Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — First Collection, Part 5

A practitioner was performing the Pure Land repentance rite when a monk said to him: "Does the sutra not say, 'Whoever wishes to repent should sit upright and contemplate reality-as-such'? Why do you go on bowing again and again, exhausting yourself?" The practitioner asked: "What, then, is reality-as-such?" The monk said: "When the mind gives rise to no delusion — that is reality-as-such." The practitioner asked further: "And what, exactly, is this 'mind'? What is 'delusion'? And what, exactly, is the thing capable of mastering the mind?" The monk had no answer.

The practitioner said: "I have heard that repentance takes noumenal repentance as its principal practice and phenomenal repentance as its supporting practice. Even while contemplating reality-as-such, diligently engaging body, speech, and mind together in devoted practice creates no obstacle at all. Why? Because a beginning practitioner cannot immediately attain accord with reality-as-such on his own, and must rely on external supports to assist him. This is exactly what the Lotus Sūtra means by 'I use varied skillful means to help reveal the ultimate truth.' The Awakening of Faith likewise says: 'Sentient beings of the degenerate age who cultivate this teaching fear they will not always encounter a buddha; the Tathāgata, the World-Honored One, therefore has a skillful alternative means — teaching them to recite the Buddha's name and seek rebirth in the Pure Land.' From this we know that Master Ciyun's Pure Land repentance liturgy, weighing the old against the new, is extremely precise and thorough, complete in both theory and practice alongside the Lotus and Radiant Light repentance rites, revered by humans and gods alike — a great and precious torch lighting the dark road of this degenerate age! And besides — is it not the Buddha's own teaching that carrying out one's ordinary livelihood does not run counter to reality-as-such?" The monk said: "That is so." The practitioner said: "Then how could performing this repentance rite possibly fall short of carrying out one's ordinary livelihood?" The monk again had no answer.

Master Nanyue, in his Mahāyāna Treatise on Cessation and Contemplation, quotes a line from the Awakening of Faith: "And so the treatise says: 'Third, the great function — able to generate the good and evil causes and effects of both the mundane and supramundane worlds.'" But the original Awakening of Faith contains no character for "evil" at all — reading this quotation is genuinely startling.

Now, the doctrine of "inherent evil" is indeed a distinctive tenet of the Tiantai school on its own terms. But Master Ciyun held that Nanyue's own lineage traced back, at a remove, to Kāśyapa, and then in turn to Aśvaghoṣa — and Aśvaghoṣa is said to be an ancient buddha manifesting at the eighth bodhisattva ground, while Nanyue himself, for his extraordinary virtue, is recorded among the Biographies of Spiritual Monks. It would hardly be fitting for an earlier sage and a later sage to contradict one another in this way.

Moreover, the Awakening of Faith is a work of concise language and rich meaning, of refined expression and exhaustive reasoning, gathering together the essence of every Mahāyāna sutra of definitive meaning — not a single word or character of it should be added to or subtracted from. Nanyue's own Cessation and Contemplation is, of course, his own original composition — but here, in quoting the Awakening of Faith, he is explicitly citing his source, showing that he has real grounds for what he says. Would he really, then, have carelessly inserted a word that the original text does not contain? There is simply no such logic to it. This must be the addition of some later hand.

Someone might say that this text was printed by Master Ciyun himself, and so ought to contain nothing spurious or corrupted. Ah — but how do we know that no one, after Ciyun's own time, made yet further additions to it? Dull as I am, I remain certain that Nanyue himself never altered the Awakening of Faith. I ask those of greater insight to examine this matter further.

It is popularly said that Han Changli [Han Yu] first attacked Buddhism, but later, upon meeting the monk Dadian, immediately experienced a genuine awakening. And yet, checking his own collected writings, we find him saying: "It has recently been said that I, Yu, have somewhat come to believe in the teachings of Śākyamuni — this rumor is simply false. Since I had no one in Chaozhou I could really talk with, and the monk Dadian happened to be rather intelligent and understood some real principles, I kept company with him. When I left, I gave him a set of clothes as a parting gift — this was simply ordinary human feeling, not a matter of revering his teaching or seeking the benefit of a field of merit." Reading this, he plainly remained just as stubbornly unbelieving as before — where, then, is the supposed awakening?

And yet — if we allow for the possibility of manifestation through causes and conditions, working through both apparent opposition and apparent praise in ways beyond ordinary reckoning, how do we know Han Changli did not deliberately stage his own attacks on Buddhism precisely to set in motion the causes and conditions for others' faith? Without Han Changli's attacks on Buddhism, how would we ever have gotten Mingjiao's rebuttal of Han? A bell only rings loudly because it is struck; a candle wick only burns more brightly once it is trimmed. And so, lacking knowledge of others' past lives, lacking the power to read others' hearts, we ought not indulge freely in sweeping judgments, praising and condemning historical figures as we please.

That cessation and contemplation should be held in perfect balance — this principle is exalted indeed! Even were a sage to arise again in this world, he could not change it. And yet there are those who quietly favor one side over the other, saying: "The sutra says, 'from samādhi, wisdom is brought forth' — and so cessation is what truly matters." This has, over time, hardened into habit, and most practitioners now emphasize stillness above all.

