Shih-t'ou, “Stone-head”, gains his name because of his having a hut over the flat surface of a rock in his monastery grounds in Heng-chou. He once gave the following sermon: “My teaching which has come down from the ancient Buddhas is not dependent on meditation (
Tao-wu, one of Shih-t'ou's disciples, then asked: “Who has attained to the understanding of Hui-neng's teaching?”
T'ou: “The one who understands Buddhism.”
Wu: “Have you then attained it?”
T'ou: “No, I do not understand Buddhism.”
A monk asked: “How does one get emancipated?”
The master said: “Who has ever put you in bondage?”
Monk: “What is the Pure Land?”
Master: “Who has ever defiled you?”
Monk: “What is Nirvana?”
Master: “Who has ever subjected you to birth-and-death?”
Shih-t'ou asked a monk newly arrived: “Where do you come from?”
“From Chiang-hsi.”
“Did you see Ma the great teacher?”
“Yes, master.”
Shih-t'ou then pointed at a bundle of kindlings and said: “How does Ma the teacher resemble this?”
The monk made no answer. Returning to Ma the teacher, he reported the interview with Shih-t'ou. Ma asked: “Did you notice how large the bundle was?”
“An immensely large one it was.”
“You are a very strong man indeed.”
“How?” asked the monk.
“Because you have carried that huge bundle from Nan-yueh even up to this monastery. Only a strong man can accomplish such a feat.”
A monk asked: “What is the meaning of the First Patriarch's coming from the West?”
Master: “Ask the post over there.”
Monk: “I do not understand you.”
Master: “I do not either, any more than you.”
Ta-tien asked: “According to an ancient sage it is a dualism to take the Tao either as existing or as not- existing. Please tell me how to remove this obstruction.”
“Not a thing here, and what do you wish to remove?”
Shih-t'ou turned about and demanded: “Do away with your throat and lips, and let me see what you can say.”
Said Ta-tien, “No such things have I.”
“If so, you may enter the gate.”
Tao-wu asked: “What is the ultimate teaching of Buddhism?”
“You won't understand it until you have it.”
“Is there anything over and above it whereby one may have a new turn?”
“Boundlessly expands the sky and nothing obstructs the white clouds from freely flying about.”
“What is Zen?” asked a monk.
“Brick and stone.”
“What is the Tao?”
“A block of wood.”
[1]Someone asked Ma-tsu: “How does a man discipline himself in the Tao?”
The master replied: “In the Tao there is nothing to discipline oneself in. If there is any discipline in it, the completion of such discipline means the destruction of the Tao. One then will be like the Sravaka. But if there is no discipline whatever in the Tao, one remains an ignoramus.”
“By what kind of understanding does a man attain the Tao?”
On this, the master gave the following sermon:
“The Tao in its nature is from the first perfect and self-sufficient. When a man finds himself unhalting in his management of the affairs of life good or bad, he is known as one who is disciplined in the Tao. To shun evils and to become attached to things good, to meditate on Emptiness and to enter into a state of samadhi—this is doing something. If those who run after an outward object, they are the farthest away [from the Tao].
Only let a man exhaust all his thinking and imagining he can possibly have in the triple world. When even an iota of imagination is left with him, this is his triple world and the source of birth and death in it. When there is not a trace of imagination, he has removed all the source of birth and death, he then holds the unparalleled treasure belonging to the Dharmaraja. All the imagination harboured since the beginningless past by an ignorant being, together with his falsehood, flattery, self-conceit, arrogance, and other evil passions, are united in the body of One Essence, and all melt away.
“It is said in the sutra that many elements combine themselves to make this body of ours, and that the rising of the body merely means the rising together of all these elements and the disappearance of the body means also merely that of the elements. When the latter rise, they do not declare that they are now to rise; when they disappear they do not declare that they are now to disappear.
So with thoughts, one thought follows another without interruption, the preceding one does not wait for the succeeding, each one is self-contained and quiescent. This is called the Sagaramudra-samadhi, “Meditation of the Ocean-stamp”, in which are included all things, like the ocean where all the rivers however different in size, etc., empty themselves. In this great ocean of one salt-water, all the waters in it partake of one and the same taste. A man living in it diffuses himself in all the streams pouring into it. A man bathing in the great ocean uses all the waters emptied into it.
“The Sravaka is enlightened and yet going astray; the ordinary man is out of the right path and yet in a way enlightened. The Sravaka fails to perceive that Mind as it is in itself knows no stages, no causation, no imaginations. Disciplining himself in the cause he has attained the result and abides in the Samadhi of Emptiness itself for ever so many kalpas. However enlightened in his way, the Sravaka is not at all on the right track. From the point of view of the Bodhisattva, this is like suffering the torture of hell. The Sravaka has buried himself in emptiness and does not know how to get out of his quiet contemplation, for he has no insight into the Buddha-nature itself.
If a man is of superior character and intelligence he will, under the instruction of a wise director, at once see into the essence of the thing and understand that this is not a matter of stages and processes. He has an instant
