Patriarch's Teachings: Direct Interpretation
Chapter 6 The Dharma-Transmission Verses of the Chan Patriarchs
I. Chan Master Huangbo said: 法本不有，莫作无见，法本不无，莫作有见，有之于无，尽是情见。
Explanation: Here "dharma" refers to the mind of ultimate reality (dharmatā-citta). He is of the nature of emptiness (śūnyatā); within this emptiness-natured mind not a single dharma exists, yet one must not take Him to be nonexistent. The mind of ultimate reality is not nonexistent — He truly exists, and that is why He is called the mind of ultimate reality. But one must also not think that He has any mark, or that any dharma exists within Him. If sentient beings do not understand the two natures of the mind of ultimate reality — emptiness and existence — and do not understand His middle-way nature, they will fall into the two extremes: either saying He exists, or saying He does not, unable to perfectly unite existence and nonexistence. Therefore all their views are nothing but the sentimental ponderings and intellectual interpretations of the mind consciousness.
Regardless of whether we take true suchness to be existent or nonexistent, or the myriad dharmas to be real or false, these views are all the opinions of our mind consciousness. The mind consciousness is a deluded mind, so all such views are sentimental views, not the view of true suchness. True suchness has no views; true suchness has no knowledge. Yet although without knowledge or views, there is no dharma He does not know, and no dharma can exist apart from Him. Therefore knowing is deluded awareness, and not-knowing is the indeterminate (avyākṛta). True suchness belongs neither to knowing nor to not-knowing.
II. Layman Pang Yun's verse: 心如境也如，无实也无虚。有也不管，无也不居，不是贤圣。了事凡夫易复易，即此五蕴有真智。十方世界一乘同，无相法身岂有二？若舍烦恼入菩提，不知何方有佛地。
Explanation: The true mind is forever suchness-immovable (tathatā-acalita) toward all realms, and the realms that arise in dependence on true suchness are likewise immovable. True suchness is neither real — for realms can be seen; say He is real, yet He is formless and shapeless, invisible; say He is unreal, yet He has a true essence and true function — therefore He is neither real nor unreal. All realms are produced by true suchness, the eighth consciousness, so realms have no substance and no reality; yet these realms are not falsely nonexistent — illusory marks and false marks still exist, and in essence they are all attributes of the eighth consciousness. The true-suchness mind does not fall into existence, nor does it dwell in nonexistence; He is neither a worthy nor a sage. For an ordinary person who has already settled the great matter of birth-and-death, this principle is very easy to know — knowing that within this five-aggregate (pañca-skandha) body of his there is a true, imperishable mind of wisdom.
The worlds of the ten directions are all the same Buddha-vehicle of true suchness — how could this formless Dharmakāya true suchness be two? If someone abandons afflictions and then wants to enter the true-suchness mind of bodhi, then one would not know where there could be the Buddha-mind true suchness. For the Buddha-mind true suchness manifests precisely where afflictions are; afflictions are themselves the bodhi true suchness; without afflictions there is no true suchness, and true suchness would have no way to manifest.
III. Chan Master Zhaozhou Congshen asked Nanquan: 如何是道？ Nanquan said: 平常心是道。 Zhaozhou asked: 还可趣向否？ Nanquan said: 拟向即乖。 Zhaozhou said: 不拟时，如何知是道？ Nanquan said: 道不属知，不属不知。知是妄觉，不知是无记。若是真达不拟之道，犹如太虚廓然虚豁，岂可强是非耶？ 赵州言下悟理。
Explanation: What Nanquan meant by "the ordinary mind is the Way" — this ordinary mind is truly so ordinary and commonplace that sentient beings cannot detect it. He is too close to us, too intimate with us, so it feels simply natural, just the way things are, nothing to wonder at. Eating, dressing, walking, talking and laughing — all of daily life and the activities of the five aggregates are perfectly normal, nothing extraordinary; moreover it has been so since beginningless kalpas, so for everyone, long taken for granted, and therefore no one probes the mystery within. Then we should ask: why is it that dead people have none of these normal affairs? What is called death? And what is called life? Sentient beings never probe the secret of their own lives, and so remain deluded and inverted, life after life.