Yongjia alone, in speaking of "alert yet still, still yet alert," made the point of their equal balance — and then went on to say: "Alertness is the principal practice; stillness is only its support." This is a genuinely singular insight, one that no one, from ancient times to the present, has ever put quite this way. It is precisely from this that the later Chan tradition's teaching of investigating a phrase, aimed at thorough awakening, descends — and it is exactly this same point that Miaoxi had in mind when he condemned silent-illumination Chan as a deviant path. This is why the Buddha is called the Greatly Awakened One, and sentient beings are called the unawakened — "awakening" is precisely "alertness." How subtle, indeed, is Yongjia's teaching!

Someone asked: "The Daodejing says, 'I do not know its name; I style it the Way.' Given this, the very term 'Way' originates with Laozi, and ten thousand generations since have followed it — even what the Buddhist sutras call 'the Way' cannot be said to depart from it. Is this not so?"

I answered: "The term appears already in the Yijing, in the line 'treading the Way, level and open'; it is recorded in the Book of Documents, in the line 'one must always seek it in the Way'; it is sung in the Book of Odes, in the line 'the Way of Zhou is level as a whetstone.' Before the Daodejing's five thousand characters ever appeared, the name 'Way' already existed! And besides — what Laozi means by 'the Way' is precisely something that takes Nature itself as its model. If this Way is held to arise from nothing at all, spontaneously, without any cause whatsoever, then Qingliang would classify it as the 'no-cause' heterodox view. If it is held to arise on the basis of 'Nature' as its actual cause, then Qingliang would classify it as the 'false-cause' heterodox view. Whether no-cause or false-cause, both are simply mistaken doctrines — neither is what the Buddha means by 'the Way' at all. The Buddhist Way holds that the ten thousand dharmas all arise from one's own mind — neither from Nature, nor from something other than Nature. The sutras speak of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, 'supreme perfect enlightenment' — the great Way of unsurpassed, perfect awakening — and even this is not something that arises spontaneously from Nature. How much less, then, could it be something that merely takes Nature as its model!"

I have privately wondered at this: so many people today create karma, so few believe in the Way — and since the bodhisattvas' vow to save sentient beings has no end, why do they not divide their bodies and manifest themselves, to guide and transform the deluded masses? In earlier times, once the Buddha-dharma flowed east into China, from the Han and Wei dynasties down through the Song and Yuan, genuine spiritual teachers appeared in the world one after another, like fish scales in close succession; even at the end of the Yuan and the founding of our own dynasty, one could still find one or two such figures — why, in recent times, has there been such utter silence?

Take Kṣitigarbha, who vowed to save every sentient being without exception, or Avalokiteśvara, said to manifest in every single buddha-land — could they possibly bear to abandon beings not yet saved? Could there really be some land where Avalokiteśvara refuses to manifest? I pondered this for a long time, and finally came to understand: bodhisattvas save sentient beings according to conditions — if sentient beings lack the necessary conditions, they cannot be saved. It is like the moon in the sky: the moon has no intention at all of refusing to reflect in the water — but if the water itself is not clear, the moon simply cannot appear in it. How much more so now, as this degenerate age deepens further, and the defilements of people's minds grow ever heavier — the bodhisattvas are certainly saving beings constantly, moment by moment, but sentient beings themselves offer no ground on which to receive that salvation. This is exactly like standing before turbid water and demanding to see the bright moon reflected in it — how could that possibly be achieved?

Furthermore: of all the karma people create in this age, killing is by far the worst. Never mind the whole vast world — in this one county alone, the living creatures killed in a single day — cattle, sheep, dogs, pigs, geese, ducks, fish, turtles — number easily in the thousands or tens of thousands, and the smaller creatures killed besides are beyond counting!

And at the spring and autumn seasonal rites, when offerings are made to heaven and earth, sacrifices to ghosts and spirits, ancestral rites to forebears, and gratitude paid to former sages and worthies for their virtue and achievement — the animals sacrificed for these purposes are beyond number as well; and yet heaven and earth show no pity, the spirits feel no compassion, the ancestors take no notice, and the former sages and worthies do nothing to secretly forbid it. As for the Tathāgata — his benevolence covers heaven and earth, his compassion subdues even ghosts and spirits, his kindness exceeds that of any ancestor, his virtue surpasses every sage and worthy — why, then, does he not display even the slightest sign of supernormal power, either bringing swift, visible retribution upon those who kill, or letting them feel even a fraction of the suffering they inflict? Surely, if he did, who would not tremble with fear and repent? And yet he seems utterly indifferent, as if he simply does not know. Why is this?

I pondered this for a long time, and finally came to understand: the cattle and sheep of today were themselves killers in a past life, and are now reborn as animals in retribution for it; and those who now slaughter animals for a living were themselves, in an earlier life, the very creatures now being killed. When the causes and conditions come together, the underlying intent of mutual vengeance simply plays itself out — this is fixed karma at work, and no one, not even a heaven among heavens, a sage among sages, can do anything to stop it, until that karma has fully run its course and only then does the cycle of retribution come to rest. And what is worse: people often finish paying off one old debt only to create a fresh one immediately, so that cause and effect chase each other in an endless cycle — I do not even know where it will finally end.

