Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — Second Collection, Part 2

When reading the recorded sayings of the ancients, one must not limit oneself to a single striking question and answer, or a single sharp comment or verse on some old case, mining it only for its razor-edged, ingenious phrasing — to please the eye and ear, or to furnish material for later conversation. One must instead investigate exhaustively how the ancient master actually arrived at that state of great and thorough awakening: the account, given in his own words, of the effort he applied from the very first step, the painstaking, disciplined attention he brought to it — read this, and put it into practice, exactly as the saying goes, "why not simply cultivate after his own model?" If one merely plagiarizes and imitates the words themselves, then even after years and years, however smoothly and glibly one comes to speak, sounding almost indistinguishable from the ancients themselves, it remains nothing more than a flower cut from colored paper, a cake painted on a scroll — what could such a thing ever actually accomplish?

Su Zizhan once told of a certain elder who had never studied Chan, and yet who, on his deathbed, knew the hour of his own death in advance; his sons asked him for instruction, and he taught them, first of all, to rise early during the fifth watch of the night. His sons did not understand, and thought this meant simply being diligent about household affairs. The elder said: "Not so — I mean that in the fifth watch you should attend to the one thing you can actually carry with you at death." The ancients said: "Of the ten thousand things, none can be carried away — only karma follows the body." It is precisely this karma that follows us that can be carried away.

But karma is of two kinds: worldly achievement and spiritual achievement. Worldly achievement includes both good and bad; setting the bad aside, the good is simply the merit one has cultivated. Spiritual achievement, by contrast, is the wisdom one has cultivated. And why insist on the fifth watch specifically? This is exactly what Mencius calls the "night vigor" — the mind, at that hour, is still and its effort concentrated. And yet there is still more: the truly formless, coming-from-nowhere-and-going-nowhere nature of one's own original mind remains, for most of us, still unrealized — and this must not be attended to only at the fifth watch, but held in mind, moment after moment, never once let go, even for an instant.

Su Dongpo's poetry includes the lines: "Master Yuan bought wine to entertain Prefect Tao; Foyin roasted a pig to receive Zizhan." I would say: a person of truly great liberation may well relate to others outside the ordinary rules — buying wine, perhaps, is one thing, but is roasting a whole pig not going too far? Suppose some swashbuckler cited Zizhan as his own excuse, or some reckless monk imitated Foyin's own example — who, then, would bear the blame for having set this precedent in motion? This story, then, cannot be taken as literally true.

The ancients held that poets often speak through borrowed imagery, not necessarily describing literal fact — and this is exactly such a case. Even granting that it happened, let us set Zizhan's own conduct aside for the moment — under the precepts, Foyin himself, for roasting meat, would have been driven from the monastery.

Mi Yuanzhang held that mastering calligraphy required single-minded devotion to that alone, with no other competing interest, before real accomplishment could follow. And I have heard that the ancient masters of the qin, too, held that one must concentrate on only two or three pieces to reach true refinement in them. These sayings may sound modest, yet they illustrate something far larger. The Buddha said: "Fix the mind in one place, and there is nothing that cannot be accomplished." This is why, when the mind is divided along two paths, nothing is ever truly brought to completion; while a single-minded, wholehearted devotion brings samādhi swiftly to fruition. Those who practice Chan investigation and those who practice Buddha-recitation alike should not fail to know this.

A sutra says: "Toward those who curse or harm them, śrāvakas either remain silent or simply withdraw. A bodhisattva does not do this — he responds instead with even greater compassion, loving such a person as his own child, and delivers him by skillful means; and it is for this reason that a bodhisattva far surpasses the śrāvaka, beyond any comparison." I would only note: ordinary people already find mere insult almost unbearable to endure — how much more remarkable, then, not merely to endure it, but to respond with active loving-kindness besides!

The sutra also says: "Sentient beings show the bodhisattva no kindness at all, and yet the bodhisattva constantly wishes to benefit them." I would only note: ordinary people already fail, at times, to repay even a kindness genuinely shown to them — how much more remarkable, then, to actively benefit those who have shown one no kindness whatsoever! Whoever truly grasps this teaching will find there is not a single person in the whole world he cannot get along with, not a single person in the whole world he cannot help transform.

