[Long read, no commentary warning]
Source: https://terebess.hu/zen/fayan.html
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1. On False Assumption of Teacherhood Without Having Cleared One’s Own Mind Ground
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The teaching of the mind ground is the basis of Zen study. What is the mind ground? It is the great awareness of those who arrive at suchness.
From no beginning, a moment of confusion mistaking things for oneself, craving and desire flare up, and you flow in the waves of birth and death. The radiance of awareness is dimmed, covered up by ignorance; routines of behavior push you on, so you cannot be free.
Once you have lost human status, you cannot restore it. That is why the buddhas emerged in the world with so many expedient methods; if you get stuck on expressions and pursue words, you will fall back into eternalism or nihilism. Through the compassion of the Zen masters, the mind seal was communicated unalloyed, so that people could transcend the ordinary and the sacred at once, without going through stages; it just got them to awaken on their own and sever the root of doubt forever.
People of recent times take a lot lightly. They may enter communes, but they are lazy about pursuing intense inquiry. Even if they develop concentration, they do not select a true master; through the mistakes of false teachers, like them they lose direction to the ultimate. They have not comprehended the faculties and fields of sense, so they have false understandings that lead them into deluded states, where they lose the true basis completely.
Concerned only with hurriedly striving for leadership, they are falsely called teachers; while they value an empty reputation in the world, how can they consider the fact that they are bringing ill upon themselves? Not only do they deafen and blind people of later times, but they also cause the current teaching to degenerate. Having climbed to the high and wide seat of a spiritual master, instead they lie on iron bedsteads, suffering the final shame of Chunda [whose offering caused the death of Buddha], forced to drink molten copper.
Beware! It is not good to be complacent with oneself. The punishment consequent on slandering the Great Vehicle is not minor.
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2. On Factional Sectarianism and Failure to Penetrate Controversies
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The Zen founder did not come from India to China because there is something to be transmitted. He just pointed directly to the human mind for the perception of its essence and realization of awakening. How could there be any sectarian style to be valued?
Nevertheless, the provisional teachings devised by the guides to the source had differences and accordingly came to differ from one another. For example, the two masters Hui-neng and Shen-hsiu had the same teacher, but their perceptions and understandings differed. Hence the world referred to them as the Southern School and the Northern School.
Once Hui-neng was gone, there were two teachers, Hsingssu and Huai-jang, who continued his teaching. Hsing-ssu taught Hsi-ch’ien, and Huai-jang taught Ma-tsu. Ma-tsu was also called Chiang-hsi, and Hsi-ch’ien was also called Shih-t’ou.
From these two branches diverged individual lineages, each occupying a region. The outflow of the original streams cannot be recorded in full. When it got to Te-shan, Lin-chi, Kuei-shan and Yang-shan, Ts’ao-shan and Tung-shan, Hsueh-feng, Yun-men, and so on, each school had established devices, with higher and lower gradations.
But when it came to continuation, their descendants maintained sects and factionalized their ancestries. Not basing themselves on reality, eventually they produced many sidetracks, contradicting and clashing with one another, so that the profound and the shallow became indistinguishable.
Unfortunately, they still do not realize that the Great Way takes no sides; streams of truth are all of the same flavor. These sectarians spread embellishments in empty space and stick needles in iron and stone, taking disputation for superknowledge and lip-flapping for meditation. Sword-points of approval and disapproval arise, and mountains of egotism toward others stand tall. In their anger they become monsters, their views and interpretations ultimately turning them into outsiders. Unless they meet good friends, they will hardly be able to get out of the harbor of delusion. They bring on bad results, even from good causes.
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3. On Teaching and Preaching Without Knowing the Bloodline
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If you want to expound the vehicle to the source and bring out the essentials of the Teaching, unless you know the bloodline all you are doing is wrongly propagating heresies.
In this context, there is first extolling and then upholding, criticizing, or praising doctrines, snapping the thrust of intellect. When one is in charge of carrying out the imperative of Zen, enlivening and killing are in one’s hands.
Sometimes one stands like a mile-high wall, totally inaccessible, or sometimes one may consent to let go temporarily and follow the waves. Like a king wielding a sword, the ideal is to attain autonomy.
Active function is a matter of appropriate timing; one grants or deprives like a grand general. Waves leap, peaks tower, lightning flashes, and wind rushes; the elephant king strolls, the true lion roars.
