Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — First Collection, Part 4

People of the world with a bit of sharpness quickly look down on Buddha-recitation, dismissing it as the business of foolish men and foolish women. They see only that such foolish men and women recite the Buddha's name with their mouths while their minds wander a thousand miles away, and do not realize that this is properly called "reading the Buddha," not "recollecting the Buddha" at all.

Recollection arises from the mind — the mind holding something in memory, never letting it be forgotten; that is what "recollection" truly means. Consider the analogy of a Confucian scholar: a scholar who holds Confucius constantly in mind, recollecting him thought after thought, comes, over time, to draw remarkably close to Confucius himself. People today, by contrast, hold the five desires constantly in mind, thought after thought, without ever considering this wrong — and then turn around and criticize Buddha-recitation instead! Ah — to spend an entire lifetime this way, empty and wasted — how much better it would be to become one of those "foolish men and women" who actually recite the Buddha's name! The pity is only this: it takes real wisdom to be willing to recite the Buddha's name at all — mere foolishness alone is not enough to manage it.

A monk named Xingkong at Sizhou Temple in Wu abandoned his regular monastery and went into solitary retreat on Mount Yaofeng. He once sent me a copy of the vows he had made, together with the declaration he had addressed to the buddhas of the ten directions, and I praised it as a rare and admirable thing. Before long, though, he became possessed by demonic disturbance, and died raving mad — I grieved deeply over it.

Reflecting on the cause, I believe it came from having only just given rise to faith, with faith present but wisdom still lacking. In ancient times, before their own minds had become truly clear, practitioners would travel a thousand miles without hesitation, seeking out teachers and inquiring after the Way — passing from one monastic community into another, even wandering ceaselessly from place to place, never resting. Only after they had truly grasped the essential point would they finally retire to some quiet spot by the water or under the trees, to nurture the embryo of sagehood within. How could this monk, having only just escaped the burning house, leap straight into death's own gate? Faults he did not recognize, doubts he could not resolve — seeking to rise, he fell instead. Is it any wonder it turned out this way?

There are quite a few students newly resolved on the path who build a thatched hut deep in the mountains and live there alone, believing this makes them lofty and transcendent. Such people may not necessarily go mad in this way, but they too lose no small benefit by abandoning the chance for real guidance. Let those with clear judgment give this some thought.

When I myself traveled alone on foot as a pilgrim, I endured hunger and thirst, braved cold and heat, and underwent every kind of hardship. Now that I am fortunate enough to have a thatched roof over my head, even though I cannot claim to truly understand practice, I do know what shame and gratitude mean. When traveling monks arrive unexpectedly, I make sure to serve and attend to them with all diligence; as for my own needs, I never dare to indulge them beyond what is necessary. This is exactly what is meant by the saying: "Someone who was once a wanderer himself feels a special tenderness for the traveler; a poor man who built his own fortune treasures even a clod of earth like gold."

There are people today who, having only just entered the monastic gate, settle straight into an established, comfortable monastery, with everything arranged conveniently for them. This is exactly like the son of a wealthy family who has no idea what hardship among ordinary people actually feels like. Even granting that such a person is unusually gifted and talented, and has no real need to travel and seek instruction elsewhere, still — to shut the door and grow complacent in one's own importance is to cultivate the habit of spiritual conceit, and to let ignorance grow — and this, too, means losing no small opportunity for real, upward progress.

A monk once said to me: "The Buddha revealed the Western Pure Land precisely to benefit all capacities universally, and to allow swift transcendence of birth and death — this is the 'easy path of practice.' But Master Zhili's commentary explains it using nothing but the deep and subtle contemplative methods of the Tiantai teaching, turning what was easy into something difficult, and losing the Tathāgata's own original intention of accommodating ordinary, unenlightened people." This argument, too, has real merit.

