“In this luminosity usual people and sages, deluded and enlightened are one. In the midst of impermanence, this luminosity is unobstructed. Forests, flowers, grasses, leaves; humans and animals; large or small, long or short, square or round: all display themselves simultaneously, free of discriminating thoughts or intention. This is luminosity unobstructed in impermanence. Luminosity is its own open brilliance; it does not depend on your mind. Luminosity has no location. When Buddhas appear in this universe, it does not arise with them. When Buddhas cease, luminosity does not cease. When you are born, luminosity is not born; when you die, luminosity does not die. Buddhas do not have more of it; sentient beings do not have less.”
Komyozo
Zanmai: The Practice of the Treasury of Luminosity
by Koun Ejo zenji (1198-1282) translated by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi and Yasuda Joshu Dainen roshi
The Treasury of the Eye of Reality already contains an essay on Luminosity1. I am writing this only because I want to bring out this essential matter further because the practice of the Treasury of Luminosity is the essence of the Buddha Way. Working unseen, secretly active,2 one's practice practises all beings. This is clear to those long-time practitioners who have "entered the room"3 of the Master.
What we call the Treasury of Luminosity is the source of all Buddhas, the true nature of all beings, the Total Body of all things, the treasury of the Radiance of subtle perceptions and complete Awakening. The three bodies of the Buddhas, the four wisdoms,4 and the practice of each particle containing the infinite particles of Totality are all found here.
The Flower Garland Discourse5 says, the radiance of Dipamkara Buddha6 is the greatest of auspicious signs. The blazing of the light of that Buddha here in this Hall means that this place is auspicious. Actually, this radiance of Dipamkara Buddha pervades everywhere without picking and choosing this place as sacred and that place as usual. As for the Buddha entering the Hall, as soon as you have heard the opening words of the Discourse Thus have I heard... he has already entered. Since this place is auspicious it is here that Sakyamuni Buddha receives teachings from Dipamkara Buddha.
If there were any way to attain this luminosity
which pervades past, present, and future then there would have to be something
other than it to attain it.
In the Vast
Inherent Radiance Discourse7 in the chapter on Dharani it says,
Then
the Generous One said to Vajrasattva, 'The aspiration for Awakening is the
ground, great compassion is the root, and skillful means the fruition. Master of
secrets, what is Awakening? It is knowing your mind as it is. This is utter,
complete and perfect Awakening in which nothing is attained. Why? The form of
Awakening is unknowable and inconceivable. Why? Because Awakening is formless.
Master of secrets, the formlessness of all things is just this form of Space.
Elsewhere, the Discourse says,
Master
of secrets, the practice of the Vast Path is awakening the mind which moves
into the unfabricated, guided by selflessness. Why? Those who have practised
this in the past have seen that the five aggregates and the elements have no
foundation, are illusory, like mirages, shadows, echoes, circles drawn by
moving flames, a city in the clouds. Master of secrets, thus they release what
is without self and the gathering of mental factors self-awakens as the
non-arising nature of Awareness. Why? There is nothing that can be known before
or after Awareness and so just realizing primordial Awareness leaps over two
great eons of gradual practice.
Since nothing can be known before or
after, the Luminosity of Vairocana or Inherent Radiance is the primordial
Awareness which never moves.
The Flower
Garland Discourse also says,
The
body of the Buddha blazes forth a radiance of infinite colours, perfectly pure,
which covers all lands like overarching clouds, everywhere presenting the
virtues of Awakening. All who are illumined by this radiance rejoice and
suffering beings are freed from pain. All are moved to reverence and recognize
their own capacity to open to Openness. This is the free functioning of
Awakening."
This Discourse has a chapter called "Awakening
Through Luminosity," which says,
At that time the light moved past a hundred
thousand worlds and illumined a million worlds to the east. The same happened
in the south, west, north, the four intermediate directions, and upwards and
downwards. Everything in all of these worlds was clearly seen. At that time, in
each place, Manjusri, being in Openness, spoke to the Buddha in each place this
verse:
The
Buddha is utterly free,
transcending all realms, supported by nothing,
endowed with all virtues,
free from all existences,
unstained, utterly released,
free from fabrication, unobscured,
his form and nature are beyond all measures.
In seeing him, all praise him.
His Luminosity is everywhere, pure clarity.
The obstructions of the senses are washed away.
Unmoving, he is free from both extremes of
being and nothingness.
This is the knowledge of the Buddha.
The knowledge of Awakening is luminosity, the
practice of unmodified Radiance that transcends the extremes of usual and
sacred, ultimate and relative. It is the luminosity of Inconceivable Knowing,
of which Manjusri is the embodiment. You embody this in the great ease of shikantaza, just sitting.
Thus, Vairocana instructed the Master of
Secrets, the practice of the Vast Path is awakening the mind which moves
into the unfabricated, guided by selflessness.
Sengcan, the Third Chinese Ancestor, said, Do
not look for enlightenment, just release deluded views.
There can be no self in practising the path of the
unfabricated, the Treasury of Luminosity, or views of self at all. Self and
views are different names for the same thing, the face of a ghost or the face
of a spirit. There is just this luminosity. It is not a matter of establishing
any opinions about anything at all, from the views of self and what belongs to
self or to ideas about the Buddha and the Dharma.
Haven't you heard? Perfect knowing is like a
great ball of flame.8
The Lotus
Discourse says, At that time the Buddha released a
blaze of light from the white hair curled between his brows which illuminated
eighty thousand worlds to the east, pervading them all, to the depths of the
lowest hells of contracted experience to the summit of the heaven realms of
ecstasy above. This miraculous sign of light is the supreme and subtle
luminosity realized by the Buddhas.