The scholar Zeng Zongyuan once used the Doctrine of the Mean and the Great Learning to investigate the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, blending in Chan phrases as well, and put his interpretation before Master Xuedou Chongxian for judgment. Xuedou said: "This matter is not even accorded with by the scriptural teaching itself — how much less by the Doctrine of the Mean! You must understand it directly." He then snapped his fingers once, and said: "Just grasp it exactly like this!" At these words, Zongyuan had a genuine awakening.

The Buddha's own lifetime of teaching is the very standard by which practitioners must guide themselves — anything that does not accord with that teaching is a demonic doctrine. And yet Xuedou's remark here is precisely the point of "a separate transmission outside the teaching." If the transmission lies outside the teaching, then what, exactly, do the Tripiṭaka's own twelve divisions actually discuss? The answer is: one must leave the pointing finger behind to see the moon itself, grasping the meaning that lies beyond mere language and text.

Consider: the World-Honored One held up a flower, and Kāśyapa smiled — this is the origin of the Chan transmission for ten thousand generations. Suppose someone now overturned this and said: "This matter does not even accord with the raising of the flower itself — there is a separate transmission outside even the flower." How, then, should this be understood? The ancients said: "Juzhi's own awakening did not lie in his raised finger." And yet here Xuedou's own snap of the fingers produced Zongyuan's genuine awakening. Suppose someone now overturned this too, and said: "This matter does not even accord with the snap of the fingers itself — there is a separate transmission outside even the finger-snap." How, then, should this be understood?

In the region of Yue, meditation communities serve a meal at night, called the "release-from-assembly meal" — and it has, over time, become customary to compete in making this meal ever more lavish, even exceeding the noon meal, a habit that has now persisted for a very long time. There was once a venerable elder who, hearing a monk in a neighboring room eating in the afternoon, could not help weeping, grieving over the decline of the Buddha-dharma. Monks are forbidden even to eat past noon — how much more so at night!

The Vinaya says that the very sound of a bowl clattering in the human world causes fire to rise in the throats of hungry ghosts. And yet here, in the depth of night, when all is quiet, the sound of chopping boards and clanging bowls fills their ears entirely, while the rich aroma of frying, boiling, and roasting assaults their sense of smell — having forgotten the Buddha's own teaching of compassion, indulging only the appetite of one's own stomach and mouth — can the mind possibly rest easy with that?

Someone might say: "But what if hunger strikes in the middle of the night — what then?" In that case, fruit, nuts, or pastries may substitute — anything that does not require pots and pans is acceptable. And besides, those who keep the precept against eating past noon take not the slightest morsel from noon until the following dawn; we, by contrast, still have an evening meal at all — how could we possibly be so discontented?

Ancient venerable masters, when they opened a hall to gather the assembly, drew crowds of three or five hundred — even, in the case of Huangmei, seven hundred; Xuefeng, over a thousand; Jingshan, seventeen hundred. When I was young I longed for this, and grieved that I had been born too late to join such gatherings of dragons and elephants. Now that I am old, I have finally come to understand that the teaching of the True, Semblance, and Final Dharma is no empty saying at all — even among a vast and crowded assembly, one or two truly, genuinely serious practitioners can be almost impossible to find.

This is why the Venerable Kimbila and his two companions formed a group of only three to beg for food together; and why Master Ciming Chuyuan traveled with only six companions to study under Fenyang. And yet those three attained arhatship, and those six became great vessels of the Dharma. If one simply seeks large numbers, while genuine attainment and accomplishment remain rare, what good does the large number actually do?

The monks' hall I have built holds only forty-eight places — not even a tenth of what the ancients gathered — and even so, I still find this too many, and would gladly make it smaller and narrower still. This is not because I lack a heart for saving all beings universally — it is simply that, in this degenerate age, this is exactly how things ought to be.

Forming societies for communal Buddha-recitation began with Master Hui Yuan of Mount Lu. Can those who lead such societies today truly match Master Hui Yuan himself? Can those who join them truly match the Eighteen Worthies of his own society? If not, then such a society's membership should be kept small rather than large — since those who truly, genuinely practice the Pure Land path are, as with the monks' hall discussed above, exceedingly rare in this degenerate age.