But thinking it over now, I recall that the ancients held: in explaining a sutra, it is better to render something simple as something profound than to render something profound as something merely simple. Given this, what the Marvelous Tenets Commentary teaches leaves those of sharp capacity free to awaken to its profound principles on their own, while those of duller capacity lose nothing — they can still follow the sutra's direct method of contemplation and seek rebirth in the Pure Land just the same. There seems, then, to be no real obstacle in it after all.

Someone asked: "Immortals can project their spirit out of the body — can a Chan practitioner do the same?" I said: "He can, but does not do it. The Śūraṅgama Sūtra says: 'his mind leaves the body, and he can turn and look back upon his own face' — this describes exactly this ability. But it goes on to say: 'This is not a sign of sagely attainment; if one takes it to be a sign of sagely attainment, one at once falls prey to every kind of deviant influence.' This is why the ability exists, and yet is not exercised."

The person asked further: "The spirit that leaves the body has both a yin and a yang aspect — what the Śūraṅgama describes is the yin spirit; immortals project the yang spirit instead. Can a Chan practitioner project the yang spirit too?" I said: "Also able to, and also not doing it." The questioner looked startled. I said: "Do not be startled. Have you not heard how, after the First Patriarch Bodhidharma had already died, someone met him on the road carrying a single sandal, walking west toward India? Have you not heard how the monk Baozhi appeared, at the very same time, both imprisoned and walking about in the marketplace? Have you not heard how Master Guishan sat quietly in his own room and yet, at that very moment, was eating fried rice-cakes at a shop in the village? And yet none of this is called sagely attainment — the Chan tradition itself has always rebuked it. There was once a monk who entered meditation and projected his spirit, and boasted: 'When my spirit goes forth, it can travel any distance, near or far, and even bring back objects — this is the true yang spirit.' An ancient worthy rebuked him for it, saying: 'You shaved your head and put on monastic robes to study Chan and the Way — why on earth are you playing at this trade of ghosts and spirits?' This is exactly why our own tradition strictly forbids projecting the spirit out of the body."

Someone asked further: "What fault is there in projecting the spirit?" I said: "The 'spirit' here is simply consciousness itself, and consciousness has both a coarse and a subtle aspect. Whatever spirit can leave and re-enter the body is the coarse kind. Even supposing one reached the point where such leaving and entering had entirely ceased, a subtle consciousness would still remain. Subtler and subtler still, until every trace of it has finally dissolved away entirely — only then has one truly attained the fundamental substance itself. To cling to this leaving and entering of the spirit as something marvelous is exactly the case described earlier, in 'The Mind's Vital Spirit Is Called Sagehood': 'A student of the Way who fails to recognize what is truly real, simply because he has all along mistaken consciousness for it — the very root of birth and death across countless kalpas — and the fool mistakes it for his own original face.'"

On hearing news of someone's death, people are invariably deeply startled — this is ordinary human feeling, but where there is life there is inevitably death, and this too is simply the ordinary way of the world. From ancient times to the present, not a single person has ever been spared it — what is there to be so startled about? What truly deserves to startle us is this: to live an entire life in vain, wasted, without ever once hearing the Dharma — and yet to feel entirely unmoved and unconcerned about that. How sorrowful!

Wealthy and eminent people are unable to keep a vegetarian diet for two reasons: one, they are addicted to the delicious taste of meat; two, they worry that a coarse diet of vegetables will harm their health. What they fail to realize is that eating meat or eating vegetables may perhaps affect how fat or thin the body becomes, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the length of one's life.

Consider: the deer lives longer than almost any other animal, and yet it eats nothing but grass; the tiger eats meat, and yet its lifespan is far shorter than the deer's — is this not perfectly plain? If a deer can live long without eating meat, why should a human being be any different? That said, there are those hindered by illness who, though they wish in their hearts to fast, lack the physical strength to sustain it; and there are those constrained by the wishes of their elders, who, though they wish in their hearts to eat vegetarian, are not in a position to insist on it. In such cases, it is enough to observe the monthly and daily fasts, or to eat the "three kinds of pure meat," while firmly holding to the precept against killing directly. Over time, the deeply ingrained habit will naturally wear away on its own.

