If You Meet the Buddha, Kill the Buddha

Someone asked: "What are the three eye-lands?" The master said: "Together with you I enter the land of pure subtlety, put on the robe of purity, and expound the dharma-body buddha; I enter the land of non-differentiation, put on the robe of non-differentiation, and expound the reward-body buddha; I enter the land of liberation, put on the robe of light, and expound the transformation-body buddha. These three eye-lands are all matters of dependent transformation. The scholars of the sūtras and treatises take the dharma-body as the root, with the reward- and transformation-bodies as its function; as I see it, the dharma-body cannot expound the Dharma at all. That is why the ancients said: 'The body is established by way of meaning; the land is discussed by way of substance.' The dharma-nature body and the dharma-nature land are clearly an established dharma, a land of dependent penetration — an empty fist, a yellow leaf, used to fool little children. What juice could you find by squeezing thorns and thistles, or dry bones? Outside of mind there is no dharma, and nothing can be found within either — so what are you looking for? You people say everywhere: 'The Way has cultivation, the Way has realization.' Do not make this mistake: even supposing there were something to attain, it would be nothing but the karma of birth and death. You say the six perfections and ten thousand practices must be cultivated together, but as I see it, all of this is only creating karma. Seeking the Buddha, seeking the Dharma, is creating the karma of hell; seeking the bodhisattva is likewise creating karma; reading the sūtras and studying the teachings is likewise creating karma. Buddhas and patriarchs are people with nothing to do — hence the "outflow" and "conditioned" on one side, the "no-outflow" and "unconditioned" on the other, are alike simply pure karma. There is a type of blind, shave-pated fool who, once he has eaten his fill, sits in meditation practicing contemplation, gripping down on every thought to keep it from arising, wearying of noise and seeking quiet — this is the way of a non-Buddhist. A patriarch said: 'If you dwell the mind to watch stillness, raise the mind to illuminate outwardly, gather the mind to clarify inwardly, concentrate the mind to enter concentration — all such practices are nothing but contrivance.' How, then, should you — the very person listening to this Dharma right now — go about cultivating it, realizing it, adorning it? It is simply not a thing that can be cultivated, not a thing adornment can be applied to. Yet if you did try to adorn it, every single thing could be adorned by it — do not make this mistake either."

Followers of the Way! You take the words from the mouth of some ordinary teacher as the true Way, thinking such a good teacher inconceivable. "I have only an ordinary man's mind," you say, "I dare not fathom that venerable elder." Blind fools! You spend your whole lives forming exactly this kind of view, betraying this very pair of eyes you have, shivering there like a donkey's colt stuck fast on the ice. "I dare not disparage a good teacher," you say, "for fear of creating the karma of speech." Followers of the Way! A truly great good teacher is exactly the one who dares to disparage Buddha and disparage the patriarchs, pass judgment on the whole world, cast aside the Tripiṭaka's teachings, revile every young monk, and seek out the person in the very midst of praise and blame alike. That is why, for twelve years, I searched for a single karmic trace in myself, and could not find so much as a mustard seed's worth. Someone like the timid "bride" kind of Chan teacher is forever afraid of being driven from the monastery, of being denied food, of being left uneasy and unhappy. Since ancient times, wherever the elders went, people at first refused to believe in them; only once they were driven out did people finally know them for worthy. If everyone everywhere simply approves of you, what good are you? Hence, when the lion roars once, the wild jackal's brain splits open. Followers of the Way! Everywhere people say there is a Way to cultivate, a Dharma to realize. Tell me — what dharma would you realize? What way would you cultivate? What is lacking in your own activity right now? What is there to repair? Young novices who do not understand this go and believe in this kind of wild-fox spirit, letting it bind them with its talk, saying that only by matching one's conduct to principle and guarding the three karmic actions can buddhahood be attained — talk like this is no more than a fine spring drizzle. The ancients said: "If you meet a person who has reached the Way on the road, above all do not address him with talk of the Way." Hence it is said: if a person cultivates the Way, the Way does not proceed; ten thousand kinds of deviant realms compete to spring up; once the sword of wisdom comes out, there is not a single thing left; before the bright side has even shown itself, the dark side is already bright. Hence the ancients said: "The ordinary mind is the Way."

