Song of Enlightenment
Yongjia's Zhengdao Ge《永嘉證道歌》
A reading guide and complete Chinese–English translation of the Zhengdao Ge — an ecstatic, roughly 1,800-character song traditionally composed after a single night's exchange with the Sixth Patriarch Huineng, the night that earned its author the nickname "the Overnight Guest of Enlightenment" (一宿覺).
- Chinese
- 《永嘉證道歌》, "Yongjia's Song of the Realization of the Way" — traditionally attributed to Yongjia Xuanjue (永嘉玄覺, 665–713).
- Genre
- A ge (歌) — a "song," written in irregular, largely seven-character lines mixed with short three-character exclamations, closer to the free rhythm of Tang-dynasty ballad verse than to a formal regulated poem.
- Tradition
- Chan (禪) — traditionally read as the direct fruit of a single night's exchange with the Sixth Patriarch Huineng at Caoxi.
- Length
- ~1,813 Chinese characters — the longest single poem this site has translated in full, roughly three times the length of the Xinxin Ming.
- Voice
- First person throughout, alternating between doctrinal exposition, autobiography, and direct address to a listener — by turns tender, combative, and rapturous.
- Difficulty
- ★★★★☆ to read — individual images (the lion's roar, the moon in ten thousand rivers, the arrow shot into the sky) are vivid and accessible; the poem's density of Buddhist technical vocabulary and its many allusions to Vinaya case-histories and earlier patriarchs reward a slower, annotated reading.
Why the Zhengdao Ge
Where the Xinxin Ming argues, the Zhengdao Ge sings. It is traditionally read as the direct record of a single realization — the story goes that Xuanjue, already deeply accomplished in Tiantai contemplation, sought out Huineng at Caoxi, circled him three times, struck his staff on the ground, and stood before him without bowing; when challenged, he answered so sharply that Huineng recognized his attainment on the spot and permitted him to stay only one night before sending him on his way, which is why tradition calls him "the Overnight Guest of Enlightenment" (一宿覺). Whether or not the song itself was composed that same night, as later legend insists, it reads like the record of someone speaking from inside an experience rather than describing one from outside it — swinging within a few lines from serene doctrinal statement to open combat with imagined critics to sheer exultation.
An honest note on authorship
Tradition assigns this poem to Yongjia Xuanjue (永嘉玄覺, 665–713), a monk already senior in Tiantai practice before his single recorded meeting with Huineng, and its title and framing story are inseparable from that account of a night at Caoxi. Modern textual scholarship complicates this picture: the poem is not attested in sources contemporary with Xuanjue's own lifetime, and at least one line of scholarly argument holds that Shenhui (神會), a direct disciple of Huineng and a fierce polemicist for the Southern school's doctrine of sudden enlightenment, is a serious candidate for authorship instead — the poem's combative tone toward gradualist rivals reading, on this account, more like Shenhui's known polemics than like a spontaneous overnight composition. This guide follows the traditional attribution to Xuanjue, as it is what the received textual tradition and nearly every reader for over a thousand years has held, while noting this scholarly uncertainty honestly rather than presenting it as settled.
The poem in outline
The Zhengdao Ge does not build a single continuous argument the way the Xinxin Ming does; it moves in waves, returning again and again to a small set of core claims from different angles and different registers. It opens by describing the awakened person directly — someone who has finished learning and does nothing, for whom ignorance itself is already buddha-nature. It then turns combative, answering imagined objections and slander with the image of a lion's roar that splits the skulls of lesser animals. It tells fragments of the author's own spiritual autobiography — years spent buried in commentarial study before being "sternly rebuked" for it, and the turning point at Caoxi. It works through hard doctrinal cases, including the story of the monk Yongshi, who broke a grave precept and still, on this telling, awakened and became a buddha — a story the poem uses to insist that awakening is not simply forfeited by moral failure, though it is equally insistent, a few lines earlier, that slandering the true teaching brings on hell without interval. And it closes by turning to address a specific rival — the "gradual" teaching it associates with the Northern school of Chan — daring anyone still unconvinced to test the claim directly rather than take it on faith.
How to actually read this text
Three ways in, from lightest to deepest:
- Read for image, not argument, on a first pass. The moon reflected in ten thousand rivers, the lion's cub roaring at three years old, the arrow that falls back once its force is spent — let these accumulate before trying to extract a doctrinal position from each one.
- Notice the turns in register. The poem moves between calm exposition, open polemic against imagined critics, and passages of near-ecstatic address — track where each shift happens and what triggers it, rather than reading the whole poem in a single flat tone.
