Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — Second Collection, Part 12
Continuing the Second Collection (二筆). This section defends the Pure Land's real, objective existence against two "mind-only" misreadings, cautions against a lofty but premature disregard for the West as one direction among many, and reflects on the strange, well-attested confusion that clouds even advanced practitioners at the moment of rebirth.
116. 淨土不可言無 — One Cannot Say the Pure Land Does Not Exist
A careful refutation of two popular misreadings of "mind-only Pure Land" teaching — one that dissolves the environment into mind alone, another that treats deathbed visions of the Pure Land as private hallucination — arguing that shared, witnessed phenomena at the moment of death prove otherwise.
有謂：「唯心淨土，無復十萬億剎外更有極樂淨土。」此唯心之說，原出經語，真實非謬，但引而據之者錯會其旨。夫即心即境，終無心外之境；即境即心，亦無境外之心。既境全是心，何須定執心而斥境！撥境言心，未為達心者矣。或又曰：「臨終所見淨土，皆是自心，故無淨土。」不思古今念佛往生者，其臨終聖眾來迎，與天樂、異香、幢旛、樓閣等，惟彼一人獨見，可云自心；而一時大眾悉皆見之，有聞天樂隱隱向西而去者，有異香在室多日不散者。夫天樂不向他方，而西向以去，彼人已故，此香猶在，是得謂無淨土乎？圓照本禪師，人見其標名蓮品，豈得他人之心，作圓照之心乎？又試問汝：「臨終地獄相現者非心乎？」曰：「心也。」「其人墮地獄乎？」曰：「墮也。」夫既墮地獄，則地獄之有，明矣，淨土獨無乎？心現地獄者，墮實有之地獄；心現淨土者，不生實有之淨土乎？寧說有如須彌，莫說無如芥子。戒之戒之！
There are those who say: "The Pure Land is mind-only — there is no actual Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss existing a hundred thousand million buddha-lands away." This teaching of mind-only originates genuinely in the sutras, and is not itself mistaken — but those who cite it in this way misunderstand its actual meaning. Mind itself is the environment, and there is never any environment apart from mind; the environment itself is mind, and there is never any mind apart from the environment. Since the whole environment is entirely mind, why must one insist on clinging to "mind" while rejecting "environment"! To dismiss the environment in order to speak only of mind is not yet to have truly understood mind at all.
Some also say: "What one sees of the Pure Land at the moment of death is entirely one's own mind — therefore there is no actual Pure Land." Have they never considered how, throughout history, those who recite the Buddha's name and attain rebirth are met at death not only by the sacred assembly coming to welcome them, but also by heavenly music, rare fragrances, banners, and pavilions? If only the dying person alone perceived these things, one might call them mere projections of his own mind — but often the entire assembly present witnesses them together: some hear heavenly music fading away toward the west, some smell a rare fragrance lingering in the room for days without dispersing. Heavenly music never travels toward any other direction, only west; the person has already passed away, and yet the fragrance still lingers — can this really be called proof that no Pure Land exists?
There was a certain monk who, in meditation, saw within the western lotus pond a golden lotus flower bearing the name of Master Yuanzhao Zongben — could another person's mind possibly conjure up exactly Yuanzhao's own name? Let me ask further: "When hell-realms appear before someone at the moment of death, is this not also mind?" One would answer: "Yes, it is mind." "And does that person then actually fall into hell?" One would answer: "Yes, he falls into hell." Since he does actually fall into hell, this proves hell genuinely exists — could the Pure Land alone, then, not exist? If mind manifesting hell means falling into a genuinely existing hell, could mind manifesting the Pure Land not mean being reborn into a genuinely existing Pure Land? Better to affirm its existence as vast as Mount Sumeru than to deny it down to the size of a mustard seed. Be careful — be very careful indeed!
Master Yuanzhao Zongben is the same Song Chan master already discussed for his combined Chan and Pure Land practice in entry 95 above; the vision of his name inscribed on a golden lotus is recorded in the traditional Accounts of Rebirth literature Zhuhong drew on throughout his own writing on the Pure Land — his point in citing it here is precise: a name only Yuanzhao himself would recognize appearing to an entirely different observer cannot be explained as that observer's own private mental projection.