In fact, within these ordinary affairs that everyone takes to be perfectly natural, there truly exists a so-called ordinary mind, and only because of it can sentient beings have these ordinary affairs. This ordinary mind is the true essence for becoming a Buddha — it is truly most uncommon, most extraordinary. Sentient beings, out of ignorance, take it to be ordinary; people of wisdom all probe the mystery of that ordinary mind. The more one probes, the more wisdom grows; when one has probed it thoroughly, without a single doubt remaining, ignorance is extinguished and the perfect Buddha-way is accomplished. Why do sentient beings not raise doubt about these ordinary affairs? The conditions are not yet ripe, meditative concentration is insufficient, and wisdom is not yet enough. When the conditions arrive, questioning doubt will surely arise, and one will resolve to investigate the ins and outs of everything, asking "why" about every matter. Because of the doubt, after diligent investigation the doubt can be resolved, and then wisdom will open wide. Sentient beings who do not yet have the wisdom of realization and practice, when conditions have not arrived, see everything as ordinary, nothing special.
Zhaozhou asked Nanquan: Can we still direct ourselves toward this ordinary mind? Meaning: can we still seek Him and tend toward Him? Nanquan said: 拟向即乖。 That is to say: the very mind with which we prepare to seek realization of Him and investigate Him is already not Him — they are two minds not of the same nature. Then what mind is the mind that seeks and investigates this ordinary mind? Of course it is our deluded minds — the mind consciousness and the manas, these deluded seven consciousnesses.
When the manas wants to investigate and resolve the problem of birth-and-death, the mind consciousness then discriminates, investigates, and engages in Chan contemplation, and finally realizes and understands the mystery within. All these mental activities and fabrications are the nature and functions of the seven consciousnesses; the true mind does not have them — He does not give rise to mental activity, wanting to investigate Himself or realize Himself. He has no such attention or mental activity; what He does does not lie in these areas. Therefore the mental activities of the seven-consciousness mind are not the same as the mental activities of the true mind; that is why Nanquan uttered the word 乖, meaning divergence and deviation, meaning "not the same."
Zhaozhou then deliberately asked: If one does not investigate and seek Him, how can one know whether this mind is the Way? By now we can understand: the investigating mind is the deluded mind of the six consciousnesses, not the Way itself. Nanquan thereupon uttered the classic words: 道不属知，不属不知。知是妄觉，不知是无记。 This is an utterly truthful description of the true mind; it is only too terse, which is why most people merely recite it without knowing its content. Its content is complex and extensive; to explain it clearly would require a long discourse.
The "knowing" that the Way does not belong to is the knowing of the seven-consciousness mind, the knowing of the six sense-object realms; the true mind does not know these. The Way does not belong to not-knowing: the true mind Himself also has knowing — He is not a blockhead. As long as something is a consciousness, a mind, it has the nature of discernment; therefore the true mind, the eighth consciousness, has the capacity of knowing. The scope of His knowing is vast and extremely subtle, something the seven consciousnesses cannot accomplish. What does the true mind know? Broadly speaking, He knows the seeds of all dharmas, knows the karmic conditions of sentient beings, knows the mental activities of the seven consciousnesses, knows sentient beings' karmic bodies and the receptacle world. Only then can He deliver karmic seeds to actualize sentient beings' causes, conditions, and retributions, and deliver consciousness seeds to operate in harmonious conjunction with the seven consciousnesses, so that sentient beings have the corresponding activities of the five aggregates.
The details within are extremely complex; I have no ability to enumerate them one by one, and some details, even if known, are not to be explained openly, for they would touch upon the secret meaning. Nanquan said that knowing is deluded awareness — of course, for sentient beings' knowing is the knowing of the seven-consciousness mind, which is deluded dharma; and that not-knowing is the indeterminate (avyākṛta) — when sentient beings do not know, the mind is dark and dim: sleeping, comatose, in deep meditative absorption, or dead — these are all the not-knowing of the seven-consciousness mind, the indeterminate dharmas of the seven-consciousness mind. Nanquan described the knowing of the true mind and the knowing of the deluded mind with perfect clarity, without the slightest confusion. Chan masters who have awakened to the Way know what they are saying; yet often the listeners — especially listeners today — still fail to grasp the principle and do not know what the Chan master is saying.
