Enlightenment Without a Teacher

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From The Measuring Tap, translated by Thomas Cleary

Case:

Yongjia circling with his staff When great master Yongjia came to the sixth patriarch, he circled the Chan seat three times, shook his ringed staff once, and stood there upright.  [Where fish go, the water is turbid.]

The patriarch said, “A monk has three thousand standards of dignified bearing and eighty thousand refined behaviors.  [A master of great method skillfully arrests and skillfully releases.]

Great worthy, where do you come from, to give rise to great arrogance?”  [Convenience doesn’t inhibit people.]

Xuedou then shouted and said, “If he had given this shout at that time, he could have avoided a dragon head with a snake’s tail.”   [He draws his bow after the thief has gone.]

Xuedou again cited the circling of the Chan seat thrice, shaking the ringed staff, and standing there upright:  [When birds fly by, feathers fall.] 

in the patriarch’s place he said, “I hit you thirty times before you even got here.”  [This too is raising waves where there is no wind.]

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Commentary:

Yuanwu said, ​Great master Yongjia was originally a lecturer on the scripture Vimalakirti’s Advice.  He was enlightened by himself through lecturing on Vimalakirti’s Advice, and his talks amazed people. 

It so happened that Chan master Ce of the sixth patriarch’s community attended Yongjia’s lectures in the course of his travels, and was delighted; he saw that Yongjia’s lectures were not the same as the views and interpretations of ordinary lecturers. 

So when the lectures were over, he inquired into Yongjia’s state of mind, and what he said was all the same as the Chan patriarchs. 

Ce said, “You have realized mind; who was your teacher? 

Whose approval did you get?” 

Yongjia said, “I listened to the Vaipulya and Vimalakirti scriptures and treatises; I didn’t get it from any teacher.  I realized the source of the enlightened mind from the scripture of Vimalakirti; no one testified. 

Ce said, “You’ve attained before the prehistoric Buddhas; all who awaken on their own without a teacher after the prehistoric Buddhas are naturalist outsiders.”  

Yongjia said, “Please certify realization for me.” 

Ce said, “My word is insignificant; there is the sixth patriarch in Caoqi, where people gather in droves from the four quarters, all of them receiving teaching.” 

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There is more to the commentary but I've omitted it so as to not spam everyone with an even bigger wall of text.

Submitted October 20, 2019 at 04:15AM by Nimtrix1849 https://ift.tt/2Mx84aQ