S SELF-NATURE IS OFTEN DEFILED BY OUTSIDE FORCES, THUS CAUSING CONFUSION. IF YOU RID YOURSELF OF ALL VALUE JUDGMENTS SUCH AS GOOD AND BAD, GAIN AND LOSS, ETC., AND IF YOU CAN TRANSCEND ABSOLUTES, THEN YOU WILL DISCOVER YOUR SELF-NATURE.

仍 伸 前 問 。祖 曰 。我 有 時 教 伊 揚 眉 瞬 目 。有 時 不 教 伊 揚 眉 瞬 目 。有 時 揚 眉 瞬 目 者 是 。有 時 揚 眉 瞬 目 者 不 是 。子 作 麼 生 。

WHEN I WAS AT SHITOU’S, I WAS LIKE A MOSQUITO STINGING AN OX—I JUST COULDN’T FIND THE PROPER OPENING.

師於言下契悟。便禮拜。祖曰。你見甚麼道理便禮拜。師曰。某甲在石頭處。如蚊子上鐵牛。祖曰。汝既如是。

UPON HEARING THIS, YAOSHAN WAS SUDDENLY ENLIGHTENED AND IMMEDIATELY BOWED TO MAZU.

善自護持。侍奉三年。

WHAT DID YOU SEE THAT MADE YOU BOW TO ME?

《五燈會元》

HOW CAN I DIRECTLY POINT AT MY MIND, SEE MY NATURE, AND BECOME A BUDDHA?

SOMETIMES I TELL IT TO RAISE THE EYEBROWS AND BLINK. SOMETIMES I DON’T TELL IT TO RAISE THE EYEBROWS AND BLINK. SOMETIMES THE ONE RAISING THE EYEBROWS AND BLINKING IS IT, AND SOMETIMES THE ONE RAISING THE EYEBROWS AND BLINKING IS NOT IT. SO, HOW DO YOU WANT TO GO ABOUT UNDERSTANDING IT?

67

洪 州 百 丈 山 懷 海 禪 師 … … 師 侍 馬 祖 行 次 。見 一 羣 野 鴨 飛 過 。祖 曰 。是 甚 麼 。師 曰 。野 鴨 子 。祖 曰 。甚 處 去 也 。師 曰 。

飛過去也。祖遂把師鼻扭。負痛失聲。祖曰。又道飛過去也。師於言下有省。

《五燈會元》

68

WHAT ARE THOSE?

HOW COULD IT HAVE FLOWN AWAY?

WILD DUCKS. ONE DAY, WHILE MAZU AND HIS DISCIPLE BAIZHANG WERE OUT WALKING, THEY SAW A FLOCK OF WILD DUCKS FLY OVERHEAD.

WHERE ARE THEY FLYING?

OW! AWAY.

OW! OW!

BUT IT’S RIGHT HERE … HOW COULD IT HAVE FLOWN AWAY?

THE PERFECT PERSON USES THE MIND LIKE A MIRROR: WHEN ENCOUNTERING SOMETHING, THE PERSON TAKES NOTE AND REACTS NATURALLY. WHEN IT IS OVER, THE MATTER VANISHES WITHOUT A TRACE.

BUDDHA OF THE SUN LIVED FOR ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS.

ONCE, WHEN MAZU WAS SUFFERING FROM A PROLONGED ILLNESS, THE SUPERINTENDENT OF THE MONASTERY CAME BY TO SEE HOW HE WAS.

BUDDHA OF THE SUN, BUDDHA OF THE MOON!

HOW ARE YOU FEELING, SIR?

馬大師不安。院主問。和尚近日尊候如何。大師云日面佛月面佛。

BUDDHA OF THE SUN, BUDDHA OF THE MOON

《佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄》

BUDDHA OF THE MOON LIVED FOR ONLY A SINGLE DAY AND NIGHT.

TO LIVE WHILE ONE CAN IS FORTUNATE, AND TO DIE WHEN ONE CAN IS ALSO FORTUNATE. FOR A PERSON WHO UNDERSTANDS THE PRINCIPLES OF LIFE, A LIFE OF A HUNDRED YEARS OR OF JUST ONE NIGHT IS A LIFE OF VALUE.

69

禪 門 規 式 。百 丈 大 智 禪 師 … … 創 意 別 立 禪 居 。凡 具 道 眼 有 可 尊 之 德 者 … … 。所 褒 學 眾 無 多 少 無 高 下 。五 戒 不 殺 生 、

不 偷 盜、 不 婬 欲、 不 妄 語、 不 飲 酒。 上 來 五 支 淨 戒 一 一 不 得 犯 ……。 五 戒 為 入 道 之 初 因。 出 三 途 之 元 首。 次 受

沙 彌 十 戒。 形 備 法 儀。 此 稱 勤 策。 依 師 而 住。 受 利 同 僧。 是 為 應 法 沙 彌。 應 當 頂 受 ……。 不 坐 臥 高 廣 大 床、 不

花鬘瓔珞香油塗身、不歌舞作倡故往觀聽、不捉金銀錢寶、不非時食。上來十支淨戒一一不得犯。

70

AFTER MAZU DIED, BAIZHANG INHERITED THE ORTHODOX DHARMA.

BAIZHANG’S RULES

HE THEN FORMULATED “BAIZHANG’S RULES,” WHICH FINALLY ESTABLISHED A FOUNDATION FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF MONKS AS WELL AS FOR THE INSTITUTION OF ZEN BUDDHISM.

BAIZHANG’S RULES

RULES

BAIZHANG’S RULES SET DOWN DETAILED RULES OF CONDUCT FOR THE DAILY LIFE OF THE ABBOT AND ALL THOSE IN THE MONASTERY UNDER HIM.

THEY REQUIRED THE PROSPECTIVE MONK TO VOW TO OBSERVE THE TRADITIONAL FIVE PROHIBITIONS, INTERPRETED AS: DO NOT KILL. DO NOT STEAL. DO NOT HAVE SEXUAL DESIRE. DO NOT SPEAK INDISCRIMINATELY. DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOL.

AND OTHER TRADITIONAL PROHIBITIONS, INTERPRETED AS:

ONLY AFTER ACHIEVING THESE WOULD HE FORMALLY HAVE HIS HEAD SHAVEN AND BECOME A MONK.

DO NOT SLEEP ON A HIGH OR BROAD BED. DO NOT ADORN YOURSELF. DO NOT ATTEND OR PARTICIPATE IN STAGE SHOWS. DO NOT HANDLE MONEY OR PRECIOUS OBJECTS. DO NOT EAT AT IMPROPER TIMES.

WHY SHOULD A PERFECTLY HEALTHY MONK LIVE LIKE SOME KIND OF PARASITE, SUCKING THE LIFEBLOOD OUT OF SECULAR PEOPLE?

SO HE DEMANDED THAT ALL MONKS SPEND TIME OPENING UP LAND TO CULTIVATION AND FARMING THEIR OWN FOOD. EVERY DAY, THE HEAVENS, THE EARTH, THE SUN, AND THE MOON PERFORM THEIR DUTIES UNCEASINGLY. EVERY DAY, ALL CREATURES BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH SHOULD DO THE SAME, IN AN EFFORT AT CONTINUOUS SELFENRICHMENT.

由 百 丈 之 始。 今 略 敘 大 要 遍 示 後 代 學 者。 令 不 忘 本 也。 其 諸 軌 度 山 門 備 焉。 普 請 之 法 蓋 上 下 均 力 也。 凡 安 眾 處

《 景 德 傳 燈 錄 》、《 敕 修 百 丈 清 規 》

WITH HIS RULES, BAIZHANG AIMED TO ELIMINATE THIS BEGGARLY LIFESTYLE.

IN INDIA, MONKS WERE PROHIBITED FROM FARMING AND DEPENDED ON OFFERINGS FROM THE FAITHFUL.

有必合資眾力而辦者……。除守寮直堂老病外。並宜齊赴。當思古人一日不作一日不食之誡。

BAIZHANG ALSO ESTABLISHED A SYSTEM OF WORK, IN WHICH NOT ONLY DID THE AVERAGE MONK WORK IN THE FIELDS, BUT THE ABBOT AS WELL.

RULES 71

百 丈 和 尚 …… 凡 日 給 執 勞， 必 先 於 眾。 主 事 不 忍， 密 收 作 具， 而 請 息 焉。 師 云 ：「 吾 無 德， 爭 合 勞 於 人？」 師

遍求作具，既不獲，而亦忘飧。故有「一日不作，一日不食」之言，流播寰宇矣。

《祖堂集》

72

A DAY WITHOUT WORK IS A DAY WITHOUT FOOD

HEE HEE HEE …

HERE ARE YOUR TOOLS BACK.

MMM … MMM!

BAIZHANG LIVED TO THE RIPE OLD AGE OF NINETY-FOUR, ALL THE WHILE WORKING SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE OTHERS. ONCE, WHEN SOME MONKS COULDN’T BEAR TO SEE HIM WORK SO HARD, THEY TOOK HIS TOOLS AND HID THEM AWAY.

HEY, WHERE ARE MY TOOLS?

THANK YOU.

PLEASE EAT …

FOR THREE DAYS, BAIZHANG DIDN’T WORK. BUT DURING THAT TIME, HE ALSO DIDN’T EAT. BECAUSE HE COULD FINALLY WORK AGAIN …

A DAY WITHOUT WORK IS A DAY WITHOUT FOOD.

NOT A BITE!

BAIZHANG ENDED HIS FAST.

GOOD FORTUNE IS BEING ABLE TO WORK AND HAVING WORK TO DO. IT IS ALSO NOT HAVING TO WORK WHEN ONE DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO WORK.

ACTUALLY, I’M NOT A HUMAN. ONCE, LONG AGO, I WAS ABBOT ON THIS MOUNTAIN.

WHO ARE YOU?

WILL AN EXPERIENCED CULTIVATOR OF THE SELF FALL INTO CAUSATION?

NO!

ONE DAY, WHEN I WAS ABBOT OF BAIZHANG MOUNTAIN, AN ITINERANT MONK ASKED ME:

BECAUSE I ANSWERED INCORRECTLY, I WAS PUNISHED BY BEING TURNED INTO A FOX AND MADE TO LIVE IN THE FORM OF AN ANIMAL FOR FIVE HUNDRED LIFETIMES.

百 丈 和 尚。 凡 參 次 有 一 老 人。 常 隨 眾 聽 法。 眾 人 退 老 人 亦 退。 忽 一 日 不 退。 師 遂 問。 面 前 立 者 復 是 何 人。 老 人

WHENEVER BAIZHANG LECTURED ON THE DHARMA, THERE WAS ALWAYS AN OLD MAN WHO SAT WITH THE MONKS.

云 。諾 某 甲 非 人 也 。於 過 去 迦 葉 佛 時 。曾 住 此 山 。因 學 人 問 。大 修 行 底 人 還 落 因 果 。也 無 。某 甲 對 云 。不 落 因 果 。

五百生墮野狐身。

ZEN OF THE FOX

73

今 請 和 尚 。代 一 轉 語 貴 。脫 野 狐 遂 問 。大 修 行 底 人 還 落 因 果 。也 無 。師 云 。不 昧 因 果 。老 人 於 言 下 大 悟 。作 禮 云 。

某 甲 已 脫 野 狐 身。 住 在 山 後。 敢 告 和 尚。 乞 依 亡 僧 事 例。 師 令 無 維 那 白 槌 告 眾。 食 後 送 亡 僧。 大 眾 言 議。 一 眾

皆安涅槃堂。又無人病。何故如是。食後只見師領眾。至山後巖下。以杖挑出一死野狐。乃依火葬。

《無門闗》

74

WILL AN EXPERIENCED CULTIVATOR OF THE SELF FALL INTO CAUSATION?

HE WON’T IGNORE CAUSATION!

HUH …

I’M FREE FROM THE BODY OF THE FOX. I LIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN. PLEASE GIVE ME A MONK’S FUNERAL. BAIZHANG DID INDEED FIND THE BODY OF A FOX IN A CAVE ON THE BACK SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN, AND HE HAD IT CREMATED ACCORDING TO CUSTOM.

IN LIVING WITH THE CYCLE OF CAUSE AND EFFECT, YOU LIVE WITH THE SUFFERING OF GAIN AND LOSS. THE MEANING OF LIFE IS NOT IN RESULTS, BUT RATHER IN EVERY PROCESS THAT LIFE HAS TO OFFER.

武宗即位，廢浮圖法，天下毀寺四千六百、招提蘭若四萬，籍僧尼為民二十六萬五千人，奴婢十五萬人。

FOR EVERY MAN WHO DOESN’T FARM, THERE ARE OTHERS WHO DON’T HAVE FOOD TO EAT. FOR EVERY WOMAN WHO DOESN’T WEAVE, THERE ARE OTHERS WHO DON’T HAVE CLOTHES TO WEAR. YET THE MONASTERIES’ MONKS AND NUNS NEITHER FARM NOR WEAVE, AND THE MONASTERIES DRAIN RESOURCES FROM THE PALACE. THIS IS WHAT CAUSED THE FALL OF THE SIX DYNASTIES.

SO MORE THAN 44,600 MONASTERIES AND TEMPLES WERE DESTROYED, MORE THAN 265,000 MONKS AND NUNS WERE RETURNED TO LAY LIFE, AND OVER FIFTEEN THOUSAND SERVANTS WERE TAKEN INTO SERVICE BY THE GOVERNMENT.

若一女不織。天下為之苦寒。一男不耕。天下為之少食。今釋迦垂法不織不耕。

THE GREAT SUPPRESSION

《 新 唐 書 》、《 廣 弘 明 集 》

IN THE YEAR 842, BUDDHISM IN CHINA WAS DEALT A TRAGIC BLOW WHEN THE TANG EMPEROR WUZONG BEGAN A MOVEMENT TO WIPE IT OUT FOR ECONOMIC REASONS.

75

OF ALL THE VARIOUS BUDDHIST SECTS SUFFERING THIS DISASTER, ONLY ZEN SURVIVED INTACT.

BECAUSE ZEN DIDN’T RELY ON SCRIPTURES OR IDOLS, EVEN THOUGH EVERYTHING WAS DESTROYED, THE ZEN MIND STILL THRIVED.

IN ADDITION, THE ZEN MONKS KNEW HOW TO WORK AND FEND FOR THEMSELVES, NOT NEEDING TO DEPEND ON THE REST OF SOCIETY FOR THEIR SURVIVAL.

THIS SUCCESS CAN BE ATTRIBUTED TO THE SYSTEM OR REFORMATION INSTITUTED BY BAIZHANG, WHICH ALLOWED ZEN NOT ONLY TO GET THROUGH THE HARD TIMES BUT TO FLOURISH IN THE END.

76

BAIZHANG’S INSISTENCE ON WORKING IS HIGHLY RELEVANT TO ALL OF HUMANITY BECAUSE WHEN YOU DEPEND ON YOUR OWN EFFORTS, YOU ARE ALSO TAKING CONTROL OF YOUR OWN DESTINY.

YOU SWEAT AND TOIL LIKE THIS EVERY DAY. WHO ARE YOU DOING IT FOR?

THERE’S SOMEONE WHO NEEDS IT.

WELL, WHY DON’T YOU TELL THAT PERSON TO DO IT THEMSELF?

THEY CAN’T GET ALONG BY THEMSELF. DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN “SELF” AND “OTHER” IS THE SOURCE OF SUFFERING. INSTEAD, WE SHOULD USE THE COMPASSIONATE MIND WHICH DOES NOT DISTINGUISH BETWEEN SELF AND OTHER TO HELP THOSE WHO NEED HELP THE MOST.

洪州百丈山懷海禪師……。雲巖問。和尚每日區區為阿誰。師云。有一人要。巖云。因什麼不教伊自作。師云。

《景德傳燈錄》

NO SELF, NO OTHER

他無家活。

ONE DAY, YUNYAN PAID A VISIT TO BAIZHANG.

77

潭州雲巖曇晟禪師……。師煎茶次道吾問。煎與阿誰。師曰。有一人要。曰何不教伊自煎。師曰。幸有某甲在。

《景德傳燈錄》

78

ONE DAY, WHILE YUNYAN WAS MAKING TEA, THE OLDER MONK DAOWU WALKED IN.

BECAUSE I’M HERE

THERE’S SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO DRINK IT.

WHO’S THE TEA FOR?

THAT PERSON WHO WANTS IT DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO MAKE IT THEMSELF?

I JUST HAPPENED TO BE HERE. AN ENLIGHTENED PERSON DOESN’T DISTINGUISH BETWEEN GUEST AND HOST. YOU ARE I, AND I AM YOU. THE GUEST AND HOST CAN BE DISTINGUISHED, AND THE GUEST CAN BE MADE THE HOST. THEY CAN ALSO BECOME ONE AT ANY TIME.

LET ME TRY.

THE FIRE’S GONE OUT.

LOOK! ISN’T THIS FIRE?

UPON HEARING BAIZHANG’S WORDS, GUISHAN WAS SUDDENLY ENLIGHTENED.

WHEN CULTIVATING ENLIGHTENMENT, THERE WILL ALWAYS BE TIMES WHEN CONFUSION WILL MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU CAN’T FIND THE FIRE IN THE EMBERS. THIS IS THE TIME WHEN YOU GET IT OR YOU DON’T. IT’S PRECISELY WHEN YOU’RE ON THE EDGE OF DESPAIR THAT YOU MUST ENTER A LEVEL DEEPER.

潭 州 溈 山 靈 祐 禪 師 … … 。百 丈 云 。汝 撥 鑪 中 有 火 否 。師 撥 云 。無 火 。百 丈 躬 起 深 撥 得 少 火 。舉 以 示 之 云 。此 不 是 火 。

OKAY.

師發悟。

PLEASE STIR UP THE BRAZIER AND SEE IF THERE’S ANY FIRE LEFT.

《景德傳燈錄》

FIRE IN THE EMBERS

LINGYOU OF GUISHAN WAS A STUDENT OF BAIZHANG. HE WAS ALSO THE FOUNDER OF THE GUISHAN TRADITION, AND LIKE MANY MONKS, HE CAME TO BE KNOWN BY HIS PLACE OF RESIDENCE.

79

鄧 州 香 嚴 智 閑 禪 師。 厭 俗 辭 親 觀 方 慕 道。 依 溈 山 禪 會。 祐 和 尚 知 其 法 器。 欲 激 發 智 光。 一 日 謂 之 曰。 吾 不 問 汝

平 生 學 解 及 經 卷 冊 子 上 記 得 者 。汝 未 出 胞 胎 未 辨 東 西 時 。本 分 事 試 道 一 句 來 。吾 要 記 汝 。師 懵 然 無 對 。沈 吟 久 之 。

進數語陳其所解。祐皆不許。師曰。却請和尚為說。祐曰。吾說得是吾之見解。於汝眼目何有益乎。師遂歸堂。

遍檢所集諸方語句無一言可將酬對。乃自歎曰。畫餅不可充飢。

80

XIANGYAN HITS BAMBOO

XIANGYAN WAS ORIGINALLY A STUDENT OF BAIZHANG, AND ALTHOUGH HE WAS WELL-VERSED IN THE SCRIPTURES, HE STILL COULDN’T GET A HANDLE ON THE MEANING OF ZEN. AFTER BAIZHANG PASSED AWAY, XIANGYAN FOLLOWED BAIZHANG’S BEST DISCIPLE, GUISHAN.

BUT LIFE AND DEATH ARE THE BIG QUESTIONS. TELL ME—BEFORE YOU WERE CONCEIVED BY YOUR PARENTS, WHAT WERE YOU?

PLEASE TELL ME THE ANSWER!

I’VE HEARD THAT WHEN YOU WERE WITH BAIZHANG, YOU COULD GIVE TEN ANSWERS FOR EVERY QUESTION AND A HUNDRED ANSWERS FOR EVERY TEN QUESTIONS. THAT’S BECAUSE YOU’RE SMART AND YOU’RE A GOOD TALKER.

THIS QUESTION SENT XIANGYAN INTO A DITHER, AND AFTER PAGING THROUGH ALL HIS BOOKS, HE STILL COULDN’T FIGURE IT OUT.

IF I TELL YOU NOW, YOU WILL BE ANGRY WITH ME LATER.

I GUESS IT’S TRUE THAT YOU CAN’T EAT A PAINTING OF A BISCUIT …

EVEN IF I WERE TO TELL YOU, IT WOULD BE MY ANSWER, AND IT COULD NEVER BECOME YOURS.

SIR, YOUR KINDNESS TOWARDS ME SURPASSES EVEN THAT OF MY PARENTS. IF YOU HAD TOLD ME THE ANSWER, HOW WOULD I HAVE ATTAINED ENLIGHTENMENT TODAY?!

WHEN XIANGYAN HEARD THAT CRISP, HOLLOW SOUND, HE SUDDENLY REALIZED THE END OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE SOUND AND HIMSELF. HE BECAME ONE WITH THE SOUND, AND THEN ONE WITH THE WHOLE WORLD!

於 是 盡 焚 之 曰 。此 生 不 學 佛 法 也 。且 作 箇 長 行 粥 飯 僧 免 役 心 神 。遂 泣 辭 溈 山 而 去 。抵 南 陽 覩 忠 國 師 遺 迹 遂 憩 止 焉 。

ON HEARING THE CRISP, HOLLOW SOUND OF TILE AGAINST BAMBOO, XIANGYAN SUDDENLY ATTAINED ENLIGHTENMENT.

一 日 因 山 中 芟 除 草 木 。以 瓦 礫 擊 竹 作 聲 。俄 失 笑 間 廓 然 惺 悟 。遽 歸 沐 浴 焚 香 遙 禮 溈 山 。贊 云 。和 尚 大 悲 恩 逾 父 母 。

!

TONK

《景德傳燈錄》

ONE DAY WHEN HE WAS OUT FARMING, HIS HOE STRUCK A TILE, WHICH HE PICKED UP AND TOSSED BACK INTO A CLUMP OF BAMBOO.

SO XIANGYAN LEFT AND ENDED UP SPENDING SOME TIME IN THE TEMPLE RUINS OF THE FORMER NATIONAL TEACHER, HUIZHONG.

當時若為我說却。何有今日事也。

WHY BOTHER WITH ALL THE BUDDHA-DHARMA STUFF? I’D BE BETTER OFF ROAMING AROUND AS A BEGGAR MONK.

81

潭 州 溈 山 靈 祐 禪 師 ……。 僧 問。 如 何 是 道。 師 曰。 無 心 是 道。 曰。 某 甲 不 會。 師 曰。 會 取 不 會 底 好。 曰。 如 何

是 不 會 底。 師 曰。 祇 汝 是。 不 是 別 人。 復 曰。 今 時 人 但 直 下 體 取 不 會 底。 正 是 汝 心。 正 是 汝 佛。 若 向 外 得 一 知

一解。將為禪道。且沒交涉。

《五燈會元》

82

A MONK ONCE ASKED GUISHAN:

THE MIND IS THE BUDDHA

I DON’T UNDERSTAND.

WHAT IS THE DAO?

YOU’D BETTER GET TO KNOW THE PERSON WHO DOESN’T UNDERSTAND.

THE DAO IS NO-MIND.

WHAT IS A PERSON WHO DOESN’T UNDERSTAND?

IT’S NONE OTHER THAN YOURSELF.

THE PRINCIPLE OF ALL THINGS IS NOT IN SOME FAR-OFF PLACE BUT IN YOUR OWN MIND. IF YOU LOOK FOR IT OUTSIDE, THE FARTHER YOU GO, THE FARTHER AWAY FROM THE DAO YOU WILL BE.

LOOK INSIDE AND EXAMINE YOURSELF, ELIMINATE SELFISH DESIRES, PURIFY THE SOUL, AND EMPTY YOUR MIND. ONLY THEN WILL YOU COME TO CLEARLY UNDERSTAND YOUR TRUE SELF.

HEY, KID, YOU’VE GOT TO HURRY AND ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT. DON’T CLING TO LANGUAGE AND IDEAS.

I DON’T EVEN WANT BELIEF!

WHAT CAN I BELIEVE IN BESIDES MYSELF?

DO YOU NOT WANT IT BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE, OR DO YOU NOT WANT IT BECAUSE YOU DON’T BELIEVE?

IF THAT’S THE CASE, THEN YOU CAN ONLY BE CONSIDERED A DISCIPLE OF THAT LOWER HINAYANA BUDDHISM.

I WOULDN’T EVEN WANT TO MEET THE BUDDHA HIMSELF.

師 謂 仰 山 曰 。寂 子 速 道 莫 入 陰 界 。仰 山 云 。慧 寂 信 亦 不 立 。師 云 。子 信 了 不 立 不 信 不 立 。仰 山 云 。只 是 慧 寂 更 信 阿 誰 。

THE DEVIL OF LANGUAGE

師云。若恁麼即是定性聲聞。仰山云。慧寂佛亦不見。

YANGSHAN WAS A PUPIL OF GUISHAN.

83

師問仰山。涅槃經四十卷多少佛說多少魔說。仰山云。總是魔說。師云。已後無人奈子何。

《景德傳燈錄》

84

OF ALL THE SCRIPTURES, HOW MUCH OF IT IS THE WORD OF THE BUDDHA, AND HOW MUCH IS THE WORD OF THE DEVIL?

IT’S ALL THE DEVIL!

VERY GOOD, VERY GOOD! FROM NOW ON, NOTHING WILL BOTHER YOU.

CLAP

CLAP

CLAP

IN THE END, YANGSHAN INHERITED THE ROBE AND ALMSBOWL OF GUISHAN AND CARRIED ON HIS STYLE OF ZEN.

THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THE SIMPLEST AND CLEAREST, BUT WHEN THEY ARE PUT INTO WORDS THEY CAN BECOME LIKE A DECEITFUL DEVIL. SO, WHEN READING THE SCRIPTURES, DON’T GET TANGLED UP IN THE LANGUAGE.

THEN YOU DIDN’T WASTE YOUR SUMMER, EITHER!

AND HOW DID YOU SPEND YOUR SUMMER?

DURING THE DAY I ATE, AND AT NIGHT I SLEPT.

GRANDEUR AND SIMPLICITY AREN’T REALLY SO DIFFERENT. AS LONG AS YOU LIVE ACCORDING TO YOUR ORDINARY MIND, YOU HAVEN’T WASTED YOUR TIME. GRANDEUR HAS ITS GOOD SIDE, AND SIMPLICITY HAS ITS GOOD SIDE.

袁 州 仰 山 慧 寂 禪 師 ……。 師 夏 罷。 問 訊 溈 山。 山 云。 一 夏 不 見 上 來。 在 下 面。 作 何 所 務。 師 云。 某 甲 在 下。 鋤

I PLOWED A PLOT OF LAND AND SOWED A BASKET OF SEEDS.

HEY, SO YOU DIDN’T WASTE YOUR SUMMER AT ALL!

得 一 片 畬。 下 得 一 籮 種。 溈 云。 子 今 夏 也 不 空 過。 師 却 問 溈 山。 和 尚 今 夏。 作 得 箇 甚 麼。 溈 云。 日 中 一 食。 夜

ONCE, AFTER GOING AWAY FOR THE SUMMER, YANGSHAN PAID A VISIT TO GUISHAN.

後一寢。師云。和尚今夏。也不空過。

《聯燈會要》

EATING AND SLEEPING

HEY, KID, WHAT DID YOU DO OVER YOUR SUMMER VACATION?

85

師住東平。溈山寄鏡子一面。并書至。師陞堂。受書畢。提起鏡子。示眾云。大眾且道。是溈山鏡。是東平鏡。

若 道 是 東 平 鏡 。又 是 溈 山 寄 來 。若 道 是 溈 山 鏡 。又 在 東 平 手 裏 。若 道 得 。即 留 取 。若 道 不 得 。即 撲 破 去 也 。如 是 三 說 。

眾皆無對。師遂撲破。

《聯燈會要》

86

SELF AND OTHER

ONCE, WHILE YANGSHAN WAS LIVING IN DONGPING, GUISHAN SENT A MONK WITH A LETTER AND A MIRROR FOR YANGSHAN.

AND IF YOU SAY IT’S GUISHAN’S, REMEMBER THAT IT WAS GIVEN TO ME. IF NO ONE ANSWERS, I’LL BREAK IT HERE AND NOW.

TELL ME, IS THIS MIRROR GUISHAN’S OR MINE? IF YOU SAY IT’S MINE, REMEMBER THAT IT WAS SENT TO ME BY GUISHAN.

YANGSHAN ASKED FOR AN ANSWER THREE TIMES, BUT NO ONE RESPONDED, SO HE SMASHED IT ON THE GROUND. AFTER ENLIGHTENMENT, THE SELF AND THE UNIVERSE BECOME ONE INTEGRATED BODY. THERE’S NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN SELF AND OTHER. ALL OF LIFE ENCOMPASSES THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH AND THE ENTIRE SPECTRUM OF TIME.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!

WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?!

KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION SHOULD BE ONE. PREACHING SOMETHING BUT NOT PRACTICING IT IS JUST LIKE SOMEONE WHO RECITES THE SCRIPTURES BUT DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THE PRINCIPLES OF BUDDHISM.

袁 州 仰 山 慧 寂 通 智 禪 師 ……。 耽 源 謂 師 曰。 國 師 當 時 傳 得 六 代 祖 師 圓 相。 共 九 十 七 箇。 授 與 老 僧。 乃 曰。 吾 滅

ALL RIGHT.

後 三 十 年。 南 方 有 一 沙 彌 到 來。 大 興 此 教。 次 第 傳 受。 無 令 斷 絕。 我 今 付 汝。 汝 當 奉 持。 遂 將 其 本 過 與 師。 師

THIS BOOK HAS BEEN PASSED DOWN FOR SEVEN GENERATIONS. YOU SHOULD TAKE IT AS A TOKEN OF YOUR ACCEPTING THE ROBE AND ALMSBOWL.

接得一覽。便將火燒却。

NO, NO, NO. I HAVE ACCEPTED YOUR ZEN THAT IS NOT RELIANT ON THE WRITTEN WORD. I LIKE ITS ORIGINAL FACE. YOU GO AHEAD AND KEEP THE BOOK.

《五燈會元》

GIVING AND RECEIVING

I’M GETTING OLD. TO SYMBOLIZE YOUR SUCCEEDING ME, I GIVE YOU THIS PRECIOUS BOOK.

87

朗 州 中 邑 洪 恩 禪 師。 仰 山 …… 問 如 何 得 見 性。 師 云。 譬 如 有 屋。 屋 有 六 窓。 內 有 一 獼 猴。 東 邊 喚 山 山 山 山。 應

如是六窓俱喚俱應。

《景德傳燈錄》

88

A MONK ONCE ASKED THE ZEN MASTER HONGEN:

SIX IN ONE

HOW CAN I HAVE THE EXPERIENCE OF SEEING MY OWN NATURE?

IF A PERSON CALLS THE MONKEY FROM THE EAST SIDE … IT’S LIKE A SMALL HOUSE WITH SIX OPEN WINDOWS AND A MONKEY INSIDE.

WHEN THE MONKEY RESPONDS, THE SOUND WILL COME FROM ALL SIX WINDOWS.

HERE, CLYDE!

WE HAVE SIX SENSES: SEEING, HEARING, SMELLING, TASTING, FEELING, AND THINKING. BUT IS THE WORLD THAT THEY SENSE THE REAL WORLD? IF WE CAN OVERCOME THE INHERENT LIMITATIONS OF OUR SENSES, USING OUR EYES TO HEAR AND OUR EARS TO SEE, SUDDENLY EVERYTHING WILL BECOME CLEAR.

I WON’T ASK WHAT HE SHOULD DO IN THE TREE, BUT RATHER, WHAT HE WAS LIKE BEFORE HE CLIMBED THE TREE.

HA HA HA

IN REGARD TO THE FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH, WHICH PRECEDES WORDLESSNESS, LIFE BEFORE WORDLESSNESS SHOULD BE USED IN RESPONSE.

鄧 州 香 嚴 智 閑 禪 師 … … 。一 日 謂 眾 曰 。如 人 在 千 尺 懸 崖 。口 銜 樹 枝 。脚 無 所 蹋 。手 無 所 攀 。忽 有 人 問 如 何 是 西 來 意 。

TELL ME, HOW SHOULD HE ESCAPE THIS PREDICAMENT?

若開口答即喪身失命。若不答又違他所問。當恁麼時作麼生。時有招上座出曰。上樹時即不問。未上樹時如何。

BUT IF HE DOES RESPOND, HE WILL FALL TO HIS DEATH.

IF THE MAN IN THE TREE DOESN’T RESPOND TO THE QUESTION, HE WILL BE SHOWING DISRESPECT TO THE QUESTIONER …

師笑而已。

EXCUSE ME, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE BUDDHADHARMA?

《景德傳燈錄》

XIANGYAN UP A TREE

ZHIXIAN OF SUPPOSE XIANGYAN SOMEONE CLIMBS SAID TO HIS TO A HIGH TREE DISCIPLES: BRANCH AND HANGS THERE BY HIS TEETH. THEN ANOTHER PERSON COMES ALONG AND SAYS:

89

明 州 大 梅 山 法 常 禪 師 ……。 師 即 大 悟。 唐 貞 元 中 居 於 天 台 山 餘 姚 南 七 十 里。 梅 子 真 舊 隱。 時 鹽 官 會 下 一 僧 入 山

采 拄 杖 。迷 路 至 庵 所 。問 曰 。和 尚 在 此 山 來 多 少 時 也 。師 曰 。只 見 四 山 青 又 黃 。又 問 。出 山 路 向 什 麼 處 去 。師 曰 。

隨流去。

《景德傳燈錄》

90

AFTER THE MONK DAMEI ATTAINED ENLIGHTENMENT, HE WENT TO LIVE BY HIMSELF IN THE MOUNTAINS.

FOLLOW THE FLOW

ONE DAY, A WANDERING MONK BECAME LOST AND HAPPENED UPON DAMEI.

I HAVE ONLY SEEN THE SURROUNDING MOUNTAINS TURN GREEN AND YELLOW.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU LIVED HERE IN THE MOUNTAINS?

CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO GET OUT OF THESE MOUNTAINS?

FOLLOW THE FLOW. MOVEMENT WAS ORIGINALLY EASY, BUT WE HAVE BECOME SHACKLED BY SO MANY WORLDLY RULES AND RESTRICTIONS THAT IT IS SOMETIMES DIFFICULT TO TAKE EVEN A SINGLE STEP.

IF YOU CAN SAY JUST ONE WORD, I’LL TAKE OFF MY HAT TO YOU.

OH, I KNOW THIS IS SOME KIND OF CRAFTY ZEN CHALLENGE, BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

SINCE YOU CANNOT ANSWER, I’LL TAKE MY LEAVE NOW.

OHH! JUST WHAT DID SHE MEAN?! AND WHAT DID THAT STRAW HAT REPRESENT?!

婺 州 金 華 山 俱 胝 和 尚 初 住 庵。 有 尼 名 實 際。 到 庵 戴 笠 子 執 錫 繞 師 三 匝 云。 道 得 即 拈 下 笠 子。 三 問。 師 皆 無

ONE DAY, A NUN NAMED SHIJI APPROACHED HIS HUT, WALKED THREE CIRCLES AROUND JUZHI, AND SAID:

對……。尼去後歎曰。

JUZHI’S ONEFINGER ZEN

NOT LONG AFTER JUZHI BECAME A MONK, HE MOVED INTO A GRASS HUT AND SPENT HIS TIME IN SOLITARY SELF-CULTIVATION.

91

我 雖 處 丈 夫 之 形 。而 無 丈 夫 之 氣 。擬 棄 庵 往 諸 方 參 尋 。其 夜 山 神 告 曰 。不 須 離 此 山 。將 有 大 菩 薩 來 為 和 尚 說 法 也 。

果旬日天龍和尚到庵。師乃迎禮具陳前事。天龍竪一指而示之。師當下大悟。

92

OH! STUMPED BY A NUN! HOW CAN I STAY HERE AND CALL THIS SELFCULTIVATION?

YOUNG MONK, YOU APPEAR TROUBLED. WHAT MIGHT BE THE MATTER?

SO, THAT NIGHT HE PACKED HIS THINGS AND PREPARED TO HEAD DOWN THE MOUNTAIN AT FIRST LIGHT.

JUZHI RELATED IN DETAIL THE EVENTS OF THE PREVIOUS DAY.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW THE CORRECT ANSWER?

PLEASE TELL ME.

ALL TRUTHS ARE HERE.

HAVING THE BODY OF A MAN IS NO USE WITHOUT THE DIGNITY OF ONE. I CAN’T ANSWER A NUN’S SIMPLE QUESTION.

AH

!

IN THIS FINGER OF A MILLION TRANSMUTATIONS …

NOW IT’S A REAL-LIFE NUN WITH A SMILING FACE …

AH!

H!

A

NOW IT’S THE BAWLING MASSES …

AH!

AH!

NOW IT’S A BABBLING BROOK THAT INSTANTANEOUSLY TRANSFORMS ITSELF INTO A THOUSAND BUTTERFLIES …

NOW IT’S A LOFTY MOUNTAIN PEAK; NOW IT’S A TREACHEROUS CLIFF.

93

自此凡有參學僧到。師唯舉一指無別提唱。

《景德傳燈錄》

I UNDERSTAND NOW—THE ONE IS ALL THINGS, AND ALL THINGS ARE ONE!

BACK IT GOES AGAIN TO BEING A STILL, SILENT SUMMIT TOWERING ABOVE, AND IF YOU RAISE YOUR HEAD, A COOL BREEZE WILL FILL YOUR EARS.

HELLO! … HELLO? HE’S GONE.

FROM THIS TIME FORWARD, WHENEVER THE ZEN MASTER JUZHI WAS ASKED ABOUT THE BUDDHA-DHARMA, HE SIMPLY BROUGHT OUT HIS THUMB AND SAID:

THIS!

94

“THE MANY HAVE ONE ESSENCE, AND THE ONE HAS MANY MANIFESTATIONS.” THERE ARE COUNTLESS DIFFERENCES AMONG THINGS IN THE WORLD, AND YET EVERYTHING ORIGINATES IN ONE SOURCE. “THE WORLD IS A FINGER,” SO THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FINGER AND THE THINGS OF THE WORLD.

AND WHEN JUZHI WASN’T AROUND, THE CHILD WOULD SURREPTITIOUSLY TAKE HIS PLACE, AND, IN LIKE MANNER, USE HIS FINGER TO ENLIGHTEN OTHERS.

PEOPLE HAVE COME TO ASK ABOUT THE DHARMA, AND JUST LIKE YOU, I RAISE MY FINGER IN RESPONSE!

YOU MIGHT AS WELL BE A PARROT. THAT’S NOT ZEN! !

HEY, KID! WHAT IS THE BUDDHADHARMA?

THE MASTER AND STUDENT BOTH BROUGHT FORTH THEIR FINGERS, AND WHEN THE YOUNG MONK SAW HIS SEVERED FINGER, HE WAS SUDDENLY ENLIGHTENED.

W A A A A A

WHAT OTHER PEOPLE HAVE COME TO UNDERSTAND INTUITIVELY CAN NEVER BECOME YOURS UNLESS YOU COME TO UNDERSTAND IT THROUGH YOUR OWN EFFORTS.

有 一 童 子 於 外 被 人 詰 曰 。和 尚 說 何 法 要 。童 子 竪 起 指 頭 。歸 而 舉 似 師 。師 以 刀 斷 其 指 頭 。童 子 叫 喚 走 出 。師 召 一 聲 。

THIS!

《景德傳燈錄》

JUZHI SEVERS A FINGER

童子回首。師却竪起指頭。童子豁然領解。

THIS!

LATER, JUZHI ACCEPTED A VERY YOUNG MONK AS HIS DISCIPLE, AND THIS CHILD WOULD SIT BY QUIETLY AND WATCH JUZHI ENLIGHTEN PEOPLE WITH HIS FINGER.

95

撫 州 石 鞏 慧 藏 禪 師 … … 。師 問 西 堂 。汝 還 解 捉 得 虛 空 麼 。西 堂 云 。捉 得 。師 云 。作 麼 生 捉 。堂 以 手 撮 虛 空 。師 云 。

作麼生恁麼捉虛空。堂却問。師兄作麼生捉。師把西堂鼻孔拽。西堂作忍痛聲。

《景德傳燈錄》

96

GRASPING EMPTINESS

WELL, LET’S SEE YOU DO IT.

SHIGONG ASKED A YOUNGER MASTER, ZHIZANG OF XITANG:

CAN YOU GRAB AHOLD OF EMPTINESS?

SURE.

OKAY.

IS THAT IT? YOU DIDN’T GET ANYTHING!

LIKE THIS!

OW! THAT HURTS! THAT HURTS!

THEN HOW WOULD YOU DO IT?

SINCE MATTER IS EMPTY, AND EMPTINESS IS MATTER, GRABBING A PIECE OF EMPTINESS ISN’T AS CLOSE TO REALITY AS JUST REACHING OUT AND GRABBING THE OTHER PERSON’S NOSE IS.

ING

BEING

NOTH

THAT CAN’T BE RIGHT … I USED TO STUDY ZEN WITH MASTER JINGSHAN, AND HE ALWAYS SAID THERE AREN’T.

AND DOES JINGSHAN HAVE A FAMILY?

HE’S A MONK! HOW COULD HE HAVE A FAMILY?!

DO YOU HAVE A FAMILY, SIR?

I HAVE A WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN.

THEN LISTEN: IN TERMS OF FAMILY, YOU’D HAVE TO BE THE SAME AS JINGSHAN BEFORE YOU COULD SAY EVERYTHING IS NOTHING. EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS DIFFERENT FROM EVERYTHING ELSE. THEREFORE, THERE CAN NEVER BE ONE CERTAIN, UNFAILING STANDARD. STANDARDS CHANGE WITH PEOPLE.

師 住 西 堂。 後 有 一 俗 士 問。 有 天 堂 地 獄 否。 師 曰 有 ……。 曰 和 尚 恁 麼 道 莫 錯 否。 師 曰。 汝 曾 見 尊 宿 來 耶。 曰 某

AN INTELLECTUAL NAMED ZHANG ZHUO ASKED ZHIZANG OF XITANG:

甲 曾 參 徑 山 和 尚 來。 師 曰。 徑 山 向 汝 作 麼 生 道。 曰 他 道 一 切 總 無。 師 曰。 汝 有 妻 否。 曰 有。 師 曰。 徑 山 和 尚 有

《景德傳燈錄》

BEING AND NOTHINGNESS

THERE ARE.

妻否。曰無。師曰。徑山和尚道無即得。

ARE THERE SUCH THINGS AS HEAVEN AND HELL?

97

唐 廬 山 歸 宗 寺 智 常 … … 。渤 洽 聞 多 識 。百 家 之 書 無 不 該 綜 。號 李 萬 卷 矣 … … 。遂 述 歸 宗 禪 師 善 談 禪 要 … … 。李 問 曰 。

教 中 有 言 。須 彌 納 芥 子 芥 子 納 須 彌 。如 何 芥 子 納 得 須 彌 。常 曰 。人 言 博 士 學 覽 萬 卷 書 籍 還 是 否 耶 。李 曰 。忝 此 虛 名 。

常曰。摩踵至頂只若干尺身萬卷書向何處著。李俛首無言。再思稱歎。

《宋高僧傳》

98

DURING THE TANG DYNASTY, THERE WAS A MAN NAMED LI BO WHO JUST LOVED TO STUDY. BECAUSE HE HAD READ OVER TEN THOUSAND BOOKS, PEOPLE CALLED HIM “LI OF TEN THOUSAND VOLUMES.”

A MOUNTAIN IN A MUSTARD SEED

THERE IS A PASSAGE IN THE VIMALAKIRTINIRDESHA SUTRA THAT SAYS: “MOUNT SUMERU CAN BE INSERTED INTO A MUSTARD SEED.” HOW COULD SUCH A BIG MOUNTAIN POSSIBLY FIT INTO A TINY MUSTARD SEED?

ONE DAY, HE ASKED THE MONK ZHICHANG:

YOU’RE CALLED “LI OF TEN THOUSAND VOLUMES.” HOW COULD THOSE TEN THOUSAND VOLUMES FIT INTO YOUR TINY SKULL?

OH …

THE DAO IS IMMEASURABLE, BOUNDLESS, AND UBIQUITOUS. AND IT IS CONTAINED IN A TINY MUSTARD SEED.

WHEN PANSHAN HEARD THE BUTCHER’S WORDS, HE FINALLY ATTAINED ENLIGHTENMENT.

ANY TIME AND ANY PLACE ARE ALWAYS THE BEST TIME AND THE BEST PLACE. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS EXPERIENCE THINGS WITH AN ATTENTIVE MIND.

幽 州 盤 山 甞 教 化 於 市。 至 屠 肆。 見 鬻 猪 肉 者 謂 屠 人 曰。 精 底 割 一 斤 來。 屠 人 釋 刀 而 對 曰。 那 箇 是 不 精 底。 師 於

ON THIS PORKER, WHAT’S NOT A PRIME CUT?

言下有省。

I’D LIKE A POUND OF PRIME MEAT.

《祖庭事苑》

WHAT’S NOT A PRIME CUT?

ONE DAY WHEN THE MONK PANSHAN WAS WALKING DOWN THE STREET, HE SAW SOME PEOPLE BUYING MEAT OFF A WILD BOAR.

99

南泉和尚。因東西堂爭猫兒。泉乃提起云。大眾道得即救。道不得即斬却也。眾無對。泉遂斬之。晚趙州外歸。

泉舉似州。州乃脫履。安頭上而出。泉云。子若在即救得猫兒。

《無門關》

100

NANQUAN KILLS A CAT

MONKS FROM TWO DIFFERENT HALLS OF NANQUAN TEMPLE WERE ONCE FIGHTING OVER A CAT. IT BELONGS TO US IN THE EASTERN HALL.

NO, IT’S THE WESTERN HALL’S CAT.

THE ABBOT, WHO WENT BY THE NAME NANQUAN, PICKED UP THE CAT AND ADDRESSED THE MONKS:

ANYONE WHO CAN SAY ONE SENTENCE IN ACCORDANCE WITH BUDDHISM WILL SAVE THE CAT. OTHERWISE, I’LL KILL IT RIGHT HERE.

NO ONE RESPONDED...

THAT EVENING, WHEN HIS STUDENT ZHAOZHOU VISITED, NANQUAN RELATED THE EVENTS FROM EARLIER IN THE DAY.

IF YOU HAD BEEN THERE, WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?

SO NANQUAN SPLIT THE CAT IN TWO.

AFTER LISTENING, ZHAOZHOU DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING. HE JUST TOOK OFF HIS SHOES, PUT THEM ON HIS HEAD, AND WALKED AWAY.

YOU WOULD HAVE SAVED THE CAT.

NANQUAN BRANDISHED THE KNIFE AND SEVERED THE DELUSIONS OF HIS DISCIPLES. BY INVERTING THE NORMAL ORDER OF THINGS AND PUTTING HIS SHOES ON HIS HEAD, ZHAOZHOU AIMED TO TURN THE DEADLY KNIFE INTO A LIFESAVING SWORD.

EXCUSE ME, CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO GET TO THE FAMOUS NANQUAN TEMPLE?

I WASN’T ASKING ABOUT THE SICKLE; I JUST WANT TO KNOW HOW TO GET TO THE MONASTERY.

I PAID THREE COINS FOR THIS SICKLE.

AND IT’S VERY USEFUL BECAUSE IT’S SO SHARP.

BY EMPHASIZING APPEARANCES, WE MISS THE REAL THING. IN PAYING TOO MUCH ATTENTION TO NAMES AND REPUTATIONS, WE CAN LAY EYES ON WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR BUT MISS IT COMPLETELY.

池 州 南 泉 普 願 禪 師 … … 。師 在 山 上 作 務 。僧 問 。南 泉 路 向 甚 麼 處 去 。師 拈 起 鎌 子 曰 。我 這 茆 鎌 子 。三 十 錢 買 得 。曰 。

ONE DAY, WHILE THE MONK NANQUAN WAS WORKING IN THE HILLS, A TRAVELING MONK APPROACHED TO ASK DIRECTIONS.

不問茆鎌子。南泉路向甚麼處去。師曰。我使得正快。

《五燈會元》

LOOKING BUT NOT SEEING

101

釋從諗。青州臨淄人也。姓郝氏。童稚之歲孤介弗群。越二親之羈絆。超然離俗。乃投本州龍興伽藍從師剪落。

尋 往 嵩 山 琉 璃 壇 納 戒。 師 勉 之 聽 習 於 經 律 但 染 指 而 已。 聞 池 陽 願 禪 師 道 化 翕 如。 諗 執 心 定 志 鑽 仰 忘 疲。 南 泉 密

付授之。

值 南 泉 偃 息。 而 問 曰 近 離 什 麼 處。 師 曰。 近 離 瑞 像 院。 曰 還 見 瑞 像 麼。 師 曰。 不 見 瑞 像 只 見 臥 如 來。 曰 汝

是有主沙彌無主沙彌。師曰。有主沙彌。曰主在什麼處。

102

CONGSHEN OF ZHAOZHOU (778–863) LAY SURNAME HAO, ZHAOZHOU WAS FROM LINZI IN QINGZHOU. WHEN HE WAS VERY YOUNG, HE LEFT HOME FOR THE ORDER AT LONGXING TEMPLE, AND HE TOOK HIS VOWS AT SONG MOUNTAIN. LATER, HE WENT TO CHI PREFECTURE IN ANHUI PROVINCE TO STUDY UNDER NANQUAN.

THE FIRST TIME THEY MET, NANQUAN WAS RESTING IN BED.

WHERE DO YOU COME FROM?

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN AN AUSPICIOUS STATUE?

FROM RUIXIANG (“AUSPICIOUS STATUE”) TEMPLE.

DO YOU HAVE A TEACHER? NO. BUT JUST NOW I SAW A RECLINING BUDDHA.

THE ORDINARY MIND IS THE DAO.

COME WITH ME.

CAN I LEAN IN ANY PARTICULAR DIRECTION?

SETTLING ON A DIRECTION INTRODUCES BIAS.

THE DAO DOESN’T RESIDE IN REALIZATION. REALIZING IS DELUSION, AND NOT REALIZING IS NUMBNESS. ONE WHO HAS ATTAINED THE DAO IS EMPTY AND OPEN. WHY WOULD THEY INSIST ON ANY PARTICULAR VALUE JUDGMENTS?

BUT WITHOUT SETTLING ON A DIRECTION, HOW CAN I REALIZE THE DAO?

THERE IS NO CERTAIN WAY TO THE DAO; EVERY WAY IS OPEN. THERE ARE A THOUSAND PATHS BY WHICH ONE MAY FREELY COME AND GO. YOU WANT TO BE ABLE TO EXTRAPOLATE A THOUSAND OTHER THINGS WHEN ONLY ONE CLUE IS GIVEN.

師曰。仲冬嚴寒伏惟和尚尊體萬福。南泉器之而許入室。異日問南泉。如何是道。南泉曰。平常心是道。師曰。

WHAT IS THE DAO?

還 可 趣 向 否。 南 泉 曰。 擬 向 即 乖。 師 曰。 不 擬 時 如 何 知 是 道。 南 泉 曰。 道 不 屬 知 不 知。 知 是 妄 覺 不 知 是 無 記。

HA HA

《 宋 高 僧 傳 》、《 景 德 傳 燈 錄 》

IN DEEP WINTER, THE WEATHER IS COLD. I HOPE YOU WILL TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOURSELF.

若是真達不疑之道。猶如太虛廓然虛豁。豈可強是非邪。

HA HA

103

師 又 到 一 老 宿 處， 老 宿 云 ：「 老 大 人 何 不 覓 取 住 處？」 師 云 ：「 什 摩 處 是 某 甲 住 處？」 老 宿 云 ：「 老 大 人 住 處

也 不 識 ！ 」 師 云 ： 「 三 十 年 學 騎 馬 ， 今 日 被 驢 撲 。」

《祖堂集》

104

KICKED BY A DONKEY

WHERE WOULD I FIND THAT?

I’VE BEEN LEARNING TO RIDE A HORSE FOR THIRTY YEARS, AND TODAY I’M KICKED BY A DONKEY.

AFTER HIS ENLIGHTENMENT, ZHAOZHOU TRAVELED TO VARIOUS PARTS OF THE LAND, VISITING MANY ZEN MASTERS OF THE TIME.

ONCE, HE PAID A VISIT TO AN OLD MONK …

WHY DON’T YOU FIND A PLACE TO LIVE?

HA HA HA. YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE?

WHEN POINTING OUT OTHER PEOPLE’S MISTAKES, THE IDEA THAT YOU’RE HARBORING JUST MAY BE THE ERROR ITSELF.

IF A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD CHILD SURPASSES ME, I LEARN FROM HIM. IF A HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD MAN IS LESS THAN ME, I TEACH HIM.

常 自 謂 曰 ： 「 七 歲 童 兒 勝 我 者 ， 我 即 問 伊 ； 百 歲 老 翁 不 及 我 者 ， 我 即 教 佗 。」 年 至 八 十 ， 方 住 趙 州 城 東 觀 音 院 。

《 趙 州 和 尚 語 錄 》、《 景 德 傳 燈 錄 》

DURING HIS TIME AS ABBOT, HE EMPLOYED A PROFOUND WISDOM AND RELAXED SENSE OF HUMOR IN GUIDING HIS DISCIPLES DOWN THE PATH TOWARDS THE GENUINE SELF.

師之玄言布於天下。時謂趙州門風。皆悚然信伏矣。

WHEN HE WAS ABOUT EIGHTY YEARS OLD, ZHAOZHOU FINALLY SETTLED DOWN AT GUANYIN TEMPLE ON THE EASTERN OUTSKIRTS OF THE CITY OF ZHAO (ZHAOZHOU).

105

問 ： 「 寸 絲 不 掛 時 如 何 ？ 」 師 云 ： 「 不 掛 什 摩 ？ 」 僧 云 ： 「 不 掛 寸 絲 。」 師 云 ： 「 太 好 不 掛 ！ 」

《祖堂集》

106

NOT A STITCH ON

WHAT’S NOT ON?

ISN’T THERE SOMETHING ON, THEN?

IF ONE CAN GET TO A POINT WHERE THE MIND IS NAKED, WITHOUT A STITCH ON, HOW WOULD THAT BE?

NOT A STITCH IS ON.

EVEN THE THOUGHT OF “NOT A STITCH ON” SHOULD BE ELIMINATED FROM THE MIND. WHEN “THE BUDDHA” ISN’T INSISTED ON AS “THE BUDDHA,” THE BUDDHA SUDDENLY APPEARS. ONLY IN THIS WAY CAN ONE GRASP THE MEANING OF ZEN.

I’M A DONKEY’S BEHIND.

OKAY, YOU WIN! I’M SPENDING MY SUMMER VACATION THERE.

I’M A BUG INSIDE THE DUNG.

THE TRUTH IS EVERYWHERE, THEREFORE THE TRUTH IS IN EVERYTHING. ZHUANGZI SAID, “THE DAO IS IN FECES AND URINE,” BECAUSE THERE IS NOWHERE THE TRUTH IS NOT.

師 與 小 師 文 遠 論 義 ，不 得 占 勝 ，占 勝 者 輸 餬 餅 。 師 云 ：「 我 有 一 頭 驢 ！ 」遠 云 ：「 我 是 驢 紂 。」師 云 ：「 我 是 驢 糞 。」

I’M A DONKEY’S DUNG.

I’M A DONKEY.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THE DUNG?

OKAY! AND WHOEVER LOSES HAS TO EAT A BISCUIT!

遠 云 ： 「 我 是 糞 中 虫 。」 師 云 ： 「 你 在 彼 中 作 麼 ？ 」 遠 云 ： 「 我 在 彼 中 過 夏 。」 師 云 ： 「 把 將 餬 餅 來 。」

LET’S HAVE A CONTEST. WE’LL MAKE METAPHORS AND SEE WHO CAN MAKE HIMSELF SEEM THE LOWLIEST.

《趙州和尚語錄》

THE DAO IS IN DUNG

ONE DAY, ZHAOZHOU WAS CHATTING WITH HIS DISCIPLE WENYUAN.

107

尼 問 ： 「 如 何 是 密 密 意 ？ 」 師 以 手 恰 之 。 云 ： 「 和 尚 猶 有 者 箇 在 ！ 」 師 云 ： 「 是 你 有 者 箇 。」

《趙州和尚語錄》

108

IF THE MIND IS PURE, EVERYTHING IS PURE

THERE IS NOWHERE THE DAO IS NOT. A NUN ONCE THE BRAIN IS NOT NECESSARILY THAT ASKED ZHAOZHOU: MUCH SMARTER THAN THE GUT. BOTH OF THEIR FUNCTIONS ARE IMPORTANT. WHAT IS THE “MYSTICAL SECRET”?

IT’S THIS.

YOU’RE THE ONE WHO HAS IT IN YOU.

OH! I NEVER THOUGHT YOU’D STILL HAVE THAT IN YOU.

IF THE MIND IS PURE, EVERYTHING IS PURE. IF THE MIND IS NOT PURE, NOTHING IS PURE. ZHAOZHOU DIDN’T MEAN ANYTHING; IT WAS THE NUN WHO THOUGHT HE DID.