117. 隨處淨土 — A Pure Land Wherever One Goes
A response to a lofty claim that a truly liberated practitioner need not aim specifically for the Western Pure Land, since buddhas exist in every direction — arguing this freedom belongs only to the fully accomplished, not to beginners.
有謂：「吾非不信淨土，亦非薄淨土而不往，但吾所往與人異。東方有佛吾東往，西方有佛吾西往，四維上下、天堂地獄，但有佛處，吾則隨往。非如天台永明諸求淨土者，必專往西方之極樂世界也。」此說語甚高、旨甚深、義甚玄，然不可以訓。經云：「譬如弱羽，止可纏枝。」則知翮翼既成，身強氣茂，方可翱翔霄漢，橫飛八方耳，非初發菩提心者所能也。世尊示韋提希十六觀法，必先之落日懸鼓以定志西方，而古德有坐臥不忘西向者，豈不知隨方皆有佛國耶？大解脫人任意所之，如其不然，恪遵佛敕。
There are those who say: "It is not that I disbelieve in the Pure Land, nor that I look down on it and refuse to go there — it is only that where I go differs from where others go. If a buddha is in the east, I go east; if a buddha is in the west, I go west; in any of the eight directions, above or below, in heaven or in hell — wherever a buddha may be, I simply go there. I am not like Tiantai or Yongming and the others who seek the Pure Land, who insist on going specifically to the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss." This kind of talk sounds very lofty, its meaning very profound, its principle very mysterious — and yet it cannot be taken as a general rule to follow. A sutra says: "Just as a fledgling bird with weak wings can only perch upon its own branch." From this we know: only once its wings and feathers have fully grown, its body strong and its energy abundant, can a bird soar freely through the heavens and fly boldly in every direction — this is not something a beginner who has only just given rise to the bodhi-mind can accomplish.
When the World-Honored One taught Vaidehī the sixteen contemplations, he began first with contemplating the setting sun, like a suspended drum, in order to fix her resolve firmly toward the west; and the ancient masters, too, never forgot to face west even while sitting or lying down — did they not know that buddha-lands exist in every direction? Only one of truly great and complete liberation may go wherever he pleases; short of that, one ought to respectfully follow the Buddha's own instruction instead.
Both named exemplars are genuinely documented as facing west even in their final illness: Tiantai Zhiyi is recorded, in the traditional Rebirth in the Pure Land accounts, as always sitting or lying facing west in his final years, and Yongming Yanshou (the same sixth Pure Land patriarch discussed in entries 84 and 95 above) is the subject of a separate legend in which a monk saw King Yama himself bowing before his portrait in the underworld — both men, already among the most spiritually accomplished figures in the tradition, still kept faithfully to the specific, concrete discipline of facing west, which is precisely Zhuhong's point against the more abstract claim he is answering.
118. 陰陽 — Yin and Yang
A brief but pointed correction of a claim that yin and yang require no prior metaphysical ground, using Confucius's own two statements against each other and citing Song Neo-Confucian and Huayan sources for a deeper origin still.
有謂：「萬法始於陰陽，不宜陰陽前更立太極。故曰有天地然後有萬物，天陽而地陰也；夫婦為生人之本，夫陽而婦陰也。」夫有天地然後有萬物，孔子語也；《易》有太極是生兩儀，亦孔子語也。取其一，棄其一，何為哉？濂溪曰：「無極而太極。」尚置無極於太極之上，況陰陽乎！圭峰《原人》即無極猶未足窮其原，而《起信》真如生滅以前名為一心。前說可謂甚淺！
There are those who say: "The ten thousand things begin with yin and yang — there is no need to posit a Supreme Ultimate prior even to yin and yang. This is why it is said, 'once there was heaven and earth, only then did the ten thousand things come to exist' — heaven being yang, earth being yin; and husband and wife are the root of human生, the husband being yang, the wife yin." But "once there was heaven and earth, only then did the ten thousand things come to exist" is Confucius's own saying — and "the Yijing contains the Supreme Ultimate, which gives rise to the two modes" is likewise Confucius's own saying. To take up the one and discard the other — what is the reasoning behind that?
