The Spring of Awakened Life

A: How should one practice in order to see the light? B: Directly use the manas to contemplate and observe. A: That step is too high—find a footstool to step on first.

B: Seeing without discriminating, hearing without discriminating, acting without discriminating. Neither welcoming nor sending off, neither inside nor outside. Can one then see the light? A: Stones and wood do not discriminate either—what is the difference between you and them?

B: What about discriminating yet not dwelling on it in the mind—using it and immediately letting it go? A: Not acceptable. Deluded in its use, deluded in its letting go—what benefit is there in that?

B: I remember the Master once said: as soon as the manas engages, it stops; as soon as it makes contact, it stops—no "feeling," and still less "perception" or "volition." Would that work? A: That is cultivating meditative concentration (samādhi); it is not ultimate.

B: If one knows that all dharmas are false and illusory, does one then see the true reality that is without marks? A: Arhats also see that all dharmas are false and illusory—have they seen the true reality?

B: They do not know it; Mahāyāna practitioners know it. A: What use is knowing?

B: If I see the myriad dharmas as shadows and illusions, then I have seen the projector. A: Does one see the projector first, or the shadows first?

B: One first sees that the shadows are illusory, and at the same time knows it is the projector's function. A: If you have not seen the projector, how do you know it is the projector's function? A guess?

B: The myriad dharmas are like bubbles of foam; seeing the foam, one sees the great ocean. A: Since beginningless kalpas, when have sentient beings not seen the foam every single day? Who has ever seen the great ocean?

B: Sentient beings' minds and eyes are not yet open; they do not know to investigate, and they put the root and the branches in reverse order. Hence they only see the shadows, not knowing that the shadows are the effect of light. To take it up right here and now—all are Tathāgatas; the wave in its entirety is just water. A: It is truly not easy, but may I press boldly forward!

B: I do not stand outside the waves to look at the water. A: What is there outside the waves? The waves are just water—who then still sees waves?

B: Outside the waves there are no dharmas. Sentient beings see only the waves, not knowing it is water. Buddhists see the waves and also do not know it is water, yet go off to imagine a separate "water." A: Birth and death have always been in the water, yet it is not known—only because it is too familiar, too intimate.

B: Zhuangzi said: fish forget one another in the water; people forget one another in the Way. Would that work? A: It would. And yet, though it would, birth and death would still not be settled.

B: If the mad mind does not cease—would it suffice if it ceased? A: Without finding the original source, how can the madness be stopped?

B: Through birth after birth and death after death, I have never once come; the tide rises and falls, yet the seawater neither arises nor ceases. Birth and death are illusory dharmas—sentient beings are constantly in nirvāṇa yet do not know it? A: Indeed so.

B: Within the purity of nirvāṇa, I watch my own birth and death, watching the changes of sentient beings' birth and death. A: Within nirvāṇa, everything should be nirvāṇa—why is there seeing, and birth and death?

B: Within nirvāṇa there is no seeing—it is the bodhimaṇḍa of quiescent extinction. A: One may see birth and death, but should not be deluded by birth and death?

B: To have seeing is already delusion; to establish knowing upon knowing is the root of ignorance. A: Then where does the one who does not know and does not see reside?