The Sūtra of Perfect Enlightenment holds that saṃsāra is rooted in craving and desire. And this craving and desire, however one tries by a thousand different schemes to master it, cannot be eliminated. Even a warrior of Ben and Yu's legendary strength would find no use for his courage against it; even the wisest counselors like Zhang Liang and Chen Ping would find no use for their intelligence against it; even someone with the piercing eyesight of Li Lou or the miraculous craftsmanship of Gongshu Ban would find no use for their skill against it.

Although the sutras teach the contemplation of impurity as the proper antidote, we ordinary, deeply obstructed beings, weighed down by heavy karmic hindrance, see only what is pure and attractive, never what is impure — and so, subtle and profound as this contemplation method is, very few ever manage to complete it successfully. What, then, is truly to be done? A sutra says: "Desire arises from your own intention; intention arises from thought." So now, contemplate this thought itself — where, exactly, does it come from? Investigate it, and investigate it again, and go on investigating without pause, without rest — like a rat that has run into the hollow of an ox horn, with nowhere left to go — and there will surely come a point of final resolution.

People of the world regard illness as suffering, and yet a worthy of old said: "Illness is the true medicine of sentient beings." Medicine is supposed to be the opposite of illness — how, then, can illness itself be called medicine? Because a body with form cannot possibly be free of illness forever — this is simply the necessary logic of things. And when there is no illness, people grow careless and indulgent — who, in that state, ever wakes up to anything? Only when the suffering of illness presses upon the body does one come to know that the four elements are not truly real, and that human life is impermanent — and this becomes the very trigger for repentance and awakening, and an aid to further practice.

Since I left the household life to this day, I have suffered three grave illnesses that brought me to the point of death, and with each illness came a corresponding rise of repentance and awakening, which in turn deepened my resolve in practice. It is precisely because of this, my own direct experience, that I have come to believe the saying "illness is the true medicine" is truly the highest kind of statement.

The ancients had an analogy: "Just as a snake becoming a dragon does not change its scales, a person becoming a buddha does not change his face." This was meant to break the foolish habit of clinging to outward form when seeking buddhahood — it is a rough approximation, not an exact analogy; it takes only part of the meaning out of context, not the whole.

There is also a claim that a snake, lying hidden underground, transforms into a dragon through cultivation. What people fail to realize is that this transformation is simply the creature's own inherent nature at work, not the result of any cultivation at all — just as larvae in filthy water metamorphose into mosquitoes, maggots in a latrine metamorphose into flies, dung beetles metamorphose into cicadas, silkworms metamorphose into moths, pheasants become giant clams, sparrows become mussels, hammerhead sharks become tigers, and the great kun-fish becomes the peng-bird. Cases like these are numerous and varied — do any of them involve any process of cultivation at all? And have you never heard, too, that rotting grass turns into fireflies, that fallen rice turns into snails, that roof-tiles turn into mandarin ducks — insentient matter transforming into sentient life? Where, in any of this, is there room for "cultivation"? I fear that people who do not understand this principle, calling themselves students of the Way, may secretly be planting deviant causes and hoping vainly for deviant results — and so I could not avoid setting the record straight.

Glorious fame and generous profit are what everyone in the world competes for alike, and yet a worthy of old once said: "Seeking them, one cannot obtain them; trying to decline them, one cannot escape them either." This second phrase — "trying to decline them, one cannot escape them" — is the most profound and subtle of the two, and anyone living in the world ought to believe it deeply and turn it over carefully in the mind.

That fame and fortune cannot simply be sought and obtained — people generally understand this much. But that they cannot even be declined and escaped — who really understands that? If you truly understood that they cannot be escaped, why would you go on seeking them at all? And again: when people fail to obtain what they seek, they cannot contain their resentment; and when they finally obtain it, they cannot contain their joy. If you truly understood that it cannot be escaped, what would there be to feel joyful about? And again: people feel joy when they themselves gain something, and jealousy when someone else gains it instead. If you truly understood that it cannot be escaped, what would there be to feel jealous about?

