Essentials of Mind

by Yuan wu (1063-1135)

When the founder of Zen came to China from India, he did not set up written or spoken formulations; he only pointed directly to the human mind. Direct pointing just refers to what is inherent in everyone: the whole being appearing responsively from within the shell of ignorance, it is not different from the sages of time immemorial. That is what we call the natural, real, inherent nature, fundamentally pure, luminous and sublime, swallowing and spitting out all of space, the single solid realm alone and free of the senses and objects.

With great capacity and great wisdom, just detach from thought and cut off sentiments, utterly transcending ordinary conventions. Using your own inherent power, take it up directly where you are, like letting go your hold over a mile-high cliff, freeing yourself and not relying on anything anymore, causing all obstruction by views and understanding to be thoroughly removed, so that you are like a dead person without breath, and reach the original ground, attaining great cessation and great rest, which the senses fundamentally do not know and which consciousness, perception, feelings, and thoughts do not reach.

After that, in the cold ashes of a dead fire, it is clear everywhere; among the stumps of dead trees everything illumines; then you merge with solitary transcendence, unapproachably high. Then there is no more need to seek mind or seek Buddha: you meet them everywhere and find they are not obtained from outside.

The hundred aspects and thousand facets of perennial enlightenment are all just this: it is mind, so there is no need to still seek mind; it is Buddha, so why trouble to seek Buddha anymore? If you make slogans of words and produce interpretations on top of objects, then you will fall into a bag of antiques and after all never find what you are looking for.

This is the realm of true reality where you forget what is on your mind and stop looking. In a wild field, not choosing, picking up whatever comes to hand, the obvious meaning of Zen is clear in the hundred grasses.

Indeed, the green bamboo, the clusters of yellow flowers, fences, walls, tiles, and pebbles use the teaching of the inanimate; rivers, birds, trees, and groves expound suffering, emptiness, and selflessness. This is based on the one true reality, producing unconditional compassion, manifesting uncontrived, supremely wondrous power in the great jewel light of nirvana.

An ancient master said, "Meeting a companion on the Way, spending a life together, the whole task of study is done." Another master said, "If I pick up a single leaf and go into the city, I move the whole mountain."

That is why one ancient adept was enlightened on hearing the sound of pebbles striking bamboo, while another was awakened on seeing peach trees in bloom. One Zen master attained enlightenment on seeing the flagpole of a teaching centre from the other side of a river. Another spoke of the staff of the spirit. One adept illustrated Zen realization by planting a hoe in the ground; another master spoke of Zen in terms of sowing the fields.

All these instances were bringing out this indestructible true being, allowing people to visit a greatly liberated true teacher without moving a step.

Carrying out the unspoken teaching, attaining unhindered eloquence, thus they forever studied all over from all things, embracing the all-inclusive universe, detaching from both abstract and concrete definitions of buddhahood, and transcendentally realizing universal, all pervasive Zen in the midst of all activities.

Why necessarily consider holy places, teachers' abodes or religious organizations and forms prerequisite to personal familiarity and attainment of realization?

Once a seeker asked a great Zen teacher, "I, so-and-so, ask: what is the truth of Buddhism?" The teacher said, "You are so-and-so." At that moment the seeker was enlightened. As it is said, "What comes from you returns to you."

An ancient worthy, working in the fields in his youth, was breaking up clumps of earth when he saw a big clod which he playfully smashed with a fierce blow. As it shattered, he was suddenly greatly enlightened.

After this he acted freely, becoming an unfathomable person, often manifesting wonders. An old master brought this up and said, "Mountains and rivers, indeed the whole earth was shattered by this man's blow. Making offerings to the buddhas does not require a lot of incense." How true these words are.

The ultimate Way is simple and easy, yet profoundly deep. From the beginning it does not set up steps—standing like a wall a mile high is called the basic fodder. Therefore ancient buddhas have been known to carry out this teaching by silence.

Still there are adepts who wouldn’t let them go at that, much less if they got into the marvelous and searched for the mysterious, spoke of mind and discoursed on nature, having sweaty shirts sticking to their flesh, unable to remove them—that would just seem all the more decrepit.

The example of the early Zen founders was exceptionally outstanding. The practical strategies of the classical masters were immediately liberating. Like dragons racing, tigers running, like the earth turning and the heavens revolving, in all circumstances they vivified people, ultimately without trailing mud and water. As soon as they penetrated the ultimate point in truth, those since time immemorial who have realized great enlightenment have been fast as falcons, swift as hawks, riding the wind, dazzling in the sun, their backs brushing the blue sky.

Penetrate directly through to freedom and make it so that there is not the slightest obstruction at any time, twenty-four hours a day, with the realization pervading in all directions, rolling up and rolling out, capturing and releasing, not occupying even the rank of sage, much less being in the ordinary current.