Nanquan continued: if one truly comprehends this mind that seeks and investigates nothing, wisdom arises, the mind's capacity becomes as vast as empty space, and one will no longer reluctantly and mistakenly say what the Way is and what it is not. For within, one clearly knows what the Way is, what the Way ultimately is, and what it is not.
IV. Layman Pang Yun asked Chan Master Mazu Daoyi: What kind of person is not a companion to the myriad dharmas? The Chan master said: 待汝一口吸进西江水，我即向汝道。 Layman Pang Yun awakened the moment he heard this. What did he awaken to? He awakened to this "thing" that is not a thing, which is not a companion to the myriad dharmas. What thing is it? And why is it not a companion to the myriad dharmas?
Explanation: What Layman Pang Yun awakened to was the mind of intrinsically pure self-nature. This mind is not a companion to the myriad dharmas, because the tathāgatagarbha has no form and is not a companion to form; has no sound and is not a companion to sounds; has no smell and is not a companion to scent-objects; has no taste and is not a companion to taste-objects; has no touch and is not a companion to touch-objects; has no dharma and is not a companion to mental objects. The tathāgatagarbha has no six faculties and is not a companion to the six faculties; has no six consciousnesses and is not a companion to the six consciousnesses. The tathāgatagarbha has no Four Noble Truths and is not a companion to the dharma of the Four Noble Truths; has no bodhisattva six perfections and is not a companion to the six perfections; the tathāgatagarbha has no twelve links of dependent origination and is not a companion to the dharma of the twelve links; the tathāgatagarbha has no worldly dharmas and is not a companion to any worldly dharma. When the world is extinguished, He is not extinguished — therefore the tathāgatagarbha is the mind that is not a companion to the myriad dharmas.
Moreover, because He does not mix with the myriad dharmas — this is what the Āgama sūtras call "not mutually contained": the five aggregates and eighteen realms are not within the tathāgatagarbha, and the tathāgatagarbha is not within the five aggregates and eighteen realms; the two are not of the same kind, do not mix, are not one thing, not the same thing, and therefore cannot be mixed. The five aggregates perish, but the tathāgatagarbha does not perish; He can exist independently by Himself, not depending on any dharma for His existence — hence He is not a companion to the myriad dharmas.
Chan Master Mazu instructed Layman Pang Yun: 待汝一口吸进西江水时，即向汝道。 In fact this had already been spoken; it is just that it is not something knowable by ordinary people's conscious thinking, imagination, and inference. Layman Pang Yun was also a sharp-witted fellow; at that moment he knew that that which would come forth and manifest — His wisdom is far from ordinary. It is not like people today who think: I simply cannot drink the West River water, let alone drink it dry, and so they let go — and take letting go to be enlightenment. Or who think that the West River water is also manifested by my own mind, and is also empty, and that understanding this principle is enlightenment. Such understanding is mistaken; one cannot awaken to the tathāgatagarbha mind-substance, still less know how the tathāgatagarbha produces the five aggregates and the myriad dharmas.
Many people also drink water every day, treating it as an ordinary matter and letting it slip past, never knowing that there is a mystery here — this is called "using it daily yet not knowing it." Chan Master Zhaozhou used to tell those who came to visit him: "Go have some tea." The words of great Chan masters always carry a special intent, a deliberate purpose; alas, ordinary people do not understand their meaning and drink tea once after another entirely in vain, gaining nothing in the end. We should ask ourselves while drinking tea: who is drinking the tea? What is the principle behind drinking tea? Sooner or later, one day one can awaken to the secret within.
