(Record of HuangBo; Q&A exchange as recorded by Pei Xiu; translated by J. Blofeld)
[Q] What is implied by "seeing into the real Nature"?
That Nature and your perception of it are one. You cannot use it to see something over and above itself.
That Nature and your hearing of it are one. You cannot use it to hear something over and above itself.
If you form a concept of the true nature of anything as being visible or audible, you allow a dharma of distinction to arise.
Let me repeat that the perceived cannot perceive. Can there, I ask you, be a head attached to the crown of your head?
I will give you an example to make my meaning clearer: Imagine some loose pearls in a bowl, some large globules and some small. Each one is completely unaware of the others and none causes the least obstruction to the rest. During their formation, they did not say: "Now I am coming into being"; and when they begin to decay, they will not say: "Now I am decaying."
None of the beings born into the six forms of life through the four kinds of birth are exceptions to this rule.
Buddhas and sentient creatures have no mutual perception of each other.
The four grades of Theravādin adepts who are able to enter Nirvāņa do not perceive, nor are they perceived by Nirvāna. Those Theravādins who have reached the "three stages of holiness" and who possess the "ten excellent characteristics" neither perceive nor are perceived by Enlightenment.
So it is with everything else, down to fire and water, or earth and sky. These pairs of elements have no mutual perception of each other.
Sentient beings do not "enter" the Dharmadhātu, nor do the Buddhas "issue" from it. There is no coming and going within the Dharmatā, nor anything perceptible.
This being so, why this talk of "I see", "I hear", "I receive an intuition through Enlightenment", "I hear the Dharma from the lips of an Enlightened One", or of "Buddhas appearing in the world to preach the Dharma"?
Kātyāyana was rebuked by Vimalakīrti for using that transitory mentality which belongs to the ephemeral state to transmit the doctrine of the real existence of matter.
I assure you that all things have been free from bondage since the very beginning. So why attempt to explain them?
Why attempt to purify what has never been defiled?
Therefore it is written: "The Absolute is thusness—how can it be discussed?"
You people still conceive of Mind as existing or not existing, as pure or defiled, as something to be studied in the way that one studies a piece of categorical knowledge, or as a concept—any of these definitions is sufficient to throw you back into the endless round of birth and death.
The person who "perceives" things always wants to identify them, to get a hold on them.
Those who use their minds like eyes in this way are sure to suppose that progress is a matter of stages.
If you are that kind of person, you are as far from the truth as earth is far from heaven.
Why this talk of "seeing into your own nature"?
[Q] You say that our original nature and the act of seeing into it are one and the same' This can only be so if that nature is totally undifferentiated. Pray explain how it is that, even allowing that there are no real objects for us to perceive, nevertheless we do in fact see what is near to us and are unable to see what is far away.
This is due to a misunderstanding arising from your own delusions. You cannot argue that the Universal Nature does in fact contain real objects on the grounds that "no real objects to be perceived" would only be true if there were nothing of the kind we call "perceptible."
The nature of the Absolute is neither perceptible nor imperceptible; and with phenomena it is just the same. But to one who has discovered his real nature, how can there be anywhere or anything separate from it?
Thus, the six forms of life arising from the four kinds of birth, together with the great world-systems of the universe with their rivers and mountains, are all of one pure substance with our own nature.
Therefore is it said: "The perception of a phenomenon is the perception of the Universal Nature, since phenomena and Mind are one and the same."
It is only because you cling to outward forms that you come to "see", "hear", "feel" and "know" things as individual entities.
True perception is beyond your powers so long as you indulge in these.
By such means you will fall among the followers of the usual Mahāyāna and Theravādin doctrines who rely upon deep perception to arrive at a true understanding.
Therefore they see what is near and fail to see what is far away, but no one on the [true] Path thinks [like this].
I assure you there is no "inner" or "outer"; [no] "near" or "far".
The fundamental nature of all phenomena is close beside you, but you do not see even that; yet you still go on talking of your inability to see what is far away.
What meaning can this sort of talk possibly have?
[Q] What guidance does Your Reverence offer to those of us who find all this very difficult to understand?
I have nothing to offer.
I have never had anything to offer others.
It is because you allow certain people to lead you astray that you are forever seeking intuition and searching for understanding.
Isn't this a case of disciples and teachers all falling into the same insoluble muddle?
...
We are told that {Sudhana}, after vainly seeking Bodhi in a hundred and ten places within the twelvefold causal sphere, at last encountered Maitreya who sent him to Mañjuśrī.
Mañjuśrī here represents your primordial ignorance of reality.
