The Final Instructions

One day the Master summoned his disciples Fahai, Zhicheng, Fada, Shenhui, Zhichang, Zhitong, Zhiche, Zhidao, Fazhen, and Faru, and said to them: "You are not the same as the rest — after I have passed away, each of you will become a teacher in your own region. I will now teach you how to expound the Dharma without ever losing the essence of our own school. You must first raise the teaching of the three categories, and put into motion the thirty-six pairs, so that in every movement and every stillness you remain free of both extremes. In expounding any teaching at all, never depart from self-nature. If someone should suddenly ask you about the Dharma, let your words always come in pairs, each drawn from a corresponding opposite, each arising in dependence on the other; and when this is understood completely, both terms of the pair are removed entirely, leaving nowhere further to go. "The three categories are the aggregates, the sense-fields, and the elements. The aggregates are the five aggregates — form, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. The sense-fields are the twelve sense-fields: the six outer objects of dust — form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and mental objects — and the six inner gates — the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. The elements are the eighteen elements — the six objects of dust, the six gates, and the six consciousnesses. Self-nature is able to contain the ten thousand things, and for this reason is called the storehouse consciousness. The moment deliberate thought arises, this is called the turning consciousness; it gives rise to the six consciousnesses, passes out through the six gates, and perceives the six objects of dust. All eighteen of these elements arise as the function of self-nature itself. If self-nature is deviant, eighteen deviant functions arise; if self-nature is upright, eighteen upright functions arise. If the function is put to evil use, this is the function of a sentient being; if put to good use, this is the function of a buddha. And on what does this function depend? It depends on self-nature itself. "The pairs correspond to outer circumstances. There are five pairs among insentient things: heaven paired with earth, sun paired with moon, brightness paired with darkness, yin paired with yang, water paired with fire — these are the five pairs. There are twelve pairs of dharma-marks and language: speech paired with the Dharma, existence paired with non-existence, form paired with formlessness, marks paired with marklessness, the defiled paired with the undefiled, form paired with emptiness, movement paired with stillness, clarity paired with turbidity, the ordinary paired with the sagely, the monastic paired with the lay, the old paired with the young, the great paired with the small — these are the twelve pairs. There are nineteen pairs arising as the function of self-nature: long paired with short, deviant paired with upright, foolish paired with wise, ignorant paired with intelligent, confused paired with settled, compassionate paired with harmful, disciplined paired with undisciplined, straight paired with crooked, substantial paired with empty, perilous paired with level, affliction paired with bodhi, permanent paired with impermanent, sorrowful paired with harmful, joyful paired with angry, generous paired with stingy, advancing paired with retreating, arising paired with ceasing, Dharma-body paired with physical body, transformation-body paired with reward-body — these are the nineteen pairs." The Master said: "If you understand how to use these thirty-six pairs, this understanding runs through every scripture and every teaching, so that in every movement and every stillness you remain free of both extremes. When self-nature is set into motion, and you speak with other people, remain outwardly free of marks even while using marks, and remain inwardly free of emptiness even while speaking of emptiness. If you become entirely attached to marks, you only strengthen wrong views; if you become entirely attached to emptiness, you only strengthen ignorance. Those who cling to emptiness will even go so far as to slander the scriptures, saying outright that written words should not be used at all. But if written words are truly not to be used, then people should not use spoken language either — for spoken language is itself already a mark made of words. They will also say, 'the direct Way does not establish written words' — but even these two characters, 'not establish,' are themselves written words. On seeing someone else teach, they immediately accuse that person of clinging to the written word. You must understand: to be deluded yourself is one thing, but to go on and slander the Buddhist scriptures besides is another matter entirely. Do not slander the scriptures — the karmic hindrance from this is beyond counting. If, on the other hand, someone becomes attached to outward marks, performing rituals in search of what is real, or broadly establishing places of practice while arguing over the faults of existence and non-existence, such a person will fail to see their own nature for many kalpas to come. Simply listen, and practice in accordance with the Dharma; and do not, in reaction, think of nothing at all and thereby obstruct the very nature of the Way. To hear the teaching and not practice it only causes people to give rise to wrong views instead. Simply practice in accordance with the Dharma, giving the gift of teaching without dwelling on any mark. If you have awakened, and you speak, apply, practice, and act according to this, you will not lose the essence of our school. "If someone asks you about the meaning of the teaching, and asks about existence, answer with non-existence; if they ask about non-existence, answer with existence; if they ask about the ordinary person, answer with the sage; if they ask about the sage, answer with the ordinary person. The two paths depend on one another, and from this dependence the meaning of the middle way is born. If for a single question you give a single paired answer, and for every other question you act according to this same method, you will not lose the underlying principle. Suppose someone asks you, 'What is meant by darkness?' You would answer: 'Brightness is the direct cause, and darkness is the supporting condition; when brightness disappears, there is darkness. Brightness is used to reveal darkness, and darkness is used to reveal brightness, each depending on the other in turn, and from this the meaning of the middle way is accomplished.' Every other question should be answered in exactly this same way. As you go on to transmit the Dharma in the future, teach one another according to this method, and do not lose the essence of our school."