V. 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。
Explanation: The first two lines are the instruction of the Third Patriarch of the Chan school, meaning: wanting to recognize that great Way is not difficult; the only fear is that you take the mind consciousness — which can think, choose, analyze, judge, infer, discern, and so forth — to be the great Way; then you are heading in exactly the opposite direction. Taking these mental activities to be the great Way contradicts the Way. These mental activities do not correspond to the intrinsic awareness of the great Way; the self-nature of intrinsic awareness does not pick and choose, does not decide, does not analyze, does not judge, and has no thinking. The eighth consciousness of intrinsic awareness has none of these mental activities; if such mental activities are present, they are surely the doing of the mind consciousness, not intrinsic awareness.
Zhaozhou made a commentary on this, saying: As soon as language, words, or inner thinking arise, that is picking and choosing, that is "understanding"; this old monk is not within that understanding at all. Zhaozhou's meaning is that the intrinsically aware eighth consciousness has no language, does not speak, does not think, analyze, or judge, picks and chooses nothing, and does not understand or know any of the six sense-object realms. This understanding, knowing capacity is the mind consciousness, not the real I, Zhaozhou.
VI. A monk asked Zhaozhou: How does one investigate Chan and attain enlightenment? The hundred-year-old Zhaozhou, as if pressed with urgent business, said: Sorry, I cannot tell you right now, for I need to relieve myself. So Zhaozhou walked out, then suddenly stopped, and said to the monk: This old monk is advanced in years and is called an Ancient Buddha, yet such a small matter as relieving myself still requires me to go personally; no one can do it in my place. Hearing this, the monk greatly awakened.
Explanation: The monk asked Zhaozhou about investigating Chan and attaining enlightenment, and old Zhaozhou, the moment he heard it, personally manifested Chan, showing that monk where to enter awakening and where the eighth consciousness is. As soon as the monk's question fell, Zhaozhou began to display the marks of Chan everywhere, showing where Chan is and how it functions. Then we should know: in all the great and small affairs of the worldly dharma, who is it that does them, who does and does not do them, and how they are done. One should also come to feel that the myriad dharmas are truly empty and unreal, like a dream or an illusion. For the wise, one hearing leads to a thousand awakenings — why say that Chan is a state? What state does Chan have? Chan is not a dharma of states, yet in the various states there truly is Chan, and the dharmas of states cannot exist apart from Chan.
Nanquan even more often displayed the eighth consciousness; otherwise, he could not have killed the cat. And when Zhaozhou, after hearing of Nanquan killing the cat, took off his sandals, placed them on his head, and walked out — that too was a display. Seeing it, Nanquan greatly praised him, saying: if you had been present, you would have killed the cat and manifested in my stead, and I would not have had to kill the cat.
Zhaozhou was called an Ancient Buddha, and Zhaozhou did not deny being an Ancient Buddha; in fact everyone knows Zhaozhou was not an Ancient Buddha — so why did everyone call Zhaozhou "Ancient Buddha, Ancient Buddha"? Was Zhaozhou an Ancient Buddha? How ancient? From what time did he become an Ancient Buddha? Zhaozhou also said that as an Ancient Buddha, such a small matter as relieving himself still had to be resolved personally — should an Ancient Buddha not resolve such small matters himself? Does an Ancient Buddha have such urgent needs?
VII. In the Platform Sutra there is the koan in which the Sixth Patriarch said: it is not the wind moving, not the flag moving — it is your mind, venerable one, that moves. This koan involves the movement of the external marks of wind and flag, and also the movement of the mind consciousness, and moreover not only these — it also involves the non-movement of the true mind, the eighth consciousness. Our seven deluded consciousnesses have clinging; having attached to the marks of objects, they can see the wind moving and the flag moving. As long as the six consciousnesses have seeing and feeling, they have moved; when the mind consciousness moves, it sees marks; seeing marks, it grasps at marks. When the six faculties contact the six objects, the eighth consciousness produces the six consciousnesses; the six consciousnesses then contact the six objects, and there is seeing, hearing, awareness, and knowing, and one knows all things.