BUT IF IT POSSESSES BUDDHA-NATURE, WHY WOULD IT TAKE ON THE STINKY FORM OF A DOG?

DOES A DOG POSSESS BUDDHA-NATURE?

YES.

BECAUSE IT DIDN’T DO WHAT IT CLEARLY KNEW WAS RIGHT.

A QUESTION CAN HAVE MORE THAN ONE ANSWER, DEPENDING ON ONE’S POINT OF VIEW. OF COURSE A DOG POSSESSES THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF EXISTENCE, BUT SINCE A DOG HAS NO AWARENESS OF ITS BUDDHANATURE, IT DOESN’T “POSSESS” IT.

僧 問 趙 州 。狗 子 還 有 佛 性 也 無 。州 云 。有 。僧 云 。既 有 。為 甚 麼 却 撞 入 這 箇 皮 袋 。州 云 。為 他 知 而 故 犯 。又 有 僧 問 。

BECAUSE IT MADE DISTINCTIONS IN A PREVIOUS LIFE.

BUT ALL CREATURES POSSESS BUDDHANATURE. WHY DOESN’T A DOG?

ANOTHER MONK ASKED:

NO.

狗子還有佛性也無。州曰。無。僧云。一切眾生皆有佛性。狗子為什麼却無。州云。為伊有業識在。

DOES A DOG POSSESS BUDDHA-NATURE?

《萬松老人評唱天童覺和尚頌古從容庵錄》

THE BUDDHANATURE OF A DOG

109

一 日 州 掃 地 次。 僧 問。 和 尚 是 善 知 識。 為 什 麼 有 塵。 州 云。 外 來 底。 又 問。 清 淨 伽 藍。 為 什 麼 有 塵。 州 云。 又

有一點也。

《佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄》

110

DUST

IS THERE DUST EVEN IN THE PURITY OF A BUDDHIST SANCTUARY?

IS THERE DUST EVEN IN THE PURITY OF A BUDDHIST SANCTUARY?

DUST DRIFTS IN FROM OUTSIDE.

SEE? ANOTHER SPECK JUST DRIFTED IN!

A BUDDHIST MONASTERY IS SUPPOSED TO BE A PURE SANCTUARY, A PLACE TO BE FREE OF DISTRESS. BUT, OF COURSE, THERE IS ALSO “DUST” IN IT. TO GET CAUGHT UP IN THIS FACT IS CONFUSION—JUST MORE DUST.

ZHEN PREFECTURE PRODUCES VERY LARGE WHITE RADISHES.

僧問趙州。承聞和尚親見南泉。是否。州云。鎮州出大蘿蔔頭。

ZHEN PREFECTURE’S BIG WHITE RADISHES

《佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄》

I HEARD THAT YOU WERE ONCE A FOLLOWER OF NANQUAN AND THAT YOU INHERITED HIS ROBE AND ALMSBOWL. IS THIS CORRECT?

HEARSAY IS JUST HEARSAY. IF YOU HAVE NOT EXPERIENCED SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF, IT’S DIFFICULT TO REALLY BELIEVE. BELIEF HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT YOU HEAR BUT DEPENDS WHOLLY ON YOURSELF. IF YOU FOCUS ON WHAT OTHERS SAY, IT’S EASY TO NEGLECT YOURSELF.

111

僧 問。 久 嚮。 趙 州 石 橋。 到 來 只 見 掠 彴。 師 云。 汝 只 見 掠 彴 不 見 趙 州 橋。 僧 云。 如 何 是 趙 州 橋。 師 云。 過 來。

又有僧同前問。師亦如前答。僧云。如何是趙州橋。師云。度驢度馬。僧云。如何是掠彴。師云。箇箇度人。

《景德傳燈錄》

112

ZHAOZHOU’S STONE BRIDGE

IT WAS SAID THAT NEAR THE GUANYIN TEMPLE IN HEBEI PROVINCE, THERE WAS A FAMOUS BRIDGE CALLED THE ZHAOZHOU STONE BRIDGE.

I’VE HEARD ABOUT THE ZHAOZHOU STONE BRIDGE, BUT WHEN I ARRIVED, ALL I SAW WAS A BRIDGE MADE OUT OF A SINGLE LOG. WHERE’S THE STONE BRIDGE?

YOU ONLY SAW THE SINGLE LOG, AND YOU DIDN’T SEE THE STONE BRIDGE?

THAT’S RIGHT. WHAT EXACTLY IS ZHAOZHOU’S STONE BRIDGE?

IT IS THE BRIDGE THAT ALLOWS THE CROSSING OF DONKEYS, HORSES, AND EVERY CONFUSED BEING IN THE WORLD. THE ACTUAL SINGLE-LOG BRIDGE COULD ONLY LET ONE PERSON CROSS AT A TIME, BUT THROUGH THE MERCY OF ZHAOZHOU, HIS ABSTRACT STONE BRIDGE ALLOWED ALL BEINGS TO SAFELY CROSS AT THE SAME TIME.

THIS IS MY FIRST TIME HERE, AND I’D APPRECIATE IT IF YOU COULD TEACH ME ABOUT SELFCULTIVATION.

HAVE YOU EATEN BREAKFAST YET?

THEN GO WASH YOUR BOWL.

YES, I HAVE.

ENLIGHTENMENT, SELF-CULTIVATION, AND OUR DAILY ACTIVITIES ARE ALL PARTS OF THE SAME THING. IT IS ESSENTIAL TO UNDERSTAND THIS ABOUT ENLIGHTENMENT, FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF THIS ATTITUDE IS SELF-CULTIVATION. IT IS NOT BECAUSE OF SELF-CULTIVATION THAT WE GAIN ENLIGHTENMENT.

僧問。學人迷昧乞師指示。師云。喫粥也未。僧云。喫粥也。師云。洗鉢去。其僧忽然省悟。

《景德傳燈錄》

GO WASH YOUR BOWL

A MAN ONCE WENT TO THE GUANYIN TEMPLE TO BECOME A MONK AND FINALLY GAINED AN AUDIENCE WITH ZHAOZHOU.

113

問 ：「 了 事 底 人 如 何 ？ 」師 云 ：「 正 大 修 行 。」學 云 ：「 未 審 和 尚 還 修 行 也 無 ？ 」師 云 ：「 著 衣 喫 飯 。」學 云 ：「 著

衣喫飯尋常事，未審修行也無？」師云：「你且道我每日作什麼？」

《趙州和尚語錄》

114

WHAT IS SELFCULTIVATION?

WHAT KINDS OF PEOPLE NEED TO ENGAGE IN SELFCULTIVATION?

SELF-CULTIVATION GOES NO FURTHER THAN DRESSING …

EVEN A GREAT MASTER LIKE YOURSELF NEEDS TO PRACTICE SELFCULTIVATION?

AND EATING.

WHAT DO YOU THINK I DO EVERY DAY?

BUT THESE ARE THINGS WE DO EVERY DAY. WHAT IS SELF-CULTIVATION?

PEOPLE LIKE ME.

SELF-CULTIVATION REFERS TO IDLE CONVERSATION, WASHING YOUR FACE, EATING—ALL THE DETAILS OF EVERYDAY LIFE THAT SHOULD BE DONE WITH CARE AND SINCERITY. IF PERFORMED IN THIS WAY, EVERY LITTLE TASK WILL RESONATE WITH THE TRUTH.

WHEN WILL IT BECOME A BUDDHA?

YES.

WHEN THE SKY FALLS.

AND WHEN WILL THE SKY FALL?

WHEN THE CYPRESS TREE BECOMES A BUDDHA.

THE BUDDHA-NATURE IS THE ORIGINAL NATURE OF ALL THINGS. THE TRUE MEANING OF ZEN IS TO GAIN INSIGHT INTO THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE AS IT IS AND TO BE ONE WITH THE TRUTH. THIS TRUTH HAS BEEN AROUND SINCE AGES PAST AND WILL BE THE SAME FOR AGES TO COME.

問 ：「 柏 樹 子 還 有 佛 性 也 無 ？ 」師 云 ：「 有 。」云 ：「 幾 時 成 佛 ？ 」師 云 ：「 待 虛 空 落 地 。」云 ：「 虛 空 幾 時 落 地 ？ 」

DOES A CYPRESS TREE POSSESS THE BUDDHA-NATURE?

師 云 ： 「 待 柏 樹 子 成 佛 。」

《趙州和尚語錄》

A CYPRESS TREE BECOMES A BUDDHA

115

問 ： 「 萬 法 歸 一 ， 一 歸 何 所 ？ 」 師 云 ： 「 我 在 青 州 作 一 領 布 衫 ， 重 七 斤 。」

《趙州和尚語錄》

116

THE MANY RETURN TO THE ONE

ALL THINGS RETURN TO THE ONE, BUT WHERE DOES THE ONE RETURN TO?

WHEN I WAS IN QINGZHOU, I MADE A ROBE THAT WEIGHED SEVEN POUNDS. ALTHOUGH THE UNIVERSE IS SEPARATED INTO AN INFINITE NUMBER OF PARTS, AND EACH PART HAS ITS OWN DISTINCT IDENTITY, THEY ARE ALL STILL PARTS OF ONE UNIVERSAL BODY. THE ONE AND THE MANY INTERFUSE WITH EACH OTHER, SO IF THE MANY RETURN TO THE ONE, THEN THE ONE RETURNS TO THE MANY. THEREFORE, EVEN THE TINIEST SPECKS IN THE UNIVERSE RETURN TO THE ONE.

《趙州和尚語錄》

WHAT IS ZHAOZHOU?

WHAT IS ZHAOZHOU?

THE EASTERN GATE, THE WESTERN GATE, THE SOUTHERN GATE, THE NORTHERN GATE.

問 ： 「 如 何 是 趙 州 ？ 」 師 云 ： 「 東 門 西 門 南 門 北 門 。」

ZHAOZHOU’S GUANYIN TEMPLE WAS SITUATED JUST OUTSIDE THE CITY OF ZHAOZHOU.

ZHAOZHOU’S ZEN WAS JUST LIKE THE GATES OF THE CITY OF ZHAOZHOU: APPROACHABLE FROM ALL SIDES AND LEADING IN ALL DIRECTIONS. YOU COULD TAKE WHAT YOU WANTED, AND IF YOU JUST WANTED TO LOOK, YOU COULD DO SO TO YOUR HEART’S CONTENT.

117

有 僧 遊 五 臺。 問 一 婆 子 云。 臺 山 路 向 什 麼 處 去。 婆 子 云。 驀 直 恁 麼 去。 僧 便 去。 婆 子 云。 又 恁 麼 去 也。 其 僧 舉

似 師 。師 云 。待 我 去 勘 破 遮 婆 子 。師 至 明 日 便 去 問 。臺 山 路 向 什 麼 處 去 。婆 子 云 。驀 直 恁 麼 去 。師 便 去 。婆 子 云 。

又恁麼去也。師歸院謂僧云。我為汝勘破遮婆子了也。

《景德傳燈錄》

118

ZHAOZHOU ASKS THE WAY TO ZHAOZHOU

I’M LOOKING FOR ZHAOZHOU. COULD YOU POINT ME IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?

JUST WALK STRAIGHT AHEAD. DON’T TURN WEST AND DON’T TURN EAST.

ON THE WAY HERE, I MET AN OLD LADY WHO SEEMED TO HAVE A PROFOUND UNDERSTANDING OF ZEN SAMADHI.

I’LL GO TEST HER.

I’M LOOKING FOR ZHAOZHOU. COULD YOU POINT ME IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?

SHE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND A THING. WASN’T ZHAOZHOU STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER FACE? JUST WALK STRAIGHT AHEAD. DON’T TURN WEST AND DON’T TURN EAST.

THE SAME PAT ANSWER ISN’T NECESSARILY TRUE IN ALL SITUATIONS. THE TRUTH OF LIFE IS ALWAYS MOVING, ALWAYS CHANGING.

SO, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE BUDDHADHARMA?

THE CYPRESS TREE OUT FRONT.

GREEN MOUNTAINS ARE PURE LIFE; A STREAM IS THE BUDDHA SPEAKING. THROUGH THE SOUND OF FLOWING WATER WE SEE THAT THE CYPRESS TREE RESONATES WITH THE LIFE OF THE UNIVERSE, AND THEY BECOME ONE.

僧 問 ：「 如 何 是 祖 師 西 來 意 ？ 」師 云 ：「 庭 前 柏 樹 子 。」學 云 ：「 和 尚 莫 將 境 示 人 。」師 云 ：「 我 不 將 境 示 人 。」云 ：

OKAY, I WON’T REFER TO ANYTHING CONCRETE.

THE CYPRESS TREE OUT FRONT.

「 如 何 是 祖 師 西 來 意 ？ 」 師 云 ： 「 庭 前 柏 樹 子 。」

PLEASE DON’T USE A METAPHOR INVOLVING CONCRETE OBJECTS.

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE BUDDHA-DHARMA?

《趙州和尚語錄》

THE CYPRESS TREE OUT FRONT

119

《趙州和尚語錄》

問 ： 「 急 切 處 ， 請 師 道 。」 師 云 ： 「 尿 是 小 事 ， 須 是 老 僧 自 去 始 得 。」

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF ZEN?

THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE

BUT RIGHT NOW I HAVE TO GO RELIEVE MYSELF.

CAN YOU DO IT FOR ME?

120

I’D LIKE TO TELL YOU …

THINK ABOUT IT. SUCH AN INSIGNIFICANT AFFAIR, AND YET I MUST DO IT FOR MYSELF.

COMING TO UNDERSTAND THE BIG QUESTIONS IN LIFE MUST BE DONE BY ONESELF; NO ONE ELSE CAN DO IT FOR YOU. REPEATING OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS IS LIKE THE MIMICRY OF A PARROT—IT MAY BE SPEAKING, BUT IT DOESN’T KNOW WHAT IT’S SAYING.

FINE, THEN KEEP IT!

BUT I TOLD YOU I’VE GOT NOTHING. WHAT ELSE CAN I LET GO OF?

DROPPING EVERYTHING MUST INCLUDE CASTING ASIDE THE VERY IDEA OF DROPPING EVERYTHING. IF YOU CONTINUALLY CONCENTRATE ON DROPPING EVERYTHING, YOU’LL NEVER REACH THAT REALM OF PURITY AND TRANQUILITY.

洪州新興嚴陽尊者。初參趙州。問。一物不將來時如何。州曰。放下著。師曰。既是一物不將來。放下箇甚麼。

THEN LET GO OF IT.

州曰。放不下。擔取去。師於言下大悟。

DROPPING EVERYTHING

《五燈會元》

I’VE DROPPED EVERYTHING. MY ARMS ARE EMPTY, AND I COME WITH A PEACEFUL HEART.

121

師 問 二 新 到 ：「 上 座 曾 到 此 間 否 ？ 」云 ：「 不 曾 到 。」師 云 ：「 喫 茶 去 ！ 」又 問 那 一 人 ：「 曾 到 此 間 否 ？ 」云 ：「 曾

到 。」 師 云 ： 「 喫 茶 去 ！ 」 院 主 問 ： 「 和 尚 ！ 不 曾 到 ，教 伊 喫 茶 去 ，即 且 致 ； 曾 到 ，為 什 麼 教 伊 喫 茶 去 ？ 」 師 云 ：

「 院 主 。」 院 主 應 喏 。 師 云 ： 「 喫 茶 去 ！ 」

《趙州和尚語錄》

122

HAVE YOU BEEN HERE BEFORE?

HAVE SOME TEA

GO IN AND HAVE SOME TEA.

GO IN AND HAVE SOME TEA.

YES, SIR.

YES, SIR.

GO IN AND HAVE SOME TEA.

YES, I HAVE.

HAVE YOU BEEN HERE BEFORE?

THIS IS MY FIRST TIME HERE.

WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN? THEY GET PROCTOR! TEA IF THEY’VE COME BEFORE, AND THEY GET TEA IF THEY HAVEN’T.

WHETHER THEY HAD BEEN THERE BEFORE OR NOT, ZHAOZHOU DID NOT DIFFERENTIATE AND INVITED THEM ALL TO TEA. ALTHOUGH A CUP OF TEA IS JUST AN EXPRESSION OF THE ORDINARY MIND, IT IS THE KEY TO ZEN.

IF I DON’T GO TO HELL TO TEACH YOU, WHO WILL?

I’LL GO TO HELL.

BUT YOU ARE A MAN OF GREAT VIRTUE AND WISDOM. WHY WOULD YOU GO TO HELL?

IF BUDDHISM IS RESERVED ONLY FOR PLACES OF PURITY, DOES THAT MEAN THE BUDDHA DOESN’T EXIST IN FILTHY BATHROOMS? THERE IS NO PLACE WHERE THE BUDDHA DOESN’T EXIST. OF COURSE THE BUDDHA EXISTS IN HEAVEN, BUT ISN’T THERE AN EVEN GREATER NEED FOR A BUDDHA IN HELL?

崔 郎 中 問 ： 「 大 善 知 識 還 入 地 獄 也 無 ？ 」 師 云 ： 「 老 僧 末 上 入 。」 崔 云 ： 「 既 是 大 善 知 識 ， 為 什 麼 入 地 獄 ？ 」 師

AND THEN?

I WILL CHANGE INTO A HORSE OR A DONKEY.

云 ：「 老 僧 若 不 入 ，爭 得 見 郎 中 ？ 」… … 問 ：「 無 為 寂 靜 底 人 ，莫 落 在 沉 空 也 無 ？ 」師 云 ：「 落 在 沉 空 。」云 ：「 究

WHERE WILL YOU GO AFTER YOU DIE?

《趙州和尚語錄》

IF I DON’T GO TO HELL, WHO WILL?

竟 如 何 ？ 」 師 云 ： 「 作 驢 ， 作 馬 。」

A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL ONCE ASKED THE ZEN MASTER CONGSHEN:

123

鎮 州 臨 濟 義 玄 禪 師 。曹 州 南 華 邢 氏 子 。幼 負 出 塵 之 志 。及 落 髮 進 具 。便 慕 禪 宗 。初 在 黃 檗 會 中 … … 。師 應 機 多 用 喝 。

會下參徒亦學師喝。

124

YIXUAN OF LINJI, FOUNDER OF THE LINJI (RINZAI) TRADITION (D. 867) LINJI YIXUAN WAS A NATIVE OF CAO COUNTY IN SHANDONG PROVINCE, AND HIS LAY SURNAME WAS XING. WHILE STILL A CHILD, HE DECIDED TO LEAVE HIS FAMILY TO BECOME A MONK, AND HE PURSUED THE TRUTH WITH GREAT SINCERITY. AROUND THE AGE OF TWENTY, HE WENT TO ANHUI PROVINCE AND STUDIED UNDER HUANGBO. AFTER ATTAINING ENLIGHTENMENT, HE SETTLED DOWN IN ZHENZHOU, HEBEI PROVINCE, AND ESTABLISHED THE LINJI TEMPLE, WHERE HE PREACHED HIS OWN STYLE OF ZEN. LIKE MANY ZEN MASTERS, HE WAS KNOWN BY HIS PLACE OF RESIDENCE.

THE SHOUT!

LINJI OFTEN USED THE SHOUT TO INDUCE ENLIGHTENMENT IN HIS STUDENTS, AND HIS SHOUT BECAME LIKENED TO DESHAN’S USE OF THE STAFF.

THE STAFF!

A SIDE EFFECT OF THIS PRACTICE WAS THAT LINJI’S STUDENTS ONLY KNEW HOW TO IMITATE HIS USE OF THE SHOUT BUT KNEW NOTHING OF ITS FUNCTION OR ITS MEANING.

HA!

HA!

NOW, WHICH IS THE HOST AND WHICH IS THE GUEST?

IF YOU CAN’T FIGURE IT OUT, DON’T IMITATE MY SHOUT ANYMORE.

IT IS NOT THE SHOUT THAT IS IMPORTANT; RATHER, IT IS UNDERSTANDING THAT THE HOST AND THE GUEST ARE ORIGINALLY ONE AND THE SAME.

師 曰 。汝 等 總 學 我 喝 。我 今 問 汝 。有 一 人 從 東 堂 出 。一 人 從 西 堂 出 。兩 人 齊 喝 一 聲 。這 裏 分 得 賓 主 麼 。汝 且 作 麼 生 分 。

HA!

若分不得。已後不得學老僧喝。

HA!

《五燈會元》

YOU ARE ALWAYS IMITATING MY SHOUT. NOW I’M GOING TO TEST YOU. ONE MAN COMES OUT FROM THE EASTERN HALL, AND ONE COMES OUT FROM THE WESTERN HALL. WHEN THEY MEET, THEY BOTH SHOUT ONCE:

125

師 謂 僧 曰。 有 時 一 喝 如 金 剛 王 寶 劒。 有 時 一 喝 如 踞 地 師 子。 有 時 一 喝 如 探 竿 影 草。 有 時 一 喝 不 作 一 喝 用。 汝 作

麼生會。僧擬議。師便喝。

《五燈會元》

126

SOMETIMES A SHOUT IS LIKE THE PRECIOUS SWORD OF THE DIAMOND KING; SOMETIMES A SHOUT IS LIKE A CROUCHING GOLDEN-HAIRED LION; SOMETIMES A SHOUT IS LIKE A FISHING LURE; SOMETIMES A SHOUT DOESN’T WORK LIKE A SHOUT AT ALL.

CRACKING A WHIP TO STOP THE FLOW LINJI ONCE SAID TO A STUDENT:

DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

I…

JUST AS THE STUDENT WAS PREPARING TO ANSWER, LINJI LET OUT A LOUD SHOUT.

HA!

IN ORDER TO ATTAIN THE REALM OF ZEN AND ENLIGHTENMENT, YOU MUST FIRST FORSAKE THESE DUALITIES: SELF AND OTHER, INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR, SMALL AND LARGE, GOOD AND BAD, DELUSION AND ENLIGHTENMENT, LIFE AND DEATH, BEING AND NOTHINGNESS. WE CAN ATTAIN THIS NEW LIFE NOT THROUGH THOUGHT, BUT THROUGH DIRECT INSIGHT.

I’LL PAY REVERENCE TO NEITHER BODHIDHARMA NOR THE BUDDHA!

OH!

WITH A FLOURISH OF HIS ROBE, LINJI HAD TURNED AND LEFT.

WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU?!

BY SEEKING THE BUDDHA, WE LOSE THE BUDDHA; IN SEEKING BODHIDHARMA, WE LOSE BODHIDHARMA. THE MOST PRECIOUS THING THERE IS RESIDES INSIDE YOU—IT IS YOURSELF. IN PURSUING EXTERNAL OBJECTS, WE TEND TO LOSE SIGHT OF THAT.

到 初 祖 塔 頭 。塔 主 云 。長 老 先 禮 佛 。先 禮 祖 。師 云 。佛 祖 俱 不 禮 。塔 主 云 。佛 祖 與 長 老 。是 什 麼 冤 家 。師 便 拂 袖 而 出 。

WHICH SHALL YOU PAY REVERENCE TO FIRST, BODHIDHARMA OR THE BUDDHA?

《指月錄》

ONE DAY, LINJI PAID A VISIT TO A PAGODA BUILT AS A MEMORIAL TO BODHIDHARMA.

NO CRUTCHES, NO DESIRES

127

太 史 山 谷 … … 往 依 晦 堂 。乞 指 徑 捷 處 。堂 曰 。祇 如 仲 尼 道 。二 三 子 以 我 為 隱 乎 。吾 無 隱 乎 爾 者 。太 史 居 常 如 何 理 論 。

公 擬 對 。堂 曰 。不 是 。不 是 。公 迷 悶 不 已 。一 日 侍 堂 山 行 次 。時 巖 桂 盛 放 。堂 曰 。聞 木 樨 華 香 麼 。公 曰 。聞 。堂 曰 。

吾無隱乎爾。

《五燈會元》

128

CONFUCIUS SAID: “I CONCEAL NOTHING FROM YOU.” ZEN DOESN’T HIDE ANYTHING FROM YOU, EITHER.

WHAT, AFTER ALL, IS THE PROFOUND MEANING OF ZEN?

THE SWEET SMELL OF OSMANTHUS

I STILL DON’T GET IT.

COME WITH ME TO THE BACK SIDE OF THIS MOUNTAIN.

CAN YOU SMELL THE SWEET OSMANTHUS?

YES. SEE? I’M NOT HIDING ANYTHING FROM YOU, EITHER.

SEIZE THE MOMENT, EXPERIENCE THE PRESENT, DON’T LET ANYTHING SLIP BY. EVERY EVENING IS A SPRING EVENING, AND EVERY DAY IS A GOOD DAY.

HOW CAN YOU BEND YOURSELF TO THE PURPOSES OF THE NATURAL WORLD?

IF YOU TRY TO ATTRACT THE TRUTH THROUGH THE SELF, THEN YOU’VE YET TO COMPLETELY ABANDON THE SELF AND YOU’LL NEVER GET TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH. ONLY BY ASSIMILATING YOURSELF WITH NATURE AND SINCERELY FORGETTING THE SELF CAN YOU BE ONE WITH THE TRUTH.

湖南長沙景岑禪師。僧問。如何轉得山河大地。歸自己去。師云。如何轉得自己。歸山河大地去。

MIND LIKE THE SURROUNDINGS

《聯燈會要》

HOW CAN I BEND THE NATURAL WORLD TO MY PURPOSES?

129

舒州白雲守端禪師……往參楊歧。歧一日忽問。受業師為誰。師曰。茶陵郁和尚。歧曰。吾聞伊過橋遭攧有省。

作 偈 甚 奇 。能 記 否 。師 誦 曰 。我 有 明 珠 一 顆 。久 被 塵 勞 關 鎻 。今 朝 塵 盡 光 生 。照 破 山 河 萬 朵 。歧 笑 而 趨 起 。師 愕 然 。

130

NO BETTER THAN A CLOWN

MONK CHALING YU.

THE MONK SHOUDUAN OF BAIYUN WAS HARDWORKING BUT LACKED A SENSE OF HUMOR.

WHO WAS YOUR PREVIOUS TEACHER? HIS TEACHER YANGQI ONCE ASKED HIM:

I HEARD THAT MONK YU BECAME ENLIGHTENED WHEN HE SLIPPED ON A BRIDGE AND FELL INTO THE WATER. HE EVEN WROTE A POEM ABOUT IT.

YES, HE DID, AND I STILL REMEMBER IT.

I HAVE A PEARL BRIGHT AND SHINY, LONG OBSCURED BY DUST AND FILTH; NOW THE DUST IS GONE AND BRIGHTNESS BORN, ILLUMINATING RIVERS AND HILLS.

HA HA

?

?

HA HA!

DID YOU SEE THAT SILLY CLOWN THAT CAME BY YESTERDAY?

WHY DID YOU LAUGH SO HARD AT MONK YU’S POEM?

THERE IS ONE ASPECT IN WHICH YOU ARE INFERIOR TO THAT CLOWN.

THAT CLOWN LIKES PEOPLE TO LAUGH, BUT YOU ARE AFRAID OF PEOPLE LAUGHING.

AT THIS, SHOUDUAN ATTAINED ENLIGHTENMENT.

YES.

WHAT IS THAT, SIR?

ZEN TRANSCENDS THE RATIONAL AND THE IRRATIONAL. WHEN SEEKING THE DAO, BE SURE TO AVOID GETTING TOO STUFFY AND TAKING OTHER PEOPLE’S NATURAL REACTIONS TOO SERIOUSLY OR TOO PROFOUNDLY.

通 夕 不 寐。 黎 明。 咨 詢 之。 適 歲 暮。 歧 曰。 汝 見 昨 日 打 敺 儺 者 麼。 曰。 見。 歧 曰。 汝 一 籌 不 及 渠。 師 復 駭 曰。

《五燈會元》

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING …

意旨如何。歧曰。渠愛人笑。汝怕人笑。師大悟。

A!

HA H

SHOUDUAN COULDN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT HIS TEACHER FOUND SO FUNNY AND LOST SLEEP OVER IT ALL NIGHT.

131

五祖曰。譬如水牯牛過窓櫺。頭角四蹄都過了。因甚麼。尾巴過不得。

《無門關》

A WATER BUFFALO THROUGH A WINDOW

ITS HEAD, ITS HORNS, AND FINALLY ITS HOOVES ALL MAKE IT …

ONLY ITS TAIL DOES NOT.

132

A WATER BUFFALO PASSES THROUGH A WINDOW.

IT OFTEN HAPPENS THAT IN PURSUING AN IDEAL WE GET ALMOST ALL THE WAY THERE, BUT LACK THE FORTITUDE TO GO THE REST OF THE WAY— JUST LIKE THE WATER BUFFALO THAT MAKES IT ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE WINDOW EXCEPT FOR ITS TAIL. THIS DOESN’T COUNT AS ENLIGHTENMENT.