If, as thought succeeds thought, you go on seeking for wisdom outside yourselves, then there is a continual process of thoughts arising, dying away and being succeeded by others.
And that is why all you monks go on experiencing birth, old age, sickness and death—building up karma which produces corresponding effects. For such is the arising and passing away of the ‘five bubbles' or, in other words, the five skandhas.
Ah, could you but restrain each single thought from arising, then would the Eighteen Sense Realms be made to vanish!
How godlike, then, your bodily rewards and how exalted the knowledge that would dawn within your minds!
A mind like that could be called the Terrace of the Spirit.
But while you remain lost in attachments, you condemn your bodies to be corpses or, as it is sometimes expressed, to be lifeless corpses inhabited by demons!
[Q] "Vimalakīrti dwells in silence. Mañjuśrī offers praise." How can they have really entered the Gateway of Non-Duality?
The Gateway of Non-Duality is your original Mind.
Speech and silence are relative concepts belonging to the ephemeral sphere.
When nothing is said, nothing is manifested.
That is why Mañjuśrī offered praise.
[Q] Vimalakīrti did not speak. Does this imply that sound is subject to cessation?
Speech and silence are one!
There is no distinction between them.
Therefore is it written: "Neither the true nature nor the root of Mañjuśrī's hearing are subject to cessation."
Thus, the sound of the Tathāgata's voice is everlasting, nor can there be any such reality as the time before he began to preach or the time after he finished preaching.
The preaching of the Tathāgata is identical with the Dharma he taught, for there is no distinction between the preaching and the thing preached; just as there is none between such varied phenomena as the Glorified and Revealed Bodies of a Buddha, the Bodhisattvas, the Śrāvakas, the world-systems with their mountains and rivers, or water, birds, trees, forests and the rest.
The preaching of the Dharma is at one and the same time both vocal and silent.
Though one talks the day long, no word is spoken.
This being so, only silence belongs to the Essential.
[Q] Is it true that the Śrāvakas can only merge their forms into the formless sphere which still belongs to the transitory Triple World, and that they are incapable of losing themselves utterly in Bodhi?
Yes. Form implies matter.
Those saints (the Sravakas) are only proficient in casting off worldly views and activities, by which means they escape from worldly delusions and afflictions.
They cannot lose themselves utterly in Bodhi; thus, there is still the danger that demons may come and pluck them from within the orbit of Bodhi itself.
Aloofly seated in their forest dwellings, they perceive the Bodhi-Mind but vaguely.
Whereas those who are vowed to become Bodhisattvas and who are already within the Bodhi of the Three Worlds, neither reject nor grasp at anything.
Non-grasping, it were vain to seek them upon any plane; non-rejecting, demons will strive in vain to find them.
Nevertheless, with the merest desire to attach yourselves to this or that, a mental symbol is soon formed, such symbols in turn giving rise to all those "sacred writings" which lead you back to undergo the various kinds of rebirth.
So let your symbolic conception be that of a void (lit., "the empty sky"), for then the wordless teaching of Zen will make itself apparent to you.
Know only that you must decide to eschew all symbolizing whatever, for by this eschewal is "symbolized" the Great Void (lit., "Empty Sky") in which there is neither unity nor multiplicity—that Void which is not really void, that Symbol which is no symbol.
Then will the Buddhas of all the vast world-systems manifest themselves to you in a flash; you will recognize the hosts of squirming, wriggling sentient beings as no more than shadows!
Continents as innumerable as grains of dust will seem no more to you than a single drop in the great ocean.
To you, the profoundest doctrines ever heard will seem but dreams and illusions.
You will recognize all minds as One and behold all things as One—including those thousands of sacred books and myriads of pious commentaries!
All of them are just your One Mind.
Could you but cease your groping after forms, all these true perceptions would be yours!
Therefore is it written: "Within the Thusness of the One Mind, the various means to Enlightenment are no more than showy ornaments."
[Q] The Sūtras teach that the fettering of passions and illusions produced during millions of kalpas is a sufficient means of obtaining the Dharmakāya, even without going through the stage of being monks. What does this mean?
If you practice "means" of attaining Enlightenment for three myriad aeons but without losing your belief in something really attainable, you will still be as many aeons from your goal as there are grains of sand in the Ganges.
But if, by a direct perception of the Dharmakāya's true nature, you grasp it in a flash, you will have reached the highest goal taught in the Three Vehicles.
Why?
Because the belief that the Dharmakāya can be obtained belongs to the doctrines of those sects which do not understand the truth.
Submitted July 11, 2020 at 07:02PM by ZEROGR33N https://ift.tt/3299oJo
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