Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — Second Collection, Part 3

When I entered the capital, I went together with more than twenty fellow travelers to pay respects to Master Bianrong and ask for instruction. Master Bianrong taught us: be without greed for profit, without seeking after fame, without currying favor at the gates of the powerful and eminent — attend single-mindedly to practicing the Way alone. Once we had left, several of the younger men laughed and said: "I thought he would have something extraordinary to teach us — why did he only offer such broad, ordinary words!" I did not agree. This is exactly what makes this elder worthy of respect. Had he wished, could he not easily have gathered up a phrase or two from the ancient masters' own recorded exchanges, simply to dress up his own front door? And yet he did not do this — because what he said was exactly what he himself had actually practiced, teaching others through his own conduct. This is a truly genuine Chan practitioner, not someone to be taken lightly.

Chan, doctrinal study, and vinaya were called the "three schools" in ancient times, and the monasteries their practitioners lived in, and the robes they wore, were each distinct. Take my own home region, for instance: Jingci, Hupao, and Tiefo are Chan monasteries; the Three Tianzhu temples, Lingyin, and Pufu are doctrinal-study monasteries; Zhaoqing, Lingzhi, Puti, and Liutong are vinaya monasteries. As for robes: Chan practitioners wear brown, doctrinal-study practitioners wear blue, and vinaya practitioners wear black. When I first left the household life, I could still see these three distinct robe colors — now they have all become simply black, and every Chan and vinaya monastery alike has turned into a place for lecturing on doctrine. Alas! I do not know where this will finally end!

People today, when they finally acquire some ancient bronze vessel or ceramic jar, some painting or piece of calligraphy — something from remote antiquity, or from a famous master's own hand, something they have longed for their whole lives without ever being able to obtain — feel overjoyed beyond all expectation, and say to themselves with real satisfaction: "This is something that generation after generation has treasured and handed down — and now, by good fortune, it has finally fallen into my own hands!" They never once stop to consider: there exists a priceless treasure beyond all price, present since beginningless kalpas — when will that treasure finally fall into my own hands? And besides, worldly curiosities lie outside oneself, and seeking them does not guarantee obtaining them; while this priceless treasure lies within — seek it, and it is obtained. People simply fail to reflect on this, that is all.

In this age of the five turbidities and the Final Dharma, compounded further by habits accumulated across many past lives, wishing to cut off ignorance and delusion and awaken to one's own original mind — among a thousand or ten thousand people, scarcely one or two ever succeed, and this is no cause for surprise. But refraining from evil and doing good instead — this, by contrast, is an easy matter, and yet there are those who willingly choose evil regardless. I do not know what could possibly be in their minds.

And again: body, speech, and mind — everyone wishes to gather the mind so that it no longer moves, and yet thoughts arise and depart at no fixed hour, appearing and vanishing without any visible form, so that concentration is difficult to accomplish — and this, too, is no cause for surprise. But restraining the body from evil deeds, restraining the mouth from evil speech — this, by contrast, is an easy matter, and yet there are those who willingly choose evil of body and speech regardless. I do not know what could possibly be in their minds.

The ancients did not lightly grant their approval — they always investigated the truth and verified the facts before ever putting it into words. Consider the praise given to the commentary on the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment: "Is this not one of the Four Reliances? Or has its author personally heard the teaching from the Pure Land itself? How else could he exhaust its meaning so completely?" Or consider the praise for Master Hui Yuan, called "the Bodhisattva Guardian of the Dharma from the East"; for Nanquan and Zhaozhou, called "living buddhas"; for Yangshan, called "the little Śākyamuni"; for Qingliang, called "the reincarnation of Mañjuśrī" — a thousand years later, no one has ever disputed any of these titles. Why? Because these were true words — nothing like the flattering, formulaic phrases people today use in birthday odes, grave inscriptions, and congratulations on a promotion, meant only to dress up the occasion.

To set such praise down in books, to carve it into bronze and stone, is meant to command belief at the time and to be handed down to later generations. But empty, careless praise — placing someone on the same level as the buddhas and patriarchs themselves — ah! Though this can hardly deceive one of truly great wisdom, it may well mislead a student whose own understanding is not yet awakened!

I built a life-release pond, and some who doubted the wisdom of it said: "Confining fish to a pond, crowded together in its narrow, winding corners, they lose all sense of natural vitality — better to release them into the lake instead, or to protect a stretch of the public canal and forbid fishing there, which amounts to release without literal releasing." I would say this suggestion has its own merit too, but weighing the pond against the lake or the canal, the advantages and disadvantages of each turn out to be roughly equal. The pond may be cramped, but no net ever enters it; the lake may be spacious, but it is fished day and night without pause. It is like the poor man living happily in a shabby lane, and the wealthy man living anxiously in his own lavish garden — so, too, the advantages and disadvantages here balance out. And the canal's protected zone has fixed limits, while fish come and go without any fixed pattern — some enter the protected zone from outside it, others leave the protected zone for waters beyond — and once outside it, danger awaits; better, then, to dwell permanently within the pond, which they never leave at all — so again, the advantages and disadvantages balance out.

And as for the worry that the pond lacks natural vitality — consider this comparison: a monk in solitary retreat, dwelling in a single room, paces back and forth within it, and yet may travel, in his own mind, a hundred or a thousand miles without exhausting the path, wandering there at ease and finding his own contentment — where, in that, is there any lack of vitality? Consider one more comparison: we are fortunate enough now to live in a time of peace, and the people within a walled city find the opening and closing of its gates an inconvenience — but should an invading army ever bear down upon that same city, would those within its walls be safe, or those without? The fisherman is like the invading army; the pond is like the city wall. People rely on the city wall for their own protection — how is that a limitation? The fish, I think, understand this exactly the same way.

