Taibai asked Baso in all earnestness, “What is Buddha?” Baso answered, “The very mind is Buddha.”
If you grasp it on the spot, you wear Buddha’s clothes, eat Buddha’s food, speak Buddha’s words, do Buddha’s deeds; you are Buddha himself. Though this may be so, Taibai has, alas, misled not a few people into mistaking the mark on the balance for the weight itself. How can he realize that even the mere mention of the word “Buddha” should make a man rinse his mouth for three days? If one is such a man, when he hears someone say, “The very mind is Buddha,” he will cover his ears and run away.
The blue sky, the bright day.
It is most detestable to hunt around;
If, furthermore, you ask, “What is Buddha?”
It is like shouting your innocence while holding the loot.
Master Baso Dōitsu is the Dharma grandson of the sixth patriarch, Enō. Master Baso was a great teacher and produced many fine Zen masters, among whom Hyakujō, Nansen, Taibai, and Bukkō are particularly famous. It is said he passed away in 788 A.D. Though it is not clear just how old he was at the time, it is believed that he was about eighty.
Master Taibai Hōjō went to Baso asking for guidance after studying Buddhist philosophy for more than thirty years. When he heard Baso say, “The very mind is Buddha,” he attained deep enlightenment. After that he retreated to a mountain and deepened his realization by continuing shikantaza (just sitting) for about thirty years.
It is said that Taibai always sat with an eight-inch rod on his head. If his posture sagged or he dropped off to sleep, the rod would fall off, so he always had to keep himself alert. That was his way of doing shikantaza. Master Tenryū was one of his disciples, and Gutei, Tenryū’s disciple who is famous for raising one finger, was his Dharma grandson.
Master Baso knew that Taibai was doing solitary sitting in the mountains, so he sent an attendant to examine him. The attendant asked, “What did you realize at Baso’s before you came to the mountain?” Taibai replied, “Once I asked Baso, ‘What is Buddha?’ He answered, ‘The very mind is Buddha.’ The instant I heard those words I suddenly attained a deep realization. After that, I came to the mountain.”
The attendant said, “Recently Baso’s teaching has changed.”
“In what way?” asked Taibai.
“Nowadays Master Baso says, ‘No mind, no Buddha.’ ”
Taibai said, “The great master Baso perplexes many Zen students. He may say ‘No mind, no Buddha’ if he wishes to, but for me it will be, ‘The very mind is Buddha’ until the end of the world.”
The attendant returned and reported this to Baso, who commented, “The plum has ripened.” The literal meaning of Taibai’s name is Big Plum. Thus Baso’s remark certified that Taibai’s realization has ripened sufficiently. Incidently, the koan “No Mind, No Buddha,” is Case 33.
Shakyamuni Buddha’s great enlightenment was simply the realization that “The whole universe is one and empty.” The truth realized by all the past, present, and future Buddhas is identical to Shakyamuni’s realization. In empty oneness there is no duality; it transcends all dualistic opposition. Just one at every point of time and space. This oneness is sometimes called “Mu,” sometimes “the sound of one hand,” sometimes “one’s primal face before one’s parents were born,” or “the subtle Dharma,” “the subtle mind of nirvana,” “mind,” “one mind,” “Buddha,” or “our essential nature,” and so forth. All these names, however, are only symbols or labels for this empty oneness. Enlightenment is nothing other than grasping this oneness by living experience.
In the present koan, Mu or oneness appears under the word “mind.” The whole universe is just this very mind. If this is so, then from morning until night, from waking until going to sleep, everything you see and hear and touch and feel and think is nothing but mind. Although it may move as greed, anger, or folly, or wanting to eat or love or hate, all these are no other than mind. The mountain is high, the river long. The leaves are green, and the flowers are red. Birds fly, wind blows, and rain falls. All these are just mind. What can there be outside of it?
Why is it that we cannot admit this? Because our dualistic concepts hinder us from realizing empty oneness naturally. Once you have grasped it, everything proceeds smoothly. There are no obstacles. You are able to live peacefully, and problems solve themselves naturally. We may even say problems evaporate by themselves. I suggest you look at the koan from this point of view. We must not forget, however, that this oneness can never be grasped by discursive thinking or by any scientific method. It can only be attained by enlightenment.
“If you grasp it on the spot, you wear Buddha’s clothes, eat Buddha’s food, speak Buddha’s words, do Buddha’s deeds; you are Buddha himself. Though this may be so, Taibai has, alas, misled not a few people into mistaking the mark on the balance for the weight itself. How can he realize that even the mere mention of the word ‘Buddha’ should make a man rinse his mouth for three days? If one is such a man, when he hears someone say, ‘The very mind is Buddha,’ he will cover his ears and run away.”
Mumon says, “If you grasp Baso’s meaning on the spot, you wear Buddha’s clothes, eat Buddha’s food, speak Buddha’s words; you are Buddha himself.” You may recall the first phrase of Hakuin Zenji’s Song of Zazen, which says, “All living beings are intrinsically Buddha.” But Buddha is merely the name given to the empty oneness which is our essential nature. It is the only one in the whole universe and with the whole universe. We cannot realize it because of our dualistic concepts.
When Baso says, “This very mind is Buddha,” his meaning is, “One is all and all is one,” as the third patriarch, Sōsan, says in his Believing in Mind (Shinjin-Mei). But here, too, if you become attached to Taibai’s words, “The very mind is Buddha,” you will go astray. Therefore Mumon warns us “Taibai has misled not a few people into mistaking the mark on the balance for the weight itself.” The mark on the balance means a fixed concept or idea of the mind or the Buddha. Both are labels for oneness. Whatever label we put on it, if the label has meaning, then it cannot express oneness itself. Oneness transcends all names and labels or concepts. All these are merely pictures, not reality itself. When Mumon says “weight itself,” he means “oneness itself,” so the whole phrase means, as I keep telling you, that the concept is not the fact.
Mumon goes on to say, “How can he realize that even the mere mention of the word ‘Buddha’ should make a man rinse his mouth for three days?” If even a trace of a concept of Buddha arises in our consciousness, it defiles the purity of oneness. So a truly enlightened person will rinse out his mouth for three days to get rid of the impurity.
Mumon then says, “If one is such a man, when he hears someone say, ‘The very mind is Buddha,’ he will cover his ears and run away.” “Such a man” means the man of true realization. He is the sort of man that hates to hear dirty words such as “mind,” or “Buddha,” or “essential nature,” so he covers his ears and runs away.
The blue sky, the bright day.
It is most detestable to hunt around;
If, furthermore, you ask, “What is Buddha?”
It is like shouting your innocence while holding the loot.
“The blue sky, the bright day.” Everything is extremely clear, just like a blue sky that has no clouds. On such a bright day, everything is clear and perfectly distinct; there is no darkness, no shadow, no doubt. Everything is just as you see it, as you feel it, as you think it!
“It is most detestable to hunt around.” There is no need anymore to search for the Buddha or to ask what the Dharma means.
“If, furthermore, you ask, ‘What is Buddha?,’ it is just like shouting your innocence while holding the loot.” In the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law, we see Ennyadatta searching the town madly for his own head. You have your head and had it before you were born. You are using it freely and naturally and still you are searching for it. It is just as if you were shouting loudly, “I am innocent!” while you hold obvious proof of your thievery in your hand. Fool! But this is what we do every day of our lives.