- Sit with the closing image. "The great elephant does not wander along a rabbit's narrow track; great awakening is not bound by petty details" — worth holding on its own as a question about which of your own standards for progress are actually the rabbit's track.
A note on this translation
The Chinese text below follows the version preserved on Wikisource, cross-checked against the Taishō edition (T2014). A real classical commentary tradition exists for this poem — the Song-dynasty monk Fantian Yanqi (梵天彥琪, fl. 12th c.) wrote a line-by-line commentary, the Zhengdao Ge Zhu (證道歌註, X1241), compiled by his disciple Huiguang and preserved in the 卍新纂續藏經, and at least three further Song- and Yuan-dynasty commentators (延壽, 法泉, 永盛) also wrote on the text. This page's reading notes, however, are Ru-Yi Meditation Center's own — written directly from the primary text rather than as a translation or paraphrase of Yanqi's or any other named commentator's actual words, which this project has not yet undertaken to translate in full. Yanqi's commentary is named here as historical context worth knowing exists, not as the source this page's interpretive notes were drawn from. See also this site's general note on translation method.
Key Terms
The Translation
1. The Idle Man of the Way
君不見。絕學無為閑道人。不除妄想不求真。無明實性即佛性。幻化空身即法身。
Have you not seen him — the man of the Way who has finished learning, who does nothing, who is at leisure? He does not clear away delusive thought, nor does he go seeking the true. The very nature of ignorance is itself buddha-nature; this illusory, empty body is itself the dharma-body.
法身覺了無一物。本源自性天真佛。五蘊浮雲空去來。三毒水泡虛出沒。
Once the dharma-body is awakened, there is not one single thing. The self-nature at the very source is the buddha of its own true nature. The five aggregates are floating clouds, drifting empty through their coming and going; the three poisons are bubbles on water, rising and vanishing without substance.
證實相。無人法。剎那滅卻阿鼻業。若將妄語誑眾生。自招拔舌塵沙劫。
Realize the true mark of reality, and there is no person, no dharma. In a single instant, the karma of the Avīci hell is wiped away. If I speak falsely here to deceive living beings, may I bring on myself the tongue-pulling hell for kalpas as many as the dust motes.
頓覺了。如來禪。六度萬行體中圓。夢裏明明有六趣。覺後空空無大千。
Awaken suddenly, and it is the Tathāgata's own Chan — the six perfections and ten thousand practices are already complete within its very substance. In the dream, the six paths of rebirth are vividly, clearly there; once awakened, empty and clear, there is not even a great-thousand world.
The poem opens by describing its subject before naming any doctrine at all: a person who "has finished learning, does nothing, is at leisure" — an image of complete rest rather than effort. Its first doctrinal claim is deliberately provocative in its compression: ignorance itself, in its very nature, is already buddha-nature; this illusory body is already the dharma-body. Nothing needs to be exchanged for something else — the poem's opening refusal, "he does not clear away delusive thought, nor does he go seeking the true," sets the tone for everything that follows: awakening as recognition, not acquisition.
2. A Settled Teaching
無罪福。無損益。寂滅性中莫問覓。此來塵鏡未曾磨。今日分明須剖析。
There is no sin, no merit; no loss, no gain. Within the nature of quiescent extinction, do not go asking or seeking. Ever since coming here the dusty mirror has never once been polished — today it must be plainly, clearly laid open.
誰無念。誰無生。若實無生無不生。喚取機關木人問。求佛施功早晚成。
Who is without thought? Who is without birth? If there is truly no birth, then there is nothing that is not born. Call over a mechanical wooden puppet and ask it: seeking buddhahood by piling up effort — will it ever, sooner or later, succeed?
放四大。莫把捉。寂滅性中隨飲啄。諸行無常一切空。即是如來大圓覺。
Let go of the four elements; do not grasp and cling. Within the nature of quiescent extinction, eat and drink as it comes. All conditioned things are impermanent, all of them empty — this itself is the Tathāgata's great, perfect awakening.
決定說。表真乘。有人不肯任情徵。直截根源佛所印。摘葉尋枝我不能。
This is a settled teaching, declaring the true vehicle. If there is one who will not accept it, let him test it as he pleases. Cutting straight through to the root and source is what the Buddha himself has sealed — plucking at leaves and searching among branches is not something I can do.
A striking, almost legalistic vow appears here: "if I speak falsely here to deceive living beings, may I bring on myself the tongue-pulling hell for kalpas as many as the dust motes." This kind of self-curse, staking the speaker's own fate on the truth of the claim, is a recognized rhetorical form in Chinese Buddhist polemical writing, and its presence this early signals how seriously the poem takes what follows: not a meditation aid offered tentatively, but "a settled teaching" (決定說) the author is willing to be judged by.