When Maitreya asked Manjusri what this sign
portended, Manjusri explained, This auspicious sign appeared in ancient
times when the Sun and Moon Light Buddha9 taught the Vast Path while entering the Harmony
of the sphere of Infinite Meaning. And now the Buddha Shakyamuni must be about
to present the teaching of the Lotus of Wondrous Reality which has been kept in
mind by the Buddhas for the illumination of beings.
This light should be understood as the supreme and
vast radiance which contains Infinite Meaning. The great being Manjusri was
formerly the wakeful one Sublime Light10 and was the eighth son of the Sun and Moon
Light Buddha who taught him to practice supreme enlightenment. The previous
Buddha to Shakyamuni was Dipamkara. The practice of our Lineage is sitting in
the Treasury of Luminosity and this has been received directly through the
transmission from Dipamkara and Sakyamuni Buddhas.
What other teaching is needed? This luminosity is
not one thing for sages and another for sentient beings. It is the Single Path
transmitted from the past to right now. It does not need to acquire anything or
get rid of anything. After this, who can turn back and try to fit back into the
hunched postures of conventional views and social relations? It cannot be
grasped, cannot be avoided. How can you take the sufferings of delusionary
desiring and despising seriously?
To go on. The Lotus Discourse's chapter on
"Being in Ease" says, Manjusri, those opening to Openness
and Vastness abide in flexibility and peace, they are kind and not rowdy, their
minds are unclouded. They do not worry thoughts with their minds but see the true
nature and so do not act like idiots. Sitting is like this, isn't it? In
sitting, one is aligning oneself with Great Luminosity.
A verse in that chapter says,
The
deluded conceive of things as
existent or non-existent,
real or unreal,
born or unborn.
In a clear space, settle attention,
sit steady and without flinching,
like Mount Sumeru.
See that all things are without substance,
like space, with no solid foundation,
neither born nor arising.
Unmoving, tireless,
practice this one thing.
This is the place which draws near to it.
These are quite direct instructions which present
the supreme Way through getting straight to the heart of it, setting aside
conventions.
The Great Master Bodhidharma was asked by Emperor
Wu of China about the first principle of the holy Teachings. Bodhidharma
said, Vast emptiness, nothing holy. This is the great ball of flame,
the luminosity of the Transmission of our Awakened Ancestors. Clear right
through and on all sides with nothing inside of it at all. Outside of this
luminosity there is no other practice, no other teaching. So how could there be
any objects to know let alone the cultivation of any particular state or trying
to cure yourselves of some imaginary disease?
The emperor asked Bodhidharma, Who is this
standing before me? Bodhidharma said, Don't know.
This is the single radiance of Openness.
Zen Master Xuedou's verse on this koan states:
The
holy truths are empty?
What is the secret here?
Once more: 'Who is this standing here before me?'
'Don't know!'11
Enter into this koan and you release the body into
luminosity, the Total Field into luminosity and realize the great ease.
Great master Yunmen,12in the
thirty-ninth generation from the Buddha said to the assembly, Everyone has
this luminosity but when they look for it they don't see it. What is this
luminosity? As no one could answer, he answered for them, The Monks'
Hall, the Buddha Hall, the Kitchen Hall, the Gate.13
Now when this great master speaks of this
luminosity that everyone has, he doesn't say that it is something that will
appear later or that it happened in the past. It is not something that can be
seen by standing aside from it because everyone is this luminosity. This is
what we call the luminosity of vast and perfect knowing. You should understand
this clearly and apply it through skin, meat, bones, and marrow.
This luminosity is all beings and Shakyamuni and
Maitreya are only its attendants.14 This subtle luminosity is not greater in
Buddhas and less in beings. Everything arises in it. The Total Field is this
great ball of flame.
Yunmen asked, What is this
luminosity? The assembly had nothing to say. Even if a hundred
thousand bon mots were
uttered, still there would be "nothing to say."
And so Yunmen answered for them, The Monks'
Hall, the Buddha Hall, the Kitchen Hall, the Gate. Answering for them is
his answer; his answer answers for luminosity, answers for "not seeing it," answers
the assembly's answer of not answering. This is the practice of the Treasury of
Luminosity blazing and awakening as radiance.
So. It is not a matter of whether you are just
"usual folk" or "Buddhas." It isn't a matter of being
sentient or an insentient being. Always shining as the ten directions, this
beginningless luminosity is without location. This is why "you don't see it," it
is this "what."
Moving in this darkness, it is inconceivable, even
if you think about it for numberless eons.
Another time:
A
monk asked Yunmen, "The light shines silently through numberless
worlds..."
Before he could finish phrasing his question, Yunmen snapped, Isn't that
the saying of that famous poet Chang Zhou?15
The monk stammered, "It is."
Yunmen said, "Failed."16
This old Buddha Yunmen! His eyes blaze like falling
stars, his mind is swifter than a thunderbolt. At this point the monk was struck
speechless. How about you? Would you have embarrassed yourself?
Zen
Master Xuefeng17 taught the
assembly, "All the Buddhas of the three times turn the Wheel of Reality in
the midst of fire."
Yunmen said, "The flames present the Teachings of the Buddhas of the three
times. All the Buddhas do is stand there and listen!"
The luminosity of these flames is the seat of the
Awakening of the Buddhas of the three times, it is the teacher of all the
Buddhas. Thus, all Buddhas are always presenting the Teachings in the midst of
the numberless forms and yet remain unmoving from the seat of Awakening which
is the luminosity of complete and perfect release.
