Sudden and Gradual

At that time the Patriarch dwelt at Baolin Temple in Caoxi, while the great teacher Shenxiu was at Yuquan Temple in Jingnan. Both schools were flourishing greatly, and people everywhere spoke of "Neng in the south, Xiu in the north," so that there came to be a division between the northern and southern schools, sudden and gradual — yet students had no way of knowing which doctrine to follow. The Master said to the assembly: "The Dharma itself is fundamentally one single school; it is only people who have come to be divided into north and south. The Dharma itself is a single thing; it is only the seeing of it that comes slowly or swiftly. Why are they called sudden and gradual? The Dharma itself has no sudden or gradual — it is only that people are sharp or dull, and this is why they are called sudden and gradual." Yet Shenxiu's own disciples often mocked the patriarch of the southern school, saying that a man who could not read a single character could have nothing worth learning from him. Shenxiu said, "He has attained a wisdom that needs no teacher, and has deeply awakened to the highest vehicle — I myself am not his equal. Moreover, my own teacher, the Fifth Patriarch, personally transmitted the robe and Dharma to him — how could this have been for nothing? I only regret that I cannot go to him myself and draw near to him, and so idly receive the state's own support instead. All of you should not remain fixed here — go to Caoxi, and settle this question for yourselves." One day he instructed his disciple Zhicheng: "You are intelligent and full of ability — go to Caoxi on my behalf and listen to the teaching there. Whatever you hear, commit it carefully to memory, and come back and tell me." Having received this charge, Zhicheng went to Caoxi, and joined the assembly there to seek instruction, without saying where he had come from. At that time the Patriarch told the assembly, "There is now a person here who has come to steal the Dharma, hidden within this very gathering." Zhicheng at once came forward and bowed, and related the whole matter in full. The Master said, "You have come from Yuquan — you must be a spy." He answered, "No, I am not." The Master said, "How could you not be?" He answered, "Before I spoke, I was; now that I have spoken, I am not." The Master said, "How does your own teacher instruct his assembly?" He answered, "He constantly teaches everyone to fix the mind and contemplate stillness, sitting continuously without ever lying down." The Master said, "To fix the mind and contemplate stillness is a sickness, not chan. To sit continuously, confining the body — what benefit is there in this, by any reasoning? Hear my verse: "While alive, one sits without lying down; when dead, one lies without sitting up — a set of stinking bones either way, so why set up this as your practice?" Zhicheng bowed again and said, "Your disciple studied the Way at the great teacher Shenxiu's place for nine years, without ever reaching genuine understanding. Now, hearing the venerable monk's single teaching, I have reached my own fundamental mind at once. Your disciple regards the matter of birth and death as of great importance — I beg the venerable monk's great compassion, and ask you to instruct me further." The Master said, "I have heard that your teacher instructs students in the Dharma of precept, samādhi, and wisdom — tell me, how does your teacher describe the character of this practice? Speak, and let me hear it." Zhicheng said, "The great teacher Shenxiu says: 'To do no evil at all is called precept; to uphold every good deed is called wisdom; to purify one's own intention is called samādhi.' This is how he describes it — I do not know by what teaching the venerable monk instructs others." The Master said, "If I told you I had some fixed Dharma to give to another person, this would be deceiving you. I simply loosen whatever binds a person according to their particular situation, giving it the provisional name of samādhi. What your teacher describes as precept, samādhi, and wisdom is indeed inconceivable — but what I see as precept, samādhi, and wisdom is something different again." Zhicheng said, "Precept, samādhi, and wisdom should surely be only one single thing — how could there be any difference?" The Master said, "Your teacher's precept, samādhi, and wisdom are meant to lead those of the Great Vehicle; my own precept, samādhi, and wisdom are meant to lead those of the very highest vehicle. Understanding differs, and the seeing of it comes slowly or swiftly. Listen to what I say, and judge for yourself whether it is the same as his teaching. What I teach never departs from self-nature; to teach the Dharma apart from its own substance is what is called teaching through marks alone, and self-nature remains constantly deluded under such teaching. You must know that the ten thousand things all arise as the function of self-nature itself — this alone is the true Dharma of precept, samādhi, and wisdom. Hear my verse: "Where the ground of mind holds no wrong, this is the precept of self-nature; where the ground of mind holds no folly, this is the wisdom of self-nature; where the ground of mind holds no confusion, this is the samādhi of self-nature. Neither increasing nor decreasing, it is of itself like a diamond; the body may come and the body may go, but this is fundamentally what samādhi already is." Hearing this verse, Zhicheng, filled with shame, offered a verse of his own in apology: "This illusory body of the five aggregates — what final end could any illusion have? Turning back toward true suchness itself, even this