Awakening Life Spring

A: How should one practice in order to see the light? B: Directly use the manas to observe and illuminate. A: That step is too high; find a stepping stool to climb up on.

B: Seeing without discriminating, hearing without discriminating, doing without discriminating. Without welcoming or chasing, without inside or outside — can one then see the light? A: Stones and wood also do not discriminate; what is the difference between you and them?

B: There is discrimination but it does not abide in the mind — using it and immediately leaving it. Would that work? A: No. Deluded use, deluded leaving — what benefit is there in that?

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

B: Knowing that all dharmas are false and illusory — is that seeing the ultimate reality of no-marks? A: Arhats also see that all dharmas are false and illusory; have they seen the ultimate reality?

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

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

B: One first sees the shadow-illusion, and at the same time knows it is the function of the projector. A: Without seeing the projector, how do you know it is the function of the projector? Guessing?

B: The myriad dharmas are like bubbles; seeing the bubbles, one sees the great ocean. A: For beginningless kalpas, sentient beings see bubbles every single day — who has seen the great ocean?

B: Sentient beings' minds and eyes are not yet open; they do not know to investigate, and they put the cart before the horse. Therefore they only see the shadow, not knowing that the shadow is the effect of light. Take it up right now, in this very moment: all are the Tathāgata; the entire wave is just water. A: It is truly not easy, but may I press forward courageously!

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 only see waves, not knowing it is water. Buddhist practitioners see waves and also do not know it is water, yet instead they go and imagine a separate "water." A: Birth-and-death has always been in the water, yet it is not known — only because it is too familiar, too intimate.

B: Zhuangzi said: 鱼相忘于水，人相忘于道。Would that work? A: It would. Though it works, birth-and-death is still not resolved.

B: If the mad mind does not cease — if it ceases, is that enough? A: Without finding the fundamental source, how can the madness cease?

B: Through birth after birth and death after death, I have never come; the tide rises and falls, yet the seawater neither arises nor ceases. Birth-and-death is illusory dharma — 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 birth-and-death of sentient beings. 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 place of practice of quiescence and cessation. A: One may see birth-and-death, but should not be deluded by birth-and-death?

B: Having seeing is already delusion; views and knowing are the root of ignorance (avidyā). A: Then where is the one who does not know and does not see?