Open the ears without closing the eyes. This great
ball of flames is not in front or behind. It is the Body of Totality.
Do not continue to conceive of yourself in terms of
obstructions and limitations, squeezing out thoughts of self and poverty, of
being a deluded being. This is the demonic defilement of the Wheel of Reality
turned by the Buddhas.
The presentation of the Teachings by the flames
pointed out by Xuefeng and elaborated by Yunmen is cutting to the truth of it
without bothering about niceties. This presents the supreme Way that the Buddha
taught throughout each day of his life.
In Xuefeng's speaking of these words, everything is
burnt within these flames and there is no escape from it. Chanting the sutras,
practising great bows, raising the feet and setting them down step after step,
everything is the display of luminosity's vast activity.
Some people look for this as some underlying entity
or try to get rid of their thoughts and experiences. They do not understand
this hidden essence. Some doubt it all, and go about their business dwelling in
the cave of ghosts. Some act like they are diving into the depths of the ocean
to count the grains of sand on the ocean floor. Some are like mosquitoes,
buzzing against a paper screen.
Leaving aside the possibility of just falling into
words, can you say anything?
Instead of wasting time trying to wash dirt with
mud, Zen monks must first of all know what they are saying when they ask a
question. If we are talking about "light
shining silently through numberless worlds," why
should these be the words of someone else like a famous poet or the Buddha? Are
they your words? Are they anyone's words? Listen carefully: "The Monks' Hall, the Buddha Hall, the Kitchen
Hall, the Gate."
Great
master Changsha18 said to the
assembly, "The whole world is reflected in this monk's eye. The whole
world is contained in everyday talk. The whole world fills your body. The whole
world is your own luminosity. Throughout the Total Field there is no one that
is not who you are."19
Deep practice of the Way requires tireless exertion
and confidence in what is true. Unless you join the Lineage of the Buddhas life
after life, how can you understand anything that I say at all? Do not move away
from it.
Now, the whole world is the eye of this
monk, says Changsha. The whole of space is this whole bodymind. He does
not grasp at the sacred or avoid the profane. He does not say that deluded
beings don't have it while sages do. He just points directly to your own
luminosity. So don't leave it all up to Changsha.
This teaching presents it all inside of your
nostrils, it gives practical advice with your eyes. Some people bring up old
koan as examples and models but never have the least insight about their own
lives. This is like being born into a wealthy family but having no clothes.
So, fools who hear some talk about
"luminosity" might think that this is like the light of fireflies,
like the light of lanterns, like the light of the sun or moon, the gleaming of
gold or jewels. They look around for something that they already know. Looking
for the blaze of radiance, they concentrate on their little minds and try to
figure it out, trying to turn it into the realm of emptiness and silence. So
they freeze and hide in motionlessness. They are unable to give up looking for
some kind of thing that they can acquire. Or they think mystical thoughts and
go on and on about how special it is. There are only too many like this,
sleeping with open eyes, just bags of borrowed rice.
If it were really some inconceivably mysterious
thing, why do you think that you can get at it with your thoughts? This is the
confusion spread by the Buddha-devil that sets up little states as the same as
the practice of the Buddhas. This is why the First Ancestor called
it, Vast emptiness, nothing holy and the practice as not
knowing. I hope you understand.
Zen Master Changsha said,
Students
of the Way who do not discern the truth are like that because they won't
release their little consciousnesses. Although endless eons of birth and death
are rooted there, they conceive of it as the Original Self.
If your practice is based on your own ideas and
unquestioned assumptions about what the mind is and what realization is, you
are only strengthening the roots of birth and death. The "Original
Self" is the true human being, being what humans truly are: the display of
inherent and perfect luminosity. Outside of this Open Luminosity, what is there
that can even be grasped at? This is nothing holy and don't
know. It is an iron hammerhead without a hole for a handle. It is a great
ball of flame.
Zhaozhou20 asked
Nanquan,21 "What
is the Way?"
Nanquan said, "Ordinary Mind is the Way."
Zhaozhou said, "Well, should I move along with it or not?"
Nanquan said, "Once you try to move forward, you have already gone
astray."
Zhaozhou said, "If I don't try anything, how can I know the Way?"
Nanquan said, "The Way is not a matter of knowing something or not knowing
something. Knowing something is delusion. Knowing nothing is a blank state.
Arriving at the Way beyond doubt, it is vast and boundless as space. What can
be grasped or avoided?"22
This is why the ancient masters out of compassion
for those who fabricate practice through their own efforts carefully guided
them with saying things like: The Way is not a matter of thinking or of
not-thinking. It cannot be attained through words or silence. As soon as you
hesitate, you are ten million stages away.
Monks, do not all of the strategies of cultivating
something or of mystical principles or subtle states all fall within either
thinking or not-thinking? Since it is not a matter of thinking or not-thinking,
right now, give up on deluded views of attaining or rejecting.
The usual folk who have no understanding or
exertion do not understand even this and grasp at the illusions of a self and
rush about vainly in the world of dreams, possessed by demons of conventional
views and cleverness. Trying to figure it out, they conceive of luminosity as
something like a fireball erupting from between the Buddha's brows. Taking words
at surface value, they never even imagine investigating the real meaning of the
sages. Although they might dress up as seasoned veterans of practice, they do
not understand advanced practice and so do not understand that the luminosity
of this whole body is the luminosity of the Total Field, pervading the skies
and covering the ground. Fools who cling to obvious forms, they are almost
beneath contempt.