Worthies! What is it you are looking for? The person of no reliance who is right now listening to this Dharma is vividly clear and distinct, never lacking in anything at all. If you want to be no different from the patriarchs and buddhas, simply see it this way, and harbor no doubt or confusion. Your mind, moment after moment, is not different — this is called the living patriarch. If mind ever becomes different, then nature and characteristic become separate; because mind is not different, nature and characteristic are not separate either."

Someone asked: "What is the place where mind, moment after moment, is not different?" The master said: "The moment you try to ask about it, it has already become different — nature and characteristic have already split apart. Followers of the Way, do not make this mistake. All worldly and world-transcending dharmas alike have no fixed nature of their own, and no nature of arising either — they have only empty names, and even the names themselves are empty. You simply take these idle names as real — a great mistake. Suppose there were such a thing, it would only be a state of dependent transformation. There is a bodhi to rely on, a nirvāṇa to rely on, a liberation to rely on, three bodies to rely on, an object and a wisdom to rely on, a bodhisattva to rely on, a buddha to rely on. What are you looking for, in these lands of dependent transformation? Even the twelve divisions of the three vehicles' teachings are nothing but old paper for wiping up filth. The Buddha is an illusory, transformed body; a patriarch is simply an old monk. Were you yourself not also born of a mother? If you seek the Buddha, you are seized by the Māra of Buddha; if you seek a patriarch, you are bound by the Māra of patriarchs; whatever you seek turns to suffering — better to have nothing to do. There is a type of shave-pated monk who tells students: 'The Buddha is the ultimate; only after cultivating through three great incalculable kalpas, with the fruit fulfilled, does one finally accomplish the Way.' Followers of the Way! If you say the Buddha is the ultimate, then why, after eighty years, did he lie down on his side between the twin śāla trees at Kuśinagara and die? Where is the Buddha now? This makes it perfectly clear that his birth and death were no different from mine. You say the thirty-two marks and eighty refinements are the Buddha — then a wheel-turning sage-king would also have to be a tathāgata, which makes it obvious enough that these are only illusory transformations. The ancients said: 'The Tathāgata displays bodily marks only to accord with worldly sentiment, fearing that people would fall into the view of annihilation, and so provisionally sets up an empty name.' Even granting the thirty-two marks and eighty refinements — an empty sound, a possessed body, is not the substance of awakening; formlessness alone is the true form."

"You say the Buddha's six supernatural powers are inconceivable. But all the gods, immortals, asuras, and powerful ghosts also have supernatural powers — are they to be called buddhas too? Followers of the Way, do not make this mistake. Consider how, when the asuras fought the god Śakra and lost, they led their eighty-four thousand followers to hide inside a single lotus-fiber hole — could that be called sagely? What I have described are only karmic powers and dependent powers. The Buddha's six supernatural powers are not like this at all: entering the realm of form, he is not deceived by form; entering the realm of sound, he is not deceived by sound; entering the realm of smell, he is not deceived by smell; entering the realm of taste, he is not deceived by taste; entering the realm of touch, he is not deceived by touch; entering the realm of dharmas, he is not deceived by dharmas. Having penetrated the fact that these six — form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas — are all marked with emptiness, none of them can bind him. This person of no reliance, although still made of the leaking substance of the five aggregates, already possesses the supernatural power of walking the earth freely.

"Followers of the Way! The true buddha has no form; the true dharma has no mark. You go on putting on airs and postures on top of mere illusory transformation — even supposing you found something this way, it would only be a wild-fox spirit, not the true Buddha at all, but the view of a non-Buddhist. A person truly studying the Way takes hold of neither Buddha, nor bodhisattva, nor arhat, nor anything extraordinary in the three realms; utterly apart, solitary and free, he is bound by nothing at all. Let heaven and earth turn upside down — I have no more doubt; let the buddhas of the ten directions appear before me — not a single thought of joy arises; let the hells of the three evil paths appear all at once — not a single thought of fear arises. Why is this so? Because I see all dharmas as marked with emptiness: where there is change, there is existence; where there is no change, there is no existence — the three realms are mind alone, the ten thousand dharmas are consciousness alone. So why trouble yourself to grasp at a dream, an illusion, a flower in the sky? There is only the follower of the Way, right now, right in front of me, listening to this Dharma: entering fire, he is not burned; entering water, he is not drowned; entering the hells of the three evil paths, it is like strolling through a garden; entering the realms of hungry ghosts and animals, he receives no retribution. Why is this so? Because there is no dharma he rejects. If you love the sage and hate the ordinary, you will still sink and float in the sea of birth and death. Affliction exists only because of mind; with no mind, what can affliction bind? Without troubling to discriminate and grasp at marks, you attain the Way naturally, in an instant. If instead you go running from house to house, striving to learn it, you will spend three incalculable kalpas and still end up back in birth and death — better to have nothing to do, and sit cross-legged in the corner of a bed in some monastery."