In the first year of the Taiji era, in the seventh month of the Yanhe era (that same year the era name was changed to Yanhe in the fifth month, and then, in the eighth month, when Emperor Xuanzong took the throne, it was changed again to Xiantian; the following year it was changed once more to Kaiyuan — other editions that give this as "Xiantian" are mistaken), the Master instructed his disciples to go to Guo'en Temple in Xinzhou and build a stūpa, and had the work hastened along; it was completed by the end of the following summer. On the first day of the seventh month he gathered his disciples and said, "By the time the eighth month comes, I intend to leave this world. If any of you have doubts, ask them now without delay, so that I may resolve your doubts for you and clear away all your confusion — for once I am gone, there will be no one left to teach you." Hearing this, Fahai and the others all wept; only Shenhui remained unmoved, his expression unchanged, without any tears at all. The Master said, "Young Master Shenhui alone has attained a state in which good and bad, praise and blame, are all the same to him, and neither sorrow nor joy arises within him. The rest of you have not attained this — after all these years in the mountains, what Way have you actually been cultivating? You weep now — for whose sake are you grieving? If you are grieving because you fear I do not know where I am going, you should know that I know perfectly well where I am going. If I did not know where I was going, I would never have been able to tell you of it in advance at all. You are weeping only because you do not know where I am going; if you knew where I was going, there would be no cause for grief. The nature of all things fundamentally has no arising or ceasing, no going or coming. Sit down, all of you, and I will speak a verse for you, called the Verse of True and False, Moving and Still. Learn to recite this verse — if it accords with my own meaning, and you practice according to it, you will not lose the essence of our school." The assembled monks bowed and asked the Master to speak the verse. The verse said: "In all things there is nothing true; do not, therefore, look for truth in what you see. If you do see something as true, this very seeing is itself never true at all. If you are able to have truth within yourself, being free of the false is itself the true mind. If your own mind is not free of the false, where else could any truth be found? Whatever has feeling knows how to move; whatever has no feeling does not move at all. If you cultivate the practice of not-moving, you become the same as something that does not move because it has no feeling at all. If you seek a 'true not-moving,' know that there is a not-moving within movement itself. But if you take not-moving to mean simple stillness, then something without feeling has no seed of buddhahood in it either. To be skilled at distinguishing every mark, while remaining unmoved with respect to the ultimate truth — simply to hold this view is itself the function of true suchness. I say this to every student of the Way: strive, and apply your intent carefully. Do not, within the gate of the Great Vehicle, go on clinging to the wisdom that still belongs to birth and death. If, at these very words, you find they accord with your own mind, then let us discuss the meaning of the Buddha together; but if they truly do not accord with you, simply join your palms and let the other person go their way content. This school of ours is fundamentally without argument — to argue is already to have lost the very meaning of the Way. To hold stubbornly to a position and argue over this teaching is to let self-nature fall back into birth and death." At that time, hearing this verse, the assembled disciples all bowed in homage, and, embodying the Master's own intention, each of them settled their minds and practiced in accordance with the Dharma, no longer daring to argue with one another; and they understood then that the Great Master would not remain in the world much longer. Fahai, the senior disciple, bowed again and asked, "After the venerable monk enters extinction, to whom should the robe and the Dharma be entrusted?" The Master said, "From the time I taught at Dafan Temple up to this very day, my teachings have been transcribed and are already in circulation, under the title 'The Platform Sūtra of the Dharma Treasure.' You are to guard this teaching, and hand it down from one to another, delivering all manner of beings by it — simply follow what is said in it, and this alone is the true Dharma. I am now teaching you the Dharma, but I will not confer the robe upon anyone. This is because your own roots of faith have already ripened fully, free of any doubt at all, and you are each capable