Shakyamuni said,
The
supreme light is not blue, gold, red, green, white, or black. It is not an
object, it is not the mind. It is neither existent nor non-existent. It does
not arise from conditions. It is the source of all the Buddhas, the essence of
opening to Openness, the essence of the Buddha Way.
Emerging from the Harmony of Blossoming Luminosity,
seated on a diamond throne of numberless lights, the Buddha presented this
single practice.
Luminosity is not blue, gold, red, green,
white or black. It is the god of fire, scarlet through and through. It is
a mud ox playing on the bottom of the sea. It is the iron ox, without skin or
bones. Since it is not an object, not the mind, what is there to seek for,
panting and heaving, your chest thickened with desire? "It does not arise from
conditions," so how could you think
that you could fabricate it?
This is truly the source of all the Buddhas, the
essence of the Way of Awake Awareness. This luminosity is the single practice
practised and maintained by Vairocana Buddha from the moment he set forth on
the Way. This is the ground of all experiences, beyond all categories and
descriptions. This is known as the single practice of the luminosity of the
ground of mind.
Shakyamuni Buddha said,
If
those who present this Teaching dwell alone in seclusion, in utter silence
beyond the speech of people, and read and recite this sutra, I will manifest
for them the body of clear radiance. When they forget a section or verse, I
will remind them of it so that they will understand it completely.
Reading and reciting this sutra is the
manifestation of clear radiance. The body and mind of all the Buddhas is
luminosity. The Field of Dipamkara is Eternal Silent Radiance. Fields of
Awakening, bodies and minds are all luminosity. And so we say that there are
eighty-four thousand luminosities, numberless luminosities.
Zen Master Puning Yong23 brought up the koan of the fire presenting the
Teaching and added this verse for the assembly:
A
ball of fierce flames reddens the vast sky
and the Buddhas of the three times are at its centre.
Having presented it, they are finished now.
A cool breeze moves above the brows.
In uncovering the essence of the Way of Awake
Awareness and entering the room, this kind of vision of flames presenting the
Teachings might happen. But there is a single ball of fierce flames, which has
always burned throughout all time. Coming from nowhere, it is formless and
without fragments and goes nowhere. Unfragmented, it is the landscape of the primordial
ground of all that is, all Buddhas, all beings.
Why do monks of today not understand this or even
trust it? Without confidence in this, they fall into the endless circuit of
conditioned experiences and lower births. If they can understand the cause of
this, they should just look and penetrate it thoroughly.
Those who follow conventional views believe that
what is illusory is real, what is transient is permanent, and so they are
concerned only with gain and loss and coarse profit. Their lives are like
candles in the wind and yet they place their trust in what is uncertain even
for tomorrow. Breathing out does not mean that you will necessarily breath in
again. And so they are filled with glee and despair at momentary changes.
The elements of the body will evaporate like dew,
will vanish in the flames of the cremation pyre. There is not a single particle
of it that you can hold on to. And yet you loll about, as if you were the
master of yourself. This is not a matter of Buddhist teachings. It is obviously
so and you can see it with your own eyes.
The Buddhas of the three times are in this great
ball of flames and all beings are in it too. What difference is there between
Buddhas and sentient beings? Those in it who grasp at the deluded assumptions
of a self cause themselves to drown in the torrent of birth and death. Those in
it who see right through to luminosity realise unobstructed all-pervasive
knowing.
Yongjia24 said,
It is without boundaries, like space.
It is wherever you stand.
It is free of struggle and searching.
It cannot be held or released.
Give
up the search.
It is here.25
Nagarjuna said,
Perfect
wisdom is like a great ball of flames, ungraspable from all sides.26
In hearing and reading these famous teachings
everybody studies them as if they were intended for someone else. You do not
release yourself into Totality or yield into freedom and ease. Instead you
mutter that you are missing some essential trick or skill, or that you are just
a beginner, or that you've started to practice too late in life. And so you
remain usual people who have not shed a single deluded view. You do not release
your assumptions of self-image. Although you dwell always in the Great Treasury
of Luminosity, you sell yourself out for hard labour, wander in misery, always
poor. Although born into wealth and ease, through your own views of poverty,
you turn the body of clear radiance into a carrier of buckets of night soil, a
shit hole cleaner.27 The view of
a self should just be released right now.
Although you might be able to discuss the divisions
of the sutras and commentaries, the provisional and true levels of the
Teachings, the exoteric and tantric principles, and the subtleties of the five
houses and seven schools of Zen, all of this is just spinning about in birth
and death if you do so from the vantage of a self. This is why it is said that
understanding reality with the mind of birth and death bends reality into the
shape of birth and death.
The views of a knower, of a person, an entity,
something that lives are all self-image. The view that there is a body, and the
fixations and delusions about materiality are all self-image. All of the subtle
stages of practice up to Awakening as Wonder28 all arise
from self-image. The view of self, the momentum of tendencies, traces of
enlightenment, and viewing practice as tranquillisation are all greater or
lesser infections of self-image. From the most perverted and dense contractions
to the last veil of subtle ignorance, all derive from self-image. Without it
there would be no need for a Buddha or the Teachings. Thus Zen Master Dogen
said, Release the view of a self through understanding
impermanence. These are direct instructions from great compassion and lead
to true sincerity.
In The
Teaching on Pacifying Mind, Great Master Bodhidharma of
Shaolin says,
Why
is it that worldly ones fail to realise Awakening despite all of their efforts?
They do not realise Awakening because of self-concern. Mature practitioners do
not fret over troubles or become gleeful when things go well because they are
not driven by self-concern.