"Followers of the Way! When a student comes from somewhere and guest and host meet each other, there is a saying about it: 'Testing the good teacher standing before him, the student picks out some expedient turn of phrase and hurls it straight past the corner of the good teacher's mouth, to see whether he recognizes it or not. If the teacher recognizes it as a mere circumstance, he takes hold of it and throws it straight into a pit.' The student then acts perfectly ordinary, and afterward demands the good teacher's own words, only to snatch them away as before. The student says: 'What supreme wisdom — a truly great teacher!' whereupon the teacher says: 'You cannot tell good from bad at all.' Or the good teacher takes out some lump of a circumstance and plays with it in front of the student; the student, discerning it thoroughly, becomes master of himself and is not deceived by the circumstance. The good teacher then manifests half his body, and the student shouts. The good teacher goes on wrestling through every kind of differentiated turn of phrase, and the student says: 'You shave-pated old fool who cannot tell good from bad.' The good teacher exclaims: 'A truly genuine follower of the Way!' But when good teachers everywhere cannot discern crooked from correct, and a student comes to ask about bodhi, nirvāṇa, the three bodies, object and wisdom, the blind old teacher goes and explains it all to him; when the student then scolds him for it, the teacher picks up his staff and beats him, saying: 'How rude!' This only proves that you, the so-called good teacher, have no eyes at all — you have no right to be angry at him. There is a kind of shave-pated fool who cannot tell good from bad, who points east and gestures west, delighting in fine weather, delighting in rain — count the hairs on his eyebrows if you like — and a student with the actual capacity for this fails to understand and simply goes mad with excitement. People of this kind are nothing but wild-fox spirits, sprites and goblins, mocked with a quiet smile by any genuinely capable student, who says: this blind old fool is confusing everyone under heaven.

"Followers of the Way! Those who leave home must above all learn the Way. As for this mountain monk, I too once gave close attention to the vinaya in years past, and once searched deeply through the sūtras and treatises. Only later did I come to know that these are medicine for saving the world, statements that merely point things out, and so I cast them all aside at once and went to seek the Way and study Chan. Afterward I met a truly great teacher, and only then did my eye of the Way become clear, and I came to know the whole world for what it is. This old monk's ability to discern the crooked from the correct did not come to me from my mother's womb — it came only from investigating and training myself thoroughly, until one morning I saw for myself."

"Followers of the Way! If you want a true and correct understanding, you need only not be deceived by others: whatever you meet, inside or outside, kill it at once — meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha; meet a patriarch, kill the patriarch; meet an arhat, kill the arhat; meet your father or mother, kill your father or mother; meet your relatives, kill your relatives — only then do you attain liberation. Bound by no external thing, you pass through and are free — thoroughly free and at ease. Yet everywhere I look, students of the Way come forward always depending on some external thing. This mountain monk strikes at the very source: whatever comes out through the hands, I strike at the hands; whatever comes out through the mouth, I strike at the mouth; whatever comes out through the eyes, I strike at the eyes. There has never been a single one who came forward truly free and independent — every one of them is still climbing onto the idle devices of the ancients. This mountain monk has not one single dharma to give anyone; I only treat sickness and untie bonds. You students of the Way everywhere, try coming forward without depending on any external thing at all, and I will discuss it with you. In ten years, in five years, there has not been a single one — every one of them depends on grass, clings to leaves, on bamboo and wood, on spirits, on wild-fox demons, biting blindly at every lump of dung, wasting the alms given in good faith by donors in every direction, calling themselves home-leavers while holding views exactly like this. To you I say: 'There is no Buddha, no Dharma, no cultivation, no realization — so what exactly are you running from house to house trying to find?' Blind fools, placing one head on top of the head you already have — what is it you actually lack?