3. The Priceless Jewel Hidden in Poverty
摩尼珠。人不識。如來藏裏親收得。六般神用空不空。一顆圓光色非色。
The maṇi jewel — people do not recognize it. It is gathered up in person, within the storehouse of the Tathāgata. Its six kinds of miraculous function are empty, yet not empty; a single perfect light, its color is no color at all.
淨五根。得五力。唯證乃知難可測。鏡裏看形見不難。水中捉月爭拈得。
Purify the five faculties, gain the five powers — only by realization does one know how hard it is to fathom. Looking at a form in a mirror is not hard to see; but grasping at the moon in the water — how could that ever be caught?
常獨行。常獨步。達者同遊涅槃路。調古神清風自高。貌顇骨剛人不顧。
Always walking alone, always going alone — those who have penetrated it travel together the road of nirvāṇa. Their tune is ancient, their spirit clear, their manner naturally lofty; their features gaunt, their bones hard — and they pay it no attention at all.
窮釋子。口稱貧。實是身貧道不貧。貧則身常披縷褐。道則心藏無價珍。
This poor son of Śākya calls himself poor with his own mouth — but in truth it is only the body that is poor; the Way is not poor at all. In poverty, the body is forever wrapped in ragged cloth; in the Way, the mind holds a priceless treasure hidden within.
無價珍。用無盡。利物應機終不吝。三身四智體中圓。八解六通心地印。
This priceless treasure — its use is inexhaustible. Benefiting beings, responding to occasions, it is never held back. The three bodies and four wisdoms are already complete within its very substance; the eight liberations and six supernormal powers are the seal stamped on the ground of mind.
上士一決一切了。中下多聞多不信。但自懷中解垢衣。誰能向外誇精進。
The person of highest capacity, deciding once, understands all at once; those of middling and lesser capacity, hearing much, mostly do not believe. Simply undo the soiled garment hidden in your own bosom — who has any need to go about outwardly boasting of diligence?
A long, image-rich section built around a single central figure: the maṇi jewel, present and functioning but unrecognized, "gathered up within the storehouse of the Tathāgata." The poem pairs this image with a pointed social inversion — "this poor son of Śākya calls himself poor with his own mouth, but in truth it is only the body that is poor; the Way is not poor at all" — collapsing the ordinary distinction between material poverty and spiritual wealth that a monk's begging life might otherwise suggest. The section closes by turning from image to direct challenge: "the person of highest capacity, deciding once, understands all at once; those of middling and lesser capacity, hearing much, mostly do not believe" — an early hint of the poem's recurring impatience with those who hedge.
4. Slander as Teacher
從他謗。任他非。把火燒天徒自疲。我聞恰似飲甘露。銷融頓入不思議。
Let others slander as they will; let others find fault as they please — trying to burn the sky with a torch only wears out the one holding it. When I hear such words, it is exactly like drinking sweet dew — it dissolves away, and I enter at once into the inconceivable.
觀惡言。是功德。此則成吾善知識。不因訕謗起怨親。何表無生慈忍力。
Look upon harsh words as merit itself — this is precisely what makes them my good spiritual friend. If no resentment or affection ever arose from slander and mockery, how else could the power of unborn compassion and patience ever be shown?
宗亦通。說亦通。定慧圓明不滯空。非但我今獨達了。恒沙諸佛體皆同。
Penetrating the source, and penetrating its expression too — samādhi and wisdom perfectly bright, never stuck fast in emptiness. It is not only I, today, who alone has reached this — buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges all share this same substance.
師子吼。無畏說。百獸聞之皆腦裂。香象奔波失卻威。天龍寂聽生欣悅。
The lion's roar — the fearless teaching. The hundred beasts, hearing it, all have their skulls split open; even the musk elephant, fleeing in panic, loses its dignity — while the heavenly dragons listen in stillness, and joy is born in them.
Here the poem takes up a theme it will return to throughout: how to receive hostility. Its answer is neither to fight back nor to simply endure, but to actively convert the hostility into practice — "look upon harsh words as merit itself; this is precisely what makes them my good spiritual friend." The logic offered is precise rather than merely stoic: if no resentment or affection ever arose in response to slander, there would be no occasion on which the power of unborn compassion and patience could ever actually be demonstrated. Slander, on this reading, is not an obstacle to the practice but raw material for it.
