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WHEN YOU STUDY buddha dharma with a sutra or with a teacher, you come to realization without a teacher. Coming to realization without a teacher occurs due to dharma nature.
Even if you have knowledge by birth, you should always look for a teacher and inquire about the way. Even if you have beyond-knowledge by birth, you should always practice in the endeavor of the way. Who does not have knowledge by birth? And yet, study a sutra and follow a teacher.
Know that to encounter a sutra or a teacher and experience dharma-nature samadhi is called the knowledge by birth of dharma-nature samadhi through encountering dharma-nature samadhi. This is acquiring knowledge of a past life, acquiring the three miraculous powers, and realizing unsurpassable, complete enlightenment.
You encounter knowledge by birth and study knowledge by birth. You encounter knowledge without a teacher and spontaneous knowledge, and authentically transmit knowledge without a teacher and spontaneous knowledge.
Without having knowledge by birth, you cannot hear dharma nature and you cannot realize dharma nature even if you encounter a sutra or a teacher. The great way is not like someone who drinks water and therefore knows whether it is cold or warm.
All buddhas, all bodhisattvas, and all sentient beings clarify the great road of all dharma nature with the power of knowledge by birth. That you clarify the great road of dharma nature with a sutra and a teacher is no other than clarifying dharma nature by yourself.
Sutras are dharma nature that is you yourself. A teacher is dharma nature that is you yourself. Dharma nature is a teacher. Dharma nature is you yourself. Because dharma nature is you yourself, it is not you tempted by those outside the way or a group of demons. Dharma nature has no outside-the-way and no demons. It is just that you have a morning meal, you have a midday meal, and you have tea.
However, those who call themselves students for two or three decades keep being dumbfounded upon hearing a discussion on dharma nature; they pass their lives in this way. Those who call themselves longtimers in monasteries, who are seated in a bent-wood teaching chair, can only climb in and out of a pit of confusion with their bodies, minds, and environs when they hear the voice of dharma nature and see its form. Their reaction proves that they mistakenly think that dharma nature emerges even after the three realms and the ten directions we live in collapse. They also mistakenly think that such dharma nature is separate from all phenomena in this moment.
The meaning of dharma nature is not like that. All phenomena and dharma nature go beyond arguments about whether they are the same or different, about whether they are identical or separate. What is not past, present, and future, not permanent or impermanent, not form, perception, feeling, inclination, and discernment, is dharma nature.
Mazu, Zen Master Daji of Jiangxi, said, “No sentient beings have the need to come out of dharma-nature samadhi for innumerable eons. They stay in dharma nature forever, wearing a robe, eating a meal, and exchanging words. These activities of the six sense organs and all other activities are no other than dharma nature.”
The dharma nature spoken of by Mazu is dharma nature speaking of dharma nature. It practices together with Mazu. It practices together with dharma nature.
I hear this. So how should I not speak of it? Dharma nature rides on Mazu [meaning Horse Ancestor]. A person takes a meal, and a meal takes a person.
Once being dharma nature, you don’t leave dharma-nature samadhi. You don’t leave dharma nature before being dharma nature. You don’t leave dharma nature after being dharma nature. Dharma nature, together with immeasurable eons, is dharma-nature samadhi. Dharma nature is called immeasurable eons.
Thus, just this right now is dharma nature. Dharma nature is just this right now. Wearing a robe and eating a meal is dharma-nature samadhi wearing a robe and having a meal. Dharma nature that is a robe is actualized. Dharma nature that is a meal is actualized. Dharma nature no other than eating is actualized. Dharma nature no other than wearing is actualized.
Without wearing a robe and eating a meal, without exchanging words, and without the activities of the six sense organs and all other activities, there is no dharma-nature samadhi and there is no entering dharma nature.
The actualized expression of just now was handed down from buddha to buddha through Shakyamuni Buddha. It was authentically transmitted from ancestor to ancestor through Mazu. It has been authentically handed down from buddha to buddha, from ancestor to ancestor, by means of dharma-nature samadhi. Buddhas and ancestors enliven dharma nature without the need to enter it.
Even though dharma teachers of letters speak of dharma nature, it is not the dharma nature spoken of by Mazu. The statement that sentient beings who have not come out of dharma nature can never be dharma nature may happen to have a point. Yet, such a statement is three or four more pieces of dharma nature. Talks and activities to deny dharma nature are also dharma nature.
Days and months in immeasurable eons are the passage of dharma nature. Present and future are also like this. Thinking that one is far from dharma nature, making the scale of one’s body the scale of body and mind is dharma nature. Both thinking and not-thinking are dharma nature. Those who think that water does not flow or trees do not grow and decay in what is called dharma nature are people outside the way.
Shakyamuni Buddha said, “Aspects of thusness are no other than the nature of thusness.”
Thus, flowers blossoming and leaves falling are the nature of thusness.
But foolish people think that there cannot be flowers blossoming and leaves falling in the realm of dharma nature. If you think in this way, don’t ask others, but just pretend that your doubt is your expression. Repeat it a few times as if quoting from others. Then you will be able to be released from your doubt.
Such a doubt is not wrong; it merely lacks clarity. Even after you have clarity, do not let your earlier thinking disappear.
Flowers blossoming and leaves falling are no other than flowers blossoming and leaves falling. The thought that there cannot be flowers blossoming and leaves falling in dharma nature is itself dharma nature. It is thought that doubts and is released from doubt. Thus, it is thought that, as it is, is dharma nature. The entire thought of the thought of dharma nature has such a face [characteristic].
No other than dharma nature, mentioned by Mazu, expresses eight or nine out of ten; but there is much he did not express. He did not say: “All dharma nature is without the need to leave dharma nature,” “All dharma nature is entirely dharma nature,” “All sentient beings are without the need to leave sentient beings,” “All sentient beings are a small part of dharma nature,” “All sentient beings are a small part of sentient beings,” “All dharma nature is half of sentient beings,” “Half of sentient beings are half of dharma nature,” “Beyond sentient beings is dharma nature,” “Dharma nature is beyond sentient beings,” “Dharma nature is released from dharma nature,” or “Sentient beings are released from sentient beings.”
What we hear from Mazu is merely, No sentient beings have the need to come out of dharma-nature samadhi. But he did not say, “Dharma nature has no need to come out of sentient-being samadhi,” or “Dharma-nature samadhi goes in and out of sentient-being samadhi.”
Furthermore, what is not heard from Mazu are: “Dharma nature becomes buddha,” “Sentient beings realize dharma nature,” or “Insentient beings do not have the need to come out of dharma nature.”
Now, ask Mazu: “What do you call sentient beings? If you call dharma nature sentient beings, it is no other than ‘What has thus come?’ If you call sentient beings sentient beings, it is no other than ‘Your words are close but have not hit the mark.’”
Tell me what it is. Tell me quickly.
Presented to the assembly of the Yoshimine Temple, Echizen Province, in early winter [the tenth month], the first year of the Kangen Era [1243].