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IN THE BUDDHA sutras, there is teaching for bodhisattvas and there is teaching for buddhas. Both are instruments of the great way. The instruments accompany the master and the master uses the instruments.
Because of this, buddhas and ancestors of India and China followed the teachers and followed the sutras; there has never been a gap between arousing the aspiration for enlightenment, practice, and the fruit thereof. Arousing the aspiration for enlightenment depends on sutras and teachers. Practice depends on sutras and teachers. The fruit of enlightenment is one and intimate with sutras and teachers.
Before a movement [asking a question] and after the words are simultaneous study with sutras and teachers. Within a movement and inside the words are also simultaneous study with sutras and teachers.
A teacher always penetrates the sutras. To penetrate means to make the sutras the land, the body, and the mind. A teacher makes the sutras a structure for guiding others. A teacher makes the sitting, lying down, and walking; father and mother; and descendants. Using the sutras as practice and understanding, a teacher fully masters the sutras. A teacher’s washing the face and having tea are the ancient sutras.
The sutras give birth to a teacher. The sixty blows of Huangbo’s staff nourished his descendants. The three taps of the stick by [Fifth Ancestor Daman Hongren of] Huangmei caused the transmission of the robe and the entrustment of the dharma.
Realizing the way upon seeing peach blossoms, hearing a stone striking bamboo, and seeing the morning star are nothing but sutras nourishing teachers. Sometimes there is a skin bag or a fist that attains the eye and attains a sutra. Sometimes there is a wooden dipper or a lacquer bucket that attains a sutra and attains the eye.
The sutras are the entire world of the ten directions. There is no moment or place that is not sutras. The sutras are written in letters of the supreme principle and of the secular principles. The sutras are written in letters of heavenly beings, human beings, animals, fighting spirits, one hundred grasses, or ten thousand trees. This being so, what is long, short, square, and round, as well as what is blue, yellow, red, and white, arrayed densely in the entire world of the ten directions, are no other than letters of the sutras and the surface of the sutras. Regard them as the instruments of the great way, and as the sutras of the buddha house.
These sutras spread throughout all time and circulate in all lands. These sutras open the gate of teaching for people without neglecting anyone on the entire earth. These sutras open the gate of teaching for the insentient, saving all beings on the entire earth. They teach all buddhas and bodhisattvas in all lands throughout the entire world. They open the gate of skillful means, and they open the gate of abiding in their conditions without abandoning one thing, or even half a thing, demonstrating reality.
Thus, buddhas and bodhisattvas make no contrivance of their own by way of thought or no-thought. Each makes a great vow to attain the sutras.
The moment when you determine to attain the sutras is not past or present, because past and present are the time when you already attain the sutras. What emerges in the face of the entire world of the ten directions is the attaining of the sutras.
When you read, recite, and penetrate the sutras, buddha wisdom, spontaneous wisdom, or no-teacher wisdom are manifested prior to the mind and prior to the body. At this time there is nothing new or extra-ordinary that makes you wonder. That the sutras are held, read, and recited by you means that the sutras guide you. Their function before the words and outside the phrases, beneath the surface and above the knots, is nothing but scattering blossoms and penetrating blossoms.
These sutras are called dharma. There are eighty-four thousand streams of expounding dharma. In these sutras, there are letters such as “All buddhas attain authentic enlightenment,” “All buddhas who abide in the world,” and “All buddhas enter pari-nirvana.” “Thus come” and “thus go” are both letters in the sutras, dharma letters within dharma.
Holding up a flower and blinking, and breaking into a smile, are ancient sutras authentically transmitted from the Seven Original Buddhas. Snow up to the waist and [Huike] cutting off an arm, or bowing formally and attaining the marrow, are ancient sutras transmitted from master to disciple. [Hongren] Transmitting dharma and finally entrusting the robe [to Huineng] is to arrive at the moment of entrusting the entire scroll of extensive letters. [Hongren] Tapping the mortar three times and [Huineng] sifting the rice three times is to cause the sutra to extend its hands, and to cause the sutra to directly transmit the sutra.
Not only that, but, “What has thus come?” is one thousand sutras for teaching all buddhas, ten thousand sutras for teaching all bodhisattvas.” Speaking about it won’t hit the mark” expounds the eighty thousand skandhas and the Twelve Divisions [of sutras]. Furthermore, a fist, a heel, a staff, or a whisk, is itself an old sutra, a new sutra, an existent sutra, an empty sutra. Endeavor of the way in the practicing community, and the practice of sitting zazen, is unquestionably a buddha sutra from beginning to end and from end to beginning. In this way, you inscribe sutras on bodhi leaves, and you inscribe sutras on the surface of the void.
