Awakening the Wellspring of Life

A: How can one perceive the radiance? B: Directly contemplate with the manas (mind faculty). A: The step is too high; find a stepping stone to assist.

B: See without discriminating, hear without discriminating, act without discriminating. Without reception or rejection, without internal or external. Then can one perceive the radiance? A: Stones and wood also don’t discriminate—what difference is there between you and them?

B: Discrimination arises but does not abide in the mind—using it and immediately letting go. Is this acceptable? A: No. Ignorance uses, ignorance lets go—what good is that?

B: I recall the master taught: "The moment the manas engages in conceptualization, stop it; the moment it makes contact, stop it. No 'receiving,' much less 'perceiving' or 'thinking.'" Is this acceptable? A: This is cultivating concentration—not the ultimate truth.

B: Knowing all dharmas are illusory, does that mean perceiving the true reality of no-form? A: Arhats also see all dharmas as illusory—have they perceived the true reality?

B: They do not know; Mahayana practitioners know. A: What use is knowing?

B: Seeing all phenomena as illusory like shadows, I thereby perceive the projector. A: Do you perceive the projector first, or the shadows first?

B: First perceive the illusory shadows, and simultaneously know it is the function of the projector. A: Without perceiving the projector, how do you know it’s the projector’s function? Guesswork?

B: All phenomena are like bubbles; seeing the bubbles is seeing the ocean. A: Sentient beings have seen bubbles since beginningless kalpas—who among them has perceived the ocean?

B: Sentient beings’ mind-eye remains unopened. They fail to investigate, mistaking the branches for the root. Thus, they see only shadows, unaware that shadows are the effect of light. To bear it directly in the present moment—all are Tathagata, the entire wave is water. A: Truly not easy—may you forge ahead courageously!

B: I do not stand outside the waves to look at the water. A: What is outside the waves? Waves are water—who still sees waves?

B: Beyond waves, there is nothing. Sentient beings see only waves, unaware they are water. Buddhists see waves yet still do not know they are water; instead, they imagine a separate "water." A: Birth and death have always been within the water, yet they remain unaware—merely out of excessive familiarity and intimacy.

B: Zhuangzi said: "Fish forget each other in the water; humans forget each other in the Dao." Is this acceptable? A: Acceptable. Though acceptable, birth and death remain unresolved.

B: If the restless mind ceases, would that suffice? A: Without finding the fundamental source, how can restlessness cease?

B: Through births and deaths, yet I have never come; tides rise and fall, yet the ocean neither arises nor ceases. Birth and death are illusory phenomena—sentient beings constantly abide in Nirvana yet remain unaware? A: Indeed.

B: From within the purity of Nirvana, I observe my own birth and death, and the birth-and-death transformations of sentient beings. A: Within Nirvana, all should be in Nirvana—why then is there perception of birth and death?

B: In Nirvana, there is no perception—it is the field of perfect stillness. A: Can one perceive birth and death without being deluded by them?

B: Where there is perception, there is delusion; knowledge and perception are the root of ignorance. A: Where then is the one who neither knows nor perceives?