Coming close to this understanding, one comes close as well to grasping that success and failure are simply brought about by causes and conditions from past lives, and, going further still, to realizing that every circumstance whatsoever arises from causes and conditions and is, in the end, empty — at which point success and failure, gain and loss, lose all their savor entirely! This is why I say this saying is truly profound and subtle.

A sutra says that when a person is about to die, hearing the sound of a bell or a chime strengthens their right mindfulness. But the custom in Hangzhou is to wait until the dying person's breath has already ceased for a long while before summoning a monk to strike the chime — by which point it is already too late. There is even a mistaken popular saying that goes: "The sound of the chime hurries the departed spirit on its way to King Yama's court." That such a mistaken idea should exist at all is extraordinary.

When the lilies bloom in my courtyard, during the day their fragrance, though present, is faint and pale; only after nightfall does the fragrance grow truly strong. It is not that the nose is duller by day and sharper by night — rather, during the bustling daylight hours, one's surroundings are filled with countless competing sights and sounds; the eyes are occupied with looking, the ears with listening, and the nose's own capacity is divided between them, unable to focus fully. "When intention is undivided, it becomes concentrated in spirit" — how true this saying is!

The Collected Tales Old and New records the story "The Man-Tiger": a certain monk, fond of practical jokes, liked to drape a tiger skin over himself and wander the mountain paths. Travelers who saw him, taking him for a real tiger, would flee in terror, sometimes dropping their belongings in their panic, which the monk would then help himself to. One day, the tiger skin suddenly stuck fast to his body of its own accord, and he was truly transformed into a tiger. He did not dare return to the monastery, though in his own mind he still knew clearly that he was really a man.

Growing hungry, he had no choice but to prey on foxes, hares, sheep, and dogs to survive. Then one day he caught a human being, and was about to devour him — only to discover it was a monk. Overcome with remorse, he wailed in anguish and flung his own body down in despair — and at that very moment the tiger skin suddenly fell away, and he returned to human form. Moved profoundly by this strange experience, he went on to practice as a mendicant ascetic, traveling to seek out spiritual teachers everywhere, applying himself wholeheartedly to the Way — and in time became a renowned and virtuous monk. A sutra says, "All things are made by mind alone" — reading this story, I believe it all the more.

Within each of the six realms, there exist all six realms once again. Take the human realm as an example: some people, like kings and great ministers, live as if among the heavenly beings. Some people — lesser officials and ordinary commoners with sufficient food and clothing, living out their lives in peace — live simply as human beings among humans. Some people — prison wardens, butchers, executioners — live as if among the asuras. Some people — those bearing heavy burdens for others, constantly beaten and driven — live as if among the animals. Some people — the destitute, the beggars, crying out from hunger and cold — live as if among the hungry ghosts. Some people — those subjected to execution and dismemberment — live as if in the hells themselves. The heavenly realm and the other four realms each contain the same sixfold division within themselves.

The reason for this is that keeping the precepts and cultivating merit in a past life is what secures a human body in this one, and the differences within the human realm arise because the precepts and merit one has cultivated come in higher, middling, and lower grades — and each of those three grades further divides into higher, middling, and lower again, and so on, expanding without end into countless varieties, each shaped by what one's own mind has karmically produced, and each bringing a different result accordingly. A sutra says: "All things are made by mind alone" — observing this pattern, I believe it all the more.