5. Recognizing the Road to Caoxi
遊江海。涉山川。尋師訪道為參禪。自從認得曹谿路。了知生死不相關。
Wandering over rivers and seas, crossing mountains and streams — seeking out teachers, inquiring after the Way, all for the sake of studying Chan. Ever since I recognized the road to Caoxi, I have clearly known that birth and death have nothing to do with me at all.
行亦禪。坐亦禪。語默動靜體安然。縱遇鋒刀常坦坦。假饒毒藥也閑閑。我師得見然燈佛。多劫曾為忍辱仙。
Walking is Chan; sitting is Chan too — speaking or silent, moving or still, the substance is at ease. Even meeting the blade of a sword, one remains ever composed; even given poison to drink, one stays entirely unconcerned. My own teacher, in a past life, met and saw the Buddha Dīpaṃkara, and for kalpa upon kalpa was once the Sage of Patience.
幾回生。幾回死。生死悠悠無定止。自從頓悟了無生。於諸榮辱何憂喜。
How many times born, how many times dead — birth and death drift on and on, with no fixed end. But ever since sudden awakening made clear that there is no birth at all, what is there in honor or disgrace to grieve over or rejoice in?
入深山。住蘭若。岑崟幽邃長松下。優游靜坐野僧家。闃寂安居實瀟灑。
Entering the deep mountains, dwelling in a hermitage — among towering, secluded peaks, beneath the tall pines. Wandering at ease, sitting quietly in a wild monk's dwelling — utterly still, at rest, truly free and unconstrained.
The poem's autobiography surfaces directly for the first time — "ever since I recognized the road to Caoxi, I have clearly known that birth and death have nothing to do with me at all" — naming the specific place, Huineng's monastery, that the traditional frame story identifies as the site of the poem's own origin. What follows extends the claim of total equanimity to its most demanding test cases: composure even facing a blade, even given poison. The section closes by reaching back through a story from the Buddha's own past lives — a prior meeting with the buddha Dīpaṃkara, kalpas spent as "the Sage of Patience" — to root the poem's present claim of fearlessness in a much older lineage of the same quality.
6. The Arrow That Falls Back
覺即了。不施功。一切有為法不同。住相布施生天福。猶如仰箭射虛空。
Once awakened, it is simply finished — no effort need be applied. All this is unlike the conditioned dharmas of ordinary practice. Giving that dwells on appearances only produces the blessings of heavenly rebirth — it is just like shooting an arrow straight up into empty sky.
勢力盡。箭還墜。招得來生不如意。爭似無為實相門。一超直入如來地。
When its force is spent, the arrow falls back down again, bringing about a next life that turns out unsatisfying. How could this compare with the gateway of the unconditioned, the true mark of reality — where a single leap carries one straight into the ground of the Tathāgata?
但得本。莫愁末。如淨琉璃含寶月。既能解此如意珠。自利利他終不竭。
Simply grasp the root; do not worry over the branches. It is like pure lapis lazuli holding within it a jeweled moon. Once one has truly understood this wish-fulfilling jewel, benefiting oneself and benefiting others is never, ever exhausted.
江月照。松風吹。永夜清宵何所為。佛性戒珠心地印。霧露雲霞體上衣。
The river moon shines; the pine wind blows — through the long night, the clear evening, what is there left to do? The buddha-nature is the precepts' own pearl, the seal stamped on the ground of mind; mist, dew, cloud, and rosy haze are the very robe upon the body.
降龍缽。解虎錫。兩鈷金環鳴歷歷。不是標形虛事持。如來寶杖親蹤跡。
The bowl that subdued the dragon, the staff that parted fighting tigers — its double prongs and golden rings ring out clear and distinct. This is no mere outward display, no empty formality carried for show — it is the Tathāgata's own precious staff, its very traces still in evidence.
A carefully built contrast between two kinds of giving. Ordinary meritorious practice — "giving that dwells on appearances" — is compared to an arrow shot straight up into empty sky: however far it travels, its force is eventually spent, and it falls back down, "bringing about a next life that turns out unsatisfying." Against this the poem sets "the gateway of the unconditioned, the true mark of reality," where, rather than accumulating merit toward some future exhaustible reward, "a single leap carries one straight into the ground of the Tathāgata." The section's closing image — pure lapis lazuli holding a jeweled moon within it — returns to the maṇi-jewel theme from Section 3, now specifically framed around getting the root right rather than chasing the branches.
7. The True Mark: Neither Marked nor Empty
不求真。不斷妄。了知二法空無相。無相無空無不空。即是如來真實相。
Not seeking the true, not cutting off the false — clearly knowing that both these dharmas are empty, without mark. No mark, no emptiness, and nothing that is not empty — this itself is the Tathāgata's own true and real mark.