WHY DID YOU GET UP SO EARLY? YOUR WIFE IS HOME SLEEPING WITH ANOTHER MAN.

I’M READY NOW. I’VE RID MYSELF OF ALL MY BAD HABITS.

YOU BALD-HEADED MORON! HOW DARE YOU … ?!

I THINK IT’S A LITTLE EARLY FOR YOU TO BECOME A MONK. YOU’D BETTER RUN ALONG HOME AND PRACTICE MORE SELF-CONTROL.

WORDS AND ACTIONS ARE TWO EXTERIOR MANIFESTATIONS OF OUR INNER THOUGHTS, BUT MOST PEOPLE’S WORDS EXCEED THEIR ACTIONS.

宋 狀 元 張 九 成。 告 歸 泉 石。 一 日 訪 參 喜 禪 師 曰 ……。 打 死 心 頭 火。 特 來 參 喜 禪。 師 以 言 探 之 曰。 緣 何 起 得 早。

AS SOON AS I ELIMINATE MY BAD HABITS, I’LL RETURN TO BECOME YOUR DISCIPLE.

妻被別人眠。九成怒曰。無明真禿子。焉敢發此言。師慰之曰。輕輕撲一扇。爐中便起煙。九成慚愧不已。

FINE.

《堅瓠集》

WITH A SLIGHT FANNING, THE FIRE RETURNS

ONE DAY, WHEN THE ZEN MASTER DAHUI ZONGGAO WAS IN THE MOUNTAINS MEDITATING, A RETIRED GENERAL APPROACHED AND INFORMED DAHUI OF HIS INTENT TO BECOME A MONK:

133

福 州 中 際 善 能 禪 師 … … 上 堂 。萬 古 長 空 。一 朝 風 月 。不 可 以 一 朝 風 月 昧 却 萬 古 長 空 。不 可 以 萬 古 長 空 不 明 一 朝 風 月 。

134

A MORNING OF MOON AND WIND

SHANNENG WAS A ZEN MASTER DURING THE SOUTHERN SONG DYNASTY, WHO OFTEN SAID:

DO NOT LET ONE DAY’S CLEAR MOON …

OBSCURE THE ETERNAL EMPTINESS OF THE INFINITE PAST.

DO NOT LET THE ETERNAL EMPTINESS OF THE INFINITE PAST …

OBSCURE ONE DAY’S CLEAR MOON.

EVERYONE DISLIKES A DAY OF STIFLING HEAT …

《五燈會元》

BUT I REVEL IN A LONG SUMMER DAY.

WHETHER YOU UNDERSTAND OR NOT, JUST CONCERN YOURSELF WITH THE MATTERS AT HAND.

A FRAGRANT BREEZE BLOWS FROM THE SOUTH, AND THE TEMPLES AND PAVILIONS BECOME SLIGHTLY COOLER.

WE OFTEN DISCOVER A CERTAIN JOY IN HARDSHIP AFTER THE HARDSHIP IS OVER. IF WE CAN DISCOVER IT WHILE IT IS HAPPENING, THEN SUMMER WILL HAVE ITS GOODNESS AND WINTER WILL HAVE ITS WONDERS.

且如何是一朝風月。人皆畏炎熱。我愛夏日長。熏風自南來。殿閣生微涼。會與不會。切忌承當。

WHAT IS THIS “ONE DAY’S CLEAR MOON”?

135

杭 州 鳥 窠 道 林 禪 師 … … 。元 和 中 。白 居 易 侍 郎 出 守 茲 郡 。因 入 山 謁 師 。問 曰 … … 。如 何 是 佛 法 大 意 。師 曰 。諸 惡 莫 作 。

眾善奉行。白曰。三歲孩兒也解恁麼道。師曰。三歲孩兒雖道得。八十老人行不得。白作禮而退。

《五燈會元》

136

EASIER KNOWN THAN DONE

ONE DAY, THE POET AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL BAI JUYI ASKED THE MONK NIAOKE ABOUT ZEN:

DO GOOD THINGS AND DON’T DO BAD THINGS.

A THREE-YEAR-OLD MAY KNOW IT, BUT NOT EVEN A ONE-HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD CAN DO IT.

HOW MUST I LEAD MY LIFE SO THAT I AM COMPLETELY AT ONE WITH THE DAO?

EVEN A THREE-YEAR-OLD KNOWS THAT MUCH.

SOCRATES SAID THAT IF PEOPLE KNOW WHAT THEY SHOULD DO, THEY WILL DO IT; BUT HE UNDERESTIMATED PEOPLE’S ABILITY TO FAIL THEMSELVES. EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT THEY SHOULD DO, BUT HOW MANY PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO IT?

IS THIS NOT THE BUDDHA-DHARMA AS WELL?

WHERE?

THE TRUTH OF THINGS DOES NOT RESIDE IN SOME UNREACHABLE DISTANT PLACE; IT IS IN OUR MINDS. EVERYTHING POSSESSES THE BUDDHANATURE, SO WHAT IS THERE THAT ISN’T THE BUDDHADHARMA?

杭 州 鳥 窠 道 林 禪 師 ……。 會 通。 忽 一 日 欲 辭 去。 師 問 曰。 汝 今 何 往。 對 曰。 會 通 為 法 出 家。 和 尚 不 垂 慈 誨。 今

AT THIS, NIAOKE PULLED A THREAD FROM HIS SLEEVE.

SPEAKING OF THE BUDDHA-DHARMA, I HAVE A BIT OF IT RIGHT HERE.

WHERE ARE YOU OFF TO?

往 諸 方 學 佛 法 去。 師 曰。 若 是 佛 法。 吾 此 間 亦 有 少 許。 曰。 如 何 是 和 尚 佛 法。 師 於 身 上 拈 起 布 毛 吹 之。 通 遂 領

I’M GOING TO TRAVEL THE LAND STUDYING THE BUDDHADHARMA.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR EVERYTHING. I’LL BE GOING NOW.

《五燈會元》

WHAT ISN’T THE BUDDHADHARMA?

悟玄旨。

AS A DISCIPLE WAS TAKING LEAVE OF THE MONK NIAOKE …

137

越 州 大 珠 慧 海 禪 師 者 …… 有 源 律 師 來 問。 和 尚 修 道 還 用 功 否。 師 曰。 用 功。 曰 如 何 用 功。 師 曰。 饑 來 喫 飯 困 來

即 眠。 曰 一 切 人 總 如 是 同 師 用 功 否。 師 曰。 不 同。 曰 何 故 不 同。 師 曰。 他 喫 飯 時 不 肯 喫 飯。 百 種 須 索。 睡 時 不

肯睡。千般計校。所以不同也。

《景德傳燈錄》

138

THE ORDINARY MIND

HOW SHOULD I PRACTICE THE DAO?

ISN’T THAT WHAT MOST PEOPLE DO ANYWAY?

EAT WHEN YOU’RE HUNGRY, AND SLEEP WHEN YOU’RE TIRED.

NO, NO, NO. THAT’S NOT WHAT MOST PEOPLE DO.

MOST PEOPLE ENTERTAIN A THOUSAND DESIRES WHILE THEY EAT AND UNTIE A THOUSAND KNOTS WHILE THEY SLEEP.

HOW MANY PEOPLE WAKE UP IN THE MORNING STILL FIGURING OUT PROBLEMS FROM THE DAY BEFORE? WE SHOULD TAKE EVERYTHING THAT THREATENS OUR PEACE OF MIND AND THROW IT OUT. WE SHOULD LIVE ACCORDING TO OUR ORIGINAL NATURE BECAUSE THE ORDINARY MIND IS THE DAO.

I’M COMING FROM CAOXI, THE PLACE OF THE SIXTH ANCESTOR.

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

I DIDN’T LACK ANYTHING BEFORE I WENT TO CAOXI.

THEN WHY DID YOU GO?

IF I HADN’T GONE TO CAOXI, HOW WOULD I KNOW I NEVER LACKED ANYTHING?

WHAT DID YOU GAIN AT CAOXI?

NO TEACHER CAN INSTILL A STUDENT WITH ANYTHING, BUT THEY CAN HELP THAT STUDENT UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING IN THE STUDENT’S OWN MIND.

行 思 和 尚 … … 住 吉 州 。遷 直 詣 靜 居 。師 問 曰 。子 何 方 而 來 。遷 曰 。曹 谿 。師 曰 。將 得 什 麼 來 。曰 。未 到 曹 谿 亦 不 失 。

《景德傳燈錄》

RETURNING EMPTYHANDED

師曰。恁麼用去曹谿作什麼。曰若不到曹谿爭知不失。

THE MONK SHITOU XIQIAN WAS A DISCIPLE OF THE SIXTH ZEN ANCESTOR HUINENG. AFTER HUINENG ENTERED NIRVANA, SHITOU XIQIAN WENT ON A JOURNEY.

139

荊 州 天 皇 道 悟 禪 師 婺 州 東 陽 人 也 。姓 張 氏 … … 。二 十 五 杭 州 竹 林 寺 具 戒 精 修 梵 行 … … 。遊 餘 杭 首 謁 徑 山 國 一 禪 師 。

受 心 法 服 勤 五 載。 唐 大 歷 中 抵 鍾 陵 造 馬 大 師。 重 印 前 解 法 無 異 說。 復 住 二 夏。 乃 謁 石 頭 遷 大 師 而 致 問 曰。 離 却

定 慧 以 何 法 示 人。 石 頭 曰。 我 遮 裏 無 奴 婢。 離 箇 什 麼。 曰。 如 何 明 得。 石 頭 曰。 汝 還 撮 得 空 麼。 曰。 恁 麼 即 不

從今日去也。

140

DAOWU OF TIANHUANG (748–807) LAY SURNAME ZHANG, DAOWU WAS FROM DONGYANG IN ZHEJIANG. HE TOOK HIS VOWS IN HANG PREFECTURE WHEN HE WAS TWENTY-FIVE AND THEN FOLLOWED DAOQIN OF JINGSHAN, WHICH WAS HIS FIRST CONTACT WITH ZEN.

AFTER TWO MORE YEARS, HE WENT TO SEE SHITOU XIQIAN.

I DON’T QUITE UNDERSTAND …

AFTER FOLLOWING JINGSHAN FOR FIVE YEARS, HE WENT TO MAZU TO VERIFY HIS LEARNING.

AFTER ONE FREES ONESELF OF THE CONCEPTS OF MEDITATION AND KNOWLEDGE, WHAT OTHER DHARMA IS THERE TO TEACH OTHERS?

DO YOU UNDERSTAND EMPTINESS?

THERE ARE NO SLAVES HERE. WHAT IS THIS TALK OF FREEING ONESELF?

THIS I’VE UNDERSTOOD FOR A LONG TIME.

YOUR BODY IS THE EVIDENCE.

OKAY, LET’S SAY YOU’RE RIGHT. BUT WHAT WILL I USE TO TEACH OUR SUCCESSORS?

TELL ME—WHO ARE OUR SUCCESSORS? ZEN IS EVERYWHERE, BUT THERE IS NO ENTRYWAY. LIKEWISE, AS THERE IS NO ENTRYWAY TO EMPTINESS, YOU ENTER BY WAY OF EMPTINESS BECAUSE EMPTINESS IS EVERYWHERE.

《景德傳燈錄》

OH, NO. I HAVEN’T.

BUT YOU’RE JUDGING ME WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE!

石頭曰。未審汝早晚從那邊來。曰。道悟不是那邊人。石頭曰。我早知汝來處。曰。師何以贓誣於人。石頭曰。

I CAN SEE THE TRUTH WITH JUST A GLANCE.

汝身見在。曰。雖如是畢竟如何示於後人。石頭曰。汝道阿誰是後人。師從此頓悟。

OH, I DIDN’T KNOW YOU HAD ALREADY ATTAINED ENLIGHTENMENT!

141

澧 州 龍 潭 崇 信 禪 師。 本 渚 宮 賣 餅 家 子 也。 未 詳 姓 氏。 少 而 英 異。 初 悟 和 尚 為 靈 鑒 潛 請 居 天 皇 寺 人 莫 之 測。 師 家

居 于 寺 巷。 常 日 以 十 餅 饋 之。 悟 受 之 每 食 畢。 常 留 一 餅 曰。 吾 惠 汝 以 蔭 子 孫。 師 一 日 自 念 曰。 餅 是 我 持 去。 何

以返遺我耶。其別有旨乎。遂造而問焉。悟曰。是汝持來。復汝何咎。師聞之頗曉玄旨。因請出家。

142

BISCUITS FOR SALE. GET YOUR DELICIOUS BISCUITS HERE!

CHONGXIN OF LONGTAN (782–865) LONGTAN WAS ORIGINALLY FROM HUNAN. HE WAS A STUDENT OF TIANHUANG DAOWU.

DAOWU LET LONGTAN STAY IN A SMALL HUT NEXT TO THE MONASTERY, AND IN ORDER TO EXPRESS HIS GRATITUDE, EVERY DAY LONGTAN WOULD BRING TEN BISCUITS FOR DAOWU.

LONGTAN GREW UP IMPOVERISHED AND SOLD BISCUITS FOR A LIVING.

AND EACH TIME, DAOWU WOULD GIVE ONE BACK TO LONGTAN.

THIS IS FROM ME TO YOU. MAY YOU HAVE MANY GRANDCHILDREN.

HOW COME EVERY TIME I GIVE YOU BISCUITS, YOU GIVE ME ONE BACK?

YOU GIVE TO ME, AND I GIVE BACK TO YOU. IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THAT?

UPON HEARING THIS, LONGTAN ATTAINED A SMALL REALIZATION AND DECIDED TO JOIN THE ORDER AND FOLLOW DAOWU.

WHAT INSIGHTS?

YOU BRING ME TEA, AND I TAKE IT. YOU BRING ME FOOD, AND I EAT IT. YOU BOW TO ME, AND I NOD MY HEAD.

IF YOU WANT TO BEHOLD THE TRUTH, YOU CAN DO IT ANYTIME AND ANYWHERE, BUT THINKING ABOUT IT WILL LEAD TO ERROR!

WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?

ON HEARING THIS, LONGTAN IMMEDIATELY ATTAINED ENLIGHTENMENT.

LONGTAN LOWERED HIS HEAD AND THOUGHT FOR A BIT.

EXPERIENCING ZEN IS BEING ABLE TO APPRECIATE THE GOODNESS AND BEAUTY OF EVERY DETAIL IN LIFE. THE MIND AND BODY ARE FOREVER ONE. EAT WHEN IT’S TIME TO EAT; SLEEP WHEN IT’S TIME TO SLEEP.

一 日 問 曰 。某 自 到 來 不 蒙 指 示 心 要 。悟 曰 。自 汝 到 來 吾 未 嘗 不 指 汝 心 要 。師 曰 。何 處 指 示 。悟 曰 。汝 擎 茶 來 吾 為 汝 接 。

I HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING YOU FOR QUITE A WHILE NOW, BUT YOU HAVE YET TO GIVE ME ANY INSIGHTS.

汝 行 食 來 吾 為 汝 受。 汝 和 南 時 吾 便 低 首。 何 處 不 指 示 心 要。 師 低 頭 良 久。 悟 曰。 見 則 直 下 便 見。 擬 思 即 差。 師

《景德傳燈錄》

I AM CONSTANTLY GIVING YOU INSIGHTS.

當下開解。

LATER …

143

尼 眾 問。 如 何 得 為 僧 去。 師 曰。 作 尼 來 多 少 時 也。 尼 曰。 還 有 為。 僧 時 也 無。 師 曰。 汝 即 今 是 什 麼。 尼 曰。 現

是尼身何得不識。師曰。誰識汝。

《景德傳燈錄》

144

A NUN ONCE ASKED LONGTAN:

HOW SHOULD I CULTIVATE MYSELF SO THAT IN MY NEXT LIFE I CAN BE A MONK?

A NUN BECOMES A MONK

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN A NUN?

MY QUESTION IS, WILL I EVER BECOME A MONK?

WHAT ARE YOU NOW?

WHO KNOWS YOU?

RIGHT NOW, I’M A NUN. WHO DOESN’T KNOW THAT?

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALE AND FEMALE IS IN APPEARANCE ONLY; IT IS UNREAL. HOW CAN ANYONE WHO QUIBBLES ABOUT UNREALITY ENGAGE IN SELF-CULTIVATION?

ON HIS WAY, HE CAME UPON AN OLD LADY SELLING REFRESHMENTS.

SO HE PACKED UP HIS QINGLONG COMMENTARY ON THE DIAMOND SUTRA AND LEFT SICHUAN FOR HUNAN.

EXCUSE ME, I’D LIKE TO BUY TWO BISCUITS TO RELIEVE MY HUNGER.

WHAT BOOK IS THAT YOU’RE CARRYING?

THIS IS A COPY OF THE QINGLONG COMMENTARY.

朗 州 德 山 宣 鑒 禪 師。 劍 南 人 也。 姓 周 氏。 丱 歲 出 家 依 年 受 具 精 究 律 藏。 於 性 相 諸 經 貫 通 旨 趣。 常 講 金 剛 般 若。

THOSE SOUTHERN SCOUNDRELS! HOW DARE THEY SAY ZEN IS DIRECT POINTING AT ONE’S MIND, SEEING ONE’S NATURE, BECOMING A BUDDHA?! WHY, I’LL PULVERIZE THEIR DENS OF HERESY!

時 謂 之 周 金 剛。 後 聞 南 方 禪 席 頗 盛。 師 氣 不 平。 乃 曰。 出 家 兒 千 劫 學 佛 威 儀。 萬 劫 學 佛 細 行。 不 得 成 佛。 南 方

LATER, HE LEARNED THAT THE RIVAL SOUTHERN TRADITION OF ZEN HAD GAINED A GREAT FOLLOWING. INFLAMED BY THIS, HE HEADED SOUTH TO CHALLENGE THEIR TEACHINGS. HIS MONASTERY WAS LATER LOCATED AT DESHAN IN HUNAN PROVINCE, SO PEOPLE REFER TO HIM AS DESHAN.

魔 子 敢 言 直 指 人 心。 見 性 成 佛。 我 當 摟 其 窟 穴。 滅 其 種 類。 以 報 佛 恩。 遂 擔 青 龍 疏 鈔 出 蜀。 至 澧 陽 路 上。 見 一

A NATIVE OF JIANNAN IN SICHUAN, XUANJIAN’S ORIGINAL SURNAME WAS ZHOU. HE LEFT HOME TO JOIN THE MONKHOOD AT AN EARLY AGE AND EXTENSIVELY STUDIED THE DOCTRINES OF DISCIPLINE. HE LEARNED THE ENTIRE DIAMOND SUTRA BY HEART, AND BECAUSE OF THIS HE BECAME KNOWN AS DIAMOND ZHOU.

婆子賣餅。因息肩買餅點心。婆指擔曰。這箇是甚麼文字。師曰。青龍䟽鈔。

XUANJIAN OF DESHAN (780–865)

145

婆 曰。 講 何 經。 師 曰。 金 剛 經。 婆 曰。 我 有 一 問。 你 若 答 得。 施 與 點 心。 若 答 不 得。 且 別 處 去。 金 剛 經 道。 過

去心不可得。現在心不可得。未來心不可得。未審上座點那箇心。師無語。

146

WHICH SUTRA DOES IT EXPLAIN?

THE DIAMOND SUTRA.

I’LL TELL YOU WHAT: I’LL ASK YOU A QUESTION, AND IF YOU CAN ANSWER IT, I’LL GIVE YOU THE REFRESHMENTS FOR FREE. IF YOU CAN’T, THEN NO REFRESHMENTS FOR YOU.

IN THE DIAMOND SUTRA IT SAYS, “THE MIND OF THE PAST IS UNATTAINABLE. THE MIND OF THE PRESENT IS UNATTAINABLE. THE MIND OF THE FUTURE IS UNATTAINABLE.” NOW, WHICH MIND WOULD YOU LIKE TO REFRESH?

I … UM … I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY.

SORRY, I GUESS YOU’LL HAVE TO GO ELSEWHERE FOR YOUR REFRESHMENTS.

OKAY.

YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT LONGTAN.

IT’S LATE. PERHAPS YOU SHOULD GO TO YOUR ROOM AND GET SOME SLEEP.

DESHAN REMAINED AT THE TEMPLE IN SILENCE, DETERMINED TO LEARN WHAT HE COULD FROM LONGTAN. YES.

WOW, LOOK HOW DARK IT IS!

HERE’S A CANDLE.

PFF!

遂往龍潭。德山問。久嚮龍潭。到來潭又不見龍亦不現。師曰。子親到龍潭。德山即休……一夕侍立次。潭曰。

更深何不下去。師珍重便出。却回曰。外面黑。潭點紙燭度與師。師擬接。潭復吹滅。

WITH EVEN THE COMMONERS THUS I PLANNED ON COMING TO SEE LONGTAN, BUT NOW THAT I’VE ENLIGHTENED, ARRIVED, I SEE NEITHER DESHAN KNEW DRAGON NOR POOL. THAT THERE MUST BE A GREAT ZEN MASTER NEARBY. LEARNING OF A MASTER CALLED LONGTAN (“DRAGON-POOL”), DESHAN WENT TO SEE HIM.

147

師 於 此 大 悟 … … 。師 將 疏 鈔 堆 法 堂 前 。舉 火 炬 曰 。窮 諸 玄 辯 。若 一 毫 置 於 太 虗 。竭 世 樞 機 。似 一 滴 投 於 巨 壑 。遂 焚 之 。

《 景 德 傳 燈 錄 》、《 五 燈 會 元 》

148

LONGTAN SUDDENLY BLEW OUT THE CANDLE, AND IT WAS AT THIS MOMENT THAT DESHAN ATTAINED ENLIGHTENMENT.

LEARNING ALL THE VARIOUS PROFOUND PHILOSOPHIES IS LIKE A MERE STRAND OF HAIR IN THE VASTNESS OF SPACE; COMPLETELY UNDERSTANDING THE FUNDAMENTAL FORCES OF THE WORLD IS LIKE A MERE DROP IN A GIANT ABYSS.

THE NEXT DAY, DESHAN TOOK HIS COPY OF THE QINGLONG COMMENTARY TO THE MAIN HALL AND BURNED IT.

IT IS NOT UNTIL THE EXTERNAL LIGHT IS EXTINGUISHED THAT OUR INTERNAL LIGHT SHINES BRIGHT. IT IS NOT UNTIL OUR CRUTCH IS DISCARDED THAT WE CAN REALIZE OUR LATENT POTENTIAL.

TAP

TAP TAP

THE ZEN MASTER JINGQING ASKED ONE OF HIS DISCIPLES: TAP

ALL BEINGS ARE UPSIDE-DOWN; THEY LOSE THEMSELVES IN PURSUIT OF THINGS.

I AM THE SOUND OF THE RAIN!

HOW SHOULD I FEEL?

WE SHOULD BECOME ONE WITH OUR SURROUNDINGS, FORGET OURSELVES IN THE WORLD AROUND US, AND ENTER THE ONE SINGLE RAINDROP BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH. AS WE DO THIS, TWO BECOME ONE, AND WE UNDERSTAND INTUITIVELY AND COMPLETELY.

鏡 清 問 僧 。門 外 是 什 麼 聲 。僧 云 。雨 滴 聲 。清 云 。眾 生 顛 倒 迷 己 逐 物 。僧 云 。和 尚 作 麼 生 。清 云 。洎 不 迷 己 。僧 云 。

THAT’S THE SOUND OF THE RAIN.

《佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄》

JINGQING AND THE SOUND OF RAINDROPS

洎不迷己意旨如何。清云。出身猶可易。脫體道應難。

WHAT’S THAT SOUND OUTSIDE?

TAP

149

福州玄沙宗一大師……師與韋監軍喫果子。韋問。如何是日用而不知。師拈起果子曰喫。韋喫果子了。再問之。

師曰。只者是日用而不知。

《景德傳燈錄》

150

PEOPLE SAY THAT WE’RE ALWAYS USING IT, BUT I STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT “IT” IS.

NOT RECOGNIZING THE TRUE SELF ONCE AN OFFICIAL NAMED WEI WENT TO SEE THE ZEN MASTER XUANSHA.

HERE, FIRST HAVE SOME SUNFLOWER SEEDS.

THANK YOU.

UH, SIR? YOU STILL HAVEN’T TOLD ME WHAT “IT” IS.

CR

ACK

!

IT’S THIS! YOU HAVE IT EVERY DAY, AND YET YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT “IT” IS! “ARRIVING AT THE DAO IS NOT DIFFICULT. WHAT’S LEFT IS CHOOSING IT.” ASKING WHERE THE ROAD LIES IS A GREAT MISTAKE BECAUSE THERE IS NO ROAD. WE HAVE BEEN ON THE WAY (DAO) ALL ALONG.

DID YOU HEAR THE SOUND OF THE STREAM IN THE VALLEY?

THE PLACE WHERE YOU HEARD THE SOUND OF THE STREAM IS WHERE THE PATH OF ZEN BEGINS.

YES, I DID.

YES, I DID.

THERE IS GOODNESS IN A BLOSSOMING FLOWER, AND THERE IS BEAUTY IN A WITHERING FLOWER. WHEN YOU CAN SEE THE BEAUTY AND GOODNESS IN EVERYTHING AROUND YOU, YOU HAVE ENTERED THE GATES OF ZEN.

福州玄沙宗一大師……問學人乍入叢林乞師指箇入路。師曰。還聞偃溪水聲否。曰聞。師曰。是汝入處。

A BUDDHIST MAN WENT TO SEE A TEACHER IN THE MOUNTAINS TO HELP HIM FIND THE PATH OF ZEN.

《景德傳燈錄》

THE SOUND OF THE STREAM

ON YOUR WAY HERE, YOU PASSED THROUGH A SMALL VALLEY, DID YOU NOT?

151

澧 州 藥 山 惟 儼 禪 師 ……。 師 一 夜 登 山 經 行。 忽 雲 開 見 月 大 笑。 一 聲 應 澧 陽 東 九 十 許 里。 居 民 盡 謂 東 家。 明 晨 迭

相推問直至藥山。徒眾云。昨夜和尚山頂大笑。

《景德傳燈錄》

152

LAUGHING WITH HEAVEN AND EARTH

HA HA

THE GREAT ZEN MASTER WEIYAN OF YAOSHAN, LIKE MANY WELL-KNOWN ZEN MASTERS, CAME TO BE IDENTIFIED BY HIS PLACE OF RESIDENCE, AND SO WE CALL HIM YAOSHAN. ONE EVENING, YAOSHAN WENT FOR A WALK IN THE HILLS.

HA!

SUDDENLY THE CLOUDS PARTED, AND THE MOON COULD BE SEEN SHINING BRIGHTLY IN THE SKY. ON SEEING THIS, YAOSHAN LET OUT A HEARTY LAUGH.

HA HA! HA

IT WAS SO LOUD THAT IT COULD BE HEARD FOR MILES IN ALL DIRECTIONS.

LAST NIGHT, I SUDDENLY HEARD THE SOUND OF LAUGHTER, BUT I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE IT COULD HAVE COME FROM.

THAT WAS THE SOUND OF OUR TEACHER LAUGHING IN THE HILLS. YEAH, I HEARD IT, TOO.

IF WE CAN JUST FORGET OURSELVES, WE CAN BECOME ONE WITH OUR ENVIRONMENT NO MATTER THE CIRCUMSTANCES. YAOSHAN WAS ABLE TO FORGET HIMSELF AND LAUGH OUT LOUD, THUS BECOMING ONE WITH HEAVEN AND EARTH.

THERE ARE DHARMA TEACHERS TO TEACH THE SUTRAS AND VINAYA TEACHERS TO TEACH THE RULES, BUT I’M A ZEN TEACHER. IT’S NO USE TALKING ABOUT IT BECAUSE ZEN CAN’T BE PUT INTO WORDS. SO HOW CAN YOU BLAME ME?

ZEN BELONGS TO NEITHER THE PAST, THE PRESENT, NOR THE FUTURE. IT IS SOMETHING THAT JUST IS AND CAN’T BE EXPRESSED THROUGH WORDS.

院 主 僧 再 三 請 和 尚 為 人 說 法 。和 尚 一 二 度 不 許 ，第 三 度 方 始 得 許 ，院 主 便 歡 喜 ，先 報 大 眾 。大 眾 喜 不 自 勝 ，打 鍾 上 來 。

DONG

僧 眾 纔 集 ，和 尚 關 卻 門 便 歸 丈 室 。 院 主 在 外 責 曰 ：「 和 尚 適 來 許 某 甲 為 人 ，如 今 因 什 摩 卻 不 為 人 ？ 賺 某 甲 。」師 曰 ：

WHY ARE YOU LEAVING WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING?

OKAY, RING THE BELL, AND HAVE EVERYONE GATHER IN THE TEMPLE HALL.