And yet, though what is past cannot be undone, what is yet to come can still be corrected. If, from this moment forward, the cause of killing is cut off entirely, then afterward there will be no effect of being killed in turn. This causal teaching is the Tathāgata's own clear instruction, as bright and evident as the sun and the stars — surely this, showing every sentient being the way to bring an end to the cycle of killing and being killed, is itself the ultimate way the Tathāgata truly does save beings from the karma of killing?

At a friend's home, I happened to see a volume of unofficial history, together with some admonitory verses by earlier worthies, and noticed a good many additions and deletions made to the original text. This made me think: of the writings, ancient and modern, that people leave untouched, out of a proper sense of reverence — in the Confucian canon, only the Six Classics, the Analects, and Mencius; in the Buddhist canon, only the sutras and treatises of the buddhas and bodhisattvas themselves, and the writings of the most illustrious great masters — everything else gets altered rather freely, adding and subtracting as people see fit.

Circulating good teachings for the benefit of sentient beings is, of course, a genuinely fine and well-meaning intention. But when the actual work is entrusted to someone else, who is left to do the proofreading, this is exactly the kind of error that results. I hope that anyone undertaking such a project will personally oversee the work themselves — and if they hold to a genuinely earnest and reverent attitude in doing so, they will surely find someone willing to lend a helping hand, just as heaven once sent an old man to assist Liu Xiang in his own diligent work of textual scholarship.

Long ago, the Buddha, walking through a field, saw an abandoned sack lying on the ground, and pointed at it, saying: "A poisonous snake! A poisonous snake!" — and then simply walked on. A farmer, hoe in hand, went to strike the "snake" dead, only to find it was an abandoned sack. He carried it home, and inside found several dozen ounces of gold — he was overjoyed beyond his wildest hopes.

Before long, word of it reached the king, who ordered him to hand the gold over to the treasury; the officials, suspecting he had submitted only a small part and hidden the rest, tortured him mercilessly, demanding more and more, until every last bit of his own property, down to his land itself, was gone. Some days later, he happened to meet the Buddha again, and wept: "Gautama deceived me! Gautama ruined me!" The Buddha said: "I told you it was a poisonous snake, did I not? Was it not, in fact, a poisonous snake?"

Alas! There are so many people today bitten by this very same kind of poisonous snake! And so many who, bitten once, feel no regret at all, and go right on being bitten again and again! Is this farmer really the only one?

There was a monk devoted to studying the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, who happened to attend a gathering of monastics and laypeople together. Among them was a layman, originally a Confucian scholar, who had given up meat and taken up a vegetarian diet; the others at the table teased and pressured him about it noisily. This monk, a specialist in the very sutra that forbids eating meat, not only failed to put a stop to their teasing but actually joined in, urging the layman to eat meat along with them. The layman, unable to refuse any longer, was forced to pick up his chopsticks and take a bite.

Ah — when this monk one day reads, in the Laṅkāvatāra itself, the Buddha's own words that there are countless reasons why one should not eat meat at all — I wonder what expression will cross his face?

When people see a friend or relative who has given up meat and taken up a vegetarian diet, they either find it strange enough to be startled, or laugh at them as foolish. And yet human beings and animals alike are, in the end, simply masses of flesh and blood — that a creature made of flesh should not eat the flesh of another animal is exactly what heaven's own principle and ordinary human feeling would dictate. What, then, is there to be startled by, let alone to call foolish? Ah — how deep the confusion of sentient beings truly runs!

Someone recited the Sixth Patriarch's verse: "Huineng has no clever skill; he does not cut off the hundred thoughts. Facing circumstances, the mind repeatedly stirs — how, then, could bodhi ever grow?" — and proudly declared he had grasped its meaning, and so proposed to let his own mind and body run freely, with nothing at all held back.

A layman in the audience rebuked him: "The Great Master's verse was medicine for Woolun's particular illness — his belief that thoughts could actually be cut off. You do not have that illness, and yet you recklessly take this medicine anyway — the medicine itself will only make you sick!" How well said!

Let me offer one more comparison. Huineng's "not cutting off the hundred thoughts" is like a bright mirror not refusing to reflect the ten thousand images; people today, by contrast, "not cutting off the hundred thoughts" is like plain white silk not refusing any of the five colors. Huineng's "facing circumstances, the mind repeatedly stirs" is like a sound arising in an empty valley in response to a call; people today, by contrast, having "the mind repeatedly stir" when facing circumstances, is like dead wood catching fire and giving off smoke the moment it meets a flame. Let anyone who has not first taken the measure of his own attainment, and yet presumes to attach himself to the standing of the ancient sages, quietly sit and think this over for himself.

"Heaven knows, earth knows, you know, I know" — these are Yang Boqi's own words. Some commentators have argued that "you" and "I" each have their own separate knowledge, while heaven and earth, being without sentience, cannot really be said to "know" in the same twofold sense at all. When I was young, I too thought this was correct. Later, though, reading the Buddhist Sūtra on Verbal Abuse, I found a teaching of "four kinds of knowing" that matches this exactly: the earth-spirit knows, the heaven-spirit knows, the other person's own mind knows, and my own mind knows. And the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, in its chapter on the World-Rulers, names countless deities presiding over heaven, over earth, over the sun, over the night, over the mountains, over the seas — so it is clear there are indeed spirits inhabiting heaven and earth, and Yang Boqi's teaching of "four kinds of knowing" was not mistaken after all. This is why the words of earlier worthies should never be casually second-guessed.