of bearing this great responsibility yourselves. Moreover, according to the meaning of the verse our first patriarch Bodhidharma left at the time of his own transmission, the robe was never meant to be handed down forever. His verse said: 'I came originally to this land to transmit the Dharma and save those caught in delusion; one flower opens into five petals, and the fruit ripens of itself, in its own time.'" The Master said further: "Every one of you good friends, purify your own minds, and listen to what I now teach. If you wish to accomplish the seed-wisdom of buddhahood, you must reach the samādhi of a single mark and the samādhi of a single practice. If, in every place, you do not dwell on any mark, and within that mark give rise to neither love nor hatred, and neither grasp nor reject anything, and give no thought to matters of benefit, success, or failure, remaining at ease, tranquil, empty, and unburdened — this is called the samādhi of a single mark. If, in every place, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, you maintain a single, direct mind throughout, never leaving the very site of awakening, so that a true pure land is genuinely accomplished — this is called the samādhi of a single practice. If a person is complete in both of these samādhis, it is like the earth already holding a seed within it, nurturing and sustaining it until the fruit finally ripens; the single mark and the single practice are exactly the same. My teaching of the Dharma now is like a timely rain, moistening the whole earth at once. Your own buddha-nature is like these very seeds; meeting with this moisture, every one of them will sprout and grow. Those who receive my teaching are certain to attain bodhi; those who practice according to it are certain to realize the wondrous fruit. Hear my verse: 'The ground of the mind holds every kind of seed; the universal rain causes every one of them to sprout. Once you have suddenly awakened to the very nature of the flower, the fruit of bodhi ripens of itself.'" Having spoken this verse, the Master said further, "This Dharma is not two, and this mind is exactly the same. This Way is pure, and free of every mark. Be careful, all of you, not to contemplate stillness, or to empty your own minds. This mind is fundamentally pure already, with nothing at all to be grasped or rejected. Each of you, strive on your own, and go well, according to your own conditions." At that time the assembled disciples bowed in homage and withdrew.

On the eighth day of the seventh month, the Great Master suddenly said to his disciples, "I wish to return to Xinzhou — make ready a boat for me quickly." The assembly begged him most earnestly to remain. The Master said, "Every buddha, on appearing in this world, still displays the entering of nirvāṇa in the end; whatever has come must go — this is the constant principle of things. This physical frame of mine must return somewhere in the end." The assembly said, "If the Master goes now, will you come back to us again, sooner or later?" The Master said, "When leaves fall, they return to the root — when I return this time, there will be no mouth to speak with." They asked further, "To whom will the treasury of the true Dharma-eye be entrusted?" The Master said, "Whoever has the Way will attain it; whoever has no mind will penetrate it." They asked, "Will there be any difficulty for you afterward?" The Master said, "Five or six years after I have passed away, someone will come to take my head. Hear my own prophecy on this: 'Nourishing a parent above the head, needing to eat with the mouth below — when the calamity of "Man" comes, the officials will be named Willow and Poplar.'" He said further, "Seventy years after I am gone, two bodhisattvas will come from the east, one who has left home and one still a layperson; together, at the same time, they will revive the teaching, establish my own school, found monasteries, and cause the Dharma-descendants to flourish." Someone asked, "We do not know how many generations the Dharma has been transmitted through, from the buddhas and patriarchs of old, manifesting themselves down to now — we beg you to instruct us on this." The Master said, "The buddhas who have appeared in this world since ancient times are beyond number, impossible to count in full. Let us begin now with the seven buddhas: in the past Glorious Kalpa, the buddhas Vipaśyin, Śikhin, and Viśvabhū; in the present Auspicious Kalpa, the buddhas Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni, Kāśyapa, and Śākyamuni — these are the seven buddhas. "From these seven buddhas, it was Śākyamuni who first transmitted the Dharma, to the following patriarchs in succession: first, the Venerable Mahākāśyapa; second, the Venerable Ānanda; third, the Venerable