As for men and women mixing together within the same society — this is something Mount Lu's own society never had at all. Women ought properly to recite the Buddha's name within their own homes, rather than joining a men's assembly, so as to avoid worldly slander and suspicion. Nothing matters more than protecting the Buddha's own true Dharma in this way — I hope my fellow monastics will uphold this together with me.

As for release-of-life societies, too, membership should likewise be kept small rather than large, since those who truly, genuinely show compassion in rescuing living creatures are, like genuine Pure Land practitioners in this degenerate age, exceedingly rare as well. My own view is this: let each person simply purchase and release creatures according to what they themselves happen to see and what lies within their own means. At the end of each season, or at year's end, gather together in one place, tally up what each has released, examine and discuss one another's progress in virtue, and then disperse after a short while — without wasting food on lavish feasts, and without squandering time in idle indulgence. This, I believe, is enough. I hope my fellow monastics will uphold this together with me.

There are unscrupulous, disreputable people in this world who falsely invoke the Buddha's name, even gathering crowds to plot outright rebellion. And yet what they invoke is always some claim that "Śākyamuni's own dispensation has declined, and Maitreya Buddha is now to govern the age" — this is nothing like Master Hui Yuan's own Lotus Society of Mount Lu at all.

Master Hui Yuan urged people to abandon this Sahā world and seek the Pure Land instead, teaching that gold and silver defile the mind, that official rank and salary bind the body in suffering, that sensual beauty is an axe that cuts down one's own life, that fine clothing, rich food, land, and houses are all pitfalls dragging one down into the three realms — wishing only to escape this human world and be born within the nine grades of the lotus. What, then, is there in this Sahā world left to admire or envy?

Those who falsely invoke Maitreya's name, by contrast, use precisely gold and silver, official rank, sensual beauty, food, clothing, land, and houses to lure the ignorant masses, making them delighted to follow along. The two are as opposite as ice and burning coal — the distinction must not go unexamined.

That said, members of a genuine Lotus Society should still be careful to avoid even the appearance of suspicion and steer clear of trouble — my earlier point that membership ought to be kept small rather than large was made in real earnest. I once wrote an essay urging genuine practice for laypeople, whose general point was this: a truly sincere practitioner need not gather in groups at all — one has a quiet room at home, and can simply shut the door and recite the Buddha's name there; need not seek out some deviant teacher — one has parents at home, and can recite the Buddha's name while being filial to them; need not run about outside listening to lectures — one has scripture at home, and can recite the Buddha's name while following its teaching directly; need not give exclusively to monasteries — one has poor relatives, needy neighbors, and struggling acquaintances close at hand, and can recite the Buddha's name while helping them in their urgent need. Why? Because whoever is devoted to what is genuinely real has no need to chase after outward show. I hope monastics will make this teaching widely known to their lay followers.

The ancients had a saying: "One's courage should be great, and one's mind should be small." By "great courage" they meant a willingness to take on real responsibility; by "small mind" they meant careful, deliberate judgment. Because of that responsibility, one presses forward even against ten thousand opposing men; because of that careful judgment, one approaches every matter with real caution, planning well before acting. This is entirely sound advice.

For a monk, though, it should be exactly the reverse: I would say the mind should be great, and the courage should be small. Because the mind is great, it can embrace all ten realms of existence, bear the weight of every sentient being, and vow, without limit, to save them all. Because the courage is small, one holds fast to the three thousand dignified deportments and eighty thousand fine details of conduct, never daring to grow careless with them.

Students today, with a bit of quick intelligence, look down on their own contemporaries close at hand and dismiss the ancients from a distance, treating the monastic code with contempt and belittling the Pure Land teaching — their courage, certainly, is great enough! But examine the truth of their inner state, and one finds they know only themselves, not others at all; know only how to preserve and pamper this small handful of flesh and blood that is their own body, without any thought of restoring and filling out the vast measure of the Dharma-realm itself. Their mind, in other words, is small indeed!

