The Old Monk Is Not Within Understanding

Zhaozhou instructed: 至道无难，唯嫌捡择，才有语言，是捡择，是明白，老僧不在明白里。The first two lines are the instruction of the Third Patriarch of the Chan school, meaning that wanting to recognize that great Way is not difficult; the only fear is that you take the conscious mind—which can carry out mental activities such as thinking, choosing, analyzing, judging, reasoning, and recognizing—to be the great Way; then you would be heading south by driving your chariot north, and taking these mental activities as the great Way would run contrary to the Way. These mental activities do not correspond to the great Way of inherent awakening; the self-nature of inherent awakening does not choose, does not take charge, does not analyze, does not judge, and has no thinking. The eighth consciousness, the inherent awakening, has none of these mental activities; if such mental activities exist, they must be the doing of the mind consciousness, not the inherent awakening.

Zhaozhou made a commentary on this, saying: As soon as language, words, or inner thinking arise, this is choosing, this is understanding; I, this old monk, am simply not within this understanding. Zhaozhou's meaning is that the inherent awakening, the eighth consciousness, has no language, does not speak, does not think, analyze, or judge, does not choose anything, and does not understand or know any of the six sense-object realms; this understanding, knowing nature is the mind consciousness, not the real I, Zhaozhou.