「經師自有經師在，論師自有論師在，律師自有律師在。院主怪貧道什摩處？」

DONG

DONG

THE DISCIPLES ARE EAGER TO RECEIVE YOUR GUIDANCE.

《祖堂集》

ZEN CAN’T BE SPOKEN

IT HAD BEEN QUITE A WHILE SINCE YAOSHAN HAD GIVEN A LECTURE.

153

李 翱 相 公 來 見 和 尚 ，和 尚 看 經 次 ，殊 不 采 顧 。相 公 不 肯 禮 拜 ，乃 發 輕 言 ：「 見 面 不 如 千 里 聞 名 。」師 召 相 公 ，相 公 應 喏 。

師 曰 ： 「 何 得 貴 耳 而 賤 目 乎 ？ 」 公 便 禮 拜 。 起 來 ，申 問 ： 「 如 何 是 道 ？ 」 師 指 天 又 指 地 曰 ： 「 雲 在 青 天 水 在 瓶 。」

相公禮拜。

《祖堂集》

154

CLOUDS IN THE BLUE SKY, WATER IN A BOTTLE

HMPH! HEARING ABOUT HIM WAS MORE INTERESTING THAN SEEING HIM.

THE FAMOUS SCHOLAR LI AO ONCE PAID A VISIT TO YAOSHAN, BUT AT THE TIME, YAOSHAN WAS BUSY RECITING SCRIPTURES AND SO PAID NO HEED TO HIS VISITOR.

YOU BELIEVE YOUR EARS BUT UNDERESTIMATE YOUR EYES.

MR. LI!

PLEASE FORGIVE ME.

WHAT IS THE DAO?

CLOUDS IN THE BLUE SKY AND WATER IN A BOTTLE.

DON’T WORRY ABOUT WHETHER THE CLOUDS ARE GOING TO TURN INTO WATER OR WHETHER THE WATER IS GOING TO TURN INTO CLOUDS. IF IT’S CLOUDS, TAKE A CLOUD’S LEISURELY POINT OF VIEW; AND IF IT’S WATER, TAKE WATER’S PLACID, CAREFREE POINT OF VIEW.

AH, LOOK AT THE GOOD SNOWFLAKES, EACH FALLING IN ITS RIGHTFUL PLACE.

LOOK AT YOU! YOUR EYES SEE LIKE A BLIND MAN AND YOUR MOUTH SPEAKS LIKE A MUTE! YOU CALL YOURSELF A STUDENT OF ZEN?

SM AC

K!

WHERE WOULD THAT BE?

EVERYTHING UNDER HEAVEN, WHETHER IT BE LARGE OR SMALL, IMPORTANT OR INSIGNIFICANT, HAS ITS OWN PARTICULAR PLACE. AND WHEN IT ARRIVES IN ITS RIGHTFUL PLACE, WHY ASK WHY? THAT’S JUST HOW IT IS!

龐 居 士 辭 藥 山 。山 命 十 人 禪 客 。相 送 至 門 首 。居 士 指 空 中 雪 云 。好 雪 片 片 不 落 別 處 。時 有 全 禪 客 云 。落 在 什 麼 處 。

CERTAINLY.

士打一掌……。云。汝恁麼稱禪客……。眼見如盲。口說如啞。

PLEASE SHOW HIM OUT.

《佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄》

SNOWFLAKES FALL WHERE THEY SHOULD

A LAY BUDDHIST BY THE NAME OF PANG ONCE PAID A VISIT TO YAOSHAN. AS HE WAS ABOUT TO LEAVE, YAOSHAN ASKED TWO OF THE MONASTERY’S GUESTS TO SHOW HIM OUT.

155

潭 州 漸 源 仲 興 禪 師 在 道 吾 處 為 典 座。 一 日 隨 道 吾 往 檀 越 家 弔 喪。 師 以 手 拊 棺 曰。 生 耶 死 耶。 道 吾 曰。 生 也 不 道

死 也 不 道。 師 曰。 為 什 麼 不 道。 道 吾 曰。 不 道 不 道。 弔 畢 同 迴 途 次。 師 曰。 和 尚 今 日 須 與 仲 興 道。 儻 更 不 道 即

打去也。道吾曰。打即任打。生也不道死也不道。師遂打道吾數拳。

156

JIANYUAN AND HIS TEACHER DAOWU PAID THEIR RESPECTS TO THE FAMILY OF A DECEASED FRIEND.

IS HE ALIVE OR DEAD?

WHAT ARE LIFE AND DEATH?

YOU CAN’T SAY HE’S ALIVE, AND YOU CAN’T SAY HE’S DEAD.

LIFE D AN TH DEA

WHY CAN’T YOU SAY IT?

IF YOU CAN’T SAY IT, YOU CAN’T SAY IT.

YOU’D BETTER SAY, OR I’LL SLUG YOU.

WHAT KIND OF TEACHER ARE YOU? YOU KNOW AND YET YOU WON’T TELL YOUR STUDENT!

UGH!

IF YOU WON’T SAY, JUST FORGET IT!

IF YOU’RE GOING TO HIT ME, HIT ME. I STILL WON’T SAY.

FLOODING WATERS REACH FAR AND WIDE; WHITE WAVES INUNDATE THE HEAVENS. WHAT RELICS ARE THERE TO FIND?

I’M DOING MY BEST. WHEN WE ARE ALIVE, LIFE IS EVERYTHING TO US. AS FOR DEAD PEOPLE, DEATH IS ALL THERE IS FOR THEM. WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE, CONCENTRATE ON LIVING. THIS WAY, YOU WON’T BE APPREHENSIVE ABOUT DEATH.

……。 師 乃 禮 辭 往 石 霜。 舉 前 語 及 打 道 吾 之 事。 今 請 和 尚 道。 石 霜 曰。 汝 不 見 道 吾 道。 生 也 不 道 死 也 不 道。 師

ANOTHER DAY, HE WAS FOUND CARRYING A HOE AND PACING UP AND DOWN THE TEMPLE HALL.

I’M SEARCHING FOR MY TEACHER’S RELICS.

於 此 大 悟 乃 設 齋 懺 悔。 師 一 日 將 鍬 子 於 法 堂 上。 石 霜 曰。 作 麼。 師 曰。 覓 先 師 靈 骨 來。 石 霜 曰。 洪 波 浩 渺 白 浪

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

滔天覓什麼靈骨。師曰。正好著力。

UPON HEARING THIS, JIANYUAN WAS SUDDENLY ENLIGHTENED.

《景德傳燈錄》

AFTER A TIME, DAOWU PASSED AWAY. JIANYUAN SOUGHT OUT ANOTHER TEACHER NAMED SHISHUANG AND ASKED HIM THE SAME QUESTION.

157

筠 州 洞 山 良 价 禪 師 會 稽 人 也。 姓 俞 氏。 幼 歲 從 師 因 念 般 若 心 經。 以 無 根 塵 義 問 其 師。 其 師 駭 異 曰。 吾 非 汝 師

……。

158

LIANGJIE OF DONGSHAN (807–869) LAY SURNAME YU, DONGSHAN WAS FROM KUAIJI IN ZHEJIANG. HE JOINED THE ORDER AS A BOY, AND AFTER HIS ENLIGHTENMENT HE BECAME THE ABBOT AT DONG MOUNTAIN (DONGSHAN) IN JIANGXI IN THE YEAR 860. HE WAS THE COFOUNDER (ALONG WITH HIS STUDENT CAOSHAN) OF THE CAODONG (SOTO) TRADITION.

ONCE WHEN NO MATTER, NO HE WAS FEELING, NO THOUGHT, A YOUNG NO PREDISPOSITIONS, MONK, NO CONSCIOUSNESS RECITING … THE HEART SUTRA WITH HIS TEACHER …

I OBVIOUSLY HAVE EYES, EARS, NOSE, AND A TONGUE. WHY DOES THE SCRIPTURE SAY I DON’T?

NO IDEA OF EYES, EARS, NOSE, TONGUE, OR BODY … NO COLORS, SOUNDS, SMELLS, TASTES …

I THINK YOU SHOULD FIND ANOTHER TEACHER. I’M NOT FIT TO TEACH YOU.

DO INSENTIENT THINGS REALLY SPEAK THE DHARMA? IF THEY DO, HOW COME I CAN’T HEAR IT?

WITH THE MOUTH MY PARENTS GAVE ME, I DARE NOT TELL YOU.

THEN WHO SHOULD I ASK?

WHY DON’T YOU GO SEE TANSHENG OF YUNYAN!

SO, WITH A LETTER OF INTRODUCTION, DONGSHAN WENT TO SEE YUNYAN.

師 至 唐 大 中 末。 於 新 豐 山 接 誘 學 徒。 厥 後 盛 化 豫 章 高 安 之 洞 山。 因 為 雲 巖 諱 日 營 齋。 遊 方 首 謁 南 泉。 值 馬 祖 諱

THEN HE WENT TO SEE GUISHAN.

晨 修 齋 次 …… 次 參 溈 山 問 曰。 頃 聞 忠 國 師 有 無 情 說 法。 良 价 未 究 其 微 ……。 溈 山 曰。 父 母 所 生 口 終 不 敢 道。 曰

HE WENT TO SEE NANQUAN AND STAYED WITH HIM FOR A WHILE.

還有與師同時慕道者否。溈山曰。此去石室相連有雲巖道人。若能撥草瞻風。必為子之所重。

SO DONGSHAN BEGAN HIS TRAVELS TO VARIOUS PLACES, LEARNING FROM THE GREAT MASTERS.

159

既 到 雲 巖 問。 無 情 說 法 什 麼 人 得 聞。 雲 巖 曰。 無 情 說 法 無 情 得 聞。 師 曰。 和 尚 聞 否。 雲 巖 曰。 我 若 聞 汝 即 不 得

聞吾說法也。曰若恁麼即良价不聞和尚說法也。雲巖曰。我說法汝尚不聞。何況無情說法也。

160

WHEN INSENTIENT THINGS SPEAK THE DHARMA, WHO CAN HEAR IT?

CAN YOU HEAR IT?

IF I COULD HEAR IT, I WOULD BECOME THE THE INSENTIENT DHARMA-BODY, AND THEN CAN HEAR YOU WOULDN’T IT. BE ABLE TO HEAR ME SPEAK THE DHARMA.

WHY NOT?

DO YOU HEAR IT?

IF YOU CAN’T EVEN HEAR ME SPEAK THE DHARMA, HOW COULD YOU HEAR INSENTIENT THINGS SPEAK THE DHARMA?

NO.

WHICH SCRIPTURE SAYS THAT INSENTIENT THINGS SPEAK THE DHARMA?

僧 問 講 彌 陀 經 座 主。 水 鳥 樹 林 皆 悉 念 佛 念 法 念 僧。 師 乃 述 偈 呈 雲 巖 曰。 也 大 奇。 也 大 奇。 無 情 解 說 不 思 議。 若

IF YOU SEE WITH YOUR EYES, HEAR WITH YOUR EARS, AND SMELL WITH YOUR NOSE, ALTHOUGH YOU’LL SEE A MOUNTAIN FOR A MOUNTAIN, THE PICTURE WON’T BE COMPLETE. IF THE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CAN BECOME ONE, IF THE MIND AND FORM CAN COALESCE, IF BONE AND FLESH CAN INTERFUSE, AND THEN IF THE EYES CAN BECOME LIKE THE EARS, THE EARS LIKE THE NOSE, THE NOSE LIKE THE MOUTH—IF THERE IS NO DIFFERENTIATION AT ALL, THEN ON SEEING A TENDER SHOOT YOU’LL SEE ALL OF LIFE, AND ON SEEING A FALLING LEAF YOU’LL KNOW THE TREE IS GOING INTO REPOSE.

將耳聽聲不現。眼處聞聲方可知。

FANTASTIC! FANTASTIC! AMAZING ARE THE INSENTIENT THINGS SPEAKING THE DHARMA; IF YOU LISTEN WITH YOUR EARS, IT’S DIFFICULT TO HEAR, IF YOU LISTEN WITH YOUR EYES, YOU’LL COME TO REALIZE.

《景德傳燈錄》

DOESN’T THE AMITABHA SUTRA SAY, “RIVERS, BIRDS, TREES, AND FORESTS ALL RECITE THE DHARMA”?

161

問 。寒 暑 到 來 。如 何 回 避 。師 曰 。何 不 向 無 寒 暑 處 去 。曰 。如 何 是 無 寒 暑 處 。師 曰 。寒 時 寒 殺 闍 黎 。熱 時 熱 殺 闍 黎 。

《五燈會元》

162

COLD WHEN COLD, HOT WHEN HOT

A STUDENT ASKED LIANGJIE OF DONGSHAN:

WHY DON’T YOU GO SOMEPLACE WHERE THERE IS NO SUMMER OR WINTER?

WHEN IT’S COLD OUT, TURN YOURSELF COLD.

WHERE SHOULD WE GO FOR SHELTER DURING SUMMER AND WINTER?

WHERE IS THERE A PLACE THAT IS NEITHER HOT NOR COLD?

WHEN IT’S HOT OUT, TURN YOURSELF HOT.

IF WE ARE COMFORTABLE IN ZEN, HEAT AND COLD WON’T BOTHER US. WINTER AND SUMMER ARE NATURAL OCCURRENCES, SO WE SHOULD BECOME ONE WITH THEM RATHER THAN FIGHT THEM. THEN THEY WILL SUDDENLY DISAPPEAR.

RIGHT HERE.

YOU DON’T NEED TO TRAVEL TO SOME ILLUSORY WORLD TO FIND THE PRINCIPLES OF LIFE; JUST PAY ATTENTION TO THE DETAILS OF LIFE AND EXPERIENCE THEM. WHEN YOU BEGIN TO DOUBT, AN ANSWER IS MOST LIKELY FOUND WHERE THE QUESTION BEGINS.

《五燈會元》

THE ROAD BEGINS HERE

ALL DIRECTIONS LEAD TO THE LAND OF THE BUDDHA, AND ONE ROAD LEADS DIRECTLY TO THE GATES OF NIRVANA. PLEASE TELL ME WHERE THIS ROAD BEGINS.

越州乾峯和尚……。問。十方薄伽梵。一路涅槃門。未審路頭在甚麼處。師以拄杖畫云。在這裏。

A STUDENT ASKED THE ZEN MASTER QIANFENG:

163

金 陵 清 涼 院 文 益 禪 師。 餘 杭 魯 氏 子。 七 歲。 依 新 定 智 通 院 全 偉 禪 師 落 髮。 弱 齡 稟 具 於 越 州 開 元 寺。 屬 律 匠 希 覺

師 盛 化 於 明 州 育 王 寺。 師 往 預 聽 習。 究 其 微 旨 ……。 過 地 藏 院。 阻 雪 少 憩。 附 爐 次。 藏 問。 此 行 何 之。 師 曰。

行脚去。藏曰。作麼生是行脚事。師曰。不知。藏曰。不知最親切……。雪霽辭去。

164

FAYAN WENYI (885–958) LAY SURNAME LU, FAYAN WAS FROM YUHANG IN ZHEJIANG. AS A BOY, HE LEFT HOME TO JOIN THE ORDER AND STUDIED THE DHARMA UNDER THE VINAYA TEACHER XIJUE. HE FOUNDED THE FAYAN TRADITION, ONE OF THE FIVE ZEN TRADITIONS.

FAYAN TRAVELED THE LAND, LOOKING FOR GUIDANCE FROM VARIOUS TEACHERS. ONCE WHEN HE WAS PASSING BY THE DIZANG MONASTERY, A SNOWSTORM HIT, AND HE STOPPED IN TO REST. THE MONASTERY’S ABBOT, LUOHAN GUICHEN, ASKED HIM:

WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

THAT’S THE BEST ANSWER!

I’M ON A QUEST FOR UNDERSTANDING.

WHY A QUEST? I DON’T KNOW.

THE SNOW HAS STOPPED. I SHOULD BE GOING.

AS FAR AS THE BUDDHA-DHARMA GOES, EACH THING COMES AS IT IS.

ON HEARING THIS, FAYAN WAS SUDDENLY ENLIGHTENED.

I’M OUT OF EXPLANATIONS.

ALL THINGS COME AS THEY ARE, WITH NOTHING INHERENTLY GOOD OR BAD; BUT AS SOON AS PEOPLE PERCEIVE THEM, A PEACOCK IS SUDDENLY BEAUTIFUL AND A CROW IS UGLY. IS A CROW REALLY UGLY?

藏 門 送 之 。問 曰 。上 座 尋 常 說 三 界 唯 心 。萬 法 唯 識 。乃 指 庭 下 片 石 曰 。且 道 此 石 在 心 內 。在 心 外 。師 曰 。在 心 內 。

THAT’S NOT HOW THE BUDDHADHARMA IS.

藏曰。行脚人著甚麼來由。安片石在心頭。師窘無以對。即放包依席下求決擇。近一月餘。日呈見解。說道理。

AFTER THIS EXCHANGE, FAYAN DECIDED TO STAY AT THE MONASTERY TO STUDY UNDER LUOHAN. BUT EVERY TIME HE TRIED TO EXPLAIN SOMETHING, LUOHAN WOULD REJECT IT.

藏語之曰。佛法不恁麼。師曰。某甲詞窮理絕也。藏曰。若論佛法。一切見成。師於言下大悟。

IN THE MIND.

《五燈會元》

WELL, MR. QUESTING MONK, WHY WOULD YOU PUT A HUGE ROCK INSIDE YOUR MIND?

YOU SAID THAT OF THE THREE REALMS THERE IS ONLY MIND, AND OF THE TEN THOUSAND DHARMAS THERE IS ONLY CONSCIOUSNESS. IS THAT ROCK OVER THERE IN THE MIND OR OUTSIDE THE MIND?

165

又有問。如何是曹溪一滴水。眼曰。是曹溪一滴水。

《釋氏通鑒》

AFTER TAKING HIS VOWS, HUINENG, THE SIXTH ANCESTOR, WENT TO THE CAO RIVER WHERE HE BUILT BAOLIN TEMPLE AND LIVED THERE FOR THIRTY-SIX YEARS. THE AREA AROUND THE CAO RIVER BECAME SACRED GROUND.

A DROP OF WATER FROM THE CAO RIVER

WHAT IS A DROP OF WATER FROM THE CAO RIVER? HELLO! HELLO!

A DROP OF WATER FROM THE CAO RIVER.

166

TO USE LANGUAGE IN ANSWERING A QUESTION ALLOWS FOR BIAS. THE MOST COMPLETE ANSWER IS ALWAYS THE QUESTION ITSELF. THE TRUTH IS THE UNIFICATION OF EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR. THE EXTERIOR IS THESE WORDS, AND THE INTERIOR IS THIS CONTENT; CONTENT COMES TO THE OUTSIDE.

DOES EMPTINESS POSSESS THE SIX CHARACTERISTICS?

THANK YOU, I FINALLY UNDERSTAND.

IT’S EMPTY.

HOW DID YOU UNDERSTAND?

EMPTINESS!

WONDERFUL. CLAP CLAP CLAP

CREATION IS A LIMITLESS TREASURE, UNFOLDING DAILY AS ALL THINGS CHANGE. CLEVER AND ROUNDABOUT WAYS OF DOING THINGS ONLY GET MORE COMPLICATED AS THEY GO.

杭 州 永 明 寺 道 潛 禪 師 ……。 初 謁 法 眼。 眼 問 曰。 子 於 參 請 外。 看 甚 麼 經。 師 曰。 華 嚴 經。 眼 曰。 總 別． 同 異．

IF YOU DON’T KNOW, YOU CAN ASK ME!

I DON’T KNOW …

成壞六相。是何門攝屬。師曰。文在十地品中。據理則世出世間一切法。皆具六相也。眼曰。空還具六相也無。

STAGES CHAPTER, IT SAYS, “ALL THINGS IN AND OUTSIDE THE WORLD POSSESS THE SIX CHARACTERISTICS.”

師懵然無對。眼曰。汝問我。我向汝道。師乃問。空還具六相也無。眼曰。空。師於是開悟。踊躍禮謝。眼曰。

DOES EMPTINESS POSSESS THE SIX CHARACTERISTICS?

WHICH SECTION OF THE FLOWER GARLAND SUTRA TALKS ABOUT THE SIX CHARACTERISTICS: UNIVERSALITY, PARTICULARITY, SIMILARITY, DIFFERENCE, INTEGRATION, AND DISINTEGRATION? IN THE TEN

子作麼生會。師曰。空。眼然之。

FAYAN ONCE ASKED HIS STUDENT DAOQIAN OF YONGMING:

THE FLOWER GARLAND SUTRA.

《五燈會元》

EMPTINESS

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

167

金 陵 報 恩 院 玄 則 禪 師 滑 州 衛 南 人 也 。初 問 青 峯 如 何 是 佛 。青 峯 曰 。丙 丁 童 子 來 求 火 。師 得 此 語 藏 之 於 心 。及 謁 淨 慧 。

詰其悟旨。師對曰。丙丁是火而更求火。亦似玄則將佛問佛。

168

THE LAMP BOY COMES LOOKING FOR A FLAME

XUANZE ASKED THE MONK QINGFENG:

THE LAMP BOY COMES LOOKING FOR A FLAME.

I FINALLY UNDERSTAND!

WHAT IS THE BUDDHA?

HA HA! I GET IT! I GET IT!

WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM QINGFENG?

THE LAMP BOY IS THE KEEPER OF THE FLAME, YET HE SEEKS IT FROM SOMEONE ELSE. JUST LIKE I’M THE BUDDHA, AND YET I WENT TO SOMEBODY ELSE TO ASK ABOUT THE BUDDHA.

ASKING AND ANSWERING ARE SIMPLY THE REARRANGING OF WORDS; IT’S THE TIMING THAT MATTERS. THAT’S WHY XUANZE WAS ABLE TO SUDDENLY ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT.

淨慧曰。幾放過元來錯會。師雖蒙開發頗懷猶豫。復退思既殆莫曉玄理。乃投誠請益。淨慧曰。汝問我與汝道。

NOW I GET IT! NOW I GET IT! THIS TIME I REALLY UNDERSTAND!

師乃問。如何是佛。淨慧曰。丙丁童子來求火。師豁然知歸。

WAIT, WAIT … WHAT IS THE BUDDHA?

WHAT?! THAT HAD TO BE RIGHT! HOW CAN IT BE WRONG?!

THE LAMP BOY COMES LOOKING FOR A FLAME.

《景德傳燈錄》

I THOUGHT YOU UNDERSTOOD, BUT NOW I SEE YOU DON’T.

169

韶 州 雲 門 山 光 奉 院 文 偃 禪 師 嘉 興 人 也。 姓 張 氏。 幼 依 空 王 寺 志 澄 律 師 出 家。 敏 質 生 知。 慧 辯 天 縱。 及 長。 落 髮

稟 具 於 毗 陵 壇。 侍 澄 數 年。 探 窮 律 部。 以 己 事 未 明。 往 參 睦 州。 州 纔 見 來。 便 閉 却 門。 師 乃 扣 門。 州 曰。 誰。

師曰。某甲。州曰。作甚麼。師曰。己事未明。乞師指示。州開門一見便閉却。師如是連三日扣門。至第三日。

170

WENYAN OF YUNMEN (864–909) LAY SURNAME ZHANG, YUNMEN WAS FROM JIAXING IN ZHEJIANG. HE LEFT HOME TO JOIN THE ORDER WHEN VERY YOUNG, AND HIS DISCIPLINE AND STUDIES IN THE DOCTRINES WERE EXCELLENT. IN HIS LATER YEARS HE MOVED TO THE GUANGTAI TEMPLE ON YUNMEN MOUNTAIN IN GUANGDONG, WHERE HE PROMOTED HIS OWN STYLE OF ZEN. HE WAS THE FOUNDING MASTER OF THE YUNMEN TRADITION.

NOK NOK

YUNMEN ONCE PAID A VISIT TO MUZHOU, SEEKING GUIDANCE.

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

WHO IS IT?

I NEED HELP ATTAINING ENLIGHTENMENT.

MY NAME IS WENYAN.

MUZHOU OPENED THE DOOR, TOOK ONE LOOK, AND THEN SLAMMED THE DOOR SHUT.

FOR TWO DAYS, YUNMEN KNOCKED ON THE DOOR AND WAS REJECTED. THEN, ON THE THIRD DAY …

AHH … SPEAK! SPEAK!

YOU’RE A USELESS FOOL!

TO SEE THROUGH ALL THINGS, YOU MUST DEPEND ON YOURSELF; NO ONE ELSE CAN DO IT FOR YOU. HOWEVER, A GOOD TEACHER CAN CALL OUT A STUDENT’S POTENTIAL AT JUST THE RIGHT TIME.

MUZHOU QUICKLY SHUT THE DOOR, CRUSHING YUNMEN’S FOOT. JUST AT THAT MOMENT, YUNMEN ATTAINED ENLIGHTENMENT.

州 開 門 。師 乃 拶 入 。州 便 擒 住 曰 。道 。道 。師 擬 議 。州 便 推 出 曰 。秦 時 𨍏 轢 鑽 。遂 掩 門 。損 師 一 足 。師 從 此 悟 入 。

BAM BAM BAM

《五燈會元》

PLEASE OPEN THE DOOR …

171

又曰。雲起雷興。示眾曰。十五日已前不問汝。十五日已後道將一句來。眾無對。自代曰。日日是好日。

春有百花秋有月。夏有涼風冬有雪。若無閑事挂心頭。便是人間好時節。

《 五 燈 會 元 》、《 無 門 關 》

172

EVERY DAY IS A GOOD DAY

LET’S NOT DISCUSS WHAT HAPPENED FIFTEEN DAYS AGO. INSTEAD, TELL ME SOMETHING ABOUT FIFTEEN DAYS FROM NOW. YUNMEN ASKED HIS DISCIPLES:

EVERY DAY IS A GOOD DAY!

ABSENT URGENT MATTERS WEIGHING DOWN YOUR REASONS YOU WILL COME TO KNOW TRANQUIL, PLEASANT SEASONS

I DON’T KNOW …

SPRING HAS BLOOMING FLOWERS, AUTUMN HAS THE MOON, SUMMER HAS A COOLING BREEZE, WINTER HAS THE SNOW.

ALL THINGS HAVE A GOOD SIDE AND A BAD SIDE. IF YOU ONLY SEE THE BAD SIDE, YOU WILL ONLY COMPLAIN AND FEEL SAD. BUT IF YOU CAN ALSO SEE THE GOOD SIDE, EVERY DAY WILL BE A GOOD DAY.

《五燈會元》

YUNMEN BECAME FAMOUS IN ZEN HISTORY BECAUSE OF HIS “ONE-WORD GATE,” A STRATEGY BY WHICH HE CALLED FORTH HIS STUDENTS’ POTENTIAL. WHAT IS A CHICK UNIVERSAL! PECKING ON THE INSIDE AND A HEN PECKING ON THE OUTSIDE?

WHAT IS THE ORTHODOX DHARMA-EYE?

IF YOU KILL YOUR PARENTS, YOU CAN REPENT TO THE BUDDHA. IF YOU KILL THE BUDDHA, WHO DO YOU REPENT TO?

ECHO.

WHAT IS THE DAO? LEAVE!

WHAT IS THE PATH OF THE YUNMEN TRADITION?

MY FORMER TEACHER PASSED AWAY. WHAT SHOULD I WRITE ON HIS MEMORIAL TABLET?

INTIMACY.

TEACHER.

REVELATION!

THE ONE-WORD GATE IS THE ONLY WAY TO PUT THE INEFFABLE INTO WORDS. EACH ONE ALLOWS THE STUDENT TO SEE THROUGH THINGS FOR THEMSELF.

LANGUAGE IS LIMITED, WHEREAS THE TRUTH IS INEXHAUSTIBLE. IF YOU WANT TO USE LANGUAGE TO EXPLAIN THE TRUTH, THE MORE YOU SAY, THE FURTHER AWAY YOU WILL BE.

如 何 是 正 法 眼 。師 曰 。普 。問 。如 何 是 啐 啄 機 。師 曰 。響 。如 何 是 雲 門 一 路 。師 曰 。親 。問 。殺 父 殺 母 。向 佛 前 懺 悔 。

GATE!

殺佛殺祖。向甚麼處懺悔。師曰。露。問。如何是道。師曰。去。問師曰。先師默然處如何上碑。師對曰。師。

ONE WORD GATE

173

昔日雲門有三句。謂函蓋乾坤句。截斷眾流句。隨波逐浪句。三句頌。函葢乾坤曰。乾坤并萬象。地獄及天堂。

物物皆真見。頭頭用不傷。截斷眾流曰。堆山積嶽來。

174

A GENERAL PRINCIPLE OF ALL THINGS IS AS FOLLOWS: ENCOMPASS HEAVEN AND EARTH; CUT OFF THE FLOW; FOLLOW THE BILLOWS AND THE WAVES.