Someone might say: "But Huangbo was himself called 'the coarse-mannered monk' — is this not exactly the mark of great courage?" Ah — one clumsy at painting tigers ends up with something that merely resembles a dog instead. I fear that what you call "great courage" will not produce another coarse-mannered monk, but only a disreputable, undisciplined one. How can this not call for real caution?

When Emperor Gao of Han passed through Lu, he offered the full sacrifice — the tài láo — to Confucius, and the court historians recorded and praised the act. This carries two meanings: first, it came after the tyrant Qin had burned the books and buried the scholars alive, giving the gesture special weight; second, the emperor himself had otherwise shown little regard for the classics, even humiliating Confucian scholars on occasion, which is exactly why the act was singled out for praise.

Given Confucius's own virtue — worthy of comparison with Yao and Shun, matching heaven and earth itself, exceeding even one's own parents in what is owed to him — even the most extravagant sacrificial feast, dragon and phoenix, elephant and whale, could not repay one ten-thousandth part of that debt, let alone a single well-marked, properly-horned ox! The Yijing teaches plainly: "The eastern neighbor slaughters an ox, and yet this is not as good as the western neighbor's simple springtime offering" — meaning that even a modest offering, made with real sincerity, is received better than an extravagant one made without it. If the ritual outstrips the substance behind it, the spirits themselves reject it — how much more so a sage! By this same reasoning, everything else follows. It is a pity that this same hollow habit — form without real substance — has persisted from ancient times to the present, and can hardly now be reversed.

Since ancient times, Confucians have attacked Buddhism, and Buddhists have attacked Confucianism in return. I would say: when Buddhism first entered China and its followers grew numerous, it was hardly excessive for Confucians, concerned for the welfare of society, to criticize it; and once Confucians had done so, and doubts about Buddhism spread widely, it was likewise not excessive for Buddhists, concerned for the path beyond this world, to answer back in turn.

But once Fu Yi and Han Yu had already attacked Buddhism, and later people simply imitated them in attacking it further, this became excessive. Why? Once clouds have already covered the sun, there is no need to raise further smoke and haze to block it out as well. And once Mingjiao and Konggu had already answered back against Confucianism, and later people simply imitated them in attacking Confucianism further, this too became excessive. Why? Once the sun has already broken through the darkness, there is no need to light further lamps and candles besides.

Examined honestly, Confucianism and Buddhism do not actually undermine one another — they support one another instead. Consider a brief example: when a person does evil, he may escape the law's punishment in this life, and yet fear falling into hell after death — and so reforms and turns toward good instead; this is the Buddha-dharma quietly assisting where the state's own moral instruction cannot reach. And monks who cannot be restrained by monastic regulation alone, fearing worldly punishment, dare not act recklessly — this is Confucian governance openly assisting where the Buddha-dharma alone cannot reach.

Monks today worry only that the Buddha-dharma is not flourishing enough, without realizing that excessive flourishing is not necessarily a blessing for the sangha at all — some modest restraint and moderation is exactly what allows the Buddha-dharma to endure in this world over the long term. Once this is understood, the two traditions ought not attack one another at all, but should instead praise one another in return.

People know the harm of loving profit, but do not realize that loving reputation causes even greater harm. The reason they fail to realize it is this: the harm of loving profit is coarse and easy to see, while the harm of loving reputation is subtle and hard to detect. And so anyone with even a little self-respect can easily set aside profit — but reputation is something only a person of truly great wisdom and virtue can escape.

Thinking to establish a reputation, one deliberately performs eccentric, attention-getting acts; thinking to protect a reputation, one contrives elaborate schemes of concealment — spending an entire lifetime chasing after reputation without rest, with no time left over to cultivate body and mind at all.

There was once a venerable elder who said: "There is no one in this whole world who does not love reputation" — and sighed deeply as he said it. Someone in the audience rose and said: "Just as you have taught us, sir — the only person in this world who does not love reputation is you yourself." The elder, delighted, laughed with real pleasure — never realizing he had just been thoroughly caught out. How difficult, indeed, this barrier of reputation truly is to break through!