very Dharma remains unclean." The Master approved of this, and said further to Zhicheng, "Your teacher's precept, samādhi, and wisdom are meant to encourage those of lesser faculties and wisdom; my own precept, samādhi, and wisdom are meant to encourage those of great faculties and wisdom. If one awakens to self-nature, one does not even set up bodhi or nirvāṇa, and does not even set up liberation or its knowledge and vision. There is not a single thing to be attained, and only in this way can the ten thousand things be established at all. If you understand this meaning, it may equally be called the buddha-body, or bodhi and nirvāṇa, or the knowledge and vision of liberation. For one who has seen their own nature, to set these up is fine, and not to set them up is equally fine; coming and going freely, without obstruction or hindrance, responding to whatever arises, answering whatever is asked, manifesting transformation-bodies everywhere without ever departing from self-nature — this is to attain the free and unobstructed spiritual power of playful samādhi. This alone is called seeing one's own nature." Zhicheng asked further, "What is meant by 'not setting up'?" The Master said, "Self-nature holds no wrong, no folly, and no confusion; contemplating with the light of prajñā thought after thought, constantly free of every mark of the Dharma, at ease and free in every direction, fully attained in every respect — what would there be left to set up? Self-nature awakens for itself, sudden awakening and sudden practice together, without any gradual stages at all — this is why nothing whatsoever is set up. If every phenomenon is already still and extinguished, what sequence of stages could there possibly be?" Zhicheng bowed in homage, and asked to remain in the Master's service, attending him morning and night without ever growing slack. (Zhicheng was a man of Taihe in Jizhou.)

The monk Zhiche was a man of Jiangxi, whose lay surname was Zhang and given name Xingchang; in his youth he had lived as a wandering swordsman. Although the leaders of the northern and southern schools no longer held any rivalry between themselves, their followers had come to compete in love and hatred all the same. At that time Shenxiu's own disciples had set themselves up, claiming Shenxiu as the Sixth Patriarch, and, resenting that the Patriarch's own transmission of the robe was becoming known throughout the world, charged Xingchang with the task of assassinating him. The Master, whose mind had penetrating insight, knew of this beforehand, and placed ten taels of gold on his own seat in advance. At nightfall Xingchang entered the Patriarch's room, intending to do him harm. The Master stretched out his own neck to receive the blow. Xingchang swung his blade three times, yet caused no injury at all. The Master said, "A true sword is never crooked; a crooked sword is never true. I owe you only this gold — I do not owe you my life." Xingchang, startled, fell to the ground, and after some time revived; begging in tears for forgiveness, he at once wished to go forth from home. The Master then gave him the gold, saying, "You should leave now — I fear the others might turn on you and do you harm instead. Come to me again another day, in a different form, and I will receive you then." Xingchang, following these instructions, fled that very night. He later took ordination under another monk, and practiced the precepts with diligence. One day, remembering the Master's words, he came from far away to pay his respects. The Master said, "I have long thought of you — why have you come so late?" He said, "Once, the venerable monk graciously forgave my offense; now, though I have gone forth from home and practice with hardship, I can hardly repay such kindness — is it not only by transmitting the Dharma and delivering beings that I ever could? Your disciple has often read the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, but has never understood the meaning of permanence and impermanence. I beg the venerable monk's compassion to explain this briefly for me." The Master said, "Impermanence is itself buddha-nature; permanence is itself the mind that distinguishes every good and evil phenomenon." He said, "What the venerable monk has just said greatly contradicts the sūtra text." The Master said, "I transmit the very seal of the Buddha's own mind — how would I dare contradict the Buddhist scriptures?" He said, "The sūtra says buddha-nature is permanent, yet the venerable monk says it is impermanent; it says every good and evil phenomenon, down to the very mind of bodhi, is impermanent, yet the venerable monk says these are permanent. This is a direct contradiction, and it leaves this student all the more confused." The Master said, "I once heard the nun Wujinzang recite the Nirvāṇa Sūtra straight through a single time, and from that alone I was able to explain it — there was not a single word or a single meaning that failed to accord with the sūtra's own text. Even now, explaining it for you, I say nothing different at all." He said, "This student's own understanding is shallow and unclear — I beg the venerable monk to explain this to me patiently, in full." The Master said, "Do you understand? If buddha-nature were simply permanent, what further need would there be to speak of any good or evil phenomenon at all — and in that case, not a single person, throughout the whole of time, could ever give rise to the mind of bodhi. This is exactly why I say it is impermanent — this is itself the Buddha's own teaching of true permanence. And again, if all things whatsoever were simply