One day, on the mountain, Master Hui'ke met a lay practitioner with a skin disease. The layman asked the master: "This disciple's body is bound up in illness. Master, please help me repent for my sins."
The Master said: "Bring me your sins and I will absolve them for you."
The layman said: "Looking for my sins, I can't find them anywhere."
The Second Patriarch said: "There, I have absolved your sins. From now on live in reliance on your true nature, on practice, and on spiritual community."
Master Hui'ke ordained the layman and gave him the name Sengcan.
...
Sengcan's "Details of the Mysterious Transmission"
There is only the vast depths of the One Reality. Ah, for the profuse diversity of the myriad forms. True and conventional differ, but their essential body is the same. Ordinary and sage are divided, but the Path joins them. If we look for a shore, it is vast and boundless, stretching out of sight to infinity. (1) It takes its source in the beginningless and reaches its limit in the endless. This runs through both liberation and delusion alike: both defiled and pure are fused in this. It includes emptiness and existence with perception still: it embraces space and time with pervasive sameness. It is like the pure gold that is not apart from the rings [made of it]. It is like a mass of water that does not fear surface ripples. (2)
It is like water making waves, like gold making vessels. The gold is the substance of the vessel, so no vessel is not gold. The waves are the functioning of the water, so no waves are different from the water. We observe nonobstruction amid causal origination and are certain about the inconceivability of the nature of things. (3) It is like pearls hanging down from a jeweled palace, like mirrors hung from an agate pedestal. This and that differ, but they enter into each other. Red and purple are separate, but they reflect each other. With things, we are not stuck on self and others; with events, we do not weigh crooked and straight.
An infinitesimally small space contains all the phenomena of the great thousand-world system. An instant of time includes all the times of past, present and future. Fearing that few will believe such words, we use Indra's Net to remove doubts. (4) The universal eye can see this, but how can deluded consciousness come to know it?
Though large and small differ, they are like images in a mirror that enter into each other. Though this and that differ, they are like the mutually reflected shapes of the jewels [in Indra's Net]. One thing is everything, everything is one thing. Causal origination has no obstructions: inner truth is clear in each and every thing. Thus we know that however broad the cosmos, it can fit into an atom of dust without being cramped. However long past, present and future are, they can be contained a brief moment. Thus we can see through metal walls, observing that there is nothing to be measured; we can pass through stone walls without any obstruction.
Thereby do the sages find inner truth and perfect their functioning. (5) If inner truth did not let them be so, the sages would not have such power. Liberation is penetration through inner truth. Obstruction is due to blockage by sentiments. The wisdom of the universal eye can see things as they really are.
When the monkey wears chains, he stops his restless movement. When the snake enters a tube, he straightens out his curves. Cross the vast sea with the boat of discipline. Illuminate the thick darkness with the lamp of wisdom.
...
When Daoxin [the Fourth Patriarch] was fourteen, he came to see Sengcan, saying to the latter: "I beg the master to have mercy. Please instruct me on how to achieve release."
The master said: "Is there someone who constrains you?"
Daoxin said: "There is no such person."
The master said: "Why then seek release when you are constrained by no one?" (6)
...
Sengcan told Daoxin: "The Lotus Sutra says that there is just this one thing [the Buddha vehicle, leading to the perception of Buddhas]: there is really no second and no third. Thus we know that the Path of Sages is profound and pervasive, something that verbal explanations cannot reach. The body of reality is empty and still, something that seeing and hearing cannot touch. Thus written and spoken words are vain constructs."
...
The Great Teacher Sengcan said: "Everyone else thinks it is noble to die sitting: they sigh at such a marvel. Now I will die standing, independent of birth and death." His words finished, he held on to the branch of a tree as his breath gently ended.
...
[Transmission stories for Sengcan and Daoxin taken from Wu-deng-hui-yuan. "Details of the Mysterious Transmission" & Sengcan's death were recorded by Xuanze; included in the Record of the Masters and Disciples of the Laṅkāvatāra School; translated by J.C. Cleary]
...
(1) A common metaphor for attaining nirvana is 'reaching the other shore' (Prajnaparamita sutra), 'crossing over the flood/the sea of delusions', etc.
(2) This recalls the metaphor of the alaya-vijnana as a boundless sea in the Laṅkāvatāra Sutra, with the result of karmic consciousness and the resultant projections of mind likened to waves. We might also recall the numerous Zen masters who enjoyed using the phrase, 'raising waves where there is no wind'.
(4) Within Indra's Jeweled Net, an infinite number of reflective jewels are all reflecting one another; in turn, they reflect one another reflecting each other, and so on, ad infinitum.
(5) "Essence" vs. "Function" was an important distinction in Chinese philosophy, alluded to earlier in the metaphors of gold as the essence and gold rings as the function, or waves as the function whereas the water is the essence. Bodhidharma says that there are two means of entry, by "Principle" and by "Practice" which McRae argues corresponds to this idea. A great deal of "Zen dialectic" has been an attempt to balance, synthesize, or otherwise make sense of the relationship between inner and outer, true nature and comportment in the world, etc.
(6) We may note that the first three transmission stories (from Bodhidharma to Hui'ke to Sengcan to Daoxin) are virtually identical, with only the object of the respective patriarch's (perceived) obstruction changing ("mind", "sins", "bonds"). Historically, we know very little about Sengcan; the Record of the Lanka School says he "concealed himself on Sikong Mountain". Given that around this time there was a purge of Buddhism going on and legend has it that his predecessor was lynched, this is perhaps unsurprising; what is surprising is Daoxin coming onto the scene with land, a monastery and a decent number of students. In terms of hard evidence, we have very little to connect the earliest masters of Chan (Bodhidharma, Hui'ke) with the Patriarchs who would later be called "Northern School" (Daoxin, Hongren).
See also: Faith in the Heart/Mind
-es
Submitted December 08, 2017 at 11:07PM by essentialsalts http://ift.tt/2AFYefz
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