The Ekottarika Āgama says: "The Buddha said: attaining accomplishment in precepts is a matter of ordinary, worldly reckoning; attaining accomplishment in samādhi is likewise a matter of ordinary, worldly reckoning; attaining the accomplishment of supernormal flight is likewise a matter of ordinary, worldly reckoning. Only the attainment of wisdom counts as the ultimate truth." From this we know: of the three trainings — precepts, meditation, and wisdom — and the six perfections beginning with giving, wisdom alone is what matters most, and must never be treated lightly; wisdom alone must come first, and must never be placed last; wisdom alone penetrates every Dharma-gate without exception, and cannot be placed on equal footing with the rest. A sutra says: "From precepts, samādhi is generated; from samādhi, wisdom is brought forth" — this describes only the sequence in which they arise, and it remains essential to understand what truly matters most, what truly comes first, and what truly penetrates all the rest. And yet, even so, this "wisdom" is by no means mere cleverness or eloquence, exactly as explained earlier in the entry "Worldly Wisdom Must Still Be Awakened."

In the Sui dynasty, the monk Huiquan of Liangzhou had five hundred disciples, among whom one behaved in a particularly coarse and unusual way, and whom Huiquan had never thought much of. One day this disciple suddenly declared that he had attained the fruit of an anāgāmin. Huiquan, being ill at the time, had shut his door to rest, and yet this disciple came directly to the foot of his bed to inquire after his health — even though the door remained shut exactly as before. The next day the same thing happened again, after which the disciple said to Huiquan: "Master, when your life ends, you will be reborn into a brahmin family." Huiquan asked: "I have spent my whole life seated in meditation — why would I be reborn there?" The disciple answered: "Master, your faith in the Way has not been wholly sincere and thorough — your engagement with outside teachings has never been entirely cut off. Though you have accumulated meritorious karma, it cannot carry you to true transcendence."

Monks today include some who study Daoist texts like Laozi and Zhuangzi, some who study the Confucian classics prepared for the civil examinations, and some who study the Book of Odes, the Songs of Chu, and classical poetry and rhapsody. Even Huiquan, who took Chan meditation as his primary occupation, still had his practice held back simply by never having fully cut off outside study. How much more so, then, for monks today who indulge freely in outside learning while leaving Chan practice entirely unattended — I do not see how that could possibly turn out well.

When Master Lingyu lectured on the sutras, he might dwell on a single character for days on end, or, in the space of a moment, race through several entire scrolls; he might establish a fixed outline of divisions for a text, only to alter that outline in a later lecture, adding, subtracting, revealing, or concealing points as the occasion demanded — students found this puzzling. Lingyu said: "This is simply the vast, unconstrained method of a great bodhisattva — how could it possibly be judged by ordinary standards?"

Master Lingyu had, in truth, attained unobstructed eloquence, and had come close to genuine freedom in the Dharma. Those who cling rigidly to names and forms, who let the letter obscure the phrase and the phrase obscure the meaning, or who remain stuck at the level of a merely literal reading without ever truly awakening — how could such people possibly understand him? People today must neither cling stubbornly to their own opinions and look down on their betters, criticizing recklessly and without restraint, nor overestimate their own capacity and imitate the ancient worthies carelessly, acting willfully on their own authority.

People today, hearing of how Xuansha never crossed the mountain pass and Baofu never went beyond the border checkpoint, promptly settle into comfortable seclusion, viewing the whole world with lofty disdain. And then, hearing of how Xuefeng climbed Mount Touzi three times and Mount Dong nine times, or how Zhaozhou traveled on foot for eighty years, they rush off in every direction, wandering their whole lives away pointlessly. Both approaches are mistaken. When one's own mind is not yet clear, one truly ought to travel a thousand, ten thousand miles, seeking closeness to a genuine spiritual guide — how could one possibly sit in ignorant complacency, cultivating arrogance and self-importance instead? And having set out specifically to resolve the great matter of birth and death, how could one then spend the time merely sightseeing among mountains and rivers, boasting only of how widely one has traveled? Genuine pilgrims on foot, seeking the Way for its own sake, would certainly never behave this way.