In my own Correcting Errors, I have already refuted the false claim that Emperor Wu starved to death, but I have not yet addressed the other slanders against him. Take, for instance, his giving up meat for a vegetarian diet, at which people laughed — and yet even an old farmer, working hard to grow wealthy, still indulges his own appetite fully; could the Emperor possibly have been unaware that he himself could command every delicacy in the realm? Or his substitution of dough figures for the animal sacrifices at ancestral rites, at which people also laughed — and yet even an ordinary scholar, on passing the examinations, still wishes to seek his ancestors' blessing for the honor; could the Emperor possibly have been unaware that he himself, as Son of Heaven, owed his own ancestors even more? Or his weeping whenever he confirmed a death sentence, at which people laughed as well — and yet this is exactly the same mind as Yu the Great's own "weeping over a criminal from his own carriage," or Yao's own "if one of my people commits a crime, it is I who have failed him" — could the Emperor possibly have been unaware that he held the power of life and death entirely in his own hands, to do with as he pleased?

Only his repeated donation of himself as a temple servant genuinely compromised the dignity befitting a ruler — this came from having faith without sufficient wisdom, seeing the matter unclearly, and so valuing his own body too lightly relative to the Dharma, clinging to the gesture to an excessive degree. And ever since the Jin and Song dynasties, people had been competing to rank one another's meditative attainment, without knowing there was a further, higher matter beyond it — this is exactly why, when he met Bodhidharma's own great teaching in person, he failed to connect with it at all, a genuine matter for regret.

If people condemn him simply because he lost his throne, that is unjustified. Emperor Wu's fault was an excess of compassion; his compassion was a virtue carried too far — how could this possibly be spoken of in the same breath as the ruin brought on by the depravity of the Last Emperor of Chen or Emperor Tianyuan of Zhou? And if people condemn him simply for having devoted himself to the Buddha-dharma at all — that, I confess, I do not know how to answer.

In the mountains grows a flower, shared on a single stalk and branch, and yet the blossoms themselves come in two sizes: the larger ones, like plum or plum blossoms, encircle the outside; the smaller ones, like orange or osmanthus blossoms, cluster together in the middle. The outer number is roughly eight; the inner number runs to well over a hundred. The mountain folk see it often enough and think nothing of it, and none of them even know its proper name.

I saw it and found it remarkable — that flowers on the same stalk should differ so much in size is already remarkable enough; that the large ones should ring the outside while the small ones gather within is more remarkable still. And so I named it the "King-and-Retinue Flower" — the large blossoms are the "mind-king," the small blossoms are the "mind's attendant factors." The mind-king numbers eight, and the outer flowers correspond to this; the attendant factors number fifty-one, and the inner flowers correspond roughly to this as well. The outer number of eight may vary slightly, yet eight remains the usual count; the inner number always exceeds its base figure, since although the attendant factors are classified into fifty-one, subdivided further they are truly inexhaustible. The king stands outside, the attendants within, because the king can encompass the attendants, while the attendants cannot encompass the king. The outer blossoms open first, the inner ones later — the king is the root, the attendants the branch. That this flower has lain hidden for so long and only now comes to be noticed is simply a matter of the right conditions and timing finally converging.

Someone might say: "This flower has no bright color, and burning it produces smoke that irritates people — woodcutters won't even bother gathering it for fuel. What is so remarkable about it?" Ah — this is exactly what makes it remarkable! Zhuangzi prized the useless tree precisely because it could not be made into timber — and yet even a useless tree can still be gathered for firewood. This flower cannot even be used for that — making it, in all the world, about as thoroughly useless as anything could possibly be! The Yijing speaks of "retreating in comfortable abundance" — surely this is exactly what it means.

A person of old once said: "Though one might possess a chariot drawn by four horses, and precede it with a jade disc of tribute, none of this compares to advancing seated in this Way." From this I would extend the point further: it is not only a chariot and jade tribute that fall short — even ruling over the whole world does not compare to advancing seated in this Way; and it is not only ruling over one world — even a Golden-Wheel Sage King ruling over all four continents does not compare to advancing seated in this Way; and it is not only ruling over four continents — even ruling over Trāyastriṃśa Heaven, or Yama Heaven, or the whole great trichiliocosm itself, still does not compare to advancing seated in this Way.