心鏡明。鑒無礙。廓然瑩徹周沙界。萬象森羅影現中。一顆圓光非內外。
The mirror of mind is bright, its reflecting unobstructed — vast and open, brilliantly clear, pervading realms as many as grains of sand. The ten thousand forms, in dense array, appear as reflections within it; one perfect, round light, neither inside nor outside.
豁達空。撥因果。莽莽蕩蕩招殃禍。棄有著空病亦然。還如避溺而投火。
An empty view swept wide open, brushing cause and effect aside — vast and reckless, it only invites calamity and disaster. Discarding existence to cling to emptiness is a sickness of exactly the same kind — it is just like fleeing drowning water only to throw oneself into fire.
捨妄心。取真理。取捨之心成巧偽。學人不了用修行。真成認賊將為子。
Discarding the deluded mind to seize hold of the true principle — but this very mind of grasping and rejecting itself becomes a clever falsehood. The student who does not understand and simply applies practice truly ends up mistaking a thief for his own son.
損法財。滅功德。莫不由斯心意識。是以禪門了卻心。頓入無生知見力。
The loss of the dharma-treasure, the extinguishing of merit — none of it comes from anywhere but this very mind, intellect, and consciousness. This is exactly why the gate of Chan puts an end to mind altogether, entering at once into the power of the insight into no-birth.
A dense doctrinal core, working through what happens once both "seeking the true" and "cutting off the false" are dropped as false alternatives: "no mark, no emptiness, and nothing that is not empty — this itself is the Tathāgata's own true and real mark." The section then delivers one of the poem's sharpest warnings against a specific, common misreading of emptiness teachings — nihilistic "empty view" that sweeps cause and effect aside, which it calls "just like fleeing drowning water only to throw oneself into fire." Discarding existence to cling to emptiness, the poem insists, is not the cure for attachment to existence — it is the identical sickness wearing a different mask.
8. The Sword of Wisdom
大丈夫。秉慧劍。般若鋒兮金剛焰。非但空摧外道心。早曾落卻天魔膽。
The great hero grasps the sword of wisdom — the blade of prajñā, the flame of the vajra. It is not only that it demolishes the minds of those outside the Way — it has already, long ago, brought down the very courage of the heavenly demons.
震法雷。擊法鼓。布慈雲兮灑甘露。龍象蹴踏潤無邊。三乘五性皆醒悟。
It thunders the dharma-thunder, strikes the dharma-drum, spreads the clouds of compassion and scatters the sweet dew — dragons and elephants trample forward, its moistening reaching without limit, and the three vehicles, the five natures, all come awake at once.
雪山肥膩更無雜。純出醍醐我常納。一性圓通一切性。一法遍含一切法。
The rich, unmixed grass of the snow mountains yields nothing but pure ghee — this is what I have always taken in. One nature, perfectly penetrating, is every nature; one dharma, pervading fully, contains every dharma.
一月普現一切水。一切水月一月攝。諸佛法身入我性。我性同共如來合。
One moon appears throughout every body of water; every moon in every water is gathered into that single moon. The dharma-bodies of all the buddhas enter into my own nature; my own nature joins together, as one, with the Tathāgata.
一地具足一切地。非色非心非行業。彈指圓成八萬門。剎那滅卻三祇劫。一切數句非數句。與吾靈覺何交涉。
One ground already contains within it every ground — it is not form, not mind, not karmic action at all. In a single snap of the fingers, the eighty-four thousand approaches are perfectly accomplished; in a single instant, three incalculable kalpas are wiped away. All these counted phrases are themselves not really countable phrases at all — what have they to do with my own numinous awareness?
The poem's most martial imagery arrives here: "the great hero grasps the sword of wisdom — the blade of prajñā, the flame of the vajra" — a sword that has "already, long ago, brought down the very courage of the heavenly demons." This is followed immediately by its gentlest image in the same breath: dharma-thunder, dharma-drum, clouds of compassion, sweet dew scattered like rain. The section closes with the famous "one moon in ten thousand waters" passage, one of the poem's most quoted images outside its immediate context — one moon, reflected whole in every body of water it touches, none of the reflections lesser or more partial than the single moon they all reflect.
9. Cannot Be Grasped, Cannot Be Discarded
不可毀。不可讚。體若虛空勿涯岸。不離當處常湛然。覓即知君不可見。
It cannot be destroyed; it cannot be praised. Its substance is like empty space, without any shore or boundary at all. Never departing from right where it is, it is forever still and clear — go looking for it, and you will know at once that it cannot be seen.
