Seeking the First Moon by Following the Second Moon Is Chan Meditation

If someone provokes me, I strike them with a stick. This strike is the second moon, an echo in an empty valley. By this means, one seeks the true first moon, tracing back to the source of this second moon. How exhilarating and utterly satisfying this is! Why should one sit all day like a blind cat stumbling upon a dead rat, meditating until thoughts cease, attaining a moment of stillness, and then compare it to the pure essence of the eighth consciousness, concluding that this state of stillness—free from thoughts and delusions—must be one's fundamental mind, the eighth consciousness? Isn't this my Dharmakāya Buddha, the Tathāgata?

Fool! Who taught you to recognize the Tathāgata this way? If so, when you have delusions and thoughts, is your Tathāgata dead, not yet born? When your concentration later fades, thoughts arise, and delusions reappear, does your Tathāgata vanish and perish? If so, how can your Tathāgata be subject to birth and death? How can it wax and wane? How can it change? How can it appear and disappear, requiring constant vigilance?

The truth is, this state of stillness without thoughts or delusions is the second moon, derived from the first moon. Do not linger on the second moon; swiftly follow its path to seek the first moon. That first moon is inherently pure, eternally free from thoughts, naturally existing without your need for meditation. That is your true mind, the Dharmakāya Tathāgata Buddha.

Others mistakenly recognize the momentary gap after the previous thought has ceased and before the next arises—a state vividly clear, perfectly lucid, utterly distinct—as their own inherently pure, unborn, undying fundamental mind, the Tathāgata Buddha. If so, where is the Buddha before you abruptly sever deluded thoughts? Has He not yet been born? When delusions later emerge, where does your Buddha go? Has He perished? What is clear and lucid when there are no delusions? What is perfectly distinct? Clear and distinct about what?

The truth is, this gap between the cessation of the previous thought and the arising of the next is merely the second moon, an illusion conjured by the first moon. You must follow the vividly clear state to seek the primordial first moon behind it. This is the practice of Chan (Zen). The fundamental mind, the self-nature Tathāgata, has never been aware of your current state of purity and freedom from delusion, nor has it ever been aware of any state within the Five Aggregates of the mundane world. It knows nothing—neither seeing, hearing, perceiving, nor knowing; neither solitary nor vivid; neither in the middle nor at the extremes. It is the deluded dharmas of consciousness—subject to birth, death, increase, and decrease—that sometimes have delusions, sometimes none; sometimes clear, sometimes confused; sometimes solitary, sometimes chaotic. When you truly recognize your own mind as Buddha, no matter what you do—even committing murder or arson—the self-nature Dharmakāya Buddha remains present, still functioning wondrously. It has never ceased, manifesting corresponding functions at every moment. It is not an empty, dull, inactive, foolish Buddha.

Nor does It appear only before you; It silently supports you from behind. It does not manifest only when your mind is pure, free from delusions and afflictions; It also appears when you act in reckless abandon, when you overturn mountains and upheave the heavens. It appears not only when you ascend to heaven but also when you descend into hell. If you truly discover It, then you will find It everywhere. If you cannot find It elsewhere, then what you have found here is not It. When you truly recognize a person, you can recognize them wherever they go. If you mistake someone, you will never recognize the true person anywhere else.