There are those who, seeing that the Śūraṅgama Sūtra is profound not only in meaning but also marvelous in its literary style, have come to suspect it was actually written by the chancellor Fang Rong. But at the translation bureau, foreign and Chinese monks together with court scholars and lay officials — no fewer than several dozen or even a hundred people — all worked together before a single sutra translation could be completed. Fang Rong did no more than polish the text's literary style; he was not the one principally responsible for its meaning. Suppose Fang Rong had truly composed this sutra entirely out of his own understanding — then Fang Rong himself would have to be a heaven among heavens, a sage among sages! And yet, checking the Tang dynastic histories, Fang Rong's own talent and intelligence do not even measure up to writers like Liu Zongyuan, Han Yu, Yuan Zhen, or Bai Juyi — how, then, could he possibly have composed the Śūraṅgama? Would that mean he surpassed even Confucius, Mencius, Laozi, and Zhuangzi?

Alas! Across countless lifetimes and kalpas, to have the rare fortune of encountering a text so exquisitely refined, so profound and ultimate as this one — and then, rather than accepting and believing it wholeheartedly, to give rise instead to such a base and perverse doubt — how sorrowful this is! How sorrowful this is!

A sutra says: "The ten thousand dharmas are made by mind alone." Those who misunderstand this claim that without mind there is neither cause nor effect, and so worry not about having created karma, but only about having a mind at all — reasoning that if there is karma but no mind behind it, what could even King Yama do to them! And so they set their minds at ease and go on creating karma, with no further scruple at all.

What they fail to realize is that "no-mind" is of two kinds. The first is genuine no-mind: contemplating in full accordance with the truth, applying the mind to the utmost, until one naturally and spontaneously enters the samādhi of no-mind — this alone is true no-mind. The other is: giving rise to thoughts that create karma, and then giving rise to further thoughts in order to suppress those thoughts, forcibly trying to make the mind absent — this only appears to achieve no-mind, while the mind, in fact, has just become all the more present. Where mind exists, karma exists — and King Yama's iron staff will not let you off so easily!

The sutra also says: "Should a bodhisattva perfect in wisdom ever fall — if reborn among animals, he becomes king of the animals; if reborn among hungry ghosts, he becomes king of the hungry ghosts." Those who misunderstand this claim that having wisdom lets one transform karma at will, and so worry not about having created karma, but only about lacking wisdom — reasoning that if there is karma but wisdom to handle it, what could King Yama do to them! And so they set their minds at ease and go on creating karma, with no further scruple at all.

What they fail to realize is that the "wisdom" the sutra speaks of is nothing like ordinary worldly cleverness. And besides — does your own wisdom compare to that of Mañjuśrī, or of Śāriputra? Even granting it falls short of theirs, compare it further down the scale: does it compare even to Sunakṣatra's, or to Devadatta's? Sunakṣatra had studied broadly enough to master the entire Tripiṭaka — a body of teaching so vast it would take eighteen mighty elephants to carry it — and Devadatta had attained the supernormal powers of an arhat, and yet both of them still ended up falling alive into hell. How much less, then, could your own wisdom — almost certainly inferior to either of theirs — possibly protect you! A cup of water cannot extinguish a whole cartload of burning firewood; a firefly's glow cannot dispel the darkness of a deep ravine. How much karma, exactly, do you imagine your own small measure of wisdom is capable of dissolving? King Yama's iron staff will not let you off so easily.

Gain and loss have never had any fixed form; fortune and misfortune constantly give rise to one another in turn. Everyone knows the story of the old man at the frontier, yet few truly believe its lesson.

I myself once lost my footing and fell into boiling water, and my sinews contracted so badly that I could not straighten my legs; I relied on a pair of crutches as my constant companions, and thought this would be my condition for the rest of my life. I wrote a self-mocking "Song of the Lame Master" about it, which included the line: "My only worry is that this leg's affliction will never end." And yet, before long, my leg straightened again as before, and I laughed to think my own verse had become an unintended prophecy after all. I still, even now, keep that poem as a standing rule to guide myself — grateful, and also apprehensive — and I hope never to forget the lesson of "the arrow at the belt-hook."