Then your heart will be clear, comprehending the present and the past. Picking up a blade of grass, you can use it for the body of Buddha; taking the body of Buddha, you can use it as a blade of grass. From the first there is no superiority or inferiority, no grasping or rejection.

It is simply a matter of being alive to meet the situation: sometimes you take away the person but not the world; sometimes you take away the world but not the person; and sometimes both are taken away; and sometimes neither is taken away.

Transcending convention and sect, completely clear and free, how could you just want to trap people, to pull the wool over their eyes, to turn them around, to derail them? It is necessary to get to the reality and show them the fundamental thing in each of them, which is independent and uncontrived, which has nothing to it at all, and which is great liberation.

This is why the ancients, while in the midst of activity in the world, would first illuminate it, and as soon as there was the slightest obstruction, they would cut it off entirely. Even so they could hardly find anyone who could manage to learn this—how could they compare to these people who drag each other through the weeds, draw each other into assessments and judgments of words and deeds, make nests, and bury the sons and daughters of others?

Clearly we know that these latter people are “wetting the bed with their eyes open,” while those other, clear-eyed people would never make such slogans and conventions. With a robust and powerful spirit that astounds everyone, you should aim to truly inherit this school of Zen: with every exclamation, every stroke, every act, every objective, you face reality absolutely and annihilate all falsehood. As it is said, “Once the sharp sword has been used, you should hone it right away.”

When your insight penetrates freely and its application is clear, then when going into action in the midst of all kinds of complexity and complication, you yourself can turn freely without sticking or lingering and without setting up any views or maintaining any state, flowing freely: “When the wind blows, the grasses bend.”

When you enter enlightenment in actual practice, you penetrate to the profound source, cultivating this until you realize freedom of mind, harbouring nothing in your heart. Here even understanding cannot attain it, much less not understanding.

Just be this way twenty-four hours a day, unfettered, free from bondage. From the first do not keep thoughts of subject and object, of self and senses, or even of Buddhism. This is the realm of no mind, no fabrication, no object—how could it be fathomed or measured by worldly brilliance, knowledge, intelligence, or learning, without the fundamental basis?

Did the Zen founder actually “bring” this teaching when he came to China from India? He just pointed directly to the inherent nature in every one of us, to let us get out completely, clear and clean, and not be stained by so much false knowledge and false consciousness, delusory conceptions, and judgments.

Study must be true study. A true teacher does not lead you into a nest of weeds but cuts directly through so that you meet with realization, shedding the sweaty shirt sticking to your skin, making the heart empty and open, without the slightest sense of the ordinary or the holy. Since you do not seek outside, real truth is there, resting peacefully, immutable. No one can push you away, even a thousand sages—having attained a pure, clean, and naked state, you pass through the other side of the empty eon, and even the prehistoric buddhas are your descendants. Why even speak of seeking from others?

The Zen masters were all like this, ever since the founders. Take the example of the Sixth Grand Master: he was an illiterate woodcutter in south China, but when he came and met the Fifth Grand Master, at their first meeting he opened his heart and clearly passed through to freedom.

So even though the saints and sages are mixed in with others, one should employ appropriate means to clearly point out what is inherent in everyone, regardless of their level of intelligence. Once you merge your tracks in the stream of Zen, spend the days silencing your mind and studying with your whole being, knowing this great cause is not gotten from anyone else. It is just a matter of bearing up bravely and strongly, ever progressing, day by day shedding, day by day improving, like pure gold smelted and refined hundreds and thousands of times.

As it is essential to getting out of the dusts and it is basic to helping people, it is most necessary to be thoroughly penetrating and free in all ways, reaching to peace without doubt and realizing great potential and great action.

This work lies in one’s inner conduct: in everyday life’s varied mix of myriad circumstances, in the dusty hubbub, amidst the ups and downs and conditions, appear and disappear without being turned around by any of it. Instead, you can actively turn it around. Full of life, immune to outside influences, this is your own measure of power.

On reaching empty, frozen silence, there is no duality between noise and quiet. Even when it comes to extraordinary words, marvellous statements, unique acts, and absolute perspectives, you just level them with one measure. Ultimately they have no right or wrong, it’s all in how you use them.

When you have continued grinding and polishing yourself like this for a long time, you will be free in the midst of birth and death and look upon society’s useless honour and ruinous profit as like dust in the wind, phantoms in dreams, flowers in the sky. Passing unattached through the world, would you not then be a great saint who has left the dusts?

Whenever the Zen master known as the Bone Breaker was asked a question, he would just answer, “Bone’s broken.” This is like an iron pill, undeniably strict. If you can fully comprehend it, you will be a true lion of the Zen school.

Once a great National Teacher of Zen asked another Zen master, “How do you see all extraordinary words and marvellous expressions?” The Zen master said, “I have no fondness for them.” The National Teacher said, “This is your own business.”

When Zen study reaches this point, one is pure, clean, and dry, not susceptible to human deceptions.

Translated by Thomas Cleary In: THE FIVE HOUSES of ZEN, 1997