Zhou Lianxi said: "The Non-Ultimate and yet the Supreme Ultimate." He placed the "Non-Ultimate" even above the Supreme Ultimate itself — how much more so, then, above mere yin and yang! Guifeng's own Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity holds that even the Non-Ultimate is not sufficient to exhaust the ultimate origin of things; and the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna calls the state prior even to true-suchness and arising-and-ceasing by the name of "the one mind." Compared to these, the earlier claim is shallow indeed!
Zhou Lianxi is Zhou Dunyi (1017–1073), the founding figure of Song Neo-Confucianism, whose Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate is the source of the "Non-Ultimate and yet the Supreme Ultimate" formula Zhuhong cites; Guifeng Zongmi's own Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity — already invoked for its careful treatment of Confucian and Daoist cosmology in earlier entries of this collection — systematically compares Confucian, Daoist, and various levels of Buddhist teaching on the question of ultimate origin, concluding that only the Huayan doctrine of an intrinsically enlightened original mind reaches the true root of the matter.
119. 出胎隔陰之迷 — The Confusion of Rebirth and the Interval Between Lives
A meditation on the strange, well-documented fact that even advanced practitioners momentarily lose their memory and clarity when crossing from one life to the next — and the argument that only rebirth in the Pure Land escapes this danger entirely.
古云：「聲聞尚昧出胎，菩薩猶昏隔陰。」予初疑：聲聞已具六通，菩薩雙修定慧，何由昏昧均未能免？及考之自己、稽之他人，昨宵之事，平日忽爾茫然，況隔陰乎？乍遷一房，夜起不知南北，況出胎乎？彼諸賢聖之昏昧，蓋暫昏而即明，俄昧而旋覺者也；而我等凡夫，則終於昏昧而不自知也。捨身受身，利害有如此者！為今之計，直須堅凝正心，毋使剎那失照，而復懇苦虔誠，求生淨土。生淨土，則昏昧不足慮矣；既放其心，復撥淨土，危乎哉！
The ancients said: "Even a śrāvaka remains confused upon leaving the womb; even a bodhisattva remains clouded across the interval between lives." At first I doubted this: a śrāvaka already possesses the six supernatural powers, and a bodhisattva cultivates both concentration and wisdom together — how could either still fail to escape such confusion? But examining my own experience, and observing others, I found that even the events of last night sometimes grow suddenly hazy by the very next day — how much more so, then, across the interval between one life and the next! Move into a new room for the first time, and waking at night one cannot even tell north from south — how much more so, then, upon leaving the womb into an entirely new life! The confusion of these sages and worthies, however, is only momentary — clouded for a moment, and then clear again almost at once; but we ordinary people remain confused to the very end, without even realizing it ourselves. Between casting off one body and taking up another, the stakes could not be higher!
For our own sake now, we must hold the mind firm and resolute, never letting our own awareness lapse even for a single instant — and beyond this, we must also strive with real, earnest sincerity to seek rebirth in the Pure Land. Once reborn there, this confusion is no longer anything to worry about at all; but to let the mind run loose, and to reject the Pure Land besides — how perilous that would be!
The "confusion across the interval between lives" (隔陰之迷) is a standing concern across this entire collection, already invoked to explain why even celebrated masters can be reborn into worldly power with no memory of their former discipline in the three-part "Later Rebirths" sequence (entries 69–71 above); this entry supplies the underlying doctrinal mechanism behind those earlier cautionary tales — even a śrāvaka or bodhisattva's hard-won attainment can be temporarily eclipsed at the moment of rebirth, which is exactly why Zhuhong treats rebirth in the Pure Land, where this eclipse never occurs, as categorically safer than any other outcome.