Therefore where there is knowing there is consciousness; having consciousness shows that the manas is clinging to the six objects, and all seven consciousness-minds are moving. If the manas does not cling, it does not wish to contact objects, and the eighth consciousness will not produce consciousnesses to cognize the six objects. The heavier the manas' attachment and clinging, the more the six consciousnesses discriminate, and the less tranquil the mind. Yet amid all this movement of consciousness, the true mind, the eighth consciousness, does not stir in the slightest; it has always been tranquil, serenely unmoving. Let the wind move as it will, let the flag move as it will — the true mind is unaware and unknowing, pays no heed whatsoever, does not discriminate, gives rise to no thoughts, utterly tranquil. Yet while the wind and flag are moving vigorously, one can fully find the utterly unmoving true mind, the eighth consciousness — that depends on the person's merit and his samādhi and prajñā.
While the wind and flag move, the eighth consciousness does not move — this is said for ordinary people who have not yet awakened to the Way. The eighth consciousness can also be said to move, for the eighth consciousness is never idle; He is always transmitting seeds, producing all dharmas, and cognizing the karmic body and the receptacle world. If the eighth consciousness did not function, there would be no production of the six objects at all, and no production of the mind consciousnesses, and the mind consciousnesses would not know that the wind and flag had moved. But the movement of the eighth consciousness is different from the movement of the seven consciousness-minds: He never stirs a thought within the six-object realms of the threefold world; hence it is said that true suchness does not move — suchness is immovable (tathatā-acalita).
VIII. Chan Master Huanglong had a verse: “春有百花秋有月，夏有凉风冬有雪，若无闲事挂心头，便是人间好时节。”
Explanation: This describes the state of Chan masters passing the final barrier (laoguan). One who has passed the final barrier has a mind of purity, no longer craving the world; they live in the world without being entangled by a single affair, no longer attached to any dharma, no longer grasping at their own five aggregates, nor attached to the true suchness they have realized; their hearts are open and upright, retaining not a single thing. Though living in the human world and still passing through the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, yet in their minds not one dharma is taken up as an emotional concern: scenery is scenery, forms are forms, people are people, things are things; all dharmas abide in their own dharma-positions, having nothing to do with me. Living in the world, they eat and drink as usual, yet do not crave or grasp at the world, because their minds have already attained liberation, without constraint or attachment.
IX. Chan Master Yongjia said: 不除妄想不求真。
Explanation: This is spoken from the perspective of the true mind: true suchness has no deluded thoughts, and therefore does not remove deluded thoughts; true suchness itself does not cultivate, does not cultivate precepts, samādhi, and wisdom, does not seek seeing the mind and seeing the nature, and does not wish to become a Buddha — therefore He has no desire to realize Himself. Chan Master Yongjia was an accomplished one of very deep wisdom, and therefore he could directly observe the nature of the true mind; what he taught were all truths concerning the mind of ultimate reality. One who has not awakened speaks from the perspective of the perceiving mind, the mind consciousness — all of it conditioned, arising-and-ceasing, illusory dharma, never touching the ultimate truth. The wisdom of those with the Way and those without often differs as heaven from an abyss.
As for the nature of our deluded mind consciousness: after taking up Buddhist practice, we are always pondering — how to remove deluded thoughts and stray notions? How to make the mind pure? How to be without greed, without hatred, without delusion? How to realize the true mind and find self-nature? But the true mind never thinks about these things. Nor does He think about how to attain liberation, how to become a Buddha, how to keep the precepts, how to cultivate samādhi and wisdom; the true mind does not consider these matters — they have nothing to do with Him, for He has no birth-and-death; therefore the true mind does not cultivate.
X. 悟了同未悟，不动即如如；
狂心歇下时，无缺亦无足。
打坐见禅心，行住复同根；
尔来归一境，何须问浅深。
Explanation: "Awakened, the same as not yet awakened": after seeing the mind and attaining enlightenment, the meaning is that the person is still the same person as before; only the mental activities have changed, and samādhi and prajñā have grown. "Unmoving, thus suchness": the tathāgatagarbha is the same as the tathāgatagarbha before awakening, still suchness-immovable toward objects.