Supernormal powers fall roughly into three kinds: those obtained as karmic reward, those obtained through cultivation, and those obtained through realization. Powers obtained as karmic reward arise naturally from meritorious karma — as with the heavenly beings, who all possess complete sight and hearing, or even ghosts and spirits, who possess minor powers of their own. Powers obtained through cultivation are acquired through deliberate practice — as when Devadatta studied supernormal powers under the Venerable Ānanda. Powers obtained through realization arise in someone who applies himself single-mindedly to the Way itself, without ever seeking supernormal powers as such — the powers simply come along, automatically, once the Way itself has been fulfilled, the only difference being how quickly or slowly this happens — as with the patriarchs and genuine spiritual teachers of every generation, past and present.

Comparing the three: one who has attained the Way need not worry about lacking supernormal powers, but one who has supernormal powers has not necessarily attained the Way. A worthy of old said: "Marvelous supernormal powers are no match for a true master; for the Buddha-dharma, you still need this old monk." There is real meaning packed into that remark. Let me offer an analogy: the rank, salary, official cap and robes, official residence, and ceremonial guard that a government official possesses are, in a sense, just like supernormal powers — and these, too, come in three corresponding kinds. Those obtained as reward are like inherited rank passed down from an ancestor's meritorious service — naturally acquired. Those obtained through "cultivation" are like rank acquired by currying favor with powerful patrons — something the ancients despised, since it is not obtained through the proper path. Those obtained through "realization" are like rank that follows naturally once one's own learning and virtue are genuinely established — exactly what Confucius meant when he said, "Study, and an official salary lies within it of itself." From these three, which is superior and which inferior should already be plain enough.

Great and eminent people in this world mostly arrive at their position through past cultivation, and yet there are three distinct grades among them. The first kind keeps the precepts and cultivates merit while never, thought after thought, forgetting the true wisdom of prajñā — such a person, though born in the next life to a position of high rank, fully endowed with the five sensory pleasures, still keeps his mind constantly turned toward the Way — truly what might be called "a monk who happens to have hair." The second kind keeps the precepts and cultivates merit, but lets the thought of prajñā grow somewhat sparse — such a person, in the next life, merely dabbles in the Dharma as a passing amusement. The third kind keeps the precepts and cultivates merit while paying no real attention to prajñā at all — such a person, in the next life, will be led astray by favorable circumstances, turning from good toward evil, and there are even cases of such people going on to slander the Buddha, destroy the Dharma, and persecute the Sangha!

And yet, tracing all three types back to their original ground, they were, every one of them, equally practitioners of the Way — and see how vastly they come to differ! Carry this forward another life, and yet another life again — how much further might that difference grow? It is enough to chill the heart!

People often say: "I have studied both the Tiantai and the Xianshou schools myself. Nanyue first laid out its broad framework, and from that every particular detail followed — no school is more complete than Tiantai in this respect. Xianshou held the balance of the scale, and a thousand scattered points came together in perfect order under him — no school is more complete than Qingliang's in this respect. Ever since the Buddha-dharma first arrived in the East, Master Zhiyi of Tiantai may be said to represent its grand synthesis; and ever since the founding of Tiantai itself, Master Chengguan of Qingliang may be said to represent the grand synthesis of Tiantai's own teaching and contemplative method! This is why these two masters are spoken of together, as the namesakes of their respective schools."

Someone asked: "No one raises any objection to Master Zhiyi of Tiantai, and yet some do raise objections against Xianshou — why is that?" I said: "Of a hundred objections raised against Xianshou, perhaps one in a hundred might be fair — is that not how people always argue about such things? And besides, has it not already been said that Xianshou's own teaching was not complete until Qingliang came along to finish it? Given that, Tiantai and Qingliang are, to us, like parents — their kindness is like a parent's kindness, and the transmission of their teaching is like a parent's raising of a child. Surely no one would go so far as to object even to Qingliang himself?" The person had no answer. I laughed and said: "There is no need to trouble yourself over this any further. That Qingliang should come after Tiantai is exactly like Confucius coming after Yao and Shun — what is there left to object to?"