THE TRUTH IS EVERYWHERE, ENCOMPASSING EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE.

YUNMEN’S THREE LINES

STILL, EVERY INDIVIDUAL BODY POSSESSES ITS OWN DISTINCTIVE FEATURES. IT IS UNIQUE.

EVERY INDIVIDUAL BODY IS INTEGRALLY RELATED TO THIS WORLD AND FOLLOWS THE BILLOWS AND WAVES.

ABSOLUTE TRUTH IS IN A FLAME …

IT IS IN ONE’S OWN BODY, AND IN THE NORTH STAR. THE DAO ENCOMPASSES EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE.

AND THE FARTHEST THING.

EVERY INDIVIDUAL BODY IS THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE AND IS INTIMATELY RELATED TO EVERYTHING ELSE. TO LIVE FREELY AND IN CONTROL, YOU MUST CUT OFF THE FLOW; TO BE IN COMPLETE ACCORDANCE WITH ALL THINGS, FOLLOW THE BILLOWS AND THE WAVES.

一 一 盡 塵 埃。 更 擬 論 玄 妙。 冰 消 瓦 解 摧。 隨 波 逐 浪 曰。 辯 口 利 舌 問。 高 低 總 不 虧。 還 如 應 病 藥。 診 候 在 臨 時。

《五燈會元》

IT IS THE NEAREST THING …

三 句 外 曰。 當 人 如 舉 唱。 三 句 豈 能 該。 有 問 如 何 事。 南 嶽 與 天 台。 擡 薦 商 量 曰。 相 見 不 揚 眉。 君 東 我 亦 西。 紅

IN A MOTE OF DUST.

霞穿碧落。白日繞須彌。

IN A GRAIN OF SAND …

175

岳州巴陵新開院顥鑒禪師……。僧問。祖意教意。是同是別。師曰。鷄寒上樹。鴨寒下水。

《五燈會元》

176

IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT THE ZEN ANCESTORS SAID AND WHAT THE SCRIPTURES SAY?

SAME DESTINATION, DIFFERENT PATHS

A STUDENT ONCE ASKED THE MONK BALING:

WHEN IT GETS COLD, PHEASANTS ROOST IN TREES …

AND DUCKS GO UNDERWATER.

IT’S COLD FOR BOTH, BUT EACH HAS A DIFFERENT WAY OF DEALING WITH IT. EVERYONE HAS A DIFFERENT WAY OF ARRIVING AT THE SAME DESTINATION. THERE IS NO SINGLE PATH, AND NOT EVERYONE IS FIT TO TRAVEL THE SAME PATH. BY LIMITING YOURSELF TO A CERTAIN PATH, YOU MAY ACTUALLY LEAD YOURSELF ASTRAY.

THREE POUNDS OF FLAX.

THE MONK THEN WENT TO ASK ZHIMEN:

I ASKED DONGSHAN WHAT THE BUDDHA IS, AND HE ANSWERED, “THREE POUNDS OF FLAX.” WHAT DID HE MEAN?

WHAT IS THE BUDDHA?

?

?

LIKE A MEADOW OF FLOWERS WOVEN INTO SILK BROCADE.

I STILL DON’T GET IT …

僧 問 洞 山 。如 何 是 佛 。山 云 。麻 三 斤 … … 。僧 問 智 門 和 尚 。洞 山 道 麻 三 斤 意 旨 如 何 。智 門 云 。花 簇 簇 錦 簇 簇 。會 麼 。

THREE POUNDS OF FLAX

僧云。不會。

A MONK ONCE ASKED SHOUCHU OF DONGSHAN:

177

智門云。南地竹兮北地木。僧回舉似洞山。山云……。言無展事。語不投機。承言者喪。滯句者迷。

譬如有人塊擲獅子。獅逐人……。若塊擲犬。犬惟逐塊。不知逐人。

《 佛 果 圜 悟 禪 師 碧 巖 錄 》、《 銷 釋 金 剛 經 科 儀 會 要 註 解 》

178

BAMBOO IN THE SOUTH, TREES IN THE NORTH.

THE MORE I LISTEN, THE LESS I UNDERSTAND …

HE RETURNED TO DONGSHAN TO TRY AGAIN.

LANGUAGE CANNOT GET AT THE ROOT OF THINGS. WHOEVER INSISTS ON USING LANGUAGE SACRIFICES THE TRUTH AND WILL FOREVER BE CONFUSED.

FOR INSTANCE, IF A ROCK IS THROWN AT A DOG, THE DOG WILL GO AFTER THE ROCK; BUT IF A ROCK IS THROWN AT A LION, THE LION WILL GO AFTER THE PERSON WHO THREW IT. WHEN INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE OF ZEN, YOU SHOULD BE LIKE THE LION, NOT THE DOG.

THE WORDS OF A PERSON OF ZEN ARE JUST POINTERS, TOPICS THAT LEAD TO A DEEPER LEVEL OF EXPERIENCE. SO, WHEN ENCOUNTERING THE LANGUAGE OF ZEN, DON’T PURSUE THE MEANINGS OF THE WORDS THEMSELVES.

A MUTE EATING HONEY.

HELLO !

LO! HEL

A PARROT CALLING OUT.

AND WHAT DO YOU CALL SOMEONE WHO DOESN’T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING YET SPEAKS ANYWAY?

IN PRACTICING ZEN, WE SHOULD BE LIKE THE MUTE—GAINING INSIGHTS YET FEELING IT NOT WORTHWHILE TO DISCUSS THEM WITH OTHERS. THE WORST THING A PERSON CAN DO IS EMULATE A PARROT AND GO AROUND TEACHING OTHERS ABOUT ONE’S SUPERFICIAL UNDERSTANDING OF ZEN.

東 京 慧 林 懷 深 慈 受 禪 師 … … 問 。知 有 道 不 得 時 如 何 。師 曰 。瘂 子 喫 蜜 。曰 。道 得 不 知 有 時 如 何 。師 曰 。鸚 鵡 喚 人 。

A YOUNG MONK ASKED HIS TEACHER, CISHOU:

僧禮拜。

THE MUTE AND THE PARROT

《五燈會元》

WHAT DO YOU CALL SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS SOMETHING BUT CAN’T PUT IT INTO WORDS?

179

《五燈會元》

台州瑞巖師彥禪師……每自喚主人公。復應諾。乃曰。惺惺著。他後莫受人謾。

THE MONK SHIYAN TALKED TO HIMSELF CONSTANTLY.

MASTER OF THY SELF

YES?

STAY ALERT!

YES, SIR.

DON’T LET YOURSELF BE TRICKED BY OTHERS!

YES, SIR. YES, SIR.

180

MASTER!

PEOPLE ARE CONSTANTLY DECEIVED BY STIMULI FROM THEIR ENVIRONMENT, BY THEIR POLLUTED MINDS, AND BY PAST ANTIPATHIES, WHICH ALL KEEP THEM FROM BEING ABLE TO CONTROL THEMSELVES THE WAY THEY WOULD LIKE. EACH OF US MUST COME TO A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF WHO WE ARE, DO OUR BEST IN PLAYING OUR ROLE, AND BE MASTERS OF OURSELVES.

ALPINE FLOWERS BLOSSOM LIKE BROCADE.

PLACID STREAMS CONCEAL A CURRENT. FLOWERS ARE QUICK TO FADE, YET THE CYCLE REMAINS; WATER FLOWS, BUT THE SURFACE LOOKS STILL. THE MEANING OF LIFE LIES IN THE PROCESS OF LIVING— CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT.

鼎州大龍山智洪弘濟禪師……。問。色身敗壞。如何是堅固法身。師曰。山花開似錦。㵎水湛如藍。

YES, THERE IS.

《五燈會元》

ALL MATERIAL THINGS PASS AWAY, BUT IS THERE AN ETERNAL TRUTH?

ALPINE FLOWERS BLOSSOM LIKE BROCADE

181

鄧州丹霞天然禪師。唐元和中至洛京龍門香山。與伏牛和尚為莫逆之友。後於慧林寺遇天大寒。師取木佛焚之。

人或譏之。師曰。吾燒取舍利。人曰。木頭何有。師曰。若爾者何責我乎。

《景德傳燈錄》

182

DANXIA BURNS THE BUDDHA

YOU CRETIN! HOW COULD YOU BURN A STATUE OF THE BUDDHA?!

ONCE, WHILE THE ZEN MASTER DANXIA WAS STUDYING AT HUILIN TEMPLE, THE WEATHER WAS BITTER COLD. TO KEEP WARM, HE BURNED A STATUE OF THE BUDDHA.

I WANTED TO SEE IF THERE WERE ANY RELICS INSIDE.

WHY WOULD THERE BE A RELIC IN A WOODEN STATUE?!

HUH … ? WELL, IF THERE AREN’T ANY RELICS, BRING THEM ALL DOWN HERE TO BURN!

PEOPLE OF THE DAO ARE OF NO-MIND; HOW CAN THEY DO WRONG? BY NOT GETTING MIRED IN APPEARANCES AND BY FOLLOWING OUR ORIGINAL NATURE, WE CAN DO NO WRONG.

WHEN IT’S HOT, SHADE YOURSELF UNDER BAMBOO.

SO HE WASN’T WRONG IN DOING IT?

LIFE IS LIVING IN ACCORDANCE WITH NATURE, ORDINARY AND NOT AFFECTED. WHEN YOU ARE HUNGRY, EAT; WHEN YOU ARE TIRED, SLEEP. FOOLS MAY LAUGH, BUT THE WISE WILL UNDERSTAND.

杭州天竺山子儀心印水月大師……問丹霞燒木佛意旨如何。師曰。寒即圍鑪向猛火。僧曰。還有過也無。師曰。

WHEN IT’S COLD, WARM YOURSELF BY A FIRE.

熱即竹林溪畔坐。

CHANGING WITH THE SURROUNDINGS

《景德傳燈錄》

WHAT WAS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DANXIA BURNING THE WOODEN BUDDHA?

183

善 慧 大 士 者 … … 。梁 武 帝 請 講 金 剛 經 。士 纔 陞 座 。以 尺 揮 按 一 下 。便 下 座 。帝 愕 然 。聖 師 曰 。陛 下 還 會 麼 。帝 曰 。

不會。聖師曰。大士講經竟。

《五燈會元》

184

THE BODHISATTVA SHANHUI (BORN 497)

LIANG EMPEROR WU ONCE INVITED HIM TO GIVE A LECTURE ON THE DIAMOND SUTRA.

SHANHUI, ALSO KNOWN AS MAHASATTVA FU, WAS AN OUTSTANDING PRECURSOR OF EARLY ZEN BUDDHISM.

SHANHUI MOUNTED THE DAIS, CLAPPED DOWN THE SQUARE GAVEL, AND IMMEDIATELY DESCENDED.

BUT I’VE FINISHED MY LECTURE.

AP

CL

DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

NOT AT ALL.

BUDDHAHOOD, THE DAO, AND ZEN ARE “INEFFABLE” BECAUSE ANYTIME YOU HAVE TO SPEAK ABOUT THEM, THERE WILL BE SOME SHORTCOMING IN WHAT YOU SAY. THIS IS WHY THE DIAMOND SUTRA SAYS, “NOT TEACHING THE DHARMA IS CALLED TEACHING THE DHARMA.”

《五燈會元》

STANDING FOR THE EMPEROR

THE EMPEROR ARRIVES!

I SAID THE EMPEROR IS ARRIVING. WHY AREN’T YOU STANDING UP?

IF THE DHARMA-GROUND MOVES, NOTHING IS SAFE!

IF WE MAINTAIN THE DISTINCTIONS OF HONOR AND DISHONOR, HIGH AND LOW STATION, GREAT AND SMALL, WE WILL NEVER GLIMPSE REALITY!

又一日講經次。帝至。大眾皆起。唯士端坐不動。近臣報曰。聖駕在此。何不起。士曰。法地若動。一切不安。

ONCE, WHEN SHANHUI WAS GIVING A LECTURE, EMPEROR WU CAME TO LISTEN.

185

大士一日披衲．頂冠．靸履朝見。帝問。是僧邪。士以手指冠。帝曰。是道邪。士以手指靸履。帝曰。是俗邪。

士以手指衲衣。

《五燈會元》

186

THREE TRADITIONS IN ONE

ONCE, WHEN SHANHUI WENT TO SEE EMPEROR WU, HE WORE A DAOIST CAP, A BUDDHIST ROBE, AND CONFUCIAN-STYLE SHOES.

DAOIST CAP

BUDDHIST ROBE CONFUCIAN SHOES

ARE YOU A MONK?

YOU’RE A DAOIST PRIEST?

SHANHUI POINTED TO HIS CAP…

SHANHUI POINTED TO HIS SHOES...

DAOIST CAP, CONFUCIAN SHOES, AND BUDDHIST ROBE. I’VE MADE THREE TRADITIONS INTO ONE.

THEN YOU’RE A CONFUCIAN?

SHANHUI POINTED TO HIS ROBE...

HUH…

THE ZEN TRADITION BLENDS ASPECTS OF CONFUCIANISM, DAOISM, AND BUDDHISM AND PUTS THEM TO USE IN DAILY LIFE.

《五燈會元》

HOLDING A HOE IN EMPTY HANDS,

WALKING ALONG RIDING A BULL;

THE BRIDGE FLOWS, THE RIVER STANDS STILL.

SOMEONE CROSSES A BRIDGE,

空手把鋤頭。步行騎水牛。人從橋上過。橋流水不流。

SHANHUI’S POEM

DON’T GET CAUGHT UP IN ONLY ONE WAY OF DOING THINGS, AND DON’T LOOK AT THINGS FROM JUST ONE POINT OF VIEW. IF YOU TRY ANOTHER WAY, OR CHANGE YOUR POINT OF VIEW, THE RESULTS WILL BE DIFFERENT.

187

善慧大士者……曰。有物先天地。無形本寂寥。能為萬象主。不逐四時凋。

《五燈會元》

BEING YOUR OWN MASTER

FORMLESS, SILENT, WAITING SOMETHING PRECEDED THE WORLD

INSTILLED WITH COSMIC POWER IN SEASONS NEVER FADING.

188

WE WERE ALL ORIGINALLY A PART OF PRIMAL CHAOS— INSEPARABLE, INDISTINGUISHABLE. THE INSEPARABLE IS ONE; THE ONE IS DAO; THE DAO IS BUDDHAHOOD, ZEN. IF YOU ARE MASTER OF YOURSELF, YOU WILL NOT CHANGE MERELY THROUGH THE INFLUENCE OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS OR OTHERS.

CARRYING A WOMAN ACROSS A RIVER

ONE DAY, WHILE THE ZEN MONK TANZAN AND A YOUNG MONK WERE TRAVELING, THEY HAPPENED UPON A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG LADY IN DISTRESS.

HERE, LET ME CARRY YOU ACROSS.

THE TWO CONTINUED ON THEIR JOURNEY FOR MORE THAN HALF A DAY.

HUH? OH, YOU MEAN THAT WOMAN WAY BACK THERE?

I PUT HER DOWN LONG AGO. ARE YOU STILL CARRYING HER?

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. GOODBYE!

I THOUGHT WE MONKS WERE SUPPOSED TO AVOID WOMEN. WHY DID YOU DO THAT?

TANZAN CARRIED A PERSON ACROSS A RIVER, BUT IN HIS MIND HE WASN’T CARRYING A WOMAN; HE WAS COMPLETELY DETACHED AND HAD NO MISGIVINGS. THE ONE WHO WAS REALLY CARRYING A WOMAN SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN THE YOUNGER MONK, WOULDN’T YOU SAY?

189

慧 忠 國 師 …… 帝 在 便 殿 指 宦 者 魚 朝 恩。 謂 師 曰。 朝 恩 亦 解 佛 法。 朝 恩 進 問 師 曰。 何 謂 無 明 從 何 而 起。 師 曰。 衰

相現前奴也解問佛法。朝恩大怒。師曰。即此是無明。無明從此起。

《佛祖統紀》

190

THERE WAS ONCE A GENERAL WHO ASKED THE ZEN MASTER HAKUIN:

ARE THERE REALLY SUCH THINGS AS HEAVEN AND HELL?

THE GATES OF HEAVEN

WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?

I’M A GENERAL.

I’LL CUT YOU TO PIECES!

HERE LIE THE GATES OF HELL!

HA HA HA! WHAT IDIOT ASKED YOU TO BE HIS GENERAL? YOU LOOK MORE LIKE A BUTCHER TO ME.

EXCUSE ME … PLEASE FORGIVE MY INSOLENCE.

WHAT?!

HERE LIE THE GATES OF HEAVEN.

HEAVEN AND HELL AREN’T PLACES THAT SUDDENLY APPEAR AFTER DEATH. THEY EXIST HERE AND NOW. GOOD AND EVIL INVOLVE JUST A SINGLE INSTANT OF THOUGHT, AND THE GATES OF HEAVEN AND HELL ARE READY TO OPEN FOR YOU AT ANY TIME.

THE ZEN MASTERS DAIGU AND GUDO ACCEPTED AN INVITATION TO INSTRUCT A MAJOR OFFICIAL INTERESTED IN ZEN.

THE LAMEBRAIN OFFICIAL

YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING! THIS LAMEBRAIN MAY HAVE A HIGH POSITION BUT HE WOULDN’T KNOW ZEN IF HE WERE HIT OVER THE HEAD WITH IT!

YOU ARE A NATURALLY INTELLIGENT AND RECEPTIVE MAN. I THINK YOU WILL MAKE A FINE STUDENT OF ZEN.

AFTER LISTENING TO YOUR TWO HONORABLE OPINIONS, I HAVE DECIDED WHAT TO DO.

IN THE END, NOT ONLY DID THE OFFICIAL NOT BUILD A TEMPLE FOR GUDO, HE BUILT ONE FOR DAIGU INSTEAD AND STUDIED ZEN WITH HIM.

DISREGARDING THE HIGH POSITION OF THE OFFICIAL, DAIGU SPOKE EXACTLY WHAT WAS ON HIS MIND AND WAS HELD IN HIGH REGARD FOR IT. DON’T BE DELUDED BY EXTERIOR CIRCUMSTANCES. WHEN THE DUALISM OF GOOD AND EVIL IS GONE FROM YOUR MIND, ONLY THEN WILL YOU BE NEARING ZEN.

191

THERE WAS ONCE AN ARTIST WHO WAS ASKED TO DO A PAINTING OF BAMBOO.

BLACK BAMBOO, RED BAMBOO

BUT THERE SEEMS TO BE A PROBLEM WITH THE COLOR. YOU PAINTED THE BAMBOO RED.

FANTASTIC! MARVELOUS!

WHAT COLOR SHOULD IT BE?

BLACK, OF COURSE.

WHO’S EVER SEEN BLACK BAMBOO?! WHEN YOU GO POINTING OUT OTHER PEOPLE’S MISTAKES, THE REAL ERROR MAY VERY WELL BE HIDDEN IN YOUR OWN MISCONCEPTIONS.

192

THE ORDER OF LIFE AND DEATH

THERE WAS ONCE A WEALTHY MAN WHO ASKED THE ZEN MONK SENGAI TO CREATE A WORK OF CALLIGRAPHY FOR HIM.

I WANTED YOU TO WRITE SOMETHING AUSPICIOUS! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO PULL?!

A H H H !

THIS IS AUSPICIOUS.

FATHER DIES SON DIES GRANDSON DIES –SENGAI IF YOUR SONS WERE TO DIE BEFORE YOU, OR IF YOUR GRANDSONS WERE TO DIE BEFORE YOUR SONS, YOU WOULD BE DEVASTATED.

IF THE PEOPLE IN YOUR FAMILY LIVE GENERATION AFTER GENERATION AND DIE ACCORDING TO THIS ORDER, WHAT IS MORE AUSPICIOUS THAN THAT? THAT MAKES SENSE.

“LIFE IS TAXING, DEATH IS RELAXING” (ZHUANGZI). DEATH IS LIKE A WEARY TRAVELER RETURNING HOME. ISN’T IT THE MOST FORTUNATE THING FOR EVERYONE TO DIE IN THEIR NATURAL ORDER?

193

VOW OF SILENCE

FOUR MONKS MADE A PACT: THEY WOULD MEDITATE IN SILENCE FOR SEVEN DAYS, DURING WHICH TIME NO ONE WAS TO SAY A SINGLE WORD.

LATE AT NIGHT ON THE FIRST DAY, THEIR ONE CANDLE SUDDENLY STARTED TO FLICKER.

REMEMBER, NOW—WE’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK.

HA HA! I’M THE ONLY ONE WHO HASN’T SAID ANYTHING!

194

OH NO, THE CANDLE’S ABOUT TO GO OUT!

WHY DO YOU GUYS KEEP TALKING?

WHEN POINTING OUT OTHER PEOPLE’S FAULTS, WE OFTEN FORGET THAT WE MAY BE GUILTY OF THE SAME MISTAKE.

THERE WAS ONCE A MONK NAMED TESSHU WHO TRAVELED THE LAND MEETING WITH ALL THE BEST ZEN MASTERS. ONE DAY, HE WANDERED INTO SHOKOKU TEMPLE AND HAPPENED UPON THE MONK DOKUON.

EVERYTHING IS EMPTY

THE TRUE NATURE OF ALL THINGS IS EMPTINESS. NO ENLIGHTENMENT, NO DELUSION; NO SAGES, NO COMMONERS; NO TOIL, NO REWARD.

THE MIND, THE BUDDHA, HERE, HE AND ALL BEINGS ARE PROUDLY EMPTY … PROCLAIMED HIS LEVEL OF ENLIGHTENMENT:

OW!

!

NK

BO

IF EVERYTHING IS EMPTY, WHERE DID THAT TEMPER COME FROM?

WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!

“THERE IS NO GOOD OR EVIL, NO SUFFERING OR PLEASURE; EVERYTHING IS EMPTY.” EVEN THIS SENTENCE ISN’T WORTH SAYING TO ANYONE. TESSHU HAD ONLY A SUPERFICIAL UNDERSTANDING OF ZEN.

195

太和楊黼辭親入蜀訪無際大士途遇一老僧僧問所往曰訪無際僧曰見無際不見佛黼問佛安在僧曰子速回但見著某

色衣履者即是也遂歸夜抵家叩門母聞聲喜甚披衣啟戶即老僧所云佛狀也黼自此極力事親致愛致敬

《淨土晨鐘》

196

THE BUDDHA IS IN THE HOME

WHERE ARE YOU GOING, YOUNG MAN? ONE DAY, A YOUNG MAN NAMED YANG FU LEFT HIS PARENTS TO GO TO SICHUAN TO VISIT THE BODHISATTVA WUJI. I AM GOING TO STUDY UNDER WUJI, THE BODHISATTVA.

INSTEAD OF LOOKING FOR A MERE BODHISATTVA, YOU’D BE BETTER OFF LOOKING FOR THE BUDDHA.

YANG FU HURRIED BACK HOME, ARRIVING LATE AT NIGHT. IN JOYFUL HASTE TO GREET HER RETURNING SON …

DO YOU KNOW WHERE I CAN FIND THE BUDDHA?

WHEN YOU RETURN HOME, A PERSON WEARING A BLANKET AND WITH SHOES ON THE WRONG FEET WILL COME TO GREET YOU. THAT PERSON IS THE BUDDHA.

YANG FU’S MOTHER THREW ON A BLANKET AND ACCIDENTALLY PUT HER SLIPPERS ON THE WRONG FEET. YANG FU TOOK ONE LOOK AT HER AND WAS SUDDENLY ENLIGHTENED.

REALLY?

A WHOLESOME THOUGHT FROM WITHIN THE MIND CAN OFTEN HELP US SLOUGH OFF THE SHELL OF OUR INFERIOR SELVES AND, LIKE THE SUDDEN CROAK OF A FROG, CAUSE A PROFOUND ENLIGHTENMENT.

ONE DAY, WHILE THE ZEN MASTER BANKEI WAS GIVING A LECTURE, A DISCIPLE SUDDENLY STOOD UP AND YELLED OUT:

THE LOST STUDENT

AHA! CAUGHT YOU FILCHING MONEY AGAIN!

FORGIVE HIM!

YOU LITTLE …!

YOU ARE ALL PERCEPTIVE STUDENTS AND UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG. HE IS THE ONLY ONE WHO DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THIS. IF I DON’T TEACH HIM, WHO WILL?

NO WAY! WE’VE FORGIVEN HIM EVERY TIME, AND HE JUST KEEPS ON STEALING.

YEAH! IF YOU DON’T KICK HIM OUT THIS TIME, WE’LL ALL LEAVE.

I AM GOING TO LET HIM STAY HERE, EVEN IF EVERY ONE OF YOU LEAVES.

AT THIS, THE PICKPOCKET MONK FELL TO HIS KNEES AND PROMISED TO REFORM, SUDDENLY UNDERSTANDING RIGHT AND WRONG, GOOD AND BAD.

IF YOU HAD ONE HUNDRED SHEEP AND ONE OF THEM LOST ITS WAY, WOULDN’T YOU IMMEDIATELY GO IN SEARCH OF THE LOST ONE, LEAVING THE OTHER NINETY-NINE IN THE OPEN FIELDS? IT IS IMPORTANT TO HELP THOSE WHO NEED HELP THE MOST.

197

A THIEF ONCE WENT TO ROB THE ZEN MASTER SHICHIRI.

ENLIGHTENMENT OF THE THIEF

MY MONEY’S IN THE DRESSER OVER THERE; YOU MAY HELP YOURSELF. I’D APPRECIATE IT, THOUGH, IF YOU’D LEAVE A LITTLE BEHIND FOR ME TO BUY FOOD.

A FEW DAYS LATER, THE THIEF WAS APPREHENDED.

DID THIS MAN STEAL YOUR MONEY?

AFTER SERVING A PRISON TERM FOR OTHER CRIMES, THE THIEF IMMEDIATELY RETURNED TO SHICHIRI, BEGGING TO BE ACCEPTED AS HIS DISCIPLE.

198

YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!

AFTER RECEIVING SOMETHING FROM SOMEONE, YOU SHOULD SAY, “THANK YOU.”

THANK YOU.

OH NO, HE DIDN’T STEAL IT—I GAVE IT TO HIM. HE EVEN THANKED ME FOR IT.

“LAYING DOWN HIS BUTCHER’S KNIFE, HE BECAME A BUDDHA.” THIS IS A MOST DIFFICULT THING TO DO, AND WHAT CAN GET PEOPLE TO LAY DOWN THEIR BUTCHER’S KNIVES? LOVE—THAT’S ALL.

CAN’T SAY IT

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

AT THIS, THE MUSICIAN PLAYED THE SAME SONG RIGHT THROUGH FROM THE BEGINNING.

CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT IT MEANT?

THAT’S WHAT IT MEANT!

ANYTIME WE USE WORDS TO EXPLAIN SOMETHING, THERE WILL BE DEFICIENCIES. THAT WHICH IS ASKED ABOUT IS ITSELF THE MOST COMPLETE ANSWER.

199

ZEN IN A CUP

THE ZEN MASTER IKKYU HAD ALWAYS BEEN VERY CLEVER. AS A YOUNG MONK, HE GOT HIMSELF INTO TROUBLE ONE DAY BY ACCIDENTALLY BREAKING HIS TEACHER'S FAVORITE TEACUP.

AHEM.

OH NO!

SIR, WHY MUST PEOPLE DIE?

IT’S NATURAL, MY SON. EVERYTHING IN THIS WORLD EXPERIENCES BOTH LIFE AND DEATH.

200

! HEE

HEE

HEE

SIR, YOUR TEACUP PASSED AWAY.

THE PROCESS OF LIFE IS THE MOST PRECIOUS THING WE HAVE. IF THERE IS LIFE, THEN NATURALLY THERE WILL BE DEATH. IF WE CAN SEE THROUGH OUR OWN MORTALITY, THEN SURELY WE CAN SEE THROUGH THE MORTALITY OF MATERIAL OBJECTS.

ONE DAY, THE GREAT GENERAL KITAGAKI WENT TO SEE HIS OLD PAL, WHO WAS THE ABBOT OF TOFUKU TEMPLE.

THE GREAT GENERAL KITAGAKI SEEKS AN AUDIENCE.

I DON’T KNOW ANY GREAT GENERALS.

DISREGARDING TITLES

THE MASTER SAID HE CAN’T SEE YOU. HE DOESN’T KNOW ANY GREAT GENERALS.

OH, I’M SORRY. PLEASE GO BACK AND TELL HIM IT’S KITAGAKI THAT’S HERE TO SEE HIM.

OKAY, I’LL GIVE IT A TRY.

AH! KITAGAKI, PLEASE COME IN! NAME, POSITION, ACHIEVEMENTS, AND WEALTH OFTEN CONCEAL THE REAL SELF, MAKING ONE FEEL LIKE A TRAVELER WHO CAN’T FIND THEIR WAY HOME.