impermanent, then every single thing would possess its own fixed nature, capable of undergoing birth and death on its own, and the truly permanent nature would then fail to pervade everything completely. This is exactly why I say it is permanent — this is itself the Buddha's own teaching of true impermanence. The Buddha, seeing that ordinary people and the followers of outside teachings cling to a mistaken notion of permanence, and that followers of the two lesser vehicles mistake what is permanent for impermanent, together forming eight kinds of inversion, therefore, within the fully revealed teaching of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, broke through these one-sided views, and openly proclaimed true permanence, true bliss, a true self, and true purity. You, today, are following the words while turning your back on their meaning, taking impermanence to mean simple annihilation and permanence to mean a fixed, unchanging deadness, and thereby misreading the Buddha's own perfect and subtle final teaching. Even if you read it a thousand times over, what benefit could that possibly bring you?" At this Xingchang was suddenly and greatly awakened, and spoke a verse: "Because I clung to a mind of impermanence, the Buddha spoke of a nature that is permanent; not understanding this as a skillful means, I was like someone picking up pebbles from a spring pond, thinking them pearls. Now, without any effort of my own at all, buddha-nature has appeared right before me — not something handed to me by any teacher, nor anything I myself have gained." The Master said, "You have now truly penetrated it — you should be called Zhiche, 'one who has penetrated.'" Zhiche bowed in gratitude and withdrew.

There was a young novice named Shenhui, a son of the Gao family of Xiangyang. At the age of thirteen he came from Yuquan Temple to pay his respects. The Master said, "Good friend, you have come a hard distance from far away — have you managed to bring the root along with you? If you have this root, then you ought to recognize its master. Try telling me." Shenhui said, "No-dwelling is the root; seeing itself is the master." The Master said, "What kind of glib novice talks like that, so carelessly?" Shenhui then asked, "When the venerable monk sits in meditation, do you see, or do you not see?" The Master struck him three times with his staff and said, "When I strike you, does it hurt, or does it not hurt?" He answered, "It both hurts and does not hurt." The Master said, "I too both see and do not see." Shenhui asked, "What does it mean to both see and not see?" The Master said, "What I see is constantly my own mind's own faults; what I do not see is the rights and wrongs, the good and evil, of other people — this is why I both see and do not see. Now, as for what you said, that it both hurts and does not hurt — how is that? If you did not feel any hurt at all, you would be no different from a piece of wood or stone; but if you did feel the hurt, then you are no different from an ordinary person, giving rise to anger and resentment at once. What you said before — seeing and not seeing — are two extremes; hurting and not hurting are simply arising and ceasing. You have not even seen your own self-nature yet, and you dare to come here and toy with me?" Shenhui bowed in shame and apology. The Master said further, "If your mind is deluded and you do not see your own nature, you should go and ask a good friend to show you the way; but if your mind is awakened, you have already seen your own nature for yourself, and should simply practice according to the Dharma. You yourself are deluded, unable to see your own mind, and yet you come here asking me whether I see or do not see. My own seeing, I know for myself — how could that take the place of your own delusion? And if you were to see for yourself, this likewise could not take the place of my own delusion. Why do you not know and see for yourself, instead of asking me whether I see or not?" Shenhui bowed again, more than a hundred times, begging forgiveness for his fault, and from then on served the Master diligently, never leaving his side. One day the Master told the assembly, "I have a certain thing, without a head and without a tail, without a name and without any word for it, without a back and without a face — does anyone among you recognize it?" Shenhui came forward and said, "It is the very source of every buddha, and it is Shenhui's own buddha-nature." The Master said, "I told you it had no name and no word for it at all, and yet you go and call it 'the source of buddha-nature.' Even if you go on from here to build yourself a thatched hut to sit under, you will only ever become a follower who deals in intellectual understanding." After the Patriarch's death, Shenhui went to the capital, where he greatly spread the sudden teaching of Caoxi, and wrote the Record of Clarifying the Doctrine, which became widely known throughout the world. He is known as the Chan Master of Heze. Seeing that every school raised difficult questions out of ill will, the Master gathered many of them beneath his seat and, with compassion, said to them: "For a person studying the Way, every thought of good and every thought of evil alike should be entirely removed. There is no name that can truly name it; it is named only from within self-nature itself. This nature without duality is called the real nature. Upon this real nature, every teaching whatsoever is to be established — the moment these words are spoken, you must see it for yourself." Hearing this, everyone present bowed in homage, and asked to serve him as their teacher.