The Five Phases, as they operate in this world, produce the mid-points of the four seasons — spring, summer, autumn, winter — and the cardinal directions — east, west, south, north, plus the center — like the warp of heaven and the weft of earth; this is a natural principle, and also an inevitable pattern. And yet the Buddhist sutras speak not of "Five Phases" but of "Four Great Elements," which has led some to explain: "Earth, water, and fire already account for three of the Five Phases; metal is subsumed under earth, and wood is subsumed under wind — so the four are, in fact, never anything other than the five." This explanation is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough.

Within this universe, the Five Phases are sufficient to encompass everything. But considered beyond this universe, and getting at the ultimate pattern of formation, continuation, destruction, and emptiness that governs the cosmos as a whole, only the Four Great Elements are broad enough to encompass it all — and even that is not yet fully sufficient. Earth, water, fire, and wind are followed, in turn, by space, consciousness, and thought, making seven altogether. What does this mean? Earth's substance is the most solidly compact; water's substance, though not solid, flows and spreads everywhere; fire's substance is the most elusive and ungraspable of all; wind has energy but no substance whatsoever; space lacks even energy; and finally everything converges into consciousness, and is set in motion by thought — moving from the coarse to the ever more subtle, called together the "Seven Great Elements," only then is the account truly complete. The Five Phases, by contrast, are merely how earth, water, fire, and wind happen to distribute themselves in forming heaven, earth, and living beings within our own world — the Five Phases are narrow; the Four Great Elements are vast.

I recall, as a child, playing at debating hard questions with other children, asking: what is at the very end of heaven and earth? Is it simply empty, all vast emptiness? But then where does that emptiness itself end? Or is it solid, like a wall? But then where does that solid substance itself end? None of the other children could answer, and we all just laughed it off — but the question quietly troubled me all the same.

The Classic of Mountains and Seas claims the world extends two hundred million li east to west and one hundred fifty thousand li north to south — but this is merely one narrow, local view, truly the perspective of someone peering through a tube. Later, reading the Buddhist sutras, I came upon the teaching that "empty space cannot be exhausted, and the world-systems cannot be exhausted" — and my mind was suddenly, vastly opened. I came to believe that only the Buddha could have spoken such a thing. Alas! A question like this is not easily put into words at all.

From the question of world-systems, I go on to reason about years and kalpas. Looking back from the present into the past — where, exactly, did the past begin? Looking forward from the present into the future — where, exactly, will the future end? The Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate holds that the Supreme Ultimate gives rise to the Two Modes, and these to the Five Phases, and these to the ten thousand things — so that the Supreme Ultimate itself is where things begin. And the Book of the Supreme Principle Governing the World reckons a single "cycle" at a hundred twenty-nine thousand, six hundred years — so that the beginning of a cycle is where things begin. But then, where did the Supreme Ultimate itself begin? Where did the very first cycle itself begin? Suppose it worked exactly like the sequence of years, with this year preceded by last year, and that year preceded by an earlier year still — going back and back, which year, exactly, was truly the first, the original ancestor of them all? And when, exactly, would the very end come, the point where there is no more starting over, the truly final terminus?

Turning this over and over produces only a kind of drunken confusion. Later, reading the Buddhist sutras, I came upon the Buddha's teaching of "no beginning," and of kalpas beyond counting, and my mind was suddenly, vastly opened. I came to believe that only the Buddha could have spoken such a thing. Alas! A question like this, too, is not easily put into words at all.

Han Xin was originally a soldier of Chu. When he turned his back on Chu and joined Han, Chu was in the end brought down through him, and Han rose through him. He was the very same man, front and back — and yet the rise and fall of two entire states turned on him, simply because of whether he was put to good use or not. The six sense-faculties are exactly the same way in every person: used poorly, they are called "the six thieves"; used well, they become the source of every manner of marvelous, spiritual capacity. "Affliction is itself bodhi" — how could this not be true?

And yet even so — when Emperor Gao first met Han Xin, he treated him at first as nothing more than an ordinary man, and it was Chancellor Xiao who recognized his extraordinary talent. Later, when Han Xin requested to be made acting king of Qi, the emperor at first refused, and the whole enterprise nearly collapsed as a result — it was Marquis Liu who saved the situation. And so, correcting deviations and rescuing failing plans, silently turning and quietly sustaining the whole enterprise from behind — this is exactly the work of a wise minister's power. And studying the Way is exactly the same: nothing must come before wisdom.

In ritual assemblies, both Buddhist and Daoist officiants sometimes proclaim amnesties. Now, Daoism venerates the Heavenly Emperor — but from whom, exactly, was this amnesty received, and from what point in the Trāyastriṃśa heaven was it brought down into the human world? For a Daoist priest to draft such a proclamation on his own authority — is this not perilously close to forging an imperial decree?

Monks venerate the Buddha, and the Buddha's own dharma-body dwells in the Land of Eternal Tranquil Light — but in the end, over what kingdom does he reign, in what city does he hold court, over what subjects does he rule, and from what official's hand could any decree or edict of his possibly issue? And yet there are monks who imitate the Daoists in exactly this way, drafting their own amnesty documents — this is, frankly, quite laughable. That neither the monks who write them nor the donors who commission them ever seem to notice the absurdity — why is that?