A verse by an old Buddha says,
Buddhas
do not see themselves as Buddhas
because perfect knowing is Buddha.
If you realize this, there is no other Buddha.
Sages know that there are no obstructions
within equanimity
and have no fear of birth and death.
Having no fear of birth and death means having no
view of self. Having no view of self means being free of self-obsession, free
of self-image. The luminosity of vast and perfect knowing is beyond persons and
so the verse says that only perfect knowing is Buddha.
In spite of this you grasp at this body which is
like dew on the grass, like a bubble. And yet when it comes to luminosity, your
true body, you think it doesn't concern you or you look for some special thing.
And so you spend your time in trivialities like personal conflicts or trying to
stir up donations instead of clearly looking into where this vain life will end
and using that recognition to stir your practice.
Practice and realize this Treasury of Luminosity
and it will no longer be a matter of just your own practice. You have four
debts: to parents, to people, to all beings, and to the Three Jewels. The three
realms of grasping, pure form, and nothingness, mountains and rivers, the great
earth, your body and the bodies of all beings arise within the Suchness of
luminosity which pervades everywhere and all times.
Great Master Caoshan29 has a
verse:
Essential Awareness is round and bright,
a formless form.
Do not separate yourself from it
with knowledge or views.
The myriad thoughts obscure the subtle,
wandering mind loses the Path.
Feelings about the numberless things
Objectify and block.
Attention following multiplicity
loses the primordially real.
Understand
these words
and you will be free of all struggle
as you always already were.
These teachings arise from within the Treasury of
Luminosity and provide instruction on the subtle practice of realization. Monks
or laypeople, seasoned practitioners or beginners, clever or stupid, all must
understand and practise this formless form of primordial Awareness, round and
bright, peerless and without another to compare it to.
Primordial Awareness is Buddha Nature. Round and
bright, it is the vast luminosity, formlessly and serenely shining as the
illusion of your present body. Thus an ancient said, The whole body is
formless, the whole world does not obscure it.
If you still don't understand, how about this.
Smashing the total body to nothing, incinerating skin, meat, bones, and marrow,
bring me one thing. At such a moment, all beings, the Buddhas of past and
present, the usual folk and sages throughout the three worlds, the numberless
forms, are all only this formless form.
Master Linji30 said,
The
elements of earth, air, water, and fire cannot present the Teachings or hear
them. The spleen, gut, liver, and gallbladder cannot present the Teachings or
hear them. Space cannot present the Teachings or hear them. So what is it that
can present the Teachings and hear them?
The formless form of luminosity presents and hears
the Teaching. For the sake of others, the ancients provisionally called
it the wandering monk hearing the truth.
Essential Awareness is round and bright, a formless
form, explains everything in a single line. Yet out of compassion Master
Caoshan elaborates further on subtle practice saying, Do not separate
yourself from it with knowledge or views. Those who are studying under
deluded teachers only learn ways to feel about things and opinions, and wind up
feeling that their own study has revealed a Zen beyond the Buddhas and Awakened
Ancestors, beyond the understanding and perception of anyone to question their
actions. Believing that one has realised what one hasn't is being possessed by
demons of delusion.
Those obsessed with their own personalities tire
easily and advance no further, claiming they are incapable. They would rather
cling to opinions than study and learn.
The two extremes of grasping and aversion are the
basis of choosing and rejection, of feelings and thoughts. Thus Caoshan severs
these with a single cut, The myriad thoughts obscure the subtle, wandering
mind loses the Path. And so we must abandon false teachings and teachers
to follow friends of virtue because false teachers only deepen our opinions and
views with their own.
The "Path" and
the "subtle" are
the Sun Face and Moon Face of luminosity, primordial Awareness. And yet when
within this luminosity a single stance is assumed, the mind wanders into
fabrication. These drifting clouds obscure the bright round moon of Awareness
and we "lose the
Path."
Feelings about the numberless things objectify and
block. The Buddha has said, Mind, Buddha, and living beings are not
three different things. He also said, There is only one
truth. Even though you encounter such teachings, you still fall into
delusions about self and other, noble and common, sacred and profane. Viewing
objects laid out before you, you consider forms and sounds as poverty and
wealth, loss and gain. And by holding on to these views, your practice is
infected by hope and fear.
"Attention
following multiplicity loses the primordially real."
The Buddha Dharma has manifested countless aspects
to work with the countless delusions of beings. Thus there are teachings great
and small, provisional and true, half and full, partial and complete, exoteric
and tantric, practices and doctrines, the Path of sages and the Path of the
Pure Land. It is not that there are not many aspects to the Teachings but that
if you do not understand the primordially real you wind up with only a
multiplicity of views.
Understand these words and you will be free of all
struggle as you always already were. The way you always already
were means to practice without attempting to fabricate some kind of
realization. Just sit still as formless form, without hesitation. If you adopt
any stance of attention you are not free of all struggle as you always
already were.
Shakyamuni Buddha said, There is nothing I have
gained from Dipamkara Buddha to realize complete and utter perfect
Awakening. In this saying we meet Dipamkara Buddha. These words say what
numberless words cannot say. Practice the nothing gained of
luminosity.
Monks of the present day who shave their heads and
wear black robes, following the ways of the Buddha, live their days and months
in the radiance that shines from the lamp of Dipamkara. Yet they never question
what Dipamkara Buddha, what this lamp, really is and so are not true monks.
Just decked out like those who have left home, they spend their time scrabbling
for donations like beggars and thieves.
If you say that you are not like this, then tell
me: What are the major and minor marks of Dipamkara Buddha? You might have
nothing to say but you can't say nothing, so right now: Say it! Say it!