And yet the "Way" spoken of there originally referred only to the Daoist path of long life and lasting vision. How much more so, then, should this hold for one who has shaved his head and donned monastic robes, styling himself a mendicant monk, who ought to be advancing, seated, along the unsurpassed great Way to supreme bodhi itself — and yet instead envies the wealth and rank of ordinary human life! I truly do not know what could possibly be in such a person's heart.

To praise the Buddha's body as "golden-colored" is to draw only an approximate resemblance — it does not mean the Buddha's body is literally gold in the way human beings understand the word. Heavenly gold and heavenly silver, set against earthly gold and earthly silver, are like fine jade set against a mere jade-like stone — the difference in quality settles itself at once. And if even heavenly gold is not sufficient to compare with the Buddha's body, how much less earthly gold?

The Buddha's true radiance is pure and subtle beyond description, luminous and utterly translucent, and simply cannot be seen by ordinary eyes at all — and yet this is something we ought not fail to understand. If people today, seeing images of the Buddha made of clay and wood and gilded with gold leaf, conclude that the Buddha's actual bodily appearance is really nothing more than this, they have entirely missed the point!

In this life, when cold, people think of clothing; when hungry, they think of food; wherever they live, they think of comfort; whatever tools they use, they think of having more of them; with a son, they think of his marriage; with a daughter, they think of her wedding; in study, they think of official rank and salary; in running a household, they think of growing wealthy — never, at any moment, able to set these concerns down.

If someone resolves to leave the household life precisely to escape entanglements like these, and yet still cannot forget every one of these same concerns, what, then, is the point of having left home at all? The Buddha said, in the Sutra of the Buddha's Final Teaching: "Constantly touch your own shaved head, to remind yourself that you have already renounced ornament and adornment." But this is hardly only about ornament and adornment — one ought also constantly touch one's own shaved head and say: "I am a monk. I have cast aside every worldly tie at once, and set my whole mind, single-mindedly, on the Way."

Raising silkworms takes many lives, and cruelly, and yet the world never forbids it — because, above, the emperor and his officials rely on silk for their ceremonial robes, and below, farming men and women rely on it for their livelihood. And yet, had silk-raising never existed at all since ancient times, people would simply have made do with cloth instead. As for livelihood: nine out of ten common people do not raise silkworms at all, and only one in ten does — and one never sees those who do not raise silkworms starving to death because of it.

Someone might ask: "Then why did Confucius himself abandon the linen ceremonial cap for a silk one?" In Confucius's own time, the practice of using silk had already been established for a long time, and its manufacture was simpler than linen's — Confucius simply went along with the prevailing custom, knowing how difficult established habits are to change. And besides, Confucius praised Yu the Great for wearing coarse everyday clothing while reserving fine, beautiful garments only for sacrificial rites — meaning that only the ceremonial cap itself need be made of silk, not necessarily everything else. The implication should be clear enough.

The Yijing says: "Fuxi wove cords into nets, for hunting and for fishing." Why would a sage set the very precedent for killing living creatures? No one, from ancient times onward, has ever explained this — until recently, when a certain Mr. Wang of Huaiting took up his brush and wrote: "In the primeval age, birds, beasts, fish, and turtles damaged the people's own crops — the net was made to remove a danger to the people, not to capture creatures for food." This explanation not only preserves the lives of these creatures, it also dispels the confusion of the age, and does real service to the sages of the past!

But the histories also record that the Yellow Emperor commanded his primary consort, Lady Xiling, to teach the people to raise silkworms — how, then, are we to reconcile this? I have heard that there exists a kind of wild silkworm that spins its silk directly onto the branches of trees, from which one may gather thread without ever needing to boil the cocoon at all. Perhaps what Lady Xiling actually taught was the gathering of wild silk in exactly this way! The domesticated silkworm we know today may well be something people took up on their own only later, and not something that traces back to Lady Xiling at all. Otherwise, we would be left with the strange picture of Tang the Victorious opening three sides of his hunting net to let creatures escape, while the Yellow Emperor plunged every last one of them into the boiling pot without exception — Tang opening the net, and the Yellow Emperor sweeping it clean in one stroke?