If pressed for an excuse, one might say: it is simply a petition addressed to Heaven, requesting that Heaven issue an amnesty — whether Heaven grants it or not is Heaven's own decision to make. But the Buddha's own compassion already universally covers everyone, like empty space itself — there is not a single sentient being he does not save — so what possible need could there be for an "amnesty" at all?

The Water-and-Land Rite is the grandest ceremony of universal deliverance. Tradition holds that the "Jinshan liturgy" text was originally included in the Buddhist canon, though it does not appear in the canon as it stands today — with so much time elapsed, its origins can no longer be confirmed. It is unclear whether this text truly derives, in full, from the rite established by Emperor Wu of Liang and the vinaya master Sengyou.

As for which surviving liturgy is the most orderly and coherent from beginning to end, thoroughly detailed and clearly structured, encompassing both sages and ordinary beings in a way that is concise yet complete, achieving both literary and doctrinal excellence together — the six-fascicle text compiled by Master Zhipan of Siming stands out as by far the most fitting. And besides, the Jinshan version is costly and difficult to mount, while the Siming version is economical and easy to carry out — it truly ought to circulate widely and without limit. And yet, throughout the whole empire, hardly anyone performs it, nor even across most of Zhejiang province; only within our own local region is it observed at all, and even here, people do not follow the original text directly, but pad it with irrelevant material and clutter it with superfluous additions, while neglecting precisely the most essential parts — a matter for genuine regret.

That said, in the fifth fascicle, where the liturgy expounds the Dharma to guide the assembly, its treatment of the "three contemplations" runs somewhat too dense and elaborate. If it could be made simpler and more direct, easier to grasp, then it would truly benefit the wise and the dull, the living and the departed, all alike, without exception — and that would be perfection upon perfection!

There is a common saying: "One ought not point out a monk's faults — to notice a monk's faults is itself a transgression." And yet Confucius, sage though he was, welcomed having his own faults pointed out; Jilu, a worthy man, was glad to hear of his own mistakes. Why, then, should monks be so afraid of others knowing their faults that they refuse even to hear of them?

The truth is that this saying, "do not notice a monk's faults," is meant for laypeople to hear — it was never meant to be addressed to monks themselves. If monks come to rely on this saying as license to behave however they please, with no restraint at all, then this saying becomes a fine medicine for the layperson, and a fatal poison for the monk himself. How sorrowful!

In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra's inquiry into the location of the mind, the teaching that "the mind is not located inside the body" refers specifically to the true mind; the deluded, discriminating mind may indeed be said to be located inside the body. This point is genuinely subtle, and not easily explained to someone unfamiliar with the underlying principle. A secular text says: "The heart-organ houses the spirit" — here "spirit" is simply another name for deluded thought, and what it calls the "mind" refers only to the fleshy organ, the physical heart. Certain scholars of doctrinal studies, hearing me say this, shook their heads and refused to believe it.

Let me clarify this now with a concrete case. When a person is sound asleep, if someone plays a trick and presses an object against his chest, he will have a nightmare; or if his own hand accidentally comes to rest over his chest, the same nightmare can occur; and if someone plays a trick by drawing on a sleeping person's face, there have even been cases of the person being frightened to death by it in his sleep — this is clear evidence that the deluded mind is indeed located within the body.

A doctrinal scholar objected: "If that is so, then the true mind and the deluded mind become two separate things!" I said: "You understand only that the true and the deluded are not two — you fail to understand that they are one and yet constantly appear as two, two and yet constantly remain one. Have you never observed water and ice? That water and ice are not two different things — who does not know this! And yet once water has frozen into ice, we can observe that water flows freely with no fixed direction, while ice remains solid and fixed in place. The true mind, likewise, has no fixed location at all; the deluded mind, by contrast, comes to have a location, precisely through this same process. From the true, delusion arises; there is no delusion apart from the true — just as ice forms from water, and there is no ice apart from water. And so the underlying substance remains constantly one, even as its function constantly appears as two."

The doctrinal scholar said: "This is merely your own private opinion, and ultimately contradicts the Śūraṅgama itself — you would need real textual grounds to say this." I said: "I do have grounds — they lie right within the Śūraṅgama itself; you gentlemen have simply failed to notice them. The sutra says: 'Once deluded as mind, one is inevitably confused into taking it to be located inside the physical body.' Even while located inside the physical body, this presents no obstacle to its substance pervading the ten directions; and even while truly pervading the ten directions, this presents no obstacle to its appearing, right now, inside the body. This point can only be truly realized by someone who has entirely exhausted all delusion — you and I are both still caught within delusion ourselves, so let us set this tangled discussion aside for now."

Huang Luzhi once said: "Seek deeply the joy of meditation, illuminate and break through the very root of birth and death, and worry, fear, lust, and anger will find nowhere left to stand. Once the root itself has withered, the branches and leaves will naturally wilt away on their own." This is truly the highest kind of statement — and yet it never actually specifies what, exactly, constitutes the root of birth and death. And beneath the phrase "the joy of meditation," the crucial word is "illuminate and break through." If one attains the joy of meditation and simply believes this is enough, resting content, quietly abiding in that inner stillness — this very complacency is itself the root of birth and death. One must instead investigate exhaustively, applying one's whole strength, until one sees one's own original nature with total, unmistakable clarity — only then does birth and death find nowhere left to stand at all. And once birth and death itself has nowhere left to stand, how could worry, fear, lust, and anger possibly arise?