取不得。捨不得。不可得中只麼得。默時說。說時默。大施門開無壅塞。
It cannot be grasped; it cannot be discarded — within what cannot be attained, it is attained just as it is. In silence, there is speech; in speech, there is silence — the gate of the great giving stands open, with nothing at all to block it.
有人問我解何宗。報道摩訶般若力。或是或非人不識。逆行順行天莫測。吾早曾經多劫修。不是等閑相誑惑。
If someone asks me what teaching I have understood, I answer: the power of great, complete prajñā. Whether this is taken as right or as wrong, people cannot recognize it; acting against the current or with it, even heaven cannot fathom it. Long ago, over many kalpas, I already cultivated this — it is not some idle thing spoken to deceive.
A tight, almost riddling passage on the impossibility of either possessing or rejecting reality as it is: "it cannot be grasped; it cannot be discarded — within what cannot be attained, it is attained just as it is." The line "in silence, there is speech; in speech, there is silence" plays on a familiar Chan paradox — that the deepest teaching often passes precisely through what looks, from outside, like its absence. The section closes with the poem's own explicit self-description of its central claim, when asked what teaching it holds to: "the power of great, complete prajñā" — offered plainly, without further embellishment, as if daring the question to be asked again.
10. The Twenty-Eight Patriarchs, and an Age in Decline
建法幢。立宗旨。明明佛敕曹谿是。第一迦葉首傳燈。二十八代西天記。
Raising the dharma banner, establishing the essential teaching — plainly and clearly, the Buddha's own charge points to Caoxi as the one. Kāśyapa was first to receive and pass on the lamp; twenty-eight generations are recorded in the West.
法東流。入此土。菩提達摩為初祖。六代傳衣天下聞。後人得道何窮數。
The Dharma flowed eastward, entering this land — Bodhidharma became its first patriarch here. Through six generations the robe was handed down, known throughout the whole world; among those who came after and attained the Way, who could ever count their number?
真不立。妄本空。有無俱遣不空空。二十空門元不著。一性如來體自同。
The true is not established; the false is originally empty. Both being and non-being are swept away, and even that emptiness is not empty. The twenty gates of emptiness are, from the start, nothing to cling to — the one nature of the Tathāgata is, in its own substance, already the same throughout.
心是根。法是塵。兩種猶如鏡上痕。痕垢盡除光始現。心法雙忘性即真。
Mind is the root; dharmas are the dust — the two are just like scratches on a mirror. Only once every scratch and stain is entirely removed does the light first appear; when both mind and dharmas are forgotten together, the nature is then truly real.
嗟末法。惡時世。眾生福薄難調制。去聖遠兮邪見深。魔強法弱多怨害。聞說如來頓教門。恨不滅除令瓦碎。
Alas, for this age of the degenerate Dharma, this evil time in the world — living beings have thin merit and are hard to train and tame. Far removed from the sages, wrong views run deep; the demons are strong and the Dharma weak, and harm and resentment are many. Hearing of the Tathāgata's sudden teaching, they resent it, wishing only to destroy it and smash it like a broken tile.
作在心。殃在身。不須怨訴更尤人。欲得不招無間業。莫謗如來正法輪。
The deed is done in the mind; the calamity falls on the body — there is no need to complain or blame others further. If you wish not to bring on yourself the karma of the Avīci hell without interval, do not slander the Tathāgata's true wheel of the Dharma.
A rare passage of explicit lineage history: Kāśyapa as first to receive the lamp from the Buddha, twenty-eight generations transmitting it in India, Bodhidharma carrying it east, six generations passing down the robe in China until it reached, by clear implication, Huineng himself at Caoxi. This lineage claim grounds everything the poem has argued in an unbroken chain of transmission rather than presenting it as a private insight. The section then turns from historical confidence to a much darker register — lament for "this age of the degenerate Dharma," where "the demons are strong and the Dharma weak," and where the poem's own sudden teaching is met not with gratitude but with active resentment from those who "wish only to destroy it."
11. The Lion's Cub, and the Perfect, Sudden Teaching
栴檀林。無雜樹。鬱密森沈師子住。境靜林間獨自遊。走獸飛禽皆遠去。
In the sandalwood forest there are no mixed trees at all — dense and deep, the lion alone dwells there. In the quiet of that forest, it wanders all alone, and every running beast and flying bird keeps far away.
師子兒。眾隨後。三歲便能大哮吼。若是野干逐法王。百年妖怪虛開口。
The lion's own cub, the pack following behind him — by three years old he can already roar the great roar. But if it is a jackal chasing after the Dharma King, then for a hundred years that goblin only opens its mouth in vain.
