Traditionally, the six types of supernormal powers are regarded as miracles. They are the celestial feet, the celestial eye, the celestial ear, seeing others’ minds, knowing the past, and the power to be free from desire. Dogen calls them minor miracles and encourages practitioners to experience the miracles of each moment.
The miracles I am speaking of are the daily activities of buddhas, which they do not neglect to practice. There are six miracles [freedom from the six-sense desires], one miracle, going beyond miracles, and unsurpassable miracles. Miracles are practiced three thousand times in the morning and eight hundred times in the evening.
Miracles arise simultaneously with buddhas but are not known by buddhas. Miracles disappear with buddhas but do not overwhelm buddhas.
Guishan is the Thirty-seventh Ancestor, a direct descendant of Shakyamuni Buddha. He was a dharma heir of Baizhang, Zen Master Dazhi. Today buddha ancestors in the ten directions, even those who do not call themselves descendants of Guishan, are all in fact his remote descendants.
One day while Guishan was lying down, Yangshan Huiji came to see him. Guishan turned to face the wall.
Yangshan said, “I am your student. Please don’t be formal.”
Guishan started to get up.
Yangshan rose to leave.
Guishan said, “Huiji.”
Yangshan returned.
Guishan said, “Let me tell you about my dream.”
Yangshan leaned forward to listen.
Guishan said simply, “Would you interpret my dream for me? I want to see how you do it.”
In response, Yangshan brought a basin of water and a towel. Guishan washed his face and sat up. Then Xiangyan came in.
Guishan said, “Huiji and I have been sharing miracles. This is no small matter.”
Xiangyan said, “I was next door and heard you.”
Guishan said to him, “Why don’t you try now?”
Xiangyan made a bowl of tea and brought it to him.
Guishan praised them, saying, “You two students surpass even Shariputra107 and Maudgalyayana108 with your miraculous activity!”
Encompassed by the power of great miracles, minor miracles occur. Great miracles include minor miracles, but minor miracles do not know great miracles. Minor miracles are a tuft of hair breathing in the vast ocean, a mustard seed storing Mount Sumeru, the top of the head spouting water, or feet spreading fire. Miracles like these are minor miracles. The five or six miraculous powers are minor miracles.
The teaching, practice, and enlightenment of buddhas are all actualized through miracles. They are actualized not only in the realm of buddhas but also in the realm of going beyond buddhas. The transformative power of miracle buddhas is indeed beyond thinking. This power appears before the buddha bodies appear and is not concerned with the past, present, or future. The aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana of all buddhas would not have appeared without buddha miracles.
Layman Pangyun109 was an outstanding person in the ancestral seat. He not only trained with Mazu and Shitou but met and studied with many other enlightened teachers. One day he said, “Miracles are nothing other than fetching water and carrying firewood.”
Thoroughly investigate the meaning of these words. Fetching water means to draw and carry water. Sometimes you do it yourself and sometimes you have others do it. Those who practice this are all miracle buddhas. Although miracles are noticed once in a while, miracles are miracles. It is not that things perish or are eliminated when they are unnoticed. Things are just as they are even when unnoticed. Even when people do not know that fetching water is a miracle, fetching water is undeniably a miracle.
Carrying firewood means doing the labor of hauling, as in the time of Huineng, the Sixth Ancestor. Even if you do not know that miracles happen three thousand times in the morning and eight hundred times in the evening, miracles are actualized. Those who see and hear the wondrous activities of miracles by buddha tathagatas do not fail to attain the way. Attaining the way of all buddhas is always completed by the power of miracles.
Causing water to spout out of the head is a practice of the Lesser Vehicles.110 It is merely a minor miracle. On the other hand, fetching water is a great miracle. The custom of fetching water and carrying firewood has not declined, as people have not ignored it. It has come down from ancient times to today, and it has been transmitted from there to here. Thus miracles have not declined even for a moment.
The miracles transmitted by buddha ancestors are as Baizhang described. A miracle buddha is one who goes beyond buddha, a most wondrous person, an uncreated self, a bodhisattva of going beyond miracles. Miracles do not depend upon intellectual understanding, do not abide in themselves, and are not hindered by things. There are the six types of miracles in the buddha way, which have been maintained by buddhas ceaselessly. There has not been a single buddha who has not maintained them. Those who do not maintain them are not buddhas. These six types of miracles leave no trace in the six-sense organs.
The buddha dharma is always actualized through miracles. When actualized, a drop of water swallows the great ocean and a speck of dust hurls out a high mountain. Who can doubt that these are miracles?