In fact, one motion and two stillnesses of buddhas and ancestors in grasping firmly and letting go are the opening and closing of the sutras. As you study what is limitless as the measure of limits, you receive sutras and extend sutras from nostrils, from toe tips. You receive and extend sutras before your parents were born, and before the time of the King of the Empty Eon.
You receive sutras and expound sutras by means of mountains, rivers, and earth, or by means of the sun, the moon, and stars. Likewise, you hold sutras and transmit sutras with the self before the Empty Eon, or with body and mind before the original face. You actualize such sutras by cracking open particles. You bring forth such sutras by cracking open the world of phenomena.
Venerable Prajnatara, the Twenty-seventh Ancestor, said, “While exhaling I do not follow conditions, and while inhaling I do not abide in the world of skandhas. I turn [read] the sutras in this way, not one or two sutras but hundreds, thousands, millions, and billions.”
Listen to these words of the ancestor and study that sutras are turned at the place of exhaling and inhaling. To know the place of turning sutras is to know the place of the existence of sutras. As turning is being turned, and turning the sutras is sutras turning, knowing all is seeing all.
Rujing, my late master, would say, “In our place, burning incense, bowing, chanting the Buddha’s name, repentance, and reading sutras are not essential. Just sit, endeavor in the way, and drop away body and mind.”
There are few who clarify the meaning of these words. How is it so? If you call reading sutras reading sutras, you get divided. If you don’t call reading sutras reading sutras, you are against it. You cannot get it with words. You cannot get it without words. Say it quickly. Say it quickly.
Study this point. Because of this essential meaning, a teacher of old said, “Reading sutras carries the eye of reading sutras.” Know that without sutras in the past and present, such a statement as this would not be possible. Study that there is reading sutras while dropping away and there is reading sutras for beyond use.
This being so, one or half a person who studies [dharma] unfailingly receives and maintains buddha sutras in order to be a buddha child; do not wastefully study the crooked views outside the way. As the treasury of the true dharma eye actualized right now is no other than buddha sutras, all buddha sutras are the treasury of the true dharma eye. They are neither the same nor different, neither the self nor other.
Know that as there are many aspects within the treasury of the true dharma eye, you cannot fully clarify it. Yet, the treasury of the true dharma eye is expounded. There is no way you cannot have trust in it. Buddha sutras are like this. There are a number of them, but what you receive with trust is your one verse or your one phrase. Do not try to understand eighty thousand verses or phrases.
Thus, even if you don’t have the mastery of buddha sutras, do not mistakenly say that buddha sutras are not buddha dharma. If you see through with a true eye what you regard as the bones and marrow of buddha ancestors, they may be merely later studies depending on letters. It may be the same as receiving and maintaining one verse or one phrase, or it may not be as close as receiving and maintaining one verse or one phrase. Do not slander the Buddha’s true dharma with your shallow understanding.
There are no voices or forms that are more beneficial than buddha sutras. Voices and forms delude you, and yet you tend to seek them and be greedy for them. On the other hand, buddha sutras do not delude you. Do not slander them with a lack of trust in them.
Nevertheless, all types of coarse, stinky skin bags have said for a couple of hundred years, “Don’t keep the phrases of ancestral teachers in mind. Furthermore, don’t take a long look at or use the teachings of sutras. Instead, just keep your body and mind like a decayed tree or dead ash. Be like a broken wooden dipper or a barrel with no bottom.”
Those who speak in this way are a band of those outside the way, of heavenly demons. They take up theories that should not be taken up. Because of such people, the buddha ancestors’ dharma has vainly become a dharma of crazy confusion. What a pity! How sad!
Even a broken wooden dipper and a barrel with no bottom are ancient sutras of buddha ancestors. There are few buddha ancestors who understand the number of scrolls and the contents of such sutras. To say that buddha sutras are not buddha dharma is not to observe the occasions when buddha ancestors used sutras, not to study the occasions when buddha ancestors emerged from sutras, and not to know the degree of intimacy between buddha ancestors and buddha sutras.
Hasty people who say such things are as many as stalks of straw, flax, bamboo, and reed. They ascend the lion seats and lead monasteries all over as teachers of humans and devas. Those who are hasty have studied with teachers who were hasty and do not know what is hasty. As they do not know it, they do not wish to be otherwise. How sad that they follow the ignorant and remain ignorant!
As they lack the body and mind of buddha dharma, they do not know how the manner of the body should be and how the state of the mind should be. As they have not clarified existence and beyond existence, when they are asked questions they merely raise a fist without knowing its meaning. As they have not understood the paths of right and wrong, when they are asked questions they raise a whisk without knowing its meaning. Or, upon guiding students, they take up Linji’s “Four Understandings” and “Four Illuminations,” Yunmen’s “Three Phrases,” Dongshan’s “Three Roads” and “Five Ranks,” and so on, as the standards of studying the way.