Śāṇakavāsa; fourth, the Venerable Upagupta; fifth, the Venerable Dhītika; sixth, the Venerable Miccaka; seventh, the Venerable Vasumitra; eighth, the Venerable Buddhanandi; ninth, the Venerable Buddhamitra; tenth, the Venerable Pārśva; eleventh, the Venerable Puṇyayaśas; twelfth, the great being Aśvaghoṣa; thirteenth, the Venerable Kapimala; fourteenth, the great being Nāgārjuna; fifteenth, the Venerable Kāṇadeva; sixteenth, the Venerable Rāhulata; seventeenth, the Venerable Saṃghanandi; eighteenth, the Venerable Gayaśāta; nineteenth, the Venerable Kumārata; twentieth, the Venerable Jayata; twenty-first, the Venerable Vasubandhu; twenty-second, the Venerable Manorhita; twenty-third, the Venerable Haklenayaśas; twenty-fourth, the Venerable Siṃha; twenty-fifth, the Venerable Basiasita; twenty-sixth, the Venerable Puṇyamitra; twenty-seventh, the Venerable Prajñātāra; twenty-eighth, the Venerable Bodhidharma (the first patriarch here in this land); twenty-ninth, the great teacher Huike; thirtieth, the great teacher Sengcan; thirty-first, the great teacher Daoxin; thirty-second, the great teacher Hongren. "Huineng is the thirty-third patriarch. Every patriarch from the very beginning has received this transmission in succession, each from the one before. From this day forward, you too must hand it down through the generations to come — let there be no error or confusion in it."

On the third day of the eighth month of the second year of the Xiantian era, in the year guichou (that same year, in the twelfth month, the era name was changed to Kaiyuan), the Great Master, after the meal at Guo'en Temple, said to his assembled disciples, "Each of you, sit according to your place — I will now take my leave of you." Fahai said, "Venerable monk, what teaching will you leave behind, so that deluded people of later ages may come to see buddha-nature?" The Master said, "Listen carefully, all of you. Deluded people of later ages, if they recognize sentient beings, will thereby see buddha-nature; if they do not recognize sentient beings, they could search for the Buddha ten thousand kalpas and never find him. I will now teach you to recognize the sentient beings within your own mind, and see the buddha-nature within your own mind. If you wish to see the Buddha, simply recognize sentient beings — for it is only sentient beings who are deluded about the Buddha; the Buddha is never deluded about sentient beings. When self-nature is awakened, sentient beings are the Buddha; when self-nature is deluded, the Buddha is a sentient being. When self-nature is even and equal, sentient beings are the Buddha; when self-nature is deviant and perilous, the Buddha is a sentient being. If your own mind is deviant and crooked, then the Buddha is already hidden within a sentient being; the moment a single thought becomes even and upright, that sentient being becomes the Buddha. My own mind already has the Buddha within it of itself, and this buddha that is my own self is the true Buddha. If you yourself have no mind of buddhahood, where else could you ever go looking for a true buddha? Your own mind is itself already the Buddha — have no further doubt about this at all. Nothing whatsoever, outside your own mind, is able to establish anything; every kind of phenomenon is given birth to by the fundamental mind alone. This is why the sūtra says, 'When the mind is born, every kind of thing is born with it; when the mind ceases, every kind of thing ceases with it.' I now leave you a final verse, as I take my leave of you, called the Verse of the True Buddha of Self-Nature. Whoever, in later ages, recognizes the meaning of this verse will see their own fundamental mind for themselves, and accomplish the buddha-path for themselves." The verse said: "The self-nature of true suchness is the true buddha; wrong views and the three poisons are the demon-king. At the time of wrong views and delusion, the demon dwells within the house; at the time of right views, the buddha sits within the very same hall. When wrong views and the three poisons arise within self-nature, this is exactly the demon-king coming to dwell within the house; when right views remove the mind of the three poisons of themselves, the demon is transformed into the buddha, truly and without any falsehood at all. The Dharma-body, the reward-body, and the transformation-body — these three bodies were, from the very beginning, a single body. If you are able to see this for yourself within your own nature, this is itself the very cause of becoming a buddha, the seed of bodhi. The transformation-body originally gives rise to the pure nature, and this pure nature constantly dwells within the transformation-body; when this nature causes the transformation-body to walk the true path, the reward to come will be perfectly