Master Ziyu's parable of the man of Qi reads, plain and clear, like a scroll painting, or like an entire play staged on a single platform. Its portrait of the man's conduct captures every shade of shameful absurdity in full — anyone who reads it without feeling a shock of self-reproach and awakening must be made of wood or stone. And yet: the pursuit of fame and fortune is, after all, an ordinary part of worldly human feeling, and a layman caught up in it hardly deserves severe blame. But a monk, wearing the dyed robes of the Sangha, behaving just like this man of Qi — I truly cannot imagine what kind of heart could allow that. Alas — how sorrowful!

Yang Hu once sent wine to an enemy commander; the commander's own officers urged him against drinking it, but the commander drank it without a second thought, saying: "How could Yang Shuzi possibly poison a man?" Had Yang Hu's own character not been so consistently, genuinely trustworthy, how could he possibly have moved a man to such a degree? Anyone today who calls himself a disciple of the Buddha must be able to earn the trust of sentient beings across all six realms in exactly this same way, if he is to succeed at all.

Consider also Emperor Wen of Tang, who once released condemned prisoners on their own recognizance, on the condition that they return by a set date — and every one of them returned, on time, without exception. Although later writers, such as Ouyang Xiu in his Essay on Releasing the Prisoners, criticized this act as unfit to serve as any general model for governing the realm, the act itself remains, in the end, something exceedingly rare across the whole span of history — how could it possibly deserve censure? Had Emperor Wen's own character not been so consistently, genuinely trustworthy, how could he possibly have moved men to such a degree? Anyone today who calls himself a disciple of the Buddha must likewise be able to trust sentient beings across all six realms without doubt, if he is to succeed at all. The Yijing's hexagram Zhongfu says: "Even an offering as humble as a pig or a fish brings good fortune." Considering these two stories together, I believe this is truly so.

A worthy of old said: "It is like a lowly person holding a torch — one does not refuse its light simply because the person holding it is lowly." This carries exactly the same sense as Confucius's own teaching, "do not reject a good saying on account of the speaker." Some people, using this as an excuse, claim that a teacher need not be chosen for his own virtue at all — it is enough that his learning and views be of some use to me. If he himself lacks virtue, what business is that of mine? — and so they go on relying on such a teacher without hesitation.

But do they not realize how easily orchid-and-angelica or dried-fish-shop surroundings gradually shape a person's own character through quiet, unnoticed influence? The Analects says, "do not reject a good saying on account of the speaker" — but it also says, "to draw close to someone without losing sight of what makes them worth being close to — this too is worthy of being honored." Why not consider these two teachings together, rather than just one alone?

I once was in a meditation hall when the abbot announced to the assembly: "On the Ghost Festival day, we will hold the Ullambana feast." I assumed this meant a great offering would be prepared. But when the day came, there was no feast at all — only three days of continuous Buddha-recitation. I also once heard of an earlier case where a monastery's own abbot had been summoned by the authorities for arrest, and the head monk gathered the community to come to his rescue; everyone assumed this meant chanting sutras and mantras — but it turned out to mean nothing more than loud, continuous recitation of the Buddha's name. Both of these cases go far beyond ordinary expectation, showing the bearing and resourcefulness of a truly great person — genuinely worth learning from and following.

And yet those who today call themselves devoted, single-minded practitioners of Buddha-recitation, when it comes to praying for long life, turn instead to the Medicine Buddha Sūtra; to atone for wrongdoing, they turn to the Emperor Liang Repentance; to avert calamity, they turn to the Calamity-Averting Mantra; to seek wisdom, they turn to Guanyin's own text — setting aside the very Buddha-recitation they claim to practice, as though it were of no help at all. Do they never consider that this very Buddha's own life-span is immeasurable — how much more, then, should a mere hundred years of human life be within its reach? Do they never consider that recollecting this very Buddha can dissolve the grave karmic offenses of eighty koṭi kalpas of birth and death — how much more, then, should present-day defilements and calamities be within its reach? Do they never consider this very Buddha's own words, "I illuminate the boundless realms with the light of my wisdom" — how much more, then, should it surpass whatever passes for wisdom among people today! This single name is like the universal medicine agada, capable of curing every illness at once — and yet, when the mind is divided two or three ways, people simply refuse to trust it fully. Even the most miraculous physician, faced with such a patient, can do nothing at all!

Someone asked: "Not performing music yourself, and not going to watch or listen to it, is a rule for novice monks — it is not, however, part of the bodhisattva path. There have, after all, been kings and ministers in the past who offered the Buddha music and dance by the hundreds and thousands, and the Buddha did not refuse it — how do you explain that?"

My own view is that this can be understood in three ways: first, sages and ordinary people cannot be judged by the same standard; second, deviant and correct performances cannot be judged by the same standard; third, doing something oneself and instructing others to do it cannot be judged by the same standard.

As to the first: the Buddha, as Dharma-King, is entirely free in his mastery of the Dharma — his teaching methods, whether working with or against ordinary expectation, are beyond the reckoning even of the heavenly beings; what a great sage does is simply not something an ordinary person can properly imitate.