201

SELF AND OTHER

THERE WAS A CERTAIN ARMY DOCTOR WHOSE JOB WAS TO ACCOMPANY SOLDIERS TO BATTLE AND TEND TO THEIR WOUNDS ON THE BATTLEFIELD …

BUT IT SEEMED LIKE EVERY TIME HE PATCHED SOMEONE UP, THE SOLDIER WOULD JUST GO RIGHT BACK INTO BATTLE AND END UP BEING KILLED.

AFTER THIS HAPPENED OVER AND OVER, THE DOCTOR FINALLY BROKE DOWN.

202

IF IT’S THEIR FATE TO DIE, WHY SHOULD I TRY TO SAVE THEM? IF MY MEDICINE MEANS ANYTHING, THEN WHY DO THEY GO BACK TO WAR AND GET KILLED?

NOT UNDERSTANDING WHAT PURPOSE THERE WAS IN BEING AN ARMY DOCTOR, HE FELT EXTREMELY CONFUSED AND COULDN’T GO ON WITH HIS WORK.

SO HE WENT INTO THE MOUNTAINS IN SEARCH OF A ZEN MASTER. AFTER STUDYING WITH THE ZEN MASTER FOR SEVERAL MONTHS …

HE FINALLY UNDERSTOOD HIS PROBLEM.

BECAUSE I’M A DOCTOR!

HE DESCENDED THE MOUNTAIN TO RETURN TO HIS PRACTICE. WHEN TROUBLED WITH DOUBTS THEREAFTER, HE SIMPLY SAID:

DON’T PROJECT YOURSELF ONTO THINGS YOU COME INTO CONTACT WITH, AND DON’T DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN YOURSELF AND OTHER THINGS, BECAUSE SOCALLED SUBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIVITY DO NOT EXIST. THE DOMAIN OF WISDOM IS IN UNDERSTANDING THAT THERE IS NO SELF, THERE IS NO OTHER, AND EVERYTHING IS THE WAY IT IS.

203

WORDS EXCEEDING ACTIONS

THERE WAS ONCE A WEALTHY OLD WOMAN WHO OFTEN WENT TO THE TEMPLE TO BURN INCENSE AND PRAY. KNEELING IN FRONT OF THE BUDDHA, SHE WOULD ALWAYS SAY:

I’VE LIVED A LONG LIFE, AND I AM READY WHENEVER YOU WOULD LIKE TO COME FOR ME. PRAISE TO AMITABHA.

I’VE LIVED A LONG LIFE, AND I AM READY WHENEVER YOU WOULD LIKE TO COME FOR ME. PRAISE TO AMITABHA.

OLD WOMAN, TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT.

HEE HEE.

LET’S HAVE SOME FUN WITH HER. OH NO! THE OLD WOMAN WAS SO FRIGHTENED SHE DROPPED DEAD ON THE SPOT.

204

GRAND GESTURES, LIKE PROCLAIMING PUBLICLY THAT ONE IS READY FOR DEATH, LACK SIMPLICITY AND CAUSE CONFUSION. CONSISTENCY BETWEEN ACTIONS AND WORDS IS THE FOUNDATION OF SELFCULTIVATION.

IN ANCIENT TIMES, A GENERAL WAS ABOUT TO LEAD HIS TROOPS INTO BATTLE AGAINST AN ENEMY ARMY TEN TIMES THE SIZE OF HIS OWN.

FATE IS IN YOUR OWN HANDS

ALONG THE WAY, HE STOPPED AT A SMALL ROADSIDE ALTAR TO PRAY.

I’M GOING TO USE THIS COIN TO PREDICT OUR FATE. IF IT’S HEADS, WE’LL WIN. IF IT’S TAILS, WE’LL LOSE.

OUR FATE IS IN THE HANDS OF THE GODS!

205

WE’RE GOING TO WIN!

LET’S GO GET ’EM!

TIN K

HEY! IT’S HEADS!

WE’LL CRUSH ’EM!

THE BATTLE COMMENCED, AND JUST AS PREDICTED, THE SMALLER ARMY DEFEATED THE LARGER ARMY.

NO ONE CAN CHANGE A FATE DETERMINED BY THE GODS.

REALLY?

206

THE GENERAL REACHED INTO HIS POCKET AND PULLED OUT THE COIN, BOTH SIDES OF WHICH WERE HEADS.

HEAVEN LOOKS ON ALL BEINGS JUST THE SAME AND WON’T HELP ANYONE IN PARTICULAR. THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN HELP YOU IS YOURSELF.

THE FASTER, THE SLOWER

AN EAGER STUDENT WENT TO THE MOUNTAINS TO STUDY THE ART OF SWORD-FIGHTING UNDER A GREAT MASTER.

MASTER, IF I STUDY DILIGENTLY, HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE ME TO LEARN THE SKILLS OF SWORDFIGHTING?

IN THAT CASE, IT WILL PROBABLY TAKE THIRTY YEARS.

MY FATHER IS AN OLD MAN, AND I MUST RETURN TO LOOK AFTER HIM. WHAT IF I WORK EXCEPTIONALLY HARD? THEN HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE ME?

FIRST YOU SAID TEN YEARS, AND NOW YOU SAY THIRTY. LOOK, I’M WILLING TO SUFFER ANY KIND OF HARDSHIP AND SACRIFICE— I JUST WANT TO LEARN IT IN THE SHORTEST TIME POSSIBLE.

TEN YEARS, PERHAPS.

IN THAT CASE, IT WILL TAKE SEVENTY YEARS.

IF WE TAKE OUR TIME, WE’LL ACHIEVE OUR GOALS FASTER THAN IF WE HURRY. THIS IS WHAT IS MEANT BY “THE ORDINARY MIND IS THE DAO.”

207

THE GENERAL’S ANTIQUE

A GENERAL WAS AT HOME ADMIRING A CERTAIN ANTIQUE THAT WAS VERY PRECIOUS TO HIM.

OH NO!

I’VE LED THOUSANDS OF MEN INTO BATTLE, AND I’VE NEVER BEEN AFRAID IN THE FACE OF DEATH. WHY WAS I SO FRIGHTENED JUST NOW BY THIS LITTLE CUP? WHEW! THAT WAS CLOSE.

FINALLY, THE GENERAL REALIZED THAT IT WAS HIS DIFFERENTIATING “LIKE” AND “DISLIKE” IN HIS MIND THAT LED TO HIS BEING FRIGHTENED. UPON REALIZING THIS, HE TOSSED THE CUP OVER HIS SHOULDER, SMASHING IT TO PIECES.

208

BEING CONCERNED WITH GAIN AND LOSS BRINGS US THE FEELINGS OF HAPPINESS AND SADNESS. WE SHOULD TRANSCEND THE CONCEPTS OF GOOD AND EVIL, GAIN AND LOSS. HAPPINESS IS ACTING ACCORDING TO CIRCUMSTANCES, WHATEVER THEY MAY BE.

THEN ONE DAY, ZHONG ZIQI FELL ILL AND DIED. AFTER THIS, BO YA NEVER PLAYED THE ZITHER AGAIN.

IN FACT, HE WENT HOME AND TOOK A KNIFE TO ITS STRINGS. HENCEFORWARD, “BROKEN STRINGS” CAME TO SIGNIFY THE DEATH OF ONE’S CLOSEST FRIEND.

WOW, IT’S LONG AND LEISURELY LIKE THE YANGTZE AND YELLOW RIVERS.

A PERSON WHO UNDERSTANDS ONE’S MUSIC IS DIFFICULT TO FIND. WHEN THE PERSON WHO UNDERSTOOD HIS MUSIC DIED, ALTHOUGH BO YA WAS STILL VERY MUCH ALIVE, ONLY HALF OF HIM REMAINED. TO THIS DAY, CHINESE PEOPLE REFER TO A CLOSE, INTIMATE FRIEND AS A ZHI YIN, ONE WHO UNDERSTANDS THE MUSIC.

伯 牙 善 鼓 琴 ，鍾 子 期 善 聽 。 伯 牙 鼓 琴 ，志 在 登 高 山 。 鍾 子 期 曰 ：「 善 哉 ！ 峨 峨 兮 若 泰 山 ！ 」志 在 流 水 。 鍾 子 期 曰 ：

WHEN BO YA PLAYED A MAJESTIC SONG, ZHONG ZIQI SAW IT AS IT WAS. WOW, IT’S AS MAJESTIC AS TAI MOUNTAIN!

「善哉！洋洋兮若江河！」伯牙所念，鍾子期必得之。

AND WHEN BO YA PLAYED A RELAXED, FLOWING TUNE …

鍾子期死，伯牙破琴絕弦，終身不復鼓琴，以為世無足復為鼓琴者。

《 列 子 》、《 呂 氏 春 秋 》

THE CLOSE FRIEND

BO YA WAS AN EXCELLENT ZITHER PLAYER, AND ZHONG ZIQI LOVED NOTHING MORE THAN TO LISTEN TO HIM PLAY.

209

A BLIND MAN CARRYING A LANTERN

WHEN A BLIND MAN WAS LEAVING HIS FRIEND’S HOUSE, THE FRIEND HANDED HIM A LANTERN TO TAKE ON HIS WAY.

OH, ALL RIGHT.

I KNOW, BUT IF YOU DON’T HAVE A LIGHT WITH YOU, SOMEONE MIGHT ACCIDENTALLY RUN INTO YOU.

UMPH!

UMPH!

CAN’T YOU SEE A LIGHT RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE?!

HEY, BUDDY— YOUR LIGHT HAD ALREADY GONE OUT!

210

I DON’T NEED A LANTERN. IT’S ALL THE SAME TO ME WHETHER IT’S DARK OR LIGHT.

USING ONE PERSON’S IDEAS TO ENLIGHTEN OTHER PEOPLE IS LIKE THE BLIND MAN CARRYING A LANTERN—THE LIGHT MAY GO OUT ALONG THE WAY, AND YOU’LL NEVER KNOW.

SOMETHING VALUABLE

ONE DAY, A THIEF ENTERED THE HUT OF THE ZEN MASTER RYOKAN, BUT HE DISCOVERED THAT THERE WASN’T ANYTHING WORTH STEALING.

YOU’VE COME SUCH A LONG WAY. I WOULDN’T WANT YOU TO GO HOME EMPTY-HANDED. HERE, TAKE THIS PIECE OF CLOTHING.

POOR GUY. IF ONLY I COULD GIVE HIM THIS BEAUTIFUL MOON AS WELL.

MOST PEOPLE PURSUE ONLY FAME AND FORTUNE, BUT THINK OF HOW MUCH YOU ALREADY OWN IN NATURE. THE STARS, THE MOON, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, FLOWERS, AND TREES—ALL FOR YOU!

211

MMM … THERE, THAT’S PERFECT.

A BLADE OF GRASS, A DROP OF DEW ONE DAY, WHEN THE ZEN MASTER YISHAN WAS TAKING HIS BATH, HIS BATH WATER WAS TOO HOT SO HE ASKED A DISCIPLE TO ADD A LITTLE COLD WATER.

YOU KNUCKLEHEAD! EVERYTHING, BIG AND SMALL, HAS ITS USE. WHY DID YOU WASTE THAT? YOU COULD AT LEAST EMPTY IT BY A TREE. A TREE WOULD WELCOME IT, AND THE WATER WOULD BE PUT TO GOOD USE. 4.

WHY DIDN’T YOU EMPTY IT IN THE FLOWER BED? WHY MUST YOU WASTE EVEN ONE DROP OF THE MONASTERY’S WATER?

212

THIS SCOLDING BROUGHT THE MONK TO ENLIGHTENMENT, AND FROM THAT DAY FORWARD, HE WENT BY THE NAME “DROP OF WATER.”

EVERYTHING HAS ITS OWN USE. REGARDLESS OF SOME THINGS’ SEEMING INSIGNIFICANCE, EVERYTHING HAS ITS PLACE IN NATURE.

FOR NO REASON

WHAT’S THAT GUY DOING ON THE MOUNTAIN OVER THERE? LET’S GO ASK HIM.

ARE YOU WAITING FOR A FRIEND?

NO.

ARE YOU HERE TO TAKE IN THE BEAUTIFUL SCENERY?

NO.

I’M JUST STANDING.

THEN YOU’RE HERE TO BREATHE THE FRESH AIR, RIGHT?

NO.

THEN WHY ARE YOU STANDING HERE?

MOST PEOPLE LIVE IN A DUALISTIC WORLD OF GAIN AND LOSS, SELF AND OBJECT. IF THE SCENERY IS BEAUTIFUL, I’M HAPPY; IF IT’S NOT, I’M DISAPPOINTED.

213

HE LP !

SUDDENLY, HE NOTICED A PLUMP RED BERRY.

HE PLUCKED IT AND POPPED IT IN HIS MOUTH.

DELICIOUS!

214

RIP!

!

THEN TWO RATS APPEARED AND BEGAN GNAWING ON THE VINE.

NO

HE RAN, BUT SOON CAME TO THE EDGE OF A CLIFF. CLIMBING DOWN A VINE, HE DISCOVERED ANOTHER TIGER AT THE BOTTOM …

OH

囚 見 象 欲 至 走 入 墟 井 中， 下 有 一 大 毒 龍 張 口 向 上， 復 四 毒 蛇 在 井 四 邊， 有 一 草 根 此 囚 怖 畏 一 心 急 捉 此 草 根， 復

有 兩 白 鼠 嚙 此 草 根， 時 井 上 有 一 大 樹， 樹 中 有 蜜， 一 日 之 中 有 一 滴 蜜 墮 此 人 口 中， 其 人 得 此 一 滴， 但 憶 此 蜜 不

復憶種種眾苦，便不復欲出此井。

《眾經撰雜譬喻》

PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE

ONE DAY, WHILE WALKING THROUGH THE WILDERNESS, A MAN STUMBLED UPON A VICIOUS TIGER.

DON’T DWELL ON THE PAST. DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE FUTURE. EXPERIENCE AND CHERISH THE MOMENT. HAPPINESS IS ACTING ACCORDING TO CIRCUMSTANCES, WHATEVER THEY MAY BE.

THERE WAS ONCE A WRESTLER NAMED ONAMI (“GREAT WAVE”), WHO WAS NOT ONLY BIG AND STRONG, BUT ALSO HIGHLY SKILLED IN WRESTLING.

DURING PRACTICE, HE WAS UNBEATABLE, OUT-WRESTLING EVEN HIS TEACHER …

THE GREAT WAVE

BUT DURING MATCHES, HE COULDN’T BEAT EVEN THE PUNIEST OF OPPONENTS.

NOT KNOWING WHAT ELSE TO DO, HE WENT INTO THE HILLS IN SEARCH OF A ZEN MASTER.

YOUR NAME MEANS “GREAT WAVE,” RIGHT? SO, IMAGINE THAT YOU ARE A MASSIVE TIDAL WAVE DEMOLISHING EVERYTHING IN YOUR PATH, INSTEAD OF A WEENIE WRESTLER SUFFERING FROM STAGE FRIGHT.

DO THIS, AND IN NO TIME YOU WILL BE THE GREATEST WRESTLER IN THE LAND—INVINCIBLE.

YES, SIR.

215

SO, ONAMI REMAINED IN THE TEMPLE AND MEDITATED, IMAGINING THAT HE WAS A GIANT WAVE. AT FIRST, HE HAD DIFFICULTY CONCENTRATING, BUT AFTER A WHILE …

WAVES BEGAN ROLLING IN.

AND AS THE NIGHT WENT ON, THE WAVES BECAME LARGER AND LARGER, UNTIL THEY KNOCKED OVER VASES AND CARRIED AWAY ITEMS OF WORSHIP.

216

THEY OVERWHELMED STATUES AND FLOODED THEN THE TIDE CAME IN THE TEMPLE … AND THE ENTIRE TEMPLE WAS SWEPT AWAY.

WAKE UP, WAKE UP! YOU’VE DONE IT.

IN HIS MATCHES THEREAFTER, ONAMI IMAGINED HIMSELF TURNING INTO A WAVE, AND HE BECAME THE GREATEST WRESTLER IN THE LAND— INVINCIBLE.

NOW NOTHING WILL BOTHER YOU. YOU CAN BE LIKE A TIDAL WAVE DEMOLISHING EVERYTHING IN ITS PATH.

THANK YOU.

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS RESPOND IN A DIRECT, RESOLUTE WAY TO ANY SITUATION. YOU WILL BECOME THAT SITUATION, AND THAT SITUATION WILL BECOME YOU.

217

BECAUSE I’M HERE

AN OLD MONK WAS DRYING VEGETABLES UNDER THE SCORCHING SUN.

SIXTYEIGHT.

HOW OLD ARE YOU?

BECAUSE I’M HERE.

BECAUSE THE SUN IS THERE.

BUT WHY ARE YOU WORKING UNDER THE HOT SUN?

218

WHY ARE YOU STILL WORKING SO HARD HERE?

HEAVEN AND EARTH NURTURE ALL THINGS, BUT WE SHOULD ACT WITHOUT COUNTING ON THE RESULTS AND STRIVE FOR SUCCESS WITHOUT DWELLING ON IT. IF WE WORK HARD WITHOUT COMPLAINING, WE CAN BECOME ONE WITH HEAVEN AND EARTH.

MATTER IS EMPTY

PAINT ME A SCENE DEPICTING THE SAYING, “DIRECT POINTING AT YOUR MIND, SEEING YOUR NATURE, BECOMING A BUDDHA.”

OKAY.

THERE WAS ONCE A MONK NAMED YIZHONG WHO WAS A FAMOUS PAINTER. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!

IT’S DONE. THIS IS “MIND.”

CAN YOU PAINT MY “NATURE” AS WELL?

SURE. HAND OVER YOUR “NATURE,” AND I’LL PAINT IT FOR YOU. YOUR SELF-NATURE IS COMPLETE AND UNDIMINISHED. WE MUST ALL DISCOVER OUR SELF-NATURE ON OUR OWN BECAUSE THERE IS NO EXTERNAL ROAD THAT CAN TAKE US THERE.

219

MA’AM, WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS CRYING?

THE WEEPING LADY

THERE WAS ONCE AN OLD WOMAN WHO WAS KNOWN AS THE “WEEPING LADY” BECAUSE SHE CRIED ALL THE TIME. ON RAINY DAYS SHE WOULD CRY, AND ON CLEAR DAYS SHE WOULD CRY. ON DAYS WHEN THE WEATHER IS GOOD, I THINK OF HOW MY DAUGHTER’S UMBRELLA BUSINESS IS BAD …

BUT ON CLEAR DAYS, YOU SHOULD THINK OF HOW GOOD YOUR DAUGHTER’S SHOE BUSINESS IS; AND ON RAINY DAYS, YOU SHOULD THINK OF HOW GOOD YOUR OTHER DAUGHTER’S UMBRELLA HEY, BUSINESS IS! YOU’RE RIGHT!

AND ON RAINY DAYS, I THINK OF HOW NO ONE WILL GO OUT TO BUY SHOES FROM MY OTHER DAUGHTER!

IF “THE MIND IS THE BUDDHA,” THEN WHETHER A SITUATION IS GOOD OR BAD ALL DEPENDS ON HOW YOU LOOK AT IT!

FROM THAT DAY ON, THE WEEPING LADY WEPT NO MORE. INSTEAD, SHE CHUCKLED TO HERSELF EVERY DAY REGARDLESS OF THE WEATHER.

220

BECAUSE I HAVE TWO DAUGHTERS—ONE WHO MARRIED A SHOE SALESMAN AND ONE WHO MARRIED AN UMBRELLA SALESMAN.

ONE NIGHT, WHILE THE MONK DAIGAN WAS IN HIS STUDY READING …

MIND LIKE A MIRROR I WANT SOME MONEY!

ARE YOU HERE TO ROB ME OR TO KILL ME?

HERE, TAKE THIS.

WHEN YOU LEAVE, PLEASE SHUT THE DOOR TO KEEP THE CROOKS OUT.

HOLD IT!

LATER ON, THE THIEF WAS HEARD TO SAY:

I’VE BEEN ROBBING HOUSES FOR YEARS, AND I’VE NEVER BEEN SO SHAKEN AS I WAS BY THOSE WORDS.

“WHEN THE WIND BLOWS, THE BAMBOO BENDS; WHEN THE WIND IS GONE, THE BAMBOO MAKES NO SOUND.” WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS, CONFRONT IT WITH YOUR ORIGINAL NATURE. WHEN IT’S OVER, EMPTY YOUR MIND OF IT.

221

MOUNTAIN PATHS DON’T CHANGE

THERE WAS ONCE A GENERAL WHO FOUGHT WARS WITH THE UTMOST BRAVERY AND SKILL.

WHEN HE BECAME OLDER, HE GREW TROUBLED OVER THE CONSTANT CHANGES IN THE WORLD, SO HE TURNED TO BUDDHISM.

MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAIN PATHS NEVER AFTER HE’D STUDIED FOR CHANGE; IT’S OUR MINDS SOME TIME, THAT PEOPLE WOULD CHANGE. OFTEN ASK HIM WHY THINGS CHANGE, AND HE WOULD ANSWER:

222

THE PERFECT PERSON’S MIND IS LIKE A MIRROR, NEITHER TAKING NOR WELCOMING; IT RESPONDS BUT DOESN’T STORE. SO, WHEN IT’S TIME TO BE A GENERAL, YOU SHOULD BE A GENERAL; AND WHEN IT’S TIME TO BE A MONK, BE A MONK.

THERE WAS ONCE A NUN NAMED ESHUN WHO WAS VERY BEAUTIFUL, AND ONE DAY DURING A LECTURE, A YOUNG MONK SECRETLY FELL IN LOVE WITH HER.

TORN

HUH?

HE WROTE HER A LOVE LETTER, IN WHICH HE SAID THAT HE WANTED TO MEET WITH HER IN PRIVATE.

IF YOU REALLY LOVE ME, THEN COME UP HERE RIGHT NOW AND EMBRACE ME.

THE NEXT DAY, AS SOON AS THE MASTER ENDED HIS LECTURE, ESHUN STOOD UP AND SAID TO THE MONK WHO WROTE THE LETTER:

IF YOUR MIND IS TORN BY CONFLICTING DESIRES, THE CONTRADICTION WILL DESTROY YOUR PEACE OF MIND. JUST REMEMBER, WHEN YOU SHOULD GRAB SOMETHING, GRAB IT; WHEN YOU SHOULD LET GO, LET GO.

223

WHERE DO WE GO AFTER DEATH?

IF I SAY YES, YOU’LL THINK YOU KNOW WITHOUT REALLY KNOWING; AND IF I SAY NO, I’LL BE DENYING WHAT EVERYONE KNOWS TO BE TRUE.

ACCORDING TO ZEN, THIS MIND IS THE BUDDHA, RIGHT?

WHERE DO ENLIGHTENED PEOPLE GO AFTER THEY DIE?

I DON’T KNOW.

BECAUSE I’M NOT DEAD YET.

WHY DON’T YOU KNOW?

224

WHILE WE LIVE, WE SHOULD ENJOY THE MYSTERY AND BEAUTY OF LIFE, RATHER THAN WORRYING ABOUT WHAT COMES AFTER DEATH. LIVE TODAY WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT TOMORROW, FOR TOMORROW WILL HAVE ITS OWN WORRIES.

THERE WAS ONCE A GREAT SWORDSMAN WHO WENT UNRIVALED THROUGHOUT THE LAND.

IN HIS LATER YEARS, HE ATTAINED THE REALM OF NONVIOLENCE AND THEREFORE NO LONGER CARRIED A SWORD.

THE SWORDLESS SWORD

THE MASTER SAID THERE’S NO PART OF HIS BODY THAT ISN’T LIKE THE TIP OF A SWORD.

WITH A DEFT MOVEMENT AND A SLIGHT TUG OF THE MAT …

KILL!

YEAH, LET’S GO TEST HIM!

AHHH!

HEE HEE HEE.

IF YOU CAN ATTAIN A PROFOUND LEVEL OF SELFCULTIVATION, SO THAT YOUR MIND IS LIKE A MIRROR, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO RESPOND AUTOMATICALLY TO WHATEVER MAY SUDDENLY OCCUR.

225

THE SPIDER AND THE MONK

HMM…

EVERY TIME I MEDITATE, THIS BIG SPIDER APPEARS, AND NO MATTER WHAT I DO, I JUST CAN’T GET RID OF IT.

THERE WAS ONCE A MONK WHO WAS BOTHERED BY A GREAT BIG SPIDER WHENEVER HE TRIED TO MEDITATE. SO THE MONK TOOK HIS TEACHER’S ADVICE, AND AS SOON AS HE HAD FINISHED DRAWING THE CIRCLE ON THE SPIDER’S BELLY, THE SPIDER DISAPPEARED AND THE MONK WAS ABLE TO MEDITATE IN PEACE.

NEXT TIME YOU GO TO MEDITATE, GRAB A BRUSH. IF THAT SPIDER SHOWS UP AGAIN, DRAW A CIRCLE RIGHT ON ITS BELLY— THEN YOU WILL SEE WHAT KIND OF A MONSTER IT IS.

OKAY.

WHEN HE WITHDREW FROM HIS CONCENTRATION, THE FIRST THING HE SAW WAS A BIG, BLACK CIRCLE RIGHT ON HIS OWN BELLY.

226

HEE HEE!

WE ALL EXPERIENCE TROUBLES AND WORRIES, BUT IT OFTEN HAPPENS THAT OUR GREATEST TROUBLES ARISE FROM OURSELVES!

THERE WAS ONCE A FARMER WHO DISCOVERED A PRICELESS STATUE OF ONE OF THE EIGHTEEN BUDDHIST ARHATS (HOLY MEN) ON A HILLSIDE IN A FOREST. WOW! A GOLDEN ARHAT!

RICH AND POOR

THAT’S GOTTA BE A HUNDRED POUNDS OF PURE GOLD!

THE FARMER’S BUT THE FARMER FELT DEJECTED FAMILY AND FRIENDS AND SAT AROUND WITH A WERE OVERJOYED. WORRIED LOOK ON HIS FACE.

HA HA! WE’LL HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT AND DRINK FOREVER!

XXX YOU’RE A WEALTHY MAN NOW. WHAT ARE YOU SO WORRIED ABOUT?

WHY, I STILL DON’T KNOW WHERE THE OTHER SEVENTEEN ARHATS ARE!

RICH AND POOR ARE NOT FUNCTIONS OF HOW MUCH MONEY WE HAVE, BUT RATHER, OF WHETHER OR NOT WE ARE CONTENT WITH WHAT WE HAVE.

WORRIED ABOUT … ?

XXX

XX

227

DO NOT GRASP EITHER EXTREME

THERE WAS ONCE A WEALTHY MAN WHO WAS SO MISERLY THAT HE COULDN’T BEAR TO SPEND EVEN A SINGLE CENT OF HIS VAST WEALTH.

IF I HELD MY HAND IN A FIST LIKE THIS FOREVER, WHAT WOULD YOU CALL IT?

DEFORMED.

AS LONG AS YOU UNDERSTAND THIS, YOU’LL BE A HAPPY RICH MAN.

FROM THAT DAY FORWARD, THE MISER BECAME A GENEROUS MAN. HE WAS STILL FRUGAL, BUT HE ALSO UNDERSTOOD HOW TO SPEND MONEY AND CONTRIBUTE TO CHARITABLE CAUSES.

228

ONE DAY, THE ZEN MASTER MOKUSEN PAID HIM A VISIT.

AND IF I OPENED IT UP LIKE THIS AND KEPT IT THIS WAY FOREVER, WHAT WOULD YOU CALL IT?

THE SAME. DEFORMED!

ALL OPPOSITES— GOOD AND EVIL, HAVING AND LACKING, BENEFIT AND HARM, SELF AND OTHER—ARE DUE TO THE DIFFERENTIATING MIND. AS SOON AS WE GIVE RISE TO SUCH VIEWS, WE TURN AWAY FROM OUR ORIGINAL MIND AND SUCCUMB TO THIS DUALISM. ZEN, HOWEVER, STANDS IN THE MIDDLE, NOT ON EITHER SIDE.

NOT CHANGING TO MEET THE CHANGES

THERE WERE ONCE TWO NEIGHBORING ZEN MONASTERIES, EACH WITH A YOUNG NOVICE. EVERY MORNING ON HIS WAY TO THE MARKET, ONE NOVICE WOULD RUN INTO THE OTHER. WHEREVER MY FEET TAKE ME.

WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

NEXT TIME ASK HIM, “WHAT IF YOU HAD NO FEET?”

WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

YEAH, THAT’LL GET HIM.

229

WHEREVER THE WIND TAKES ME.

I LOST THE WAR OF WORDS AGAIN.

WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

NEXT TIME SAY, “WHAT IF THE WIND STOPPED BLOWING?” YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!

TO THE MARKET.

FOILED AGAIN …

230

IN CHANGING WITH THE CHANGES, THE MORE WE CHASE, THE FURTHER AWAY WE GET. MEET THE CHANGES BY NOT CHANGING, FOR THE NUMBER OF WAYS TO CHANGE IS LIMITED, WHILE THE NUMBER OF WAYS TO STAY THE SAME IS INFINITE.

WHEN YOU BRING HIM HIS FOOD THIS TIME, LET’S TEST HOW HIS SELFCULTIVATION IS COMING ALONG. GIVE HIM A HUG AND SEE HOW HE REACTS.

HOW DOES THIS FEEL? OKAY.

TWENTY YEARS WASTED ON A SCOUNDREL!

IT FEELS LIKE A WITHERED TREE LEANING AGAINST A WINTRY CLIFF; LIKE A FRIGID WINTER DAY WITHOUT A TRACE OF WARMTH.

GRANTED, THE MONK SHOULD REFUSE SUCH A TEMPTATION, BUT AFTER TWENTY YEARS OF SELF-CULTIVATION, HE SHOULD ALSO HAVE MORE LOVING-KINDNESS AND COMPASSION. HE WAS INDEED A SCOUNDREL.

昔 有 婆 子 供 養 一 庵 主。 經 二 十 年。 常 令 一 二 八 女 子 送 飯 給 侍。 一 日。 令 女 子 抱 定。 曰。 正 恁 麼 時 如 何。 主 曰。

NAMAH AMITABHA.

枯木倚寒巖。三冬無暖氣。女子舉似婆。婆曰。我二十年祗供養得箇俗漢。遂遣出。燒却庵。

AND EVERY DAY A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG WOMAN BROUGHT HIM HIS MEALS.

《五燈會元》

WITHERED TREE ZEN

THERE WAS ONCE AN OLD LADY WHO BUILT A GRASS HUT AND SUPPORTED A MONK’S EFFORTS AT SELF-CULTIVATION FOR TWENTY YEARS.

THE OLD LADY WAS INFURIATED AND SET FIRE TO THE MONK’S HUT.

231

WALKING IN THE RAIN

BECAUSE ONE PERSON WAS WEARING RAIN GEAR.

YOU ARE ALL CONCENTRATING ON THE PHRASE, “IT DIDN’T RAIN,” SO, OF COURSE, YOU’LL NEVER DISCOVER THE TRUTH.

232

TWO PEOPLE WERE OUT WALKING ON A RAINY DAY, AND IT DIDN’T RAIN ON ONE OF THEM. CAN ANY OF YOU TELL ME WHY THIS IS?

BECAUSE THERE WERE SCATTERED SHOWERS, SO ONE PERSON AVOIDED THE RAIN.

LOOK, IF I SAY, “IT DIDN’T RAIN ON ONE OF THEM,” DOESN’T THAT MEAN IT RAINED ON NEITHER OF THEM OR BOTH OF THEM?

BECAUSE ONE PERSON WAS WALKING IN THE STREET AND ONE PERSON WAS WALKING UNDER THE EAVES OF BUILDINGS.

WHEN A FINGER POINTS AT THE MOON, THE MOON IS NOT ON THE FINGER; AND WHEN WORDS POINT OUT THE TRUTH, THE TRUTH IS NOT IN THE WORDS. IF WE CONCENTRATE ONLY ON WORDS, THE WORDS WILL STIFLE US AND WE’LL NEVER SEE THE TRUTH.

THE ZEN MASTER FAYUN ONCE SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES:

DIFFICULT TO ADVANCE OR RETREAT

IS THERE ANY WAY WE CAN AVOID LOOKING IGNORANT?

SUPPOSE YOU WERE IN A SITUATION WHERE IF YOU WERE TO MOVE FORWARD, YOU WOULD LOSE THE DAO; IF YOU WERE TO MOVE BACKWARD, YOU WOULD LOSE THE WORLD; AND IF YOU WERE TO DO NEITHER, YOU WOULD LOOK IGNORANT AS A STONE. WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

ABANDON BOTH REJECTION AND ATTACHMENT AND ACT OUT YOUR POTENTIAL.

MOVE FORWARD AND BACKWARD AT THE SAME TIME.

BUT IF WE ACT, HOW CAN WE KEEP FROM LOSING THE DAO AND THE WORLD?

ADVANCING IS RETREATING, AND RETREATING IS ADVANCING; THEY BOTH ARRIVE AND THEY BOTH DEPART. BY DOING BOTH AT THE SAME TIME, WE CAN GET TO THE REALM OF PERFECT HARMONY AMONG ALL DIFFERENCES.

233

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FOREST, THERE LIVED A SNAKE THAT LED A HAPPY, CAREFREE LIFE.

THE SNAKE’S TWO HEADS

THEN, ONE DAY …

MR. SNAKE TAIL, I LEAD BECAUSE I HAVE EYES. HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY LEAD?

HEY! SNAKE HEAD, HOW COME YOU ALWAYS GET TO LEAD AND I HAVE TO FOLLOW? IT’S NOT FAIR.

IF IT WEREN’T FOR THE MOVEMENT OF ME, THE TAIL, HOW WOULD YOU BE ABLE TO GO FORWARD?

I GO WHERE I WANT, AND LET’S SEE YOU TRY TO STOP ME!

234

OKAY, NOW GO AHEAD AND TRY TO MOVE!

HGH! HGH! YOU SCOUNDREL—I’M GOING TO MOVE IF IT KILLS ME.

HGH … HGH. HGGGGGGGGGGH!

OKAY, YOU WIN. I WON’T FIGHT WITH YOU ANYMORE. GO AHEAD AND LEAD.

OHH, I JUST CAN’T DO IT!

SO THE PROUD SNAKE TAIL GOT OUT IN FRONT AND PROUDLY LED THE WAY, BUT IT STILL DIDN’T HAVE ANY EYES.

CLIFF!

SLIPPING FROM THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF, THE SNAKE PLUNGED TO ITS DEATH.

“THE WORLD AND I LIVE TOGETHER; ALL THINGS AND I ARE ONE.” ALTHOUGH THINGS HAVE INNUMERABLE MANIFESTATIONS, THEY ARE REALLY OF ONE BODY—JUST LIKE THE SNAKE HEAD AND SNAKE TAIL WERE OF THE SAME SNAKE BODY.

235

IN THE LUSH BUSHES BESIDE A SMALL POND, THERE LIVED A FAMILY OF FROGS.

RHAPSODY OF THE FROGS

YIPPEE!

HEAVEN IS THERE FOR FROGS, AND EARTH IS THERE FOR FROGS—SO THAT WE HAVE ROOM IN WHICH TO LIVE.

WATER IS THERE FOR FROGS, AND AIR IS THERE FOR FROGS. YIPPEE! YIPPEE! YIPPEE!

YIPPEE!

236

YIPPEE! YIPPEE! YIPPEE!

THE BUGS IN THE AIR ARE THERE FOR FROGS, AND THE FRUIT ON THE GROUND IS THERE FOR FROGS.

AHH! SNAKE!

YIPPEE!

AHHH!

YIPPEE! YIPPEE!

THE POOR LITTLE GUY … THAT WAS SCARY …

AHH!

SO, ARE SNAKES THERE FOR FROGS, TOO?

IF THERE WEREN’T ANY SNAKES TO EAT SOME OF US, WE WOULD OVER-MULTIPLY, AND THEN THERE WOULDN’T BE ROOM FOR ALL OF US.

THAT MAKES SENSE.

OF COURSE! SNAKES ARE THERE FOR US AS WELL.

THERE IS NO DEFINITE STANDARD OF GOOD AND BAD. WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS, IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHETHER YOU LOOK AT IT FROM THE GOOD SIDE OR FROM THE BAD SIDE.

237

ONE DAY, WHILE SHAKYAMUNI WAS SITTING IN A GARDEN BY THE SIDE OF A WELL, HIS EYES WERE DRAWN DEEP DOWN INTO THE WELL.

THE SPIDER’S SILK

HELP! HELP ME! I’M SUFFERING TERRIBLY! OHH …

AH !

HH

!

HHH

HHH

HHH

HH

HH

AHH

238

THIS MAN MUST HAVE BEEN VERY EVIL DURING HIS LIFETIME TO SUFFER LIKE THIS IN HELL.

AH, YES! ONCE, WHEN HE WAS ABOUT TO STEP ON A SPIDER, HE HAD A MOMENT OF COMPASSION AND SPARED ITS LIFE. OF COURSE, IT’S JUST A SMALL THING, BUT IT IS GOOD.

ALL HE DID THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE WAS KILL AND PILLAGE WITH RECKLESS ABANDON, AND THERE WAS NO ACT TOO EVIL FOR HIM. BUT DIDN’T HE DO AT LEAST ONE GOOD THING? OKAY THEN, WE’LL LET THIS SPIDER SAVE HIM FROM HIS PIT OF DESPAIR.

EH? A STRING OF SPIDER’S SILK IS COMING DOWN.

239

HEY! GET OFF THERE! THIS STRING IS FOR ME; YOU GUYS CAN’T CLIMB UP!

YOU SCOUNDRELS! IF YOU KEEP CLIMBING, IT’LL BREAK!

AHH

OKAY, YOU ASKED FOR IT!

HHH

H!

AHHHHHH!

H! HH

HH

AH

H!

HH

HH

AH

240

OH NO!

H AH

HEE HEE HEE.

HH HH H!

A HH

H

HH

HH

!

AH

AH!

HELP!

HHHHHH! AH

!

HH

HH

HH

HELP! HELP! DON’T LEAVE ME HERE! HELP!!!

THE MORE LOVE YOU GIVE, THE MORE LOVE YOU GET. THE MORE YOU SHARE GOOD FORTUNE WITH OTHERS, THE MORE YOU HAVE FOR YOURSELF. THE VILLAIN IN HELL DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THIS, SO HE CANCELLED OUT THE ONE LITTLE BIT OF GOOD HE HAD DONE WHILE ALIVE.

241

THE SCENE OUTSIDE OF RASHOMON (A COLOSSAL CITY GATE IN MEDIEVAL KYOTO, JAPAN) WAS ONE OF MISERY AND DEATH FOLLOWING YEARS OF DEVASTATION AND FAMINE. CROWS, HOVERING IN THE AIR AND FILLING THEIR BELLIES WITH THE MEAT OF ROTTING CORPSES, ONLY ADDED TO THE TERRIFYING VISTA. ONCE THE SUN WENT DOWN, NOBODY DARED LINGER NEARBY.

RASHOMON

DUE TO ECONOMIC DIFFICULTIES, WE’RE GOING TO HAVE TO LET YOU GO.

BUT IF I DON’T WANT TO STARVE, I’LL HAVE TO BECOME A THIEF.

242

FINE!

FIRED?

IF THINGS REMAIN AS THEY ARE, I’M GOING TO STARVE TO DEATH, JUST LIKE THESE FORSAKEN BODIES …

IN ORDER TO SURVIVE, I’LL HAVE TO MURDER AND STEAL.

ALTHOUGH HE WASN’T EVIL IN INTENT, HE HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO STIFFEN HIS UPPER LIP AND GO TO IT.

OH NO! THERE’S SOMEONE THERE!

HEE HEE HEE…

AHA! NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF— IT’S JUST A SKINNY OLD LADY.

HEE HEE HEE …

YOU SHAMELESS CREATURE! HOW DARE YOU DO SUCH A THING?!

243

THE POOR GIRL’S DEAD! ISN’T THAT BAD ENOUGH WITHOUT YOU DEFILING HER CORPSE?

I … I WAS JUST … COLLECTING SOME HAIR.

MAYBE IT’S A TERRIBLE THING TO PULL HAIR FROM A CORPSE, BUT THESE PEOPLE WEREN’T ALL THAT GOOD WHEN THEY WERE ALIVE, ANYWAY. LIKE HER—SHE USED TO DRY SNAKE MEAT AND SELL IT AS EEL.

BUT I DON’T THINK WHAT SHE DID WAS ALL THAT BAD, BECAUSE IF SHE HADN’T DONE IT, SHE WOULD HAVE STARVED TO DEATH. SHE HAD NO CHOICE!

244

AND I’M JUST LIKE HER—IF I DON’T DO THIS, I’LL STARVE. WHAT CHOICE DO I HAVE? PLEASE FORGIVE ME!

BUT THE HAIR CAN BE SOLD FOR MONEY SO I CAN BUY FOOD.

THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME UNDERSTAND. I ALSO HAVE NO CHOICE; IT’S THIS OR STARVE!

COME BACK WITH MY CLOTHES!

HEE HEE HEE.

SURELY YOU WON’T HATE ME! GIVE ME ALL YOU HAVE!

OH! WOE IS ME …

THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD WHO ARE FORCED TO DO TERRIBLE THINGS IN ORDER TO SURVIVE, BUT THERE ARE EVEN MORE PEOPLE WHO DO EVEN MORE DESPICABLE THINGS SIMPLY TO SATISFY EXTRAVAGANT AND SHAMELESS DESIRES.

245

Pronunciation Index

5IFSF
BSF
EJGGFSFOU
TZTUFNT
PG
3PNBOJ[BUJPO
PG
$IJOFTF
XPSET
but in all of these systems the sounds of the letters used do not necessarily correspond to those sounds which we are accustomed to using in English (for instance, would you have HVFTTFE
UIBU
[I
JT
QSPOPVODFE
MJLF
K
BT
JO
iKFMMZw‰OPU
BT
JO
“je ne sais quoi”?). Of course, these systems can be learned, but to save some time and effort for the reader who is not a student of Chinese, we have provided the following pronunciation guide. The Chinese words appear on the left as they do in the text and are followed by their pronunciations. Just sound them out in customary English pronunciation, and you will be quite close to the proper Mandarin Chinese pronunciation. For example, “Changshou” below lists the following pronunciation: “chong-show.” The o of “chong” is short, as in typical English words, e.g., “long” and “song.” The “show” is pronounced as you would expect in locutions like “movie show” and “show and tell.” *O
BEEJUJPO
$IJOFTF
QIJMPTPQIJDBM
UFSNT
IBWF
CFFO
EFåOFE
and page numbers have been provided where every glossed term appears in the book.

NOTES oE[
JT
B
DPNCJOBUJPO
PG
E
BOE
[
JO
POF
TPVOE
XJUIPVU
UIF
FF
sound at the end; so it sounds kind of like a bee in flight with a slight d sound at the beginning. o[I
JT
QSPOPVODFE
MJLF
UIF
K
JO
iKFMMZw
BOE
OPU
MJLF
UIF
K
JO
iKF
OF
sais quoi.”

Anhui 安徽: on hway 102, 124 Anyin 安隱: on-een xxi Bai Juyi 白居易: buy jew (ew as in few)-ee 136 Baiya 白崖: buy yaw (as in yawn) 51 Baiyun 白雲: buy yewn (ew as in few) xxiv, 130 #BJ[IBOH
百丈: buy jong xvi, xxi, 68, 70–74, 76–77, 79–80 Baling 巴陵: baw-leeng xxv 176 Baolin 寶林: bow (rhymes with now) leen xxi, 38, 55, 166 Bi yan lu 碧巖錄: bee yen loo xx Bo Ya 伯牙: bwo (o as in more) yaw 209 Bo’re 般若: bwo (o as in more)-ru (u as in pull) xxi Cao 曹: tsow (rhymes with now) 38, 124, 166 Caodong 曹洞: tsow (rhymes with now) dong (long o) 158 Caoshan 曹山: tsow (rhymes with now) shawn 158 Caoxi 曹溪: tsow (rhymes with now)-shee 48, 56, 139 Chaling Yu 茶陵郁: chah leeng-ew (as in few) 130 Chan 禪: chon xiv, xix Chang’an 長安: chong-on 46 Changshou 長壽: chong-show xxi Chengdu 成都: chung-due 60 Chi 池: chir 102 Chongxin 崇信: chong (long o)-sheen xxv, 142 chu jia 出家: choo jyaw xiii Cishou 慈受: ts-show xxv, 179 Cong rong lu 從容錄: tsong (long o) rong (long o) loo xx Congshen 從諗: tsong (long o)-shun xxiv, 102, 123

248

P R O N U N C I AT I O N I N D E X

Dahui Zonggao 大慧宗杲
EBXIXBZ
E[POH
(long o)-gow (as in gown) xxiv, 133 Dai 戴: die 53 Dalong 大龍: daw-long (long o) xxv Damei 大梅: daw-may xxiv, 90 Danxia 丹霞: don-shyaw xxi, xxv, 182, 183 Dao 道: (generative rhythm of the cosmos): dow xv, xvii, xix, 2, 12, 42, 82, 98, 103, 107, 108, 131, 136, 138, 150, 154, 173, 175, 182, 184, 188, 207, 233 Daoqian道潛: dow-chyen xxv, 167 Daoqin 道欽: dow-cheen 140 Daowu 道吾: dow-oo xxv, 78, 156, 157 Daowu 道悟: dow-oo xxi, xxv, 140, 142 Daoxin 道信: dow-sheen xxii, 23–24 Dayun 大雲: daw-ewn (ew as in few) 63 %B[IV
大珠: daw-joo xxi, xxiv, 63 Deshan 德山: du (u as in pull)-shawn xxi, xxv, 145, 147–148 %J[BOH
地藏
EFFE[POH
YYJ
 Dong 洞: dong (long o) 158 Dongping 東平: dong (long o)-peeng 86 Dongshan 洞山: dong (long o)-shawn xvii, xxi Dongshan 東山: dong (long o)-shawn xxi Dongshan Liangjie 洞山良价: dong (long o)-shawn lyong-jyeh xxi, xxv, 158–159, 162 Dongyang 東陽: dong (long o)-yong 140 Du 杜: due 56 Faxing 法性: faw-sheeng xxi, 35 Fayan Wenyi 法眼文益: faw-yen wun-ee xxi, xxv, 164 Fayun 法雲: faw-ewn (ew as in few) 233 Fu 傅: foo 184 (BP
高: gow (as in gown) 49 (VBOHEPOH
廣東: gwong-dong (long o) 26, 28, 170 (VBOHUBJ
光泰: gwong-tie xxi, 170 (VBOH[IPV
廣州: gwong-joe 16, 35 (VBOZJO
觀音: gwon-een xxi, 105, 112–113, 117 (VEF
古德: goo-du (u as in pull) xxi (VJTIBO
潙山: gway-shawn xxi, xxiv, 79–80, 82–86, 159

Hang 杭: hong 140 Hao 郝: how 102 Hebei 河北: hu (u as in pull)-bay 27, 112, 124 Henan 河南: hu (u as in pull)-non 18 )F[F
菏澤: hu (u as in pull)E[V
(u as in pull) xxi, xxiii, 46, 49 Hongen 洪恩: hong (long o)-un xxiv, 88 Hongren 弘忍: hong (long o)-run xxi, xxii, 24, 27–29, 31, 33, 37 Huaian 懷安: hwigh (rhymes with high)-on 56 Huairang 懷讓: hwigh (rhymes with high)-wrong x, xix, xxiii, 46, 56–57, 60–62 Huangbo 黃檗: hwong-bwo (o as in more) xxiv, 124 Huangmei 黃梅: hwong-may 27–28, 40 Hubei 湖北: who-bay 49 Huihai 慧海: hway-high xxi, xxiv, 63 Huike 慧可: hway-ku (u as in pull) xxii, 19, 21–22 Huilin 慧林: hway-leen xxi, 182 Huiming 惠明: hway-meeng xxii, 40 Huineng 惠能: hway-nung x, xii, xv, xix–xxiii, 24–28, 31, 33– 34, 38–40, 45–51, 53, 56–60, 139, 166 Huitang 晦堂: hway-tong xxiv Huitong 會通: hway-tong (long o) xxiv )VJ[BOH
慧藏
IXBZE[POH
o )VJ[IPOH
慧忠: hway-jong (long o) xxi, xxiii, 46, 51, 81 Hunan 湖南: who-non 142, 145 Ji 吉: jee 58–59 Jiangxi 江西: jyong-shee 58, 62, 158 Jiannan 劍南: jyen-non 145 Jianyuan 漸源: jyen-ywen xxv, 156–157 Jiaxing 嘉興: jyaw-sheeng 170 Jingqing 鏡清: jeeng-cheeng xxv, 149 Jingde chuan deng lu 景德傳燈錄: jeeng-du (u as in pull) chwon dung loo xx Jingshan 徑山: jeeng-shawn 96, 140 Jin 金: jeen 56 Jingcen 景岑: jeeng-tsun xxiv Jue 覺: jweh 55 +V[IJ
俱胝: jew (ew as in few)-jir xxiv, 91–92, 94–95

P R O N U N C I AT I O N I N D E X

Kaiyuan 開元: kigh (rhymes with high)-ywen xxi Kuaiji 會稽: kwigh (rhymes with high)-jee 158 -BP[J
老子: lou (as in lounge)E[
 Li Ao 李翶: lee ow (as in now) 154 Li Bo 李渤: lee bwo (o as in more) 98 Liang 梁: lyong 15–17, 184 Liangjie 良价: lyong-jyeh xxi, xxv, 158, 162 Lingyou 靈祐: leeng-yo xxi, xxiv, 79 Linji 臨濟: leen-jee xix, xxi, xxiv, 124, 126–127 Linji Yixuan 臨濟義玄: leen-jee ee-shwen 124 -JO[J
臨淄
MFFOE[
 Liu 劉: lyoh 58 Longtan 龍潭: long (long o)-ton (as in tonsil) xxi, xxv, 142–144, 147–148 Longxing 龍興: long (long o)-sheeng xxi, 102 -VPIBO
(VJDIFO
羅漢桂琛: lwo (o as in more)-hon (as in honcho) gway-chun xxi, xxv, 164 Lu 魯: loo 164 Lu 盧: loo 26 Ma 馬: ma 60 .B[V
馬祖
NBE[PP
YWJ
YWJJJoYJY
YYJ
YYJJJoYYJW


o 70, 140 .B[V
%BPZJ
馬祖道一
NBE[PP
EPXFF
YYJ
YYJJJ

 Miyin 密印: me-een xxi .V[IPV
睦州: moo-joe xxiv, 170–171 Nanjing 南京: non-jeeng 16 Nanquan 南泉: non-chwen xvii, xxi, xxiv, 100–102, 111, 159 Nantai 南台: non-tie xxi Nanyang 南陽: non-yong xxi, xxiii, 46, 51 Nanyue 南嶽: non-yweh xxi, xxiii, 46, 56–57, 60 neng 能: nung 33 Niaoke 鳥窠: nyow (rhymes with now)-ku (u as in pull) xxiv, 136–137 Panshan 盤山: pawn-shawn xxiv, 99 Pang 龐: pong 155 Pu’le 普樂: poo-lu (u as in pull) xxi Putong 普通: poo-tong (long o) 15

249

2JBOGFOH
乾峯: chyen-fung xxv, 163 2JOHGFOH
青峯: cheeng-fung xxv, 168 2JOHMJBOH
清涼: cheeng-lyong xxi 2JOHMPOH
青龍: cheeng-long (long o) 145, 148 2JOHZVBO
青原: cheeng-ywen xxi, xxiii, 46, 58 2JOH[IPV
青州: cheeng-joe 102, 116 Ran 冉: ron 51 Ruixiang 瑞像: rway-shyong 102 Sengcan 僧璨: sung-tson xxii, 22–23 Shaanxi 陝西: shawn-shee 56 Shandong 山東: shawn-dong (long o) 124 Shanhui 善慧: shawn-hway 184–187 Shanneng 善能: shawn-nung xxiv, 134 Shaolin 少林: shou (as in shout)-leen xxi, 18 Shenguang 神光: shun-gwong 18–19 Shenhui 神會: shun-hway xxi, xxiii, 46–47, 49–50 Shenxiu 神秀: shun-shyoh x, xxi–xxii, 29, 46 Shigong 石鞏: sure-gong (long o) xxiv, 64, 96 Shiji 實際: sure-jee 91 Shishuang 石霜: sure-shwong 157 Shitou Xiqian 石頭西遷: sure-toe shee-chyen xxi, xxiii, xxv, 59–60, 139–140 Shiyan 師彥: sure-yen xxv, 180 Shouchu 守初: show-choo xxi, xxv, 177 Shouduan 守端: show-dwon xxiv, 130–131 Sichuan 四川
T[DIXPO


 Song 嵩: song (long o) 18, 56, 102 Song 宋: song (long o) xiv, xviii, xxi, 134 4V[POH
肅宗
TVFE[POH
(long o) 51 Tai 泰: tie 209 Taihe 太和: tie-hu (u as in pull) 18 Tang 唐: tong xiii, xxi, 46, 52, 75, 98 Tansheng 曇晟: ton (as in tonsil)-shung 159 Tianhuang Daowu 天皇道悟: tyen-hwong dow-oo 142 Tianlong 天龍: tyen-long (long o) xxiv Tiantai 天台: tyen-tie 53 5JBO[IV
;JZJ天竺子儀
UZFOKPP
E[FF
YYW

250

P R O N U N C I AT I O N I N D E X

Wan 卍: wan 9 Wei 魏: way 17 Wei 韋: way 150 Weixin 惟信: way sheen xiv Weiyan 惟儼: xxv, 152 Wenyan 文偃: wun-yen xxi, xxv, 170 Wenyuan 文遠: wun-ywen xxiv, 107 Wu 武: oo 16–17, 184–186 Wu deng hui yuan 五燈會元: oo dung hway ywen xiv, xx Wu men guan 無門關: oo mun gwon xx Wuji 無際: oo-jee 196 8VKJO[BOH
無盡藏
PPKFFOE[POH
 8V[POH
武宗
PPE[POH
(long o) 75 8V[V
五祖
PPE[PP
YYJW Xiangdao 鄉導: shyong-dow xxi Xiangyan 香嚴: shyong-yen xxiv, 80–81, 89 Xiangyang 襄陽: shyong-yong 49 Xijue 希覺: shee-jweh, 164 Xing 邢: sheeng 124 Xingsi 行思
TIFFOHT[
YYJ
YYJJJ

o Xitang 西堂: she-tong xxiv, 96–97 Xuanjian 宣鑒: shwen-jyen xxi, xxv, 145 Xuanjue 玄覺: shwen-jweh xxi, xxiii, 46, 53, 55 Xuansha 玄沙: shwen-shaw xxv, 150 9VBO[F
玄則
TIXFOE[V
(u as in pull) xxv, 168–169 Yang Fu 楊黼: yong foo 196 Yangqi 楊岐: yong-chee xxiv, 130 Yangshan 仰山: yong-shawn xxi, xxiv, 83–86 Yaoshan 藥山: yow-shawn xviii, xxi, xxv, 66–67, 152, 155 :JO[POH
印宗
FFOE[POH
(long o) xxi, xxiii, 35, 38

Yishan 儀山: ee shawn 212 Yixuan 義玄: ee-shwen xxiv, 124 :J[IPOH
益中: ee jong (long o) 219 Yongjia 永嘉: yong (long o)-jyaw xxi, xxiii, 46, 53 Yongming 永明: yong (long o)-meeng xvii, xxv, 167 Youyuan 有源: yo-ywen xxiv Yu 俞: ew (as in few) 158 Yue 越: yweh 63 Yuhang 餘杭: ew (as in few)-hong 164 Yunmen 雲門: ewn (ew as in few)-mun xxi, xxv, 170–174 Yunyan 雲巖: ewn (ew as in few)-yen xxv, 77–78, 159 Yuquan 玉泉: ew (as in few)-chwen xxi Zhang 張: jong 140, 170 Zhang Zhuo 張拙: jong jwo (o as in more) 97 Zhao 趙: jow (as in jowl) 105 Zhao 昭: jow (as in jowl) 8 ;IBP
(VBOHXFO
趙光文: jow (as in jowl) gwong-wun 17 ;IBP[IPV
趙州: jow (as in jowl)-joe xvii, xx, xxi, xxiv, 100, 102, 104–105, 107–108, 112–113, 117–118, 122 Zhejiang 浙江: ju (u as in pull)-jyong 51, 53, 140, 158, 164, 170 Zhen 鎮: jun (as in jungle) 111 ;IFO[IPV
鎮州: jun (as in jungle)-joe 124 [IJ
ZJO
知音: jir een 209 Zhichang 智常: jir-chong xxiii, 98 Zhimen 智門: jir-mun xxv, 177 Zhixian 智閑: jir-shyen xxiv, 89 ;IJ[BOH
智藏
KJSE[POH
YYJW
o Zhong Ziqi 鍾子期: jong (long o)
E[DIFF
 Zhou 周: joe 8, 145 ;IVBOH[J
莊子
KXPOHE[



 Zu tang ji 祖堂集
E[PP
UPOH
KFF
YWJJJ