Someone said: "Tiantai speaks of four teachings, Xianshou of five — clearly two distinct schools. Do they nonetheless have anything in common?" I said: "Do not treat them as two separate things at all. The difference between 'four' and 'five' is exactly like the difference between the five aggregates and the six sense-faculties — merely a matter of how the same material is divided or combined. Xianshou's 'lesser vehicle teaching,' among the five, is already contained within Tiantai's 'storehouse teaching,' among the four — but since 'storehouse teaching' carries with it a somewhat blended sense, Xianshou's school gives it a separate name, 'lesser vehicle,' instead. Xianshou's 'sudden teaching,' among the five, is already contained within Tiantai's 'perfect teaching,' among the four — but since Bodhidharma's direct-pointing method belongs precisely to the 'sudden' category, Xianshou's school singles it out under its own name, 'sudden,' in order to give it due prominence. As for the 'perfect teaching' spoken of by both schools, that much is genuinely identical between them — though because the deeper principle of the Avataṃsaka's 'ten mysterious gates' is already implicit, but not yet fully drawn out, within Tiantai's own version of the perfect teaching, Xianshou's school, after its lesser, initial, final, and sudden teachings, crowns its list with a 'One Vehicle' perfect teaching all its own — and there is real depth of purpose behind that choice. Each of the two schools served as the guiding authority for its own age, and both stand as models to be followed for ten thousand generations to come — this is exactly why they are spoken of as two distinct schools. But though the schools are properly spoken of as two, the underlying Way they teach remains, always, one and the same. To split it in two and treat it as genuinely divided would simply be a mistake!"

Yongming, Shiwu, Zhongfeng, and other great venerable masters have all left behind "mountain dwelling" poems, giving expression to their own realized nature, resonant across the ages. But of all these, for combining a vigorous, sweeping poetic force with exquisitely precise craftsmanship of line and word, Youtang's forty verses stand as the finest example among them all. The reason is this: they arise entirely from genuine investigation and genuine realization, overflowing from within and expressed outward — like a gentle breeze passing through the jeweled trees of the Land of Ultimate Bliss, or like the sky-god Śakra moved by the celestial lute of the gandharvas: sound arising without being struck, music sounding without being played. This is poetry at its most exquisite — and yet it cannot properly be judged as mere poetry at all. To fail to work on the root, and instead merely imitate the outward branches, polishing and refining one's phrasing for an entire lifetime — what good could that possibly do? I hope that those who dwell in the mountains will learn the ancients' own realization of the Way, and not merely imitate the ancients' poetry.

Seen up close, the color of the mountains is a deep, vivid green, like the plant indigo itself; seen from far away, the color turns a rich, dense blue, as if the indigo had been processed into dye. Has the mountain's color actually changed? The mountain's color remains exactly as it was — it is only the reach of our own eyesight that differs. As one moves gradually from near to far, green easily turns to blue; as one moves gradually from far to near, blue easily turns back to green. Green, then, is green only through the coming-together of conditions, and blue is blue only through the coming-together of conditions — it is not merely the blue that is illusory, but the green as well. And all the ten thousand things of this world are exactly the same.

In dreams at night, we mostly see events from this present life, and rarely dream of a previous life — why is this? Because dreams are formed out of thought, and what we think about is mostly events from this life, not from a previous one. Even the sages of the three vehicles still experience a brief confusion at the moment of leaving one existence and entering the womb of the next — how much more so, then, an ordinary being still fully bound by affliction, slipping out of one shell and into another, emerging upside-down from the mother's womb? How could such a being possibly retain any memory of a previous life at all? One can only follow whatever confused impressions lie immediately at hand — by day, these become thoughts; by night, they become dreams.

And yet sometimes things never seen, deeds never done, circumstances never experienced in this life will appear in a dream all the same — these arise from the beginningless conditions of the mind, surfacing of their own accord, and no one can really say why they arise as they do. Once the aggregate of perception itself has been broken through, waking and dreaming become one and the same, constant and undivided — I hope we can all apply ourselves together toward this.