Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — Second Collection, Part 10

A teacher of old once said: "Leaving the household life is a matter for a great man — something even a general or a chancellor could not accomplish." A general pacifies chaos through military achievement; a chancellor brings peace through literary and administrative skill; the great affairs of the realm all pass through the hands of generals and chancellors — and yet it is said that leaving the household life is beyond even their capacity. How, then, could leaving the household life possibly be a trivial matter! Today, people shave their heads and don dyed robes and call this leaving home. Alas! This is nothing more than leaving through the two panels of one's own front gate — it is not leaving the burning house of the three realms at all. Only one who leaves the household of the three realms deserves to be called a great man — and even this is not yet enough; only one who leaves the three realms together with all sentient beings across the three realms may truly be called a great man! An old verse by a venerable elder sings: "Finest of sons, how good it is to leave home — and yet how few truly understand these two words, 'leaving home.'" The "finest of sons" is exactly this great man. A great man is not easily found — small wonder, then, that so few understand what "leaving home" truly means.

When people first leave the household life, however great or small their aspiration may be, none lack some measure of good intention at the start. But over time, entangled again by circumstance and the pursuit of fame and profit, they end up building elaborate residences, adorning themselves in fine robes, acquiring land, gathering disciples, accumulating gold and silk, and busying themselves diligently with household affairs — no different at all from ordinary laypeople. A sutra says: "When even a single person leaves the household life, Māra himself trembles in fear." If this is what leaving home has become today, then Māra might as well pour himself a cup of wine and celebrate! Whoever has left home with a truly good intention ought to see through all of this, and quickly.

I once saw an ascetic monk practicing austerities deep in the mountains — the moment he came down from the mountain, dozens of devoted men and women took refuge with him and showered him with offerings, and his whole life was buried and lost because of it. How much more so, then, for someone facing even greater temptations! The ancients said: "One must leave the household of afflictions all over again, and cut once more through the net of worldly toil." This is the leaving-home that comes after leaving home. Leaving the earlier household is easy; leaving the later one is hard — and it is for this that I remain, day and night, in a state of real dread.

Someone asked: "I have always practiced the Pure Land path, but a certain Chan practitioner told me: 'Simply awaken to your own buddha-nature, and that is enough — why seek some other buddha outside yourself and vow rebirth in his land?' What do you think of this?" I would say: this is indeed the highest kind of instruction — and yet clinging to it rigidly can also lead one astray. Let me explain with an analogy: suppose someone's own intelligence matched Yan Hui's, and yet, a hundred or a thousand miles away, a sage as great as Confucius himself were teaching the Way there, with seventy disciples and three thousand worthies gathered around him in fellowship — hearing of his reputation, one goes to see him, and surely gains something more from it; but suppose instead, relying on one's own intelligence, one refused outright even to pay him a visit — would that be right? Even should someone have genuinely attained awakening, and yet still refuse to seek rebirth in the Pure Land, I would venture to guarantee that this fellow has not truly awakened at all. Why? Master Tianru said: "You have simply not yet awakened. Were you truly awakened, then ten thousand oxen together could not drag you back from being reborn in the Pure Land!" How profound these words are!

Monks have a common saying: "Small doubt, small awakening; great doubt, great awakening; no doubt, no awakening." This "doubt" is what is meant by investigation. But when did the term "Chan investigation" first arise? Some say the sutras never mention it — I would say they do. The Śūraṅgama Sūtra says: "One should, within this very state, minutely investigate the subtle and luminous." It also says: "investigate both within and without." It also says: "investigate deeply and thoroughly." It also says: "investigate to the utmost point of refinement." Is this not exactly investigation? All the later venerable masters who taught students to contemplate gōng'àn and give rise to a sense of doubt trace their teaching back to exactly this.

Of all who have spoken of this most fully and clearly, none surpasses Master Ehu Dayi. He said: "If a person sits still without truly applying effort, in what year will he ever pass the test and awaken to the emptiness of his own mind?" He also said: "One must lift up the sharp blade that can cut through even a single hair, and use it to cleave open the ultimate meaning of the Patriarch's coming from the West." He also said: "If you remain silently indulging your own foolishness, know that you have not yet understood how to truly apply effort." He also said: "Widen your eyes and raise your brows, and look again and again — just who is this 'he'?" Sayings of this kind abound, and a student of Chan ought to bind them fast to his own sash to remember always.

And yet, should one instead try to work out these very words and phrases through mere intellectual speculation, calculating and guessing through the discriminating mind, one would again completely misunderstand what is meant by "applying effort," by "cleaving open," and by "looking again and again"! This would then share the very same fault as the one who merely sits silently — different in outward form, but identical in its underlying sickness. This distinction must not go unexamined!

After the Sixth Patriarch had already received the mind-seal at Huangmei, he hid himself among butchers and hunters, working as a lowly laborer, for sixteen full years. He later arrived at Master Yinzong's own lecture hall, and spoke his famous words on the flag and the wind; Yinzong, hearing this, invited him inside, personally shaved his head and gave him monastic robes, and respectfully invited him to ascend the platform and teach. Everyone knows that the Sixth Patriarch was, so to speak, pushed forward by the dragon spirits and heavenly guardians themselves — but few realize how truly extraordinary Yinzong himself was. Yinzong himself said: "What I teach is like a shard of broken tile; what you, sir, expound is like genuine gold." And yet Yinzong had already spent long years lecturing on the sutras, and was already, by that time, a senior and eminent Dharma master in his own right — and still, the feeling of pride and the desire to win out over others had not been overcome in him, and yet he was able to honor a worthy teacher and revere the Way, setting his own position aside to follow another, to this very degree? The Sixth Patriarch was surely a manifestation in the lineage of ancient buddhas — and Yinzong, too, must have belonged to that very same company. Could such a meeting of sages possibly have been a mere accident?

The ancients, before their own minds had penetrated the truth, did not hesitate to travel a thousand miles in search of a teacher and the Way; and once they had found a genuine teacher, they broke their own walking staff, hung up their alms bag, and stayed close to that teacher for a very long time. In the most ancient times, Ānanda himself served the Buddha in person for his entire life; and among the many worthies of every later generation, those who remained long at a spiritual guide's side are too numerous to list individually. Consider only the two venerable disciples beneath Elder Ciming: one, Yangqi, assisted him for his entire life; the other, Qingsu, attended upon him personally for thirteen full years — and it was through this daily questioning morning and night, this teaching absorbed through the very ears and heart, that they finally attained the Way and became great vessels of the Dharma.

I myself left the household life late in life, and my own body was already frail and weak, my vital energy no longer able to keep pace with my aspirations. My own teacher passed away soon after ordaining me, and I parted from him almost at once. Traveling afterward as a wandering monk, wherever I went I found either no real opportunity, or fell ill, and could only stay briefly in any one place — and so it has come to this day: white-haired now, and still ignorant, clinging only to my own foolish, clumsy ways. Alas! I was never able to serve, even as some minor errand-boy, among the crowded ranks of worthy students gathered at some great teacher's own lecture hall — and instead I have spent my life as a mere village schoolteacher in some remote corner. How can this not be a matter for real lament!