Someone might say: "Su Dongpo held that one should wait until the moth has already emerged from the cocoon before gathering the silk, so as to avoid the offense of killing the pupa." What this fails to realize is that once the moth has emerged, the cocoon's threads are broken into short, disconnected fragments, and cannot be spun into silk at all — Dongpo, I suspect, never actually said any such thing.

Lord Lü Wenzheng, once he had risen to eminence and become chancellor, kept every gift the emperor bestowed upon him sealed and unused. The emperor, learning of this, asked him the reason. Lü answered: "Your servant has a private debt of gratitude not yet repaid." It was, in fact, a debt owed to a monastery, from the days before he had risen in the world.

It is now popularly told that Lü was poor in his youth and studied in a temple, where he would go to eat whenever the meal-bell rang. The monks, growing weary of him, began ringing the bell only after they had already finished eating, so that Lü, arriving, always found nothing left, and in his distress wrote on the wall: "Ten times I have gone to receive alms, nine times I found nothing there — how galling, that the abbot's bell rings only after the meal is done." Once Lü passed the imperial examination, the monks covered his poem with a gauze screen in reverence. When Lü visited the temple again, he added a further couplet: "Twenty years ago, my face was covered in dust; only now do I see it covered instead in green gauze."

Going by the first account, how virtuous the monks must have been; going by the second, how base and unworthy! If someone has wrongly slandered a genuinely worthy person, that itself is an offense of speech — and this story, as it is popularly told, seems to come from unofficial histories and stage dramas, and is probably not to be trusted at all.

Among those in the world who seek reputation, there are those whose learning is not yet complete and yet whose reputation is already made — this is called "undeserved luck," gaining what one has not properly earned; and there are those whose learning is complete and yet whose reputation never comes — this is called "undeserved injustice," failing to gain what one has properly earned. Hence the saying: "We pass the examination, while Liu Fen fails" — describing exactly this pair, luck on one side and injustice on the other.

Studying the Way, though, is nothing like this at all. No one has ever kept his name listed in some mountain retreat while his body ran about in the busy marketplace, drifting idly and inconsistently, warming the seat one day and letting it go cold for ten, and still somehow accomplished the Way; nor has anyone ever applied himself with bitter resolve, exhausting his whole spirit and strength, never once retreating, never once resting, taking awakening itself as the sole standard, and still failed to accomplish it. Seeking reputation depends on others; seeking the Way depends entirely on oneself. A student of the Way need only resolve firmly and apply himself diligently — with no thought at all of undeserved luck, and no worry at all about undeserved injustice.

A practitioner's own writings are nothing like ordinary worldly poetry or biography — above, they set forth the mind-dharma of the buddhas of old; below, they open the gate of awakening for later students; the stakes involved are anything but small. And if one's own learning is not yet fully refined, one's own understanding not yet fully settled, and some mistaken interpretation slips through unnoticed, does this not come dangerously close to betraying the buddhas of the past while misleading the students of the future?

Confucius wore through the leather cords binding his own copy of the Yijing three times over before completing the Ten Wings; Master Huian, on his very deathbed, was still revising his own commentary on the chapter on sincerity in the Great Learning. The ancients showed this much caution even with worldly texts — how much more should this hold, then, for writing on matters beyond this world, which is no easy undertaking at all!

Before he ever met Longtan, Deshan believed his own Blue Dragon Commentary was an unalterable classic — and in the end it went up in flames on a single fire. Had Miaoxi, upon first receiving his own careless early certification, simply been satisfied with it, how could his later awakening ever have come to pass? It is only right, then, that a young writer should proceed slowly and with real patience.

When Shitou first studied under the Sixth Patriarch, the Patriarch knew that his true causes and conditions for awakening did not lie there, and directed him instead to Qingyuan, under whom he attained great awakening. When Danxia first studied under Mazu, Mazu likewise knew his true causes and conditions did not lie there, and directed him instead to Shitou, under whom he too attained great awakening. So it was as well with Linji, who moved from Huangbo to Dayu, and Huiming, who moved from Huangmei to Caoxi. And this is not the only kind of case: even those the Buddha himself could not save were saved instead through Maudgalyāyana — this, too, was simply a matter of causes and conditions at work. This is why a student who is fortunate enough to encounter a genuine spiritual guide must give rise at once to great faith and reverence, since it is precisely through that guide, in this life and beyond, that one crosses over — this is not something to be casually let pass by, wasted.