圓頓教。沒人情。有疑不決直須爭。不是山僧逞人我。修行恐落斶斷常坑。
The perfect and sudden teaching allows for no sentimental accommodation — where doubt remains unresolved, one must contend directly. It is not that this mountain monk indulges pride of self and other — I fear only that practice might fall into the pit of nihilism or eternalism.
非不非。是不是。差之毫釐失千里。是則龍女頓成佛。非則善星生陷墜。
Not-wrong is not simply wrong; not-right is not simply right — miss it by a hair's breadth, and you are off by a thousand miles. Rightly understood, the dragon girl attained buddhahood in an instant; wrongly understood, Sunakṣatra fell alive into hell.
The poem's central self-image for spiritual authority arrives here: not a jackal that merely postures near the Dharma King and only "opens its mouth in vain," but a lion's own cub, who "by three years old can already roar the great roar" — inherited capacity made manifest early, not earned through decades of accumulated seniority. The section's closing couplet is the poem's most compressed statement of how easily right understanding tips into wrong: "miss it by a hair's breadth, and you are off by a thousand miles" — illustrated by the paired cases of the dragon girl, who attained buddhahood in an instant, and the monk Sunakṣatra, who fell alive into hell.
12. Years Spent Counting Sand
吾早年來積學問。亦曾討疏尋經論。分別名相不知休。入海算沙徒自困。
In my early years I piled up learning, and I too once pored over commentaries, searching through sūtras and treatises — discriminating names and marks without knowing when to stop, like entering the ocean to count its grains of sand, only wearing myself out for nothing.
卻被如來苦訶責。數他珍寶有何益。從來蹭蹬覺虛行。多年枉作風塵客。
But then I was sternly rebuked by the Tathāgata: what use is there in counting up someone else's treasure? All that stumbling, I came to realize, was empty wandering — for many years I had wasted myself as a traveler in the wind and dust.
種性邪。錯知解。不達如來圓頓制。二乘精進沒道心。外道聰明無智慧。
Wrong in seed-nature, mistaken in understanding — such people do not reach the Tathāgata's perfect, sudden teaching. Those of the two lesser vehicles are diligent, yet lack the mind that seeks the Way; those outside the Way are clever, yet lack true wisdom.
亦愚癡。亦小騃。空拳指上生實解。執指為月枉施功。根境法中虛捏怪。
They are also foolish, also naive — over an empty fist and a pointing finger, they conceive a real understanding. Taking the finger for the moon, they apply their effort in vain; within the faculties, their objects, and the dharmas, they fabricate phantoms out of nothing.
不見一法即如來。方得名為觀自在。了即業障本來空。未了應須還宿債。
Not seeing even a single dharma — this is itself the Tathāgata; only then can one truly be called Avalokiteśvara, who sees with ease. Once understood, karmic hindrance is originally empty; not yet understood, one must still repay debts from former lives.
飢逢王膳不能餐。病遇醫王爭得瘥。在欲行禪知見力。火中生蓮終不壞。勇施犯重悟無生。早時成佛于今在。
Starving, one may meet a king's own feast and still be unable to eat it; sick, one may meet the King of Physicians, and yet how can one be cured without taking the medicine? To practice Chan in the midst of desire is the power of true insight — a lotus born in the midst of fire that never withers at all. The monk Yongshi, though he broke a grave precept, awakened to no-birth, and long ago had already become a buddha, and remains one still today.
A second, longer stretch of autobiography, more self-critical than the earlier reference to Caoxi: years spent "entering the ocean to count its grains of sand," poring over commentaries and doctrinal analysis, "only wearing myself out for nothing" — until "sternly rebuked by the Tathāgata," a phrase the poem does not further explain, but which reads as the turning point away from purely scholastic study. The section then works through one of the poem's hardest cases: the monk Yongshi, who broke a grave precept — traditionally read as murder or a comparably grave offense — and yet, on this telling, awakened to no-birth and had already, long before, become a buddha, and remained one still. The poem places this immediately beside the story of two other monks whose offenses only deepened before the strict disciplinarian Upāli, until Vimalakīrti's teaching dissolved their doubt "as the blazing sun melts away frost and snow" — two ways of framing the same hard question about grave moral failure and awakening, without fully reconciling them into a single simple rule.
13. The Lion's Roar Once More
師子吼。無畏說。深嗟懵懂頑皮靼。祇知犯重障菩提。不見如來開祕訣。
The lion's roar, the fearless teaching — how deeply I sigh over the dull and stubborn, thick-skinned as leather. They know only that breaking a grave precept obstructs bodhi, and do not see the secret key the Tathāgata has opened.