Rujing, my late master, Priest Tiantong, often laughed about it and said, “How can buddha study be like that? The great road of buddha ancestors often speaks of the body and speaks of the mind. When we study it, there is no sufficient time to experience it thoroughly. With what leisure could we accept the latecomer’s phrases? Know that elders in many places lack way-seeking mind and clearly have not studied the body and mind of buddha dharma.”
This is how Rujing taught the assembly.
Indeed, Linji is a latecomer in the assembly of Huangbo. After receiving sixty blows of a staff, he went to study with Dayu. Upon hearing the story about an old woman’s heart, he reflected on his practice up until then, and went back to Huangbo. Hearing about this, people think that Linji alone succeeded in Huangbo’s buddha dharma. They even think Linji excelled Huangbo. This is not true at all.
Although Linji studied in the assembly of Huangbo, when Venerable Chen encouraged him to ask questions, it is said that he did not know what to ask. When he had not yet clarified the great matter and listened to a dharma discourse as a student of the way, how could he be dumbfounded like this? Thus, we know he did not have an outstanding capacity to learn.
Also, Linji never had the aspiration to exceed his teacher. None of his statements exceeded his teacher’s. On the other hand, Huangbo had statements that exceeded his teacher’s; he had the wisdom that exceeded his teacher’s. He spoke words that no other buddhas had spoken. He understood the dharma that no other ancestors had understood. Huangbo is an old buddha who went beyond past and present. He was more venerable than Baizhang, and more brilliant than Mazu.
Linji did not have such excellent spirit. Why not? He did not make a statement even in a dream that had never been spoken since olden times. It looks as if he understood many while forgetting one, and he mastered one while troubled with many. How could we regard his “Four Understandings” as having a flavor of the way and use them as pointers for studying dharma?
Yunmen was a student of Xuefeng. He was regarded as a great master of humans and devas, but he still had room to study. To regard Yunmen as attaining the most essential is sorrowful.
What did buddha ancestors make the standard of studying the way before Linji came and before Yunmen emerged? Know that the work of the way was not transmitted to their houses.
Because people do not have anything to depend upon, they say such things [as regarding buddha sutras as not being buddha dharma]. These people make out buddha sutras to be desolate. Do not follow them.
If you throw away buddha sutras, you might as well throw away Linji and Yunmen as well. If buddha sutras were not meant to be used, there would be no water to drink and no dipper with which to scoop water.
The teaching of the “Three Roads” and the “Five Ranks” of Dongshan, High Ancestor, are knots and wood grains [theories] and are not in the realm to be known by hasty people. His teaching has been authentically transmitted, and the buddha work is directly pointing. It cannot be compared with the teachings of other schools.
Hasty people also say that the teachings of Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism ultimately accord, while there are only differences in their gates of entry. Sometimes they compare these teaching to the tripod of a worshiping vessel. This is what monks in the country of Great Song frequently discuss.
Buddha dharma has already left the ground and perished for those who speak in this way. Or, we can say that buddha dharma hasn’t reached them even in the shape of a minute particle. Such people try to explain the similarities of buddha dharma to other teachings and mistakenly say that buddha sutras are not necessary because there is a separate teaching within the gate of the ancestors. They say so because they haven’t glimpsed the boundary of buddha dharma with their minor capacity.
They say buddha sutras should not be used. Then, would they use ancestor sutras? There are many teachings in the ancestral ways that resemble teachings of buddha sutras. How should they make selections for their use? If they say there is an ancestral way outside of the buddha way, who would believe in the ancestral way?
Ancestors are ancestors because they authentically transmit the buddha way. How could those who have not transmitted the buddha way be called ancestors? We venerate Bodhidharma, the First Chinese Ancestor, because he is the Twenty-eighth Indian Ancestor. If you speak of the ancestral way outside of the buddha way, it should be difficult to acknowledge the Tenth Ancestor or the Twentieth Ancestor in India. We venerate ancestors who have succeeded in the person-to-person transmission because of the weightiness of the buddha way. With what face could those who have not authentically transmitted the buddha way encounter humans and devas? Furthermore, it is impossible to turn around the aspiration for longing for the Buddha and follow those who are not in the buddha way.
Now, the reason why these insane, hasty people take the buddha way lightly is that they are unable to take up with determination the dharma that is inherent in the buddha way. The ignorance in comparing the Daoist and Confucian teachings with the Buddha’s teaching, even for the time being, is not only deplorable but creates conditions for wrong-doing, representing a decline of the nation. It shows the desolation of the three treasures.