Long ago, Cui Shen had no son, and a certain monk taught him to dress his wife in her finest clothes and send her into a temple to offer a vegetarian feast, watching for whichever monk received it most joyfully, and then to reverently and lavishly support that monk, in the hope that he might be reborn into their own household. But one who has left the household life is meant to transcend the three realms entirely, accomplish the Way, and deliver sentient beings — and instead this scheme sets a cage and a trap to lure him back down! If the monk so lured had no genuine intention of transcending the world in the first place, that would be one thing — but should a truly genuine practitioner of the Way fall into this trap, how could the harm ever be fully expressed? Both Cui Shen and the monk who advised him incurred real fault by this, and the monk's fault is the greater of the two. What suffering that monk brought on himself! Why did he not simply teach the proper way of seeking a son instead?

Ordinary people grieve over having no son, and the wealthy and eminent grieve over it even more. Someone might say: "Of all forms of unfilial conduct, none is greater than leaving no descendants — how can this not be cause for grief?" I would say: quite right, but the ancients' own words are already clear enough on this point — they meant one who never marries and so has no son, not one who marries and still has no son. What fault could there possibly be in marrying and still having no son? Even an emperor, ruling over countless millions of subjects, certainly has no lack of means to take on concubines, nor any lack of alchemists and men of unusual skill offering him medicines — and yet there have still been emperors whose line of succession ended entirely. This is simply fate, and not worth grieving over.

What is genuinely worth grieving over is something else entirely: habitually acting unjustly, seizing what belongs to others, cutting off another family's line, tearing apart another family's flesh and blood, treating another person's children as one's own servants and abusing them — every kind of hidden cruelty of this sort is a real cause of having no son, and this is what deserves real grief. But whoever has done none of these things, and still has no son, has simply met with fate — it is no fault of his own, and so it is not worth grieving over.

Those who praise the western Pure Land record the following: that Master Jie was reborn as Su Zizhan; that Elder Qingcaotang was reborn as Lord Zeng Lugong; that Elder Xun was reborn as a certain Vice Minister Li; that the Abbot of Nan'an was reborn as Chen Zhongsu; that a certain sutra-librarian monk was reborn as Zhang Wending; that Head Seat Yan was reborn as Wang Guiling. Next in rank down: Master Cheng was reborn as a son of the Han family; a monk of Jingsi Temple was reborn as a son of the Prince of Qi. Further down still: Shanmin was reborn as the daughter of Registrar Dong; Haiyin was reborn as the daughter of Defender Zhu. And further down even than that: a monk of Yandang Mountain was reborn as none other than Qin Hui himself, who rose to wield great power and committed every kind of evil.

Had any of these men, in their former lives, applied themselves single-mindedly to seeking rebirth in the Pure Land, how could any of this have happened to them? I would say: only one of truly great vow and great power — like Master Lingshu, reborn again and again as a monk — can escape this downward drift; while Yunmen, though he became a king three times over, lost his spiritual powers each time as a result. Across a hundred generations, how many could ever match even Yunmen — let alone Lingshu? To be reborn as an ordinary person, as a woman, as an evil person — each is progressively worse than the last. Even to be reborn as some famous minister of state is no good outcome at all. How urgent it truly is — one must be reborn in the Western Pure Land!

Someone might say: "For these masters to be reborn as famous ministers is rather like ghee turning back into butter — that, I suppose, one could still accept; but to be reborn as an ordinary person is like ghee turning into curdled milk, and to be reborn as a woman is like ghee turning into mere milk, and to be reborn as an evil person is like ghee turning into poison! Does all their lifetime of cultivation, then, count for nothing at all as a basis to rely on in the next life? What, then, is the value of practicing at all?" This calls for real explanation.

Practitioners possess two kinds of power: the first is the power of merit — steadfastly upholding the precepts and performing every kind of conditioned, virtuous deed; the second is the power of the Way — steadfastly maintaining right contemplation, with every thought abiding within prajñā-wisdom. Setting aside those whose power of the Way is entirely pure, like Master Lingshu — if the power of the Way exceeds the power of merit, then even dwelling amid wealth and rank in the next life, one will not be led astray by it; but if the power of merit exceeds the power of the Way, one is certain to be led astray by wealth and rank in the next life, and may not even keep hold of that wealth for long. Among such people, those whose craving runs deep are reborn as women; those whose craving and anger both run deep are reborn as evil people — all because they cultivated merit alone, while the power of the Way grew correspondingly thin.

For a monk, ought not the true focus of effort be exactly the power of the Way? And yet, if one diligently cultivates the power of the Way, and further supports it with the power of vow — aspiring to rebirth in the Pure Land — then one may follow after all the assembly of superior good people there; far from ever falling into the ranks of evil people, one would not even wish to become a famous minister of state! How urgent it truly is — one must be reborn in the Western Pure Land!

Han Qinhu once said: "To have lived as Grand Commandant, and to die and become King Yama, is glory indeed." What he did not realize is that although King Yama enjoys the pleasures proper to a king, he must still, morning and evening, endure suffering as well — for this is a post held only by one whose karma mixes both merit and offense together, hardly a truly desirable thing at all.

There was once a monk who, seeing the messengers of the underworld arrive, asked them their purpose, and they told him: "We have come to escort you to take up the post of King Yama." The monk was afraid, and roused himself to hold fast to right mindfulness with all his strength — and the messengers came for him no more.

A person of old once said: "A wandering monk who has not yet illuminated his own mind-ground often ends up, in his next life, as some minor local spirit presiding over rivers and mountains." This may not always be so, but there is real reason behind it. Even the lowest of the nine grades of rebirth in the Pure Land still surpasses a heavenly palace — we ought not even wish to become gods, let alone spirits and ghosts! How urgent it truly is — one must be reborn in the Western Pure Land!