Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — Second Collection, Part 13
Continuing the Second Collection (二筆). This section turns to lineage and doctrine: a skeptical Song historian's disbelief in an afterlife, a resolved dispute over which school truly carries the "mind-seal," Zhuhong's own lament over Chan's declining vitality in his own day, and a careful comparison — neither collapsing nor exaggerating the difference — between Daoist inner alchemy and Buddhist meditative attainment.
120. 劉道原不信佛法 — Liu Daoyuan's Disbelief in Buddhism
A refutation of a famous historian's confident materialist metaphor — that life is a journey in which nothing at all can be carried away — pointing out that even his own admirers seem to grant Buddhism more credit than his stated view allows.
司馬溫公謂：「劉道原最不信浮屠法，其言曰：『人生如在逆旅，旅中所用之物，去則盡棄之矣，焉有齎之隨去者乎？』可謂見之明而決之勇矣。」蓋人死則神滅之論也。夫旅中主人之物，誠棄矣；自己囊橐，亦併棄而不隨乎？所謂「唯有業隨身」是也。溫公之有取於道原者，何也？劉元城謂：「老先生於此事極通曉。」元城之有取於溫公者，又何也？
Lord Sima Wen said: "Liu Daoyuan was the least inclined of anyone to believe in the Buddha's teaching. He used to say: 'Life is like a journey at an inn — whatever one uses along the way, one leaves entirely behind upon departing; how could one possibly carry any of it away?' His view may be called clear-sighted and boldly decided." This is simply the view that the spirit perishes along with the body at death. Whatever belongs to the innkeeper along the journey, certainly, ought to be left behind — but must one's own luggage and belongings be abandoned too, never carried onward? This is exactly what the Buddhist teaching means by "only karma follows the body."
Why, then, did Lord Wen find something worth taking from Daoyuan's view? And why did Liu Yuancheng say of Lord Wen himself: "The old master is thoroughly versed in this very matter"? Why did Yuancheng find something worth taking from Lord Wen's own understanding?
Liu Shu (Daoyuan) was Sima Guang's own genuine, close research partner on the monumental Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government, consulted whenever the project reached some especially tangled point of chronology or fact; Zhuhong's closing pair of questions is deliberately left unanswered, functioning as a quiet, ironic rebuttal — if Sima Guang himself, whom Liu Yuancheng credited with real understanding of Buddhism, still found something worth admiring in Daoyuan's skepticism, the reader is left to wonder exactly what kind of understanding that could have been.
121. 傳佛心印 — Transmitting the Buddha's Mind-Seal
A resolution of a real historical dispute between the Tiantai and Huayan schools over which lineage alone carries the authentic transmission of the Buddha's own mind, settled by a Song monk's careful reconstruction of the full patriarchal succession.
天台下尊宿謂傳佛心印惟屬天台，而達磨一宗置之弗取；圭峰謂荷澤嗣曹溪，傳佛心印惟屬荷澤，而南嶽、青原二宗置之弗取。於是明教嵩禪師作《傳法正宗》，自迦葉至曹溪，西天四七，東土二三，以逮於南嶽、青原，而天台、圭峰兩家之說雙泯。今猶有為天台者，而絕無為圭峰者，則天台下尚繩繩，而圭峰下寥寥也。為天台者曰：「師子遇害而傳遂絕。」然至人遇害，如遊園觀，寧有法隨身滅之理乎？《傳法正宗》誠哉宗正而萬世為楷矣！
The venerable masters of the Tiantai lineage hold that the transmission of the Buddha's mind-seal belongs to Tiantai alone, setting aside Bodhidharma's own lineage entirely; Guifeng held that Heze inherited the Dharma from Caoxi, and so the transmission of the mind-seal belongs to Heze alone, setting aside the Nanyue and Qingyuan lineages entirely. And so Master Mingjiao Song composed his Correct Transmission of the Dharma, tracing the lineage from Kāśyapa down to Caoxi — twenty-eight patriarchs in India, and on through the Chinese patriarchs to Nanyue Huairang and Qingyuan Xingsi — laying out the order of succession in full detail, and in doing so, quieting the dispute between the Tiantai and Guifeng schools over who truly held the authentic transmission.
Today there are still those who carry on the Tiantai lineage, but no one at all carries on Guifeng's own Heze lineage — so the Tiantai line still continues in abundance, while the Heze line has all but vanished entirely. Followers of Tiantai say: "Once the Lion Bodhisattva was murdered, the transmission itself was cut off." But a truly accomplished master, even when murdered, regards it as no more than a stroll through a garden pavilion — how could the Dharma possibly perish along with his own body? Master Mingjiao's Correct Transmission of the Dharma is truly the proper standard for the Chan lineage's succession, and may well serve as a model for ten thousand generations to come!
Mingjiao Qisong is the same Song-dynasty monk already discussed for his careful, restrained defense of Buddhism against Confucian criticism in entry 43 above; his three-part Correct Transmission of