The ways of Confucius and Laozi cannot be compared with the way of the arhats. Further, how can they come close to bodhisattvas whose enlightenment is equal to buddhas or bodhisattvas of wondrous enlightenment? The teachings of Confucius and Laozi regard the insight of sages as great manifestation of the universe. But even in one lifetime or many lifetimes they can never clarify the cause and effect of great sages. Although they see the motion and stillness of body and mind as the doing of not-doing, they are unable to cut through and clarify the reality of the entire world of the ten directions. In fact, the teachings of Confucius and Laozi are inferior to buddha dharma by far more than the distance between heaven and earth. To discuss these teachings on the same level groundlessly slanders buddha dharma, and slanders Confucius and Laozi.
Even if the teachings of Confucius and Laozi are fine and subtle, how can elders of recent times get a glimpse of them, even in countless years, let alone understand their outlines? They have instructions and trainings, which are not easily mastered by mediocre people nowadays. Yet, there is no one who tries to practice their teachings. The particle of one is not the same as that of the other. Furthermore, who among later practitioners would grasp the depth of buddha sutras? While clarifying none of the teachings, they groundlessly speak of the accord of the Three Teachings.
Such people in Great Song China are awarded the title of Master and hold positions as teachers, being shameless in the past and present, and confusingly interpret the buddha way. It is hard to admit that they have buddha dharma. These elders insist that buddha sutras are not the true intention of the buddha way, but that the ancestral transmission is the true intention in which extraordinary subtlety has been transmitted. These statements represent extreme stupidity expressed by mad and confused people.
In contrast, not one line or half a phrase in the authentic transmission of ancestors has anything extraordinary that differs from buddha sutras. It is just that buddha sutras and the ancestral way have been equally transmitted and spread from Shakyamuni Buddha. However, the ancestral transmission has been carried on from heir to heir. How else should we know, clarify, and chant buddha sutras?
A teacher of old said, “You are deluded about the sutras. The sutras don’t delude you.”
There are a number of stories about ancient teachers reading buddha sutras.
Say to those who are hasty, “If buddha sutras were to be cast away as you suggest, you might as well cast away buddha mind and buddha body. If you were to cast away buddha body and buddha mind, you might as well cast away buddha children. If you were to cast away buddha children, you might as well cast away the buddha way. If you were to cast away the buddha way, how should you not cast away the ancestral way? If you were to cast away the buddha way and the ancestral way altogether, you would be like a mere bald-headed farmer; who could say that you are not qualified to be beaten with a stick? You would not only be driven by kings and ministers, but tortured by Old Man Yama [King of Hell].
Because elders in recent times merely carry certificates issued by kings and ministers, and call themselves the heads of monasteries, they speak of such insane things [as ignoring buddha sutras]. But no one is able to discern their statements. Rujing, my late master, alone laughed at them, while elders in other monasteries were not aware of the problem.
In general, do not assume that monks in other countries must have words they have clarified, and that masters of emperors in large nations must have something they have mastered. Sentient beings in other countries do not necessarily carry the seeds of monkhood. Wholesome beings are wholesome, and unwholesome beings are unwholesome. In all three realms of the world of phenomena, types of sentient beings are similar.
To be the master of the emperor, a person of the way is not necessarily selected. The emperor doesn’t know who is a person of the way. He only hears his courtiers’ recommendations and makes an appointment. In the past and present, there have been persons of the way who have become teachers of the emperor, while there also have been persons not of the way who have become teachers of the emperor. Those who are appointed in a murky age are not people of the way. Those who are not appointed in a murky age are people of the way. The reason for this is that there are ages when people of the way are recognized and there are ages when people of the way are not recognized.
Do not forget that there was Shenxiu at the time of Huangmei. Shenxiu was a teacher of the emperor who expounded dharma facing the imperial screen. He was a senior monk among seven hundred high monks. Remember also that there was Worker Lu [Huineng] in the same assembly. After being a woodcutter, he became a monastery worker. He stopped carrying wood and worked at the task of pounding rice. Although he was regrettably low in status, he was distinguished in laity and excelled in monkhood, attaining dharma and receiving the robe. Such a thing had never been heard of even in India—a rare outstanding precedent that only occurred in China. The seven hundred high monks could not stand shoulder to shoulder with Worker Lu; dragons and elephants [excellent practitioners] in the nation had no way to find his trace. Truly, Worker Lu succeeded to the thirty-third ancestral position as a buddha heir. Had his teacher Hongren, the Fifth Chinese Ancestor, not been someone who could recognize a true person, it would not have been possible.
Quietly ponder this point. Do not take it carelessly. Hope to attain the power of recognizing true persons. Not to be able to recognize true persons is a great sickness of self and other, a great sickness of the world. To have broad and great knowledge is not essential. Hurry and look for the eye and power to recognize true persons. Without this power, you would sink in vast eons.
This being so, know that there are always buddha sutras in the buddha way, study the broad expressions and deep meanings with mountains and oceans, and make them the standard for the endeavor of the way.
Presented to the assembly of the Yoshimine Temple, Yoshida County, Echizen Province, in the ninth month, the first year of the Kangen Era [1243].