We often see those who do not assess their own strength but steal the words of others. They know how to let go but not how to gather in; they may have enlivening, but they have no killing. They do not distinguish servant from master or true from false; they insult the ancients and bury the essence of Zen.
Everyone figures and calculates in their conceptual faculties, speculating and searching within compounded elements of mind and matter. Since they are ignorant of the enlightenment right before their eyes, they attain only imitation insight.
How could it be an easy matter to set up the banner of the teaching on a nonabiding basis, to preach in the place of Buddha? Have you not seen how the great master Yun-men said, “In all of China it is hard to find anyone at all who can bring up a saying”?
And have you not seen how Master Huang-po said, “Grand Master Ma produced over eighty teachers; when questioned, each spoke fluently, but only Master Lu-shan amounts to anything”?
Thus we know that when one takes up this position, if one understands how to give direction and guidance, then one is a complete Zen master. How do we know this? Have you not seen how an ancient said, “Know the soil by the sprouts; know people by what they say”? One is already revealed at once even in blinking the eyes and raising the brows; how much the more in being an examplar. How could one not be careful?
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4. On Giving Answers Without Observing Time and Situation and Not Having the Eye of the Source
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Anyone who would be a guide to the source first distinguishes the false from the true. Once the false and the true have been distinguished, it is also essential that the time and situation be understood. It is, furthermore, necessary to speak with the eye of the source, able to make a point and to respond without inconsistency.
Thus, although there is nothing personal in a statement, we still make provisional use of discernment of the aim within words. The Ts’ao-Tung has “knocking and calling out” for its function, the Lin-chi has “interchange” for its working; Yunmen “contains, covers, and cuts off the flows”; while the Kuei-Yang silently matches square and round. Like a valley echoing melodies, like matching talismans at a pass, although they are different in their manners, that does not inhibit their fluid integration.
In recent generations, Zen teachers have lost the basis; students have no guidance. They match wits egotistically and take what is ephemeral for an attainment. Where is the heart to guide others? No longer do we hear of knowledge to destroy falsehood. Caning and shouting at random, they say they have studied Te-shan and Lin-chi; presenting circular symbols to each other, they claim they have deeply understood Kuei-shan and Yang-shan.
Since they do not handle the all-embracing source in their answers, how can they know the essential eye in their actions? They fool the young and deceive the sagacious. Truly they bring on the laughter of objective observers and call calamity upon their present state. This is why the Overnight Illuminate said, “If you do not want to incur hellish karma, do not slander the Buddha’s true teaching.”
People like this cannot be all told of. They just leave their teachers’ heritage without any insight of their own. Having no basis upon which to rely, their restless consciousness is unclear. They are only to be pitied, but it is hard to inform them of this.
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5. On Discrepancy between Principle and Fact, and Failure to Distinguish Defilement and Purity
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The schools of the enlightened ones always include both principle and fact. Facts are established on the basis of principle, while principle is revealed by means of facts. Principles and facts complement one another like eyes and feet. If you have facts without principle, you get stuck in the mud and cannot get through; if you have principle without facts, you will be vague and without resort. If you want them to be nondual, it is best that they be completely merged.
Take the example of the manner of the House of Ts’ao-Tung: they have the relative and absolute, light and darkness. The Lin-chi have host and guest, substance and function. Although their provisional teachings are not the same, their bloodlines commune. There is not one that does not include the others; when mobilized, all are mustered. It is also like Contemplation of the Realm of Reality, which discusses both noumenal principle and phenomenal fact, refuting both inherent solidity and voidness.
The nature of the ocean is boundless, yet it is contained in the tip of a hair; the polar mountain is enormous, yet it can be hidden in a seed. Surely it is not the perception of saints that makes it thus; the design of reality is just so. It is not miraculous display of supernatural powers, either, or forced appellations of something false by nature. It is not to be sought from another; it all comes from mind’s creation.
Buddhas and sentient beings are equal, so if you do not realize this truth, there will be idle discussion, causing the defiled and the pure to be indistinct and the true and the false to be undifferentiated. Relative and absolute get stuck in interchange; substance and function are mixed up in spontaneity. This is described in these terms: “If a single thing is not clear, fine dust covers the eyes.” If one cannot eliminate one’s own illness, how can one cure the diseases of others? You should be most careful and thoroughgoing; it is certainly not a trivial matter.