As to the second: plays composed from historical or contemporary material and staged for performance — such as the traditional story of Guanyin's origin at Fragrant Mountain, the tale of Maudgalyāyana rescuing his mother, or the recent Datura Flower — use out-of-this-world, correct teaching to move and awaken people of the present day; likewise, plays depicting loyal officials, filial children, righteous men, and chaste women use worldly, correct teaching to the same end. Watching plays of this kind does no harm at all. Why? If such plays could not be watched, then histories and biographies could not be read either — the only difference is that one records events through language, and the other through people acting them out; the underlying purpose is exactly the same. But when it comes to plays depicting romantic dalliance and revelry, warfare and violent brawling — inciting lust, provoking violence, stirring desire, deepening sorrow — however much they may pretend to offer moral instruction to the deluded, in fact they only encourage further indulgence and dissipation; even laypeople ought to be cautious of such things, let alone monks and nuns!

As to the third: watching such things occasionally oneself is one thing, but deliberately instructing other people that they, too, must watch is quite another matter, unacceptable. Let this be approached with real caution!

In a dream, I suddenly remembered that my two revered parents were gravely ill, and felt deep sorrow. Then I thought: "It may still be possible to save them" — and felt somewhat comforted. Just as I was preparing to do everything in my power to treat them, the scene shifted, and I felt deep sorrow all over again. Then I comforted myself once more, thinking: "It may still be possible after all. This body of mine is what my parents left behind. As long as I remain alive, I can use this body my parents gave me to strive with all my strength toward good deeds — and in this way, my parents, though they themselves have passed away, have not truly perished at all. How much more so, then, if I devote myself with all my strength to studying the doctrine of the unborn! To let this present moment slip past without forging and disciplining myself would truly be a matter for the deepest regret. Zhūhóng! How could you possibly go on living so carelessly, at ease?"

The Book of Odes sings of a bird: "It comes forth from the dark valley, and moves up into the tall trees" — a lesson about distinguishing right from wrong, and being careful in what one chooses to keep or discard.

Long ago, Deshan composed his own Blue Dragon Commentary, initially convinced: "It takes three incalculable kalpas of cultivation to attain buddhahood — and yet these demon-children of the southern school claim that a single moment of awakening finishes the whole task! I shall go south and destroy their heretical lineage, to repay the Buddha's kindness." At the time, this was truly, sincerely well-intentioned on his part, and it weighed on him deeply — he simply did not yet realize how mistaken his own view actually was. It was only once he was instructed by an old woman selling rice cakes, and personally met Longtan, that he cast aside, like so much rotten grass, everything he had treasured and revered for so many years — and it was precisely because of this that he was able to become, in the end, a truly great vessel of the Dharma, whose teaching would go on to illuminate this degenerate age.

Had he instead remained sealed within his own preconceived opinion, arrogantly certain of his own superiority — like a poor, ignorant man who treasures a worthless stone from Yan as if it were priceless, and then accuses the merchant who tells him otherwise of simply envying his treasure — then even a hundred old rice-cake sellers, even a thousand Longtans, could have done nothing for him at all!

The three Kāśyapa brothers, Maudgalyāyana, and other great arhats had all previously studied under non-Buddhist teachers and already achieved real results there, and were themselves no small figures. And yet, the moment they heard the Buddha's teaching, the moment they saw the Buddha himself, they turned about completely, casting aside, like a mere goose feather, everything they had venerated and revered for so many years — and it was precisely because of this that they were able to carry forward the Buddha's own wisdom-life, becoming teachers for ten thousand generations to come.

Had they instead let their earlier convictions take firm root within them, planting their banner-pole rigidly in place, defending their own fortress at all costs — like a sick man who clings stubbornly to his old doctor, and turns his head away from any new prescription no matter how effective — then even if a thousand buddhas had appeared in the world, there would have been nothing at all to be done for them!

I recall that, while still living as a layman, one evening a child in the household demanded noodle soup, but by then the market stalls had already closed, and the family had nothing to offer him. They rolled some rice flour into little balls and gave him those instead; the child cried and refused to touch them, and his mother grew quite exasperated. I said: "This is easily solved — just take the rice-flour balls and flatten them out." The child took them in hand and laughed out loud with delight.

At the time, people remarked on how easily a child could be fooled in this way. And from this I came to realize: people today who look down on the Pure Land and prize Chan instead behave in exactly the same manner. Tell such a person of the Pure Land, shaped like a bowl of noodle soup, and he cries; switch it to Chan, shaped like a flattened rice ball, and he laughs — how, really, is this any different from the understanding of a small child? Alas!

The poor worry over having no wealth, and envy the rich their happiness, without realizing the rich have worries of their own. The lowly worry over holding no office, and envy the eminent their happiness, without realizing the eminent have worries of their own. The poor, the lowly, the rich, and the eminent alike each worry over whatever they themselves lack, and all envy the one who rules over all under heaven, imagining this to be the greatest happiness any person in the world could exhaust — without realizing that even the ruler of all under heaven has worries of his own, worries in fact more severe than anyone else's, and, without even realizing it, secretly envies the plain happiness of his own officials and common subjects instead. Alas — all of this is simply delusion! Only the truly wise can live entirely without either sorrow or joy — and yet to become attached to this very state of "no sorrow, no joy" is, itself, another form of delusion all the same. Without great and thorough awakening, there is no true freedom to be found at all.