"Followers of the Way! What you are using right in front of me now is no different from the patriarchs and buddhas — it is only because you do not believe this that you go seeking outside. Do not make this mistake: there is no dharma outside, and nothing can be found within either. Rather than clinging to the words out of this mountain monk's mouth, it would be better for you to rest and go about with nothing to do. Do not let what has already arisen continue, and do not let what has not yet arisen start up — this alone surpasses ten years of pilgrimage on foot. As I see it, there is nothing so elaborate as all that — it is simply wearing your clothes, eating your food, and passing the time with nothing to do. Yet all of you who come here from every direction have a mind set on seeking the Buddha, seeking the Dharma, seeking liberation, seeking to escape the three realms. Fools! If you want to leave the three realms, where would you go? 'Buddha' and 'patriarch' are only names and phrases used to reward and bind you."

"Do you want to recognize the three realms? They are not apart from the ground of mind that is right now listening to this Dharma. A single thought of craving in your mind is the desire realm; a single thought of anger in your mind is the form realm; a single thought of delusion in your mind is the formless realm — these are simply furniture already sitting in your own house. The three realms do not announce of themselves, 'We are the three realms.' Rather, followers of the Way, it is you — vividly, luminously illuminating everything, weighing and judging the whole world right in front of you — who fix the name 'the three realms' upon them. Worthies! This physical body of the four great elements is impermanent — down to the spleen, stomach, liver, gallbladder, hair, nails, and teeth — and in it there is only to be seen the empty mark of all dharmas. The place where a single thought of your mind comes to rest is called the Bodhi Tree; the place where a single thought of your mind cannot come to rest is called the Tree of Ignorance. Ignorance has no fixed dwelling place, and ignorance has no beginning or end; if you cannot bring your thoughts to rest, moment after moment, you climb up onto this Tree of Ignorance, entering the six paths and the four modes of birth, wearing fur and bearing horns; if you can bring them to rest, this is itself the realm of a pure body. The instant not a single thought arises in you, you have climbed the Bodhi Tree, with supernatural transformation throughout the three realms, a mind-made body arising at will, the joy of the Dharma and the bliss of meditation shining from your own body's light — thinking of clothing, a thousand layers of fine silk appear; thinking of food, a hundred flavors stand complete — with no further affliction of any kind. Bodhi has no fixed dwelling place, and for this reason there is no one who attains it.

"Followers of the Way! What is there left for a great man to doubt? Whoever it is that, right now, seizes hold of this activity in front of you and simply uses it — do not attach any name to it; call it, if you must, the mysterious purport. See it this way, and there is not a single dharma left to reject. The ancients said: 'Mind turns along with ten thousand circumstances, and the turning place is truly subtle and hidden; follow the flow and recognize your own nature, and there is neither joy nor sorrow.'"

"Followers of the Way! In the Chan school's own way of seeing, life and death follow their own logic, and students must be extremely careful about this. When host and guest meet, there is bound to be an exchange of words back and forth — sometimes responding to a thing by manifesting a corresponding form, sometimes acting with the whole body at once, sometimes seizing an expedient occasion of joy or anger, sometimes manifesting half a body, sometimes riding a lion, sometimes riding an elephant king. Suppose a truly genuine student comes forward and shouts, first holding out a kind of glue-basin. If the good teacher fails to recognize this as a mere circumstance, and goes and puts on airs and postures right on top of it, the student shouts again, and the first party refuses to let go — this is an illness gone beyond cure, called 'the guest sees through the host.' Or the good teacher offers nothing out at all, and simply seizes whatever the student raises in his question; the student, seized, clings on for dear life and will not let go — this is called 'the host sees through the guest.' Or a student presents some pure circumstance before the good teacher, and the good teacher, recognizing it as a mere circumstance, seizes it and throws it straight into a pit; the student says, 'What a wonderful good teacher,' and the teacher replies, 'Bah! You cannot tell good from bad at all' — and the student then bows, and this is called 'the host sees through the host.' Or a student comes before the good teacher wearing a cangue and shackles, and the good teacher fastens yet another layer of cangue and shackles onto him, and the student is delighted — neither one able to discern the other — and this is called 'the guest looks upon the guest.' Worthies! Everything this mountain monk has set out here is for the sake of discerning Māra and telling apart what differs, so as to know the crooked from the correct."