Earth can rot a thing, and water can dissolve it, but some residue always remains, and it takes a long time — buried or soaked — before it finally disappears entirely; fire, by contrast, burns a thing to ash in an instant. From this I understand that the wisdom of prajñā is like a great blazing fire: press it with the water of craving and desire, and that water simply dries up; touch it with the fuel of afflictions, and that fuel simply burns away; bring the stone of ignorance near it, and that stone simply scorches to nothing; the dense thicket of deviant views, the roofed-over hut of every obstruction, the countless scattered fragments of delusion and discriminating consciousness — all are consumed by that fierce blaze, with nothing left over at all.

The ancients said: "The tiny insect called the taimo can perch anywhere at all — except on the tip of a flame." This illustrates how the ordinary mind of sentient beings can attach itself to anything at all — except to prajñā itself. This is why a student of the Way must never let go of prajñā-wisdom, even for a single instant.

My leg had been injured, and I could only travel by sedan chair. One evening, as dusk was falling, the chair-bearer, drunk, stumbled and dropped the chair, and at that very moment several men rushed up, arms bared, and grabbed at my hat — thinking, no doubt, that I was some lady of the household, or perhaps wearing gold and jewels on my head. They soon realized their mistake, grew deeply ashamed, and ran off at once.

From this I understood that the wisdom of prajñā is like the great disc of the sun: the moment the sun sets, thieves and lawless men emerge; the moment true illumination even briefly dims, ignorance and affliction begin to stir. A worthy of old said: "Absent even for a moment, one is no better than a dead man." This is why a student of the Way must never let go of prajñā-wisdom, even for a single instant.

A sutra says: "In the hot summer months, store water in a vessel, and by the next morning tiny creatures will already have appeared in it — too fine to be seen by ordinary eyes, which is why the water must be filtered before use." But if that same water is set over a fire, and the fire never goes out, and the water never cools, then no such creatures will appear at all. From this I understand that prajñā-wisdom is like water kept boiling over a flame: as long as the fire of contemplation burns fiercely and without pause, tended quietly and without interruption, how could the stealthy mind of confusion and doubt ever find room to arise? This is why a student of the Way must never let go of prajñā-wisdom, even for a single instant.

Within the section on curing illness in the Tiantai teaching on cessation and contemplation, there appear practices like the "six-syllable breath" and "focusing the mind and looking downward." The Way of cessation and contemplation is, after all, broad enough to encompass everything, including even methods for treating illness — these are, for the most part, simply another way of taking medicine, using cessation and contemplation itself as the remedy. But this is only a minor offshoot of cessation and contemplation, not its true, central purpose at all.

Later people, failing to grasp this point, and practitioners of Daoist longevity techniques citing it as their own authority, have produced a phenomenon in which certain people dress themselves outwardly in the name of Chan while secretly practicing Daoist techniques within — and when questioned about it, they simply invoke Tiantai's own teaching as their excuse. This is exactly why the matter needs to be set straight here.

There are people in this world whose own household affairs are already well settled, who, at the end of the year, sit at ease and watch the poor scrambling for food and clothing — this is called "watching the busy." There are people whose own examination success is already secured, who, on the day of the great examination, sit at ease and watch other scholars scrambling for advancement — this too is called "watching the busy." And yet has no one ever said that there are people in this world whose delusion is already broken, whose wisdom is already complete, whose work is already done, who sit at ease and watch the beings of the six realms scrambling through the cycle of birth and death — is this not also, in its own way, "watching the busy"?

Alas! The whole world is caught up in busyness — who, then, is truly watching it? A person of old said: "This old monk has his own method of ease." But this "method of ease" is not something easily described in words at all! And yet, while all of this is called "watching," when an ordinary person watches the busy from a position of leisure, there is pride in it, and no real compassion for those still caught in it; when a bodhisattva watches the busy, by contrast, great compassion arises, universally awakening the deluded masses, hoping that they too might attain the same liberation. These two states of mind are utterly different — and this is exactly what marks the distinction between the ordinary and the sage, the small and the great.