It is regrettable that people think of Dipamkara
only as a Buddha of the past and do not realize that Dipamkara Buddha's
luminosity shines throughout the past, present, and future. So how could you
know then that this luminosity is presenting the Path and realizing release
right now in your nostrils and eyes?
The worst kind of students are just weary of birth
and death and want to move on to something else, some kind of nirvana, and
their practice is based on trying to attain some thing. Already bloated with
self-image they turn practice into a kind of greed and their neediness goes on
until they die. Teachers with no discernment praise this lot as diligent and
faithful practitioners and this reinforces their self-obsessiveness until they
are reborn as hungry ghosts.
From the very beginning, seeking concentration
states and viewing practice and realization as two different things is
different from the realized-practice of the harmonies and vast activity of the
Transmission of luminosity.
Master Baizhang31 said,
The
luminosity of mind shines alone, unentangled by sensory objectifications. Real
and unchanging, the essential manifests beyond the written teachings as the
stainless nature of Awareness, perfect and originally complete. Just release
objectification and it awakens into Suchness.
The luminosity of Awareness shines without ceasing
from the beginningless past through the endless future. This is vast
activity. Unentangled by sensory objectification, real and unchanging, the
essential manifests. This is the practice of alignment with radiance. Just
aligning with the Luminosity of Awareness, dwelling at ease in it, is the
supreme samadhi of shikantaza,
just sitting.
As soon as you claim that you have attained
anything then there is the matter of how much or how little, how deep or how
shallow. Clinging to appearances as things, you wind up turning practice into a
mere husk, seek for the Buddha as something somewhere, use words and language
to determine true and false. Grasping at appearances, your practice of the
perfection of generosity is understood as a means to acquire merit. Attempting
to purify delusions and manufacture virtues you struggle in mind and body and
congratulate yourself for your diligence. So what have you attained?
Putting aside brush and ink, avoiding others, and
sitting alone in an empty valley, eating bark and fruit, dressed in hemp robes,
sitting ceaselessly without lying down... If you are doing this to try to stop
the mind and return to some motionless condition, to try to cut away your
confusion and dwell in some absolute truth, to avoid samsaric conditions and
attain nirvanic ones, then this is just hope and fear arising from grasping.
So Yongjia said,
Don't grasp at 'voidness' and ignore cause and
effect;
such reckless confusion leads only to suffering.
Rejecting the truth and grasping at entities is
also a mistake,
it's like jumping into a fire to avoid drowning.
To reject delusion and grasp at the truth
suits perfectly the mind of like and dislike.
Students who practice this way,
it's like mistaking a thief as your own son.
Ignoring
the treasure of Reality and losing the merit
to Awaken self and others
is due to the eighth, seventh and sixth consciousnesses.
Monks, just throw the bodymind into the Treasury of
Luminosity, release the whole body into the ease of the luminosity of the
Awakened Ones and sit, walk, stand, and lie down inhering within it.
This is why the Buddha said, The children of
the Awakened Ones should just abide in this stage, the experiencing of
Awakening, and inhere within it, walking, sitting, lying down. These
golden words should always be remembered by those who aspire to be children of
the Awakened Ones. This stage means the Treasury of Luminosity, the
Single Path of Awake Awareness. Do not allow a single arising thought to stray from
this and follow objectification or the experience of Awake Awareness is
transformed into the animal realm of torporous fixation or the realm of hungry
ghosts of craving.
Now, about the major and minor marks and the place
of realization of Dipamkara Buddha, of Shakyamuni, of the seven Buddhas32 of this aeon
and the successive generations of Awakened Ancestors who have transmitted the
lamp of luminosity. Do you consider them to be far from you in time and place?
Or do you realize them to be right here and throughout all times? Do you know
anything about the jewelled stupa of serene radiance?33
You might understand that the reality of Awake
Awareness is open space, but if you just hold on to this statement and do
not penetrate past the cave of intellectual understandings and metaphors then
how can you become an Ancestor in this transmission of the luminosity of Awake
Awareness? This is just the yowling of jackals, tearing at the body of a fallen
lion.
If you do not see it through your own eyes then,
although you shave your heads and wrap yourselves in black robes, you are just
miserable deluded beings. Although you might be able to expound on a thousand
sutras and ten thousand classical commentaries you are just counting another's
treasures. You are like sailors who know there's something of value aboard but
do not know the price.
Tell me, right now: this shitting and pissing,
getting dressed and eating...who is it that does this? And what about the
sounds of rivers, the colours of the mountains, the coming and going of heat
and cold, blossoms in spring, the bright moon in autumn, the thousand changes
and numberless appearances? What is it that does this? Truly, this is a
wondrous face, its light illumining the ten directions. It is bondage
and liberation are like last night's faded dream. It is form is emptiness,
emptiness is form.
If you don't know this then you can say it
is sitting alone on this great, sublime peak,34 but this is
a lie, it is a corrupted teaching. You might hear about the silent
luminosity that pervades all times but never comes and goes, but it will
just be babbling without any meaning.
In speaking of the practice of the Single Path, the
Buddha taught,
Those
who grasp at a self and cling to appearances cannot understand my teaching.
Those who cultivate practices to elude life are barren fields. To cultivate the
seeds of Awakening to the luminosity that illuminates all worlds you should
investigate the truth of all things. They are unborn and ceaseless; are not
permanent and yet indestructible; are not one thing and yet not different; do
not come and go. Whether on the path of learning or having gone beyond
learning, do not contrive fragmented views.