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6. On Subjective Judgment of Ancient and Contemporary Sayings Without Going Through Clarification
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Once people have joined an association for intensive study, they must select a teacher and then associate with good companions. A teacher is needed to point out the road; companions are valuable for refinement. If you only want self-understanding, then how can you lead on younger students and bring out the teaching of the school? Where is the will to deal with people to their benefit?
Observe how the worthies of the past traversed mountains and seas, not shrinking from death or life, for the sake of one or two sayings. When there was the slightest tinge of doubt, the matter had to be submitted to certain discernment; what they wanted was distinct clarity. First becoming standards of truth versus falsehood, acting as eyes for humanity and the angels, only after that did they raise the seal of the school on high and circulate the true teaching, bringing out the rights and wrongs of former generations, bearing down on inconclusive cases.
If you make your own subjective judgment of past and present without having undergone purification and clarification, how is that different from performing a sword dance without having learned how to handle a sword, or foolishly counting on getting across a pit without having sized it up? Can you avoid cutting your hand or falling?
One who chooses well is like a king goose picking out milk from water; one who chooses poorly is like a sacred tortoise leaving tracks. Especially in this context, where there is negative and positive activity and expression of mutual interchange, to come to life in a way that turns morbid is to relegate the absolute to the relative. It is not right to give rein to the unruly mind and use it as it is to try to fathom the meaning of the sages. This is especially true in view of the fact that the essence of the one-word teaching has myriad methods of setting up teachings. Can we not be careful of this, to prevent opposition?
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7. On Memorizing Slogans Without Being Capable of Subtle Function Meeting the Needs of the Time
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It is not that there is no guidance for students of transcendent insight, but once you have gotten guidance, it is essential that expanded function actually appear; only then do you have a little bit of intimate realization. If you just stick to a school and memorize slogans, it is not penetrating enlightenment at all, but mere intellectual knowledge.
This is why the ancients said, “When your view equals your teacher, you have less than half your teacher’s virtue. Only when your view is beyond your teacher can you bring out the teacher’s teaching.” The Sixth Patriarch, furthermore, said to Elder Ming, “What I have told you is not something secret; the secret is within you.” And Yen-t’ou said to Hsueh-feng, “Everything flows forth from your own heart.”
So we know that speaking, caning, and hollering do not depend on a teacher’s bequest; how could the marvelous function, free in all ways, demand another’s assent?
When you degrade them, pearls and gold lose their beauty; when you prize them, shards and pebbles shine. If you go when and as you should go, principle and fact are both mastered; if you act when and as you should act, there is not the slightest miss.
The stuff of a real man is not for sissies. Don’t be a servile literalist and get stuck on verbal expressions as if this were the manner of Zen, or flap your lips and beat your gums as if this were sublime understanding. This cannot be penetrated by language or known by thought. Wisdom comes out in the village of infinite nothingness; spirituality is found in the realm of unfathomability. Where dragons and elephants tread is not within the capability of asses.
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8. On Failure to Master the Scriptures and Adducing Proofs Wrongly
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Whoever would bring out the vehicle of Zen and cite the doctrines of the Teaching must first understand what the Buddha meant, then accord with the mind of Zen masters. Only after that can you bring them up and put them into practice, comparing degrees of closeness.
If, in contrast, you do not know the doctrines and principles but just stick to a sectarian methodology, when you adduce proofs readily but wrongly, you will bring slander and criticism on yourself.
Yet the canon of sutras is nothing but pointing out tracks; the complete all-at-once Higher Vehicle is just like a signpost. Even if you can understand a hundred thousand concentrations and countless doctrines and methods, you only increase your own toil and do not get at the issue.
What is more, comprehending the provisional and returning to the absolute, gathering the outgrowths back to the source, not admitting a single atom in the realm of absolute purity while not rejecting anything in the methodology of enlightened activity, inevitably deciding the case on the basis of the facts, getting to the substance and removing the complications, has no connection whatsoever with the source of Zen.
There are many great people who are experts in the scriptures, real devotees of broad knowledge of the ancients, who flaunt their eloquence like sharp blades and set forth their wealth of learning like stocks in a storehouse; when they get here, they must be taught to be still and silent, so that the road of speech cannot be extended. Finding that all their memorization of words and phrases has been an account of others’ treasures, for the first time they will believe in the specialty of Zen, which is the separate transmission outside of doctrine.
