What kinds of bodily, verbal, and mental actions are in accordance with the Path?

Diligent practitioners will introspect on their own mind in daily life. When observing their state of mind while eating, they notice that they have greed for food, and so they slow down their eating. Actually, wolfing down food when hungry is not necessarily greed; savoring food slowly with careful chewing may be even more so. Greed for the object of taste is one kind of greed. Greed for food and drink includes greed for their form, smell, taste, and touch. As long as one is not greedy for form, smell, taste, and touch, and eats merely to satisfy hunger, that is not greed. Therefore, one can eat without greed, and can even eat quickly without greed.

How do we distinguish a greedy mind from a non-greedy mind? In the past, a lay disciple asked Chan Master Dazhu Huihai: Master, how does your eating and sleeping differ from the eating and sleeping of ordinary beings? Chan Master Huihai said: Ordinary beings, when eating, do not eat properly—a hundred kinds of seeking; when sleeping, they do not sleep properly—a thousand kinds of calculating. I, however, do not have so many thoughts; I simply eat and sleep. Having no particular thoughts about eating does not mean thinking of nothing while eating and eating with full concentration; rather, it means having no extra demands regarding food and drink, being not picky, and having no greedy mind.

What do ordinary sentient beings seek in their hundred kinds of seeking regarding food? Broadly speaking, it is nothing more than form, smell, taste, and touch, and the nourishment of the physical body for the sake of maintaining it. As for the various detailed demands, they are numerous. To summarize, it is all greed, all the result of the view of self and the view of the body working mischief. As for those who have attained the Way when they eat, spoiled rice and leftovers are all fine to them; it is enough to eat their fill, not be hungry, and not interfere with cultivating the Way—there are no other demands. What do ordinary sentient beings calculate in their thousand kinds of calculating when they sleep? Broadly speaking, it is nothing more than calculating the six sense objects of form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas; in detail, it is calculating about the house, the bed, the bedding, and so on—essentially all manifestations of the view of the body and the view of self.

Whether a person has cultivation can be seen clearly from trivial matters of daily life; every detail can reveal whether there is the view of self. For those whose view of self is not severed, the demands of the physical body are many, and in order to maintain the physical body's demands, extremely much greedy mind and greedy behavior will manifest, which they themselves will not notice. Greedy behavior will arise involuntarily and constantly—that is the greed of the manas, habitual. Because of habituation, it is regarded as normal and proper; if someone is not like them, being greedy for and picky about nothing, they consider that person abnormal. This is called inversion. As for one's daily conduct, which accords with the Way and which does not—one must be good at observing and distinguishing this, and constantly correct oneself, so as to awaken to the Way as early as possible.

Bodily actions and verbal actions are both governed by the mind. If the mind is the greedy, attached mind of an ordinary being, bodily and verbal actions will involuntarily manifest greedy mental conduct. Some ordinary people without cultivation always want to show that they have cultivation, and so they pretend to have it; yet they do not know what kind of behavior counts as having cultivation and what kind counts as not having it. Even the pretense cannot last long; the key is that they do not even know how to pretend, and so from time to time they expose their own uncultivated behavior—though laymen cannot discern it.

In fact, from waking up in the morning and opening the eyes, to beginning the day's activities, to going to sleep at night, and even in dreams, throughout the day ordinary beings almost never have bodily, verbal, and mental actions that are correct and accord with the Way. Is this an exaggeration? It is not. If the mind does not accord with the Way, bodily and verbal actions will not accord with the Way; at all times and in all places, there is only conduct of ignorance and afflictions.

If one can know what kind of mental conduct accords with the Way, then one will know what kind of bodily actions and verbal actions have conduct of the Way, and what kind of bodily actions and verbal actions lack it. In this way, one can roughly judge whether a person has seen the Way and realized the fruits, whether they have conduct of the Way, and at what level their cultivation stands. Once the eyes are brightened, one will no longer be deceived and fooled, and will no longer be fleeced like chives.