This ancient teaching of the luminosity that
illumines all worlds should be engraved on your bones, right through to the
marrow. This is the subtle form of the vast activity that manifests the Buddhas
of the three times. If you yourself should practise this, you could unfold joy
for all beings.
However, looking around at monks these days,
because they base everything on their own narrow views although they polish it
day and night, they are just trying to rub through to get to something. Others
try to swat away wandering thoughts, hoping to clear things up by beating out
the flames, so that some mysteriously silent light will shine. If you think it
is just a matter of stopping thoughts then don't wood, stones, and mud already do
it better than you can? This is really the worst kind of student to have
because they drown themselves to avoid getting burned. Idiots. If you
grasp at the practices of the two vehicles, those with only a hearsay knowledge
of the Path35 and those who self-fabricate enlightenment
experiences,36 and the tendencies of usual people to realise
some supreme and magnificent enlightenment, you are just fooling yourselves.
So it is said,37
Those
who practice according to those two vehicles might be diligent but they do not
have the aspiration to actualise the Way. Those who live outside of what is
real might be clever but they don't understand anything. Deluded and foolish,
petty and cringing, they still look for something when I hold out my open hand.
To cultivate the mind or look for the mind like
this is just being obstructed by trying to figure it out and thus obscures the
primordial perfection of luminosity. It rejects the Buddha's own teachings and
creates the causes for falling into the Avici hell of dense contraction.
Countless abbots and teachers from the Tang dynasty
up until now have been swindling and fooling the masses with their defective
views, encouraging greed and poverty-based seeking. Isn't this regrettable? I
find it depressing. Even now, they wander about in their ghost caves, their
thieving little minds always scheming.
Some of these people have wrongly interpreted a
sudden shift in ki and certify it as Awakening. Or else someone might get up
some inspiration to sit ceaselessly without ever lying down, just wear
themselves out so that they lose all interest in anything and the activities of
bodymind congeal into a dullness that is then wildly interpreted as being the
single radiance which has no inside or out, the primordial ground, the only
true condition. Taking this experience to a dim-eyed teacher and presenting it
before them, these teachers cannot perceive it for what it is. Just agreeing
with them, they certify them as Zen Masters and senior practitioners.
Numberless practitioners of the Way who have
shallow minds and little understanding have fallen into this poison. Although
we say that it is the Dark Age, the End Time for Dharma, it's still depressing.
I sincerely offer these words of advice to those
who wish to truly practise:
Do not be pulled around by states of mind or
objects. Do not rely on intellectual knowledge. Don't show in your hands what
you receive on your seat in the Monks' Hall. Just throw body and mind into the
Great Treasury of Luminosity and don't look back.
Don't try to fabricate "enlightenment" or
hide from "delusion". Don't push away the arising of thoughts or
crave them; don't identify. Stably, calmly, practice shikantaza, just sitting.
If you do not propagate thoughts, they will not
continue themselves. Just breathing in. Just breathing out. Just so. Sitting
under the open sky, weightless as a flame. Even if eighty-four thousand
thoughts come and go, each will display itself as the luminosity of perfect
knowing itself if you do not hold to them and allow them to just go on their
own way.
This display of luminosity must not just be
something you experience in sitting but in each step. This step, this step, are
all the walking of luminosity. All through the day be dead to personal views or
fragmented thoughts.
Breathing in, breathing out, hearing, touching,
without thoughts of separation, is just the silent illumination38 of luminosity in which body and mind are
single. Thus, when someone calls, you immediately answer.
In this luminosity usual people and sages, deluded
and enlightened are one. In the midst of impermanence, this luminosity is
unobstructed. Forests, flowers, grasses, leaves; humans and animals; large or
small, long or short, square or round: all display themselves simultaneously,
free of discriminating thoughts or intention. This is luminosity unobstructed
in impermanence. Luminosity is its own open brilliance; it does not depend on
your mind.
Luminosity has no location. When Buddhas appear in
this universe, it does not arise with them. When Buddhas cease, luminosity does
not cease. When you are born, luminosity is not born; when you die, luminosity
does not die. Buddhas do not have more of it; sentient beings do not have less.
If you are deluded, it is not; if you are enlightened, it is not. It has no
rank, no form, and no name. This is the Body of Totality of all things.
You cannot grasp it; you cannot throw it away. It
is unattainable. Although it is unattainable, it penetrates this whole body.
From the highest heaven to the deepest hell, all realms are illuminated
perfectly. This is wondrous and inconceivably subtle luminosity.
If you trust and open to the meaning of these
words, you won't need to ask anyone what is right or wrong. You will intimately
realise reality as if you'd come face to face with your grandfather in the
village. Don't practise in order to receive a paper of certification from your
teacher or predictions about when you will become a Buddha. Even less so should
you be attached to clothes, food or home. Don't give in to attachment or
lustful cravings.
From beginninglessness, this samadhi is the seat of
Awakening, the Ocean of Awake Awareness. This zazen is the Buddha's own
practice, the sitting as Awake Awareness which is transmitted from Buddha to
Buddha. You are a child of the Awakened Ones, so sit calmly in his own seat.
Don't sit like a hell dweller, a hungry ghost or animal, a human being or
jealous beings, or shining beings, those with only hearsay knowledge or those
who fabricate enlightenment experiences. Just practice this just sitting
of shikantaza.
Do not waste time. This is the practice place of Ordinary Mind. This is the
complete practice of the Treasury of Luminosity. This is inconceivable freedom.
This essay should not be shown about but is only
for those of our Lineage who have "entered
the master's room." My only concern is that,
whether in one's own practice or in instructing others, there should be no
false or incomplete views.