Younger people should not bog themselves down, incurring the derision of others and disgracing the way of Zen. Do not say you do not need cultivation, or consider a little bit enough. Since you do not even understand the outgrowths, how can you realize the root?
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9. On Indulging in Making Up Songs and Verses Without Regard for Meter and Without Having Arrived at Reality
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There are many styles of song and verse in Zen; some are short, some long, some modern, some ancient. They use sound and form to reveal practical application, or call on events to express states. Some follow principle to talk of reality; some oppose the trend of affairs to rectify customs and morals.
Thus, although their approaches are different—which is inevitable, since their inspirations were different—they all bring out the great cause. Together they extol the meditations of the Buddha, inspiring students of later times and criticizing the intelligent people of former times. In each case, the main meaning is in the words, so how could it be proper to compose them arbitrarily?
Sometimes I see established Zen teachers and advanced students of meditation who consider songs and verses to be leisure pursuits and consider composition to be a trivial matter. They spit out whatever they feel, and in many cases their works are similar to vulgar sayings. Composed on impulse, they are just like common talk.
These people say of themselves that they are not concerned by coarseness and are not picky about grubbiness; they are thus trying to suggest that theirs are words beyond worldly convention, advertising them as hearkening back to ultimate truth. The knowledgeable laugh in derision when they read them, while fools believe in them and circulate them. They cause the principles of names to gradually disappear, and add to the growing weakness of the doctrinal schools.
Have you not seen the tens of thousands of verses of the Flower Ornament Scripture and the thousands of poems of the Zen masters? Both are profuse and vivid, with elegant language; all of them are refined and pure, without padding. They are hardly the same as imitation of worldly customs with all their fripperies.
For writing to be a pathway in later times and true in the mouths of the multitudes, it is still necessary to study precedents, and then it is essential to suit it to the occasion. If you happen to have little natural ability, then you should be natural and content with simplicity; why pretend to genius or aspire to intellectual brilliance?
If you spout vulgar inanities, you disturb the influence of the Way. Weaving miserable misconceptions, you cause trouble. Unconvincing falsehoods will increase later disgrace.
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10. On Defending One’s Own Shortcomings and Indulging in Contention
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As the land is full of religious communes and the Zen societies are extremely numerous, with communities numbering not less than half a thousand gathered there, are there not one or two working for the furtherance of the Teaching?
There are some people among them who embrace the Way, people of pure conduct, who agree to temporarily go along with the feelings of the community and exert their strength to continue the Zen teaching, gather colleagues from all over, and establish a site of enlightenment in one region. With morning questioning and even assembly, they do not shy away from toil and hardship, wanting only to continue the life of wisdom of the buddhas, guiding beginners.
They do not do it for the sake of increasing fame or out of greed for profit and support; rather, like a bell ringing when struck, they dispense medicine when they encounter illness. Showering the rain of the Teaching, they have no bias toward great or small; as they sound the thunder of the Teaching, far and near all respond. Their prosperity or austerity naturally varies, their activity and concealment differ; but this is not on account of choosiness or because of attachment and rejection.
There are those who inherit succession by sycophancy, who hold position by stealing rank and then claim to have attained the highest vehicle and to have transcended mundane things. They defend their own shortcomings and derogate the strengths of others. Fooling around in cocoons of ignorance, they smack their lips in front of meat markets. Emphasizing their temporal power, they take pride in glibness.
They gossip and call that compassion; they are sloppy and call that virtue in action. Violating Buddhist prohibitions and precepts, abandoning the dignity of the religious community, they disparage the Two Vehicles and wrongly dispense with the three studies. What is more, they fail to investigate the great matter, yet approve of themselves as masters.
Thus, at the end of the age of imitation, the demons are strong and the Teaching is weak. They use the Buddha’s robe of righteousness to steal the benevolence and dignity of kings. Their mouths speak of the basis of liberation, but their minds play with the obsessions of ghosts and spirits. Since they have no shame or conscience, how can they avoid wrongdoing?
Now I have exposed these folks to warn people in the future. Meeting with a chance for wisdom is not a small matter; choosing a teacher is most difficult. If you can bear the responsibility yourself, eventually you will fulfill maximum potential. I am forcibly dispensing a stunning medicine, willing to be subjected to slander and hatred, so that people on the same path may be assisted in awakening
Submitted June 15, 2019 at 12:05PM by FlameBlood http://bit.ly/2MQAKOn
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