The Awakened Wellspring of Life

Question: How can one perceive the light? Answer: Directly contemplate with the mental faculty (manas).

Response: The step is too high; find a footstool to step on.

Question: Perceiving without discriminating, hearing without discriminating, acting without discriminating — without attachment or rejection, without inner or outer. Is this how one perceives the light? Answer: Rocks and wood do not discriminate either. What difference is there between you and them? Question: What if there is discrimination but it does not linger in the mind — using it and immediately letting go? Answer: No. Using ignorance, letting go of ignorance — what good is that? Question: I recall the master once said: "As soon as the mental faculty engages, stop; upon contact, stop — no 'receiving,' much less 'thinking' or 'deliberating.'" Is this acceptable? Answer: This is cultivating concentration; it is not ultimate.

Question: Knowing all phenomena are illusory — is this perceiving the formless true reality? Answer: Arhats also see that all phenomena are illusory. Have they perceived the true reality? Response: They do not know; Mahayana practitioners know. Question: What is the use of knowing? Answer: When I see all phenomena as illusory like shadows, I perceive the projector. Question: Does one see the projector first, or the shadows first? Answer: Upon seeing the illusory shadows, one simultaneously knows it is the function of the projector. Question: Without seeing the projector, how does one know it is the projector's function? Is it speculation? Answer: All phenomena are like foam; seeing the foam is seeing the ocean. Question: Sentient beings have seen foam since beginningless time — who has seen the ocean? Answer: Sentient beings' mind-eye is unopened; they do not investigate, confusing the root with the branches. Hence, they only see shadows, unaware that shadows are the effect of light. Take responsibility in the present moment: all are Tathagata; the entire wave is water. Response: It is truly not easy, but may we forge ahead courageously!

Response: I do not look at water from outside the wave. Question: What is outside the wave? The wave is water — who still perceives a wave? Answer: There is nothing outside the wave. Sentient beings only see waves, unaware it is water. Buddhist practitioners see waves yet still do not know it is water; instead, they imagine another "water" elsewhere. Response: Birth and death have always been within the water, yet they remain unknown — simply because they are too habitual, too intimate. Question: Zhuangzi said: "Fish forget each other in the water; humans forget each other in the Dao." Is this acceptable? Answer: Yes. Though acceptable, birth and death remain unresolved. Question: If the restless mind ceases, would that suffice? Answer: Without finding the original head, how can restlessness cease? Response: Through birth and death, I have never come; through the tide's ebb and flow, the ocean water neither arises nor ceases.

Question: Is birth and death an illusory phenomenon? Are sentient beings constantly in nirvana yet unaware? Answer: Indeed. Question: I observe my own birth and death from within the purity of nirvana; I observe the birth and death transformations of sentient beings. Response: Within nirvana, all should be in nirvana — why then are there perceptions of birth and death? Answer: In nirvana, there is no perception; it is the realm of perfect stillness. Question: Can one perceive birth and death without being deluded by them? Answer: Where there is perception, there is delusion; knowledge and perception are the root of ignorance.