有二比丘犯淫殺。波離螢光增罪結。維摩大士頓除疑。猶如赫日銷霜雪。
There were two monks, one guilty of lust, one of killing — before Upāli, their faint firefly light only deepened the knot of their offense. But the great being Vimalakīrti dissolved their doubt at once, just as the blazing sun melts away frost and snow.
不思議。解脫力。妙用恒沙也無極。四事供養敢辭勞。萬兩黃金亦銷得。粉骨碎身未足酬。一句了然超百億。
The inconceivable power of liberation — its wondrous function, numerous as the sands of the Ganges, is without limit. The four kinds of offerings, one would never refuse the labor of making them; ten thousand taels of gold could also be spent and used up in gratitude. Yet to grind one's bones and shatter one's body would still not be repayment enough — one single phrase, clearly understood, surpasses a hundred million such offerings.
法中王。最高勝。恒沙如來同共證。我今解此如意珠。信受之者皆相應。
The king among all dharmas, the highest and most excellent — buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges have together realized it as one. Now that I have understood this wish-fulfilling jewel, all who receive it in faith will come into accord with it.
The poem circles back to its central image of fearless address, now aimed specifically at those who understand precepts only as external prohibition — "they know only that breaking a grave precept obstructs bodhi, and do not see the secret key the Tathāgata has opened." This is immediately followed by praise for the "inconceivable power of liberation," measured against an extravagant standard of gratitude — "ten thousand taels of gold... to grind one's bones and shatter one's body would still not be repayment enough" — only to have even that standard overturned by the section's closing claim: "one single phrase, clearly understood, surpasses a hundred million such offerings." Material and even bodily sacrifice, however extreme, is set below a single moment of genuine understanding.
14. Beyond the Reach of Demons
了了見。無一物。亦無人。亦無佛。大千沙界海中漚。一切聖賢如電拂。假使鐵輪頂上旋。定慧圓明終不失。
Seeing it with perfect clarity, there is not one single thing — no person, and no buddha either. A great-thousand world of sand-grain realms is but a single bubble in the ocean; every sage and worthy is like a flash of lightning passing by. Even if an iron wheel were to spin upon the very crown of my head, samādhi and wisdom, perfect and bright, would never in the end be lost.
日可冷。月可熱。眾魔不能壞真說。象駕崢嶸慢進途。誰見螳蜋能拒轍。
The sun might turn cold; the moon might turn hot — but the assembled demons can never destroy this true teaching. The elephant-drawn carriage advances, towering and unhurried, along its road — who has ever seen a mantis able to block its wheels?
大象不遊於兔徑。大悟不拘於小節。莫將管見謗蒼蒼。未了吾今為君訣。
The great elephant does not wander along a rabbit's narrow track; great awakening is not bound by petty details. Do not take a narrow tube's-eye view and slander the vast blue heaven — for whoever has not yet understood, I offer this final verse as the key.
The poem's closing movement returns to the register of complete, unshakable confidence it opened with. "Seeing it with perfect clarity, there is not one single thing — no person, and no buddha either" pushes the poem's non-dual claim to its final extreme, refusing even the concept of buddhahood a privileged, separate status. The closing image is the poem's most memorable statement of scale: "the great elephant does not wander along a rabbit's narrow track; great awakening is not bound by petty details" — a final warning, addressed directly to the reader, "do not take a narrow tube's-eye view and slander the vast blue heaven," against measuring what cannot be measured by ordinary standards of gradual, careful progress.
Resources
- 永嘉證道歌 · Wikisource — the public-domain digital edition this translation was made from.
- Taishō T2014 · CBETA — the Taishō canon edition, catalogued under Yongjia Xuanjue's name, at CBETA (Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association).
- Yongjia Xuanjue (永嘉玄覺, 665–713) — the traditional author, a Tiantai-trained monk whose single recorded night with Huineng at Caoxi is the poem's own frame story.
- Fantian Yanqi (梵天彥琪, fl. 12th c.), 證道歌註 (X1241) — the earliest identifiable line-by-line commentary, Song dynasty, compiled by his disciple Huiguang and preserved in the 卍新纂續藏經, vol. 63; noted here as historical context, not as the source of this page's reading notes.
- Hsuan Hua (宣化上人, 1918–1995), 永嘉大師證道歌淺釋 — a widely read modern lecture-commentary, noted here only as historical context; this page's translation and reading notes were made independently, directly from the Chinese.
Chinese source: Taishō T2014, attributed to Yongjia Xuanjue, public domain. English translation and reading guide written for Ru-Yi Meditation Center. See also this site's note on translation method.
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