"When the mad mind ceases, nothing lacking and nothing extra." The arising-and-ceasing, mad, perceiving mind, taking refuge in true suchness, ceases all at once, no longer clinging outward, no longer greedily seeking outward. For one knows that one's own tathāgatagarbha is inherently complete with all dharmas, lacking nothing whatsoever and exceeding nothing whatsoever; every seed can be put to use.
"Sitting in meditation, seeing the Chan mind; walking and standing, again of the same root." Not only while sitting in meditation can one thoroughly see the original mind; in walking, standing, sitting, and lying down one can likewise see the self-nature of one's own mind; at all times one can observe the operation and wondrous function of the tathāgatagarbha. "Then all returns to one realm; why ask of shallow or deep?" All these realms return to the tathāgatagarbha, all are the functioning of the tathāgatagarbha — then there is no need to ask what shallow or deep differences the various realms might have.
XI. In the Song dynasty, Su Dongpo and Chan Master Liaoyuan Foyin were good friends, and the two often discussed the Dharma together. One day Chan Master Foyin said: how about we compare our understanding of the Buddha-dharma? Whoever loses shall pay a forfeit. Su Dongpo agreed. The Chan master spoke first: I see you as a Buddha. Su Dongpo replied: I see you as a pile of dung. Then Chan Master Foyin said: you lose; the forfeit is the jade belt at your waist — and so he untied the jade belt from Su Dongpo's waist and kept it for himself. Please judge: why did Su Dongpo lose?
Chan Master Foyin, having attained realization, could illuminate the existence and operation of his own tathāgatagarbha, and could also know the tathāgatagarbha within the bodies of sentient beings; he saw that all sentient beings have the tathāgatagarbha manifesting, and that by means of this tathāgatagarbha they can in the future become Buddhas; therefore he saw all sentient beings as Buddhas. Su Dongpo, not having attained realization, not understanding the tathāgatagarbha and the Buddha-nature within himself and within sentient beings, attached to marks; looking at sentient beings he could only see their external false appearances, seeing Chan Master Foyin's outer appearance as a dung bucket — showing that Su Dongpo's own mind was impure, not seeing the real nature of all dharmas.
Chan Master Foyin had wisdom: he transformed the other's appearance into a Buddha's appearance. When the mind can transform into a Buddha, one can become a Buddha; being close to a Buddha, dwelling near a Buddha, becoming a Buddha comes swiftly. Su Dongpo, a literary giant of his generation, skilled with brush and ink, excellent in both writing and eloquence — alas, he had much verbal Chan and little actual practice, and in that life he did not attain realization. In the Ming dynasty he was reborn as a famous Chan master, again with fine writing and much poetic charm, and he wrote many works on the Buddha-dharma; he is said to have been enlightened, but in fact it is unclear; still, his wisdom was not very high. The reason: the habitual tendencies of the previous life's literary giant carried over into later lives, and his actual practice was not deep and thorough enough.
Su Dongpo's manas attached to the Chan master's appearance as a bad appearance, and his mind consciousness discriminated it as a bad appearance; then Su Dongpo's manas and mind consciousness were both defiled, and the seeds of the two minds delivered by the eighth consciousness were defiled — showing that Su Dongpo had not cultivated the two consciousness-minds well; the consciousness-minds had not transformed, and his mind remained filthy. The more the manas clings to others' faults, the more it is defiled; defiling one's own mind for no reason at all — why suffer it? Once polluted, the defiled seeds are stored in the eighth consciousness, and in the future the consciousness seeds the eighth consciousness delivers will all be defiled and impure — then when will purity ever be restored? Having defiled oneself, one must clean it up oneself — troublesome, and full of distress. Do not keep clinging to others' faults; look at others' virtues, and the appearances within the mind will all be good appearances; one's own mind will be influenced by good appearances, and the mind can become good; what is stored in the eighth consciousness will all be good seeds, wholesome seeds, and the consciousness-mind will be wholesome. Cultivating like this is good — the more wholesome one is, the closer to the Buddha.