Written at Eihei-ji
in the reign of Guta, August 28, 1278.
·
1.Dogen zenji's "Komyo" chapter in
Shobogenzo.
·
2.A reference to Dongshan Liangjie's "Jewel Mirror
Samadhi". See Chanting Breath and Sound, Great Matter Publications, 1994,
pg. 51.
·
3.Nyusshitsu.
·
4.The Mirror-like Wisdom, the Wisdom of Subtle
Penetration, the Wisdom of Equality, the All-accomplishing Wisdom.
·
5.Avatamsaka sutra.
·
6.Nento-butsu. Blazing Lamp Buddha.
·
7.Mahavairocana sutra.
·
8.This saying is attributed to Nagarjuna as will be
made clear later in the text. However, it is also strongly associated for the
Soto Lineage with the "Jewel Mirror samadhi."
·
9.Candrasuryapradipa.
·
10.Varaprabha.
·
11.The Blue Cliff Records, case 1.
·
12.Yunmen Wenyen (Yun-men Wen-yen; Ummon Bun'en), 864-949.
He appears in Blue Cliff Records 6, 8, 14, 15, 22, 27, 34, 39, 47, 50, 54, 60,
62, 77, 83, 86, 87, 88; Records of Silence 11, 19, 24, 26, 31, 40, 61, 64, 78,
82, 92, 99; Gateless Gate 15, 16, 21, 39, 48.
·
13.The Blue Cliff Records, case 86. See also Dogen's
consideration of this koan in "Komyo: Luminosity." Actually, Yunmen
begins by quoting a verse by Tanxia Tianren (739-824) and concludes it all by
shouting, "I'd rather have nothing!" See the Yunmen lu.
·
14.See Gateless Gate, case 45.
·
15.Chang Zhou's exact dates are unknown. The Five Lamps
With One Source (Wudeng huiyuan has this verse attributed to him:
The light shines silently through numberless
worlds,
sages and fools and all beings are in my abode.
When no thought arises, the whole world is exposed.
If the six senses move at all, they are blocked by clouds.
Trying to cut away delusion just makes it worse.
Seeking for the ultimate you are way off track.
Live this life without obstruction
and nirvana and birth and death are just colours in a dream.
·
16.Gateless Gate, case 39.
·
17.Xuefeng Yicun (Hsueh-feng I-ts'un; Seppo Gison),
822-908. He appears in Blue Cliff Records: Bi-yen lu 5, 22, 49, 51, and 66;
Records of Silence 24, 33, 50, 55, 63, 64, 92; Gateless Gate 13.
·
18.Changsha Jingcen Zhaoxien (Ch'ang-sha Ching-t'sen
Chao-hsien, Chosa Keishin), d. 868. A Dharma-heir of Nanquan Puyuan and
Dharma-brother of Zhaozhou Congren. He appears in Blue Cliff Records 36;
Records of Silence 79. See Dogen's Komyo and Jippo.
·
19.Again, see Dogen's "Komyo: Luminosity".
·
20.Zhaozhou Congshen (Chao-chou T'sung-shen; Joshu
Jushin), 778-897. He appears in Pi-en-lu (Hekiganroku) 2, 9, 30, 41, 45, 52,
57, 58, 59, 64, 80, and 96; Records of Silence 9, 10, 18, 39, 47, 57, 63;
Gateless Gate 1, 7, 11, 14, 19, 31, and 37.
·
21.Nanquan Puyan Nan-chu'uan P'u-yuan; Nansen Fugan),
748-835. He appears in Blue Cliff Records 28, 31, 40, 63, 64, 69; Records of
Silence 9, 10, 16, 23, 69, 79, 91, 93; Gateless Gate 14, 19, 27, 34.
·
22.Gateless Gate, case 19.
·
23.Unknown.
·
24.Yongjia (Yung-chia; Yoka), 665-713. A Tiantai master
who late in life received transmission from the Sixth Ancestor Huineng.
·
25.Shodoka: The Song of Freedom by Yoka daishi,
translated by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi, WWZC Archives 1987, 1994.
·
26.In the Mula Madhyamika-karika.
·
27.References to a parables in the Lotus Discourse.
·
28.The fifty-two stages of the Kegon school based on
the Flower Garland Discourse.
·
29.Caoshan Benyi (Ts'ao-shan Pen-yi; Sozan Honjaku),
840-901. He appears in the Records of Silence 73, 98; Gateless Gate 10. Major
Dharma-brother of Yunju Daoying.
·
30.Lingji Yixuan (Lin-chi I-hsuan; Rinzai Gigen), d.
867. He appears in Blue Cliff Records 20, 32; Records of Silence 13, 38, 80,
86, 95.
·
31.Baizhang Huaihai (Pai-chang Huai-hai; Hyakujo Ekai),
720-814. He appears in The Blue Cliff Records 26, 53, 70, 71, 72; Gateless Gate
2, 40; Records of Silence 8; Transmission of Reality 18.
·
32.Vipashyin Buddha, Sikhin Buddha, Vishvabhu Buddha,
Krakucchandu Buddha, Kanakamuni Buddha, Kashyapa buddha, Sakyamuni Buddha.
·
33.In a crucial passage of the Lotus Discourse, Chapter
11, a jewelled stupa appears in space.
·
34.The Blue Cliff Records and The Transmission of
Reality (Himitsu Shobogenzo) case 18.
·
35.Sravakas.
·
36.Pratyekabuddhas.
·
37.In the Lotus Discourse.
·
38.Mokushyo.
