Ying’an Tanhua (1102-1163)

The quest of real followers of the path is just to oppose birth and death; they do not look for it in the sayings found in various sources in ancient and modern books. They just step back into themselves and bring it to mind, coolly yet keenly, at the very root and stem. Suddenly their hands slip, they lose their footing, and they’re lost: this is graduation from the study of a lifetime. Perceiving independently, like a solitary lamp, for the first time they are manifestly empowered. They are like mountains; how could the fears of life and death shake them any more?

If you wish to understand easily, simply face the rising mind and moving thoughts throughout the twelve hours. Just following these moving thoughts, right there, you suddenly see clearly that there is nothing to gain, like great empty space. Also, empty space has neither shape nor boundary. Inside and outside are one reality. Both wisdom and its objects disappear. Both reality and an understanding of it are eliminated. The three times, past, present and future, are all equal. Those who have reached such a field are called people of the serene way who have nothing to study and are uninvolved in doing.

If you want to cut off the path of birth and death, you should throw away everything you have always treasured in your mind. Then your six senses will naturally be clean and naked. One day you will have a flash of insight and no longer worry that the road of birth and death will not be cut off. If you do not make real application basic, and instead desire lots of knowledge and intellectual understanding, considering this the subtlety of self-realization, then you will be blown by the wind of knowledge and intellectual understanding, making you colder and hotter, constantly occurring to you, so that your nose is stuffed up and your head is unclear, day in and day out. This is a calamity you bring on yourself—it is not the fault of another.

If people who study the path are intending to concentrate on Zen, they should only concentrate on the Zen of the “solitary shining of a lone lamp in the hall of nirvana.” Do not set up specific periods, hoping to awaken to the path within a certain time. That is laughable. This Zen has no trouble and no pain: the only important thing is to step back and trust completely; hang your pack high and break your staff. Stiffen your spine, and be like wood or stone inside, and like open space outside. Suddenly the tub of lacquer comes apart, and the five clusters and eighteen elements are washed clear and clean; all beings are suddenly liberated. Once you have seen this highway, it is not the place to stop: when you arrive at clear understanding of universal truth, only then will you find true and false, right and wrong, clearly distinguished in every case. This is called insuperably great independent spiritual mastery.

Recently a kind of devil has emerged, referred to in the teachings as bad friends. They each expound different interpretations, claiming to help people. Some teach people to stop their minds and not think at all, cutting off any stirring thought the moment it arises. Some teach people to do nothing at all, not even burn any incense or perform any prostrations. Some only teach people to rationally understand past and present, just like bumbling professors. Some refer to what the ancient adepts held forth with naked hearts, and claim they were setting up schools. Some see a student come and utter a saying that seems right, then half a day later pose a question with another saying; the student presents another saying, and if it fits they say this one has penetration. Now tell me—do these ways of “helping people” actually live up to direct pointing to mind? Clearly there is no connection at all.

Those of superior faculties and great wisdom get the point right off the bat—guidance doesn’t mean gum-beating and lip-flapping. Truly awakened people with clear eyes would just laugh. The great masters of India and China only met mind to mind—from the first there was never any “mind” to attain. But if you make a rationale of mindlessness, that is the same as having a certain mentality.

A grand master said, “With uniform equanimity, everything disappears of itself.” Only then do you attain great effectiveness. When you come to the boundary of life and death, you calmly become absolutely still, without any further effort whatsoever. Just being so, like a polar mountain—does that not hit the mark? Zen students in recent times may call themselves seekers, but wherever they take up residence they just keep false ideas in their minds, making contentious disputation a way of life. They are really pitiful. Genuine seekers are not like this. Observe how the ancient sages since time immemorial went from community to company, got to know genuine spiritual friends, and spent ten or twenty years retreating into themselves, like dead ashes and withered trees, carefully finding out what’s at the root and the stem. They had to find reality before they could adapt to conditions while remaining natural and spontaneous, worthy of the name of a Zen student or high-minded pilgrim. If your state of mind is not dear, how can you stop arousing your mind and stirring thoughts twenty-four hours a day, like countless waves lapping all around? How can you dissolve them away? At this point, if you have no penetrating liberation, you are just an ignorant thief stealing the community’s food. When your time is up, all the mechanical knowledge and intellectualism you have acquired in your life will be of no use at all in facing death. Even if you do countless good works all your life, you will have less and less hope of transcending birth and death. You will only get human or heavenly blessings and rewards; when the rewards are finished, as before you have no way out.

In olden times, Ta-sui called on over seventy teachers. Those who had great vision were only one or two; the rest had accurate knowledge and perception. Hsiang-lin associated with Yun-men for eighteen years, working as an attendant; every word, even half a phrase, he would record on his paper robe. By these two extremes we can see how sincere the ancients were about truth. When they reached penetration, they were empowered, transcending beyond all traps, devices, strategies, and emotional and intellectual interpretation. This is what is meant by the saying that the lion king does not roar at random. In recent times, the Zen schools are weak and dilute. What is their problem? The problem lies in individual lack of self-trust. And where does this problem come from? It generally comes from the basis not being correct. As long as the basis is not correct, even if you put yourself in a Zen community, you will see the Zen community as an inn; even if you talk about studying Zen and learning Zen, you will be like geese hearing thunder. From these two extremes we can also see the difference between people of the present and people of olden times. 

If you want to understand readily, just be unminding at all times and all places, and you will naturally harmonize with the path. Once you are in harmony with the path, then inside, outside, and in between are ultimately ungraspable; immediately empty yet solid, you are far beyond dependency. This is what ancient worthies called “each state of mind not touching on things, each step not positioned anywhere.”

To know by thinking is secondary; to know without thinking is tertiary. It is essential for the individual to directly bear responsibility and put down the two extremes of clarity and unclarity from your learning hitherto; when you reach the state of cleanness and nakedness, then you must go on over to the Beyond, where you kill Buddhas when you see Buddhas, kill Zen masters when you see Zen masters. In Zen, this is still the work of servants. Independent people should not seek Zen or Tao or mystery or marvel from the mouths of old monks sitting on the corners of meditation seats and stuff that into stinking skin-bags, considering it the ultimate principle. Isn’t this a mistake?

The verbal teachings of Buddhas and Zen masters that have come down from the past are like bits of tile used to knock on a door; it is a matter of expediency that we use them as entrances into truth. For some years now, students have not been getting to the root of the aim of Zen, instead taking the verbal teachings of Buddhas and Zen masters to be the ultimate rule. That is like ignoring a hundred thousand pure clear oceans and only focusing attention on a single bubble.

The Zen Reader, Shambhala. Kindle Edition. Thomas Cleary