insight into his own Original Nature. So we read in the sutra that ordinary beings change in their thoughts but the Sravaka knows no such changes [which means that he never comes out of his meditation of absolute quietude].
“‘Going astray’ stands against ‘being enlightened’; but when there is primarily no going astray there is no being enlightened either. All beings since the beginningless past have never been outside the Dharma-essence itself; abiding for ever in the midst of the Dharma-essence, they eat, they are clothed, they talk, they respond; all the functioning of the six senses, all their doings are of the Dharma-essence itself. When they fail to understand to go back to the Source they follow names, pursue forms, allow confusing imaginations to rise, and cultivate all kinds of karma. Let them once in one thought return to the Source and their entire being will be of Buddha-mind.
“O monks, let each of you see into his own Mind. Do not memorize what I tell you. However eloquently I may talk about all kinds of things as innumerable as the sands of the Ganges, the Mind shows no increase; even when no talk is possible, the Mind shows no decrease. You may talk ever so much about it, and it is still your own Mind; you may not at all talk about it, and it is just the same your own Mind. You may divide your body into so many forms, and emitting rays of supernatural light perform the eighteen miracles, and yet what you have gained is after all no more than your own dead ashes.
“The dead ashes thoroughly wet have no vitality and are likened to the Sravaka's disciplining himself in the cause in order to attain its result. The dead ashes not yet wet are full of vitality and are likened to the Bodhisattva, whose life in the Tao is pure and not at all dyed in evils. If I begin to talk about the various teachings given out by the Tathagata, there will be no end however long through ages I may go on. They are like an endless series of chains. But once you have an insight into the Buddha-mind, nothing in Lore is left to you to attain.
“I have kept you standing long enough, fare you well!”
P'ang the lay-disciple[2] asked one day when Ma-tsu appeared in the pulpit: “Here is the Original Body altogether unbedimmed! Raise your eyes to it!” Ma-tsu looked straight downward. Said Fang, “How beautifully the master plays on the first-class stringless lute!” The master looked straight up. P'ang made a bow, and the master returned to his own room. Fang followed him and said, “A while ago you made a fool of yourself, did you not?”
Someone asked: “What is the Buddha?”
“Mind is the Buddha, and there's no other.”
A monk asked: “Without resorting to the four statements and an endless series of negations, can you tell me straightway what is the idea of our Patriarch's coming from the West?”
The master said: “I don't feel like answering it today. You go to the Western Hall and ask Shih-tsang about it.”
The monk went to the Western Hall and saw the priest, who pointing at his head with a finger said, “My head aches today and I am unable to explain it to you today. I advise you to go to Brother Hai.”
The monk now called on Hai, and Hai said: “As to that I do not understand.”
The monk finally returned to the master and told him about his adventure. Said the master: “Tsang's head is black while Hai's is white.”
A monk asked: “Why do you teach that Mind is no other than Buddha?”
“In order to make a child stop its crying.”
“When the crying is stopped, what would you say?”
“Neither Mind nor Buddha.”
“What teaching would you give to him who is not in these two groups?”
“I will say, ‘It is not a something.’”
“If you unexpectedly interview a person who is in it what would you do?” finally, asked the monk.
“I will let him realize the great Tao.”
The master asked Pai-chang, one of his chief disciples: “How would you teach others?”
Pai-chang raised his
The master remarked, “Is that all? No other way?”
Pai-chang threw the
A monk asked: “How does a man set himself in harmony with the Tao?”
“I am already out of harmony.”
Tan-yuan, one of Ma-tsu's personal disciples, came back from his pilgrimage. When he saw the master, he drew a circle on the floor and after making bows stood on it facing the master. Said Ma-tsu: “So you wish to become a Buddha?”
The monk said: “I do not know the art of putting my own eyes out of focus.”
“I am not your equal.”
The monk had no answer.
One day in the first month of the fourth year of Chen-yuan (788), while walking in the woods at Shih-men Shan, Ma-tsu noticed a cave with a flat floor. He said to his attendant monk, “My body subject to decomposition will return to earth here in the month to come.” On the fourth of the second month, he was indisposed as he predicted, and after a bath he sat cross-legged and passed away.
VI. HUANG-PO'S SERMON, FROM “TREATISE ON THE ESSENTIALS OF THE TRANSMISSION OF MIND” (DENSHIN HOYO)
The master[1] said to Pai-hsiu:
Buddhas and sentient beings[2] both grow out of One Mind, and there is no other reality than this Mind. It has been in existence since the beginningless past; it knows neither birth nor death; it is neither blue nor yellow; it has neither shape nor form; it is beyond the category of being and non-being; it is not to be measured by age, old or new; it is neither long nor short; it is neither large nor small; for it transcends all limits, words, traces, and opposites. It must be taken just as it is in itself; when an attempt is made on our part to grasp it in our thoughts, it eludes. It is like space whose boundaries are altogether beyond measurement; no concepts are applicable here.
This One Mind only is the Buddha, who is not to be segregated from sentient beings. But because we seek it outwardly in a world of form, the more we seek the further it moves away from us. To make Buddha seek after himself, or to make Mind take hold of itself—this is an impossibility to the end of eternity. We do not realize that as soon as our thoughts cease and all attempts at forming ideas are forgotten the Buddha reveals himself before us.
This Mind is no other than the Buddha, and Buddha is no other than sentient being. When Mind assumes the form of a sentient being, it has suffered no decrease; when it becomes a Buddha, it has not added anything to itself. Even when we speak of the six virtues of perfection (paramitas) and other ten thousand meritorious deeds equal in number to the sands of the Ganges, they are all in the being of Mind itself; they are not something that can be added to it by means of discipline. When conditions[3] are at work, it is set up; when conditions cease to operate, it remains quiet. Those who have no definite faith in this, that Mind is Buddha and attempt an achievement by means of a discipline attached to form, are giving themselves up to wrong imagination; they deviate from the right path.
This Mind is no other than Buddha; there is no Buddha outside Mind, nor is there any Mind outside Buddha. This Mind is pure and like space has no specific forms [whereby it can be distinguished from other objects]. As soon as you raise a thought and begin to form an idea of it, you ruin the reality itself, because you then attach yourself to form. Since the beginningless past, there is no Buddha who has ever had an attachment to form. If you seek Buddhahood by practising the six virtues of perfection and other ten thousand deeds of merit, this is grading [the