Those who study the sutras and treatises in this degenerate age tend to prize exactly what is most burdened with elaborate technical terminology and hardest to keep in memory, what is most obscure and difficult to analyze in meaning, what is most cryptic and difficult to work through in phrasing. They use all this to display their own erudition, to show off their own originality — while the one great matter that ought to ground every monk's own feet firmly on the earth is left entirely unattended, as if never even heard of. And how little they realize that all this terminology, all this doctrine, all this phrasing flows, in the first place, out of that very same root! This is exactly what it means to work only on the branches and leaves while remaining ignorant of the root and source — precisely what moved Yongjia to his own great sigh, when he wrote: "Only grasp the root; do not worry over the branches." I only fear that people today cannot bring themselves either to believe this fully, or to let go of their attachments accordingly.

The Han-dynasty figure Zhuang Boweï, every day at sunset, would face northwest and contemplate Mount Kunlun. After a long time, he actually saw the immortals of Kunlun, and received their teaching, attaining liberation through it. This method resembles the "sun-contemplation" of the Western Pure Land teaching — except that his was a matter of ordinary imagination, not the practice of correct contemplation at all. And yet, through prolonged accumulation of even mere imagination, when carried to the utmost pitch of sincerity, he still managed to achieve what he set out to see — how much more so, then, one who practices single-minded, correct contemplation and actually accomplishes samādhi, and yet somehow fails to attain rebirth in the Pure Land!

Someone in Wu prefecture has printed a book titled Empty Truths in the Leisure of Chan, signed below with my own unworthy name, "written by Yunqi Zhuhong." Whoever printed it presumably did so simply to make money, and likely bore no ill intent — hardly something worth arguing over. But I fear that newly-arrived students of the Way may sincerely believe I wrote it, and be led astray by its circulation — the harm from that would be no small matter, so I cannot avoid setting the record straight.

The book lists thirty-three "seasonal delights" across the four seasons of the year; let me pick out one or two as examples of the rest. One entry is titled "Viewing Plum Blossoms by Moonlight at Solitary Hill," which says: "In the pale moonlight of dusk, carrying a wine jug, savoring the scene in verse." A monk does not sit in quiet meditation on a clear night — he carries wine and admires flowers instead? That sounds like a romantic poet or a wandering swashbuckler, not me, a monk who keeps carefully to his own proper bounds — where would I ever find such a leisurely, "liberated" flair? Laughable.

Another entry is titled "Viewing the Mulberry Trees and Wheat Fields at the Eastern Wall." I live deep in the mountains to the southwest, a great distance from the eastern wall of the city — why would I fail to admire the pines and bamboo of my own mountain and instead travel there to look at mulberry trees and wheat fields? Laughable.

Another is titled "Viewing Spring Grass at the Foundations of the Three Pagodas." I have never in my life known where the foundations of the Three Pagodas even are. Laughable.

Another is titled "Watching the Willows from Shanman Tower," claiming the tower was built by me. I have never owned so much as an inch of land or a single roof tile at West Lake — where would such a private estate have come from? Laughable.

Another is titled "Viewing Peach Blossoms on the Su Causeway," comparing the peach blossoms to a beautiful woman. Such lascivious, ornamented language — how could this possibly be spoken by someone with a shaved head and dyed robes? Even before I left the household life, I would never have spoken such words. Laughable.

Another is titled "Watching the Willows on the Su Causeway," quoting the line "should the poem fail to come, the penalty is three cups, after the custom of the Golden Valley." I have never once composed linked verse with anyone since becoming a monk, let alone competed at drinking! Laughable.

Another is titled "Roasting Taro and Discussing Chan on a Snowy Night," in which everything discussed is shallow and vulgar — who could possibly be awakened by talk like that? Laughable.

Let every well-intentioned fellow monastic know for certain that I would never speak in such a way. Having taken up the monastic robe, one must firmly uphold the pure regulations, discipline oneself, and strive diligently in conduct — never mistake dissolute, unrestrained behavior for the mark of an eminent monk. Respectfully signed, Zhūhóng.

Consider an army sent to fight a campaign: in battle, killing the enemy counts as complete victory — and the weapons used to kill the enemy may be a sword, a spear, a mace, a halberd, or even arrows and stones hurled from the walls, whatever is at hand — the important thing is simply to master one of these techniques thoroughly. The same holds for the student of the Way: the delusion and obstruction of ignorance is like the enemy; the many different Dharma-gates are like the sword, the spear, and the rest; breaking through delusion and obstruction is like winning complete victory. From this we know: whatever the weapon, the point is simply to defeat the enemy — once the enemy is defeated, the great matter is finished. Every one of these "weapons" is, after all, no more than a raft used to cross a river — one need not insist that the raft itself be especially grand. To fail to work on this essential point, and instead complacently declare that the sword alone can kill while the spear cannot — how could that possibly make sense?

Chan practitioners mock those who recite the Buddha's name as clinging to outward form; strict ascetics condemn those who cultivate meditative concentration as falling into emptiness — this is exactly the same error as in the analogy above. This is why a sutra says: "There are no two paths back to the source; skillful means offer many gates." A worthy of old likewise said: "It is like a person traveling a great distance — what matters is arriving at the destination; one does not insist on which stretch of the road was easier or harder along the way."