complete, true and without end. The nature of desire is, at its root, the very cause of the pure nature; remove desire, and this is itself the body of the pure nature. When self-nature, each for itself, is free of the five desires, the very instant one sees this nature is itself the truth. If, in this present life, you meet with the gate of the sudden teaching, you will suddenly awaken to your own self-nature and behold the World-Honored One directly. But if you wish to cultivate practice in search of becoming a buddha, and do not know where else to seek this truth — if you are able to see the truth within your own mind for yourself, having this truth is itself the cause of becoming a buddha. Not seeing your own nature, and searching for the Buddha somewhere outside instead — to give rise to such a thought at all is nothing but the mark of a very great fool. The gate of the sudden teaching, I have now left behind for you; to save and deliver the people of this world, one must cultivate for oneself. I report this now to those who will study the Way in ages yet to come: do not fail to hold this view, and drift on carelessly through your lives." Having spoken this verse, the Master said further, "Live well and stay in peace, all of you. After I have passed into extinction, do not act as ordinary people do, weeping and shedding tears out of worldly feeling, receiving condolences from others, and wearing the garments of mourning — this is not to be my disciple at all, nor is it the true Dharma. Simply recognize your own fundamental mind, and see your own fundamental nature, which has no movement and no stillness, no arising and no ceasing, no going and no coming, no right and no wrong, no dwelling and no departing. I fear your minds are still deluded, and have not fully grasped my meaning, and so I charge you once more, so that you may truly see your own nature. After I have passed into extinction, practice according to this teaching, exactly as though I were still in the world; but if you go against my teaching, then even if I remained in the world, it would be of no benefit to you at all." And he spoke a further verse: "Utterly still, cultivating no good at all; utterly at ease, creating no evil at all; in complete silence, cutting off all seeing and hearing; vast and empty, the mind attached to nothing at all." Having spoken this verse, the Master sat upright until the third watch of the night, when he suddenly said to his disciples, "I am going now," and passed away all at once, without any struggle at all. At that time an extraordinary fragrance filled the room, a white rainbow touched down to the earth, the trees of the forest turned white, and the birds and animals cried out in mourning. In the eleventh month, the officials of the three prefectures of Guangzhou, Shaozhou, and Xinzhou, together with the Master's monastic and lay disciples, all competed to receive his true body, unable to agree on where it should go. They then burned incense and prayed, saying, "Wherever the smoke of this incense points, there the Master shall return." At that time the smoke rose and drifted straight toward Caoxi. On the thirteenth day of the eleventh month, his spirit-shrine was moved there, together with the robe and bowl he had transmitted, and returned to Caoxi. The following year, on the twenty-fifth day of the seventh month, the shrine was opened, and his disciple Fangbian covered the body with fragrant clay to preserve it. His disciples, remembering the prophecy about someone coming to take his head, first wrapped his neck securely in iron sheets and lacquered cloth before placing him in the stūpa. Suddenly a white light appeared from within the stūpa, rising straight up into the sky, and did not disperse for three days. The prefecture of Shaozhou reported this to the throne, and by imperial decree a stele was erected, recording the Master's own life and conduct. The Master lived to the age of seventy-six. He received the robe at the age of twenty-four, and took full ordination at thirty-nine. He taught the Dharma and benefited beings for thirty-seven years. Forty-three disciples received his sanction as having inherited the Dharma, and those who awakened to the Way and transcended the ordinary state were beyond number. Bodhidharma's own transmitted robe of good faith (a length of fine kaṣāya cloth from the Western Regions), together with the ceremonial robe and the precious bowl bestowed by Emperor Zhongzong, and the true likeness sculpted by Fangbian, along with the Master's other ritual implements, remain permanently at Baolin Temple, guarded by those who tend the stūpa. The Platform Sūtra has been handed down to make this teaching's essential meaning clear, for the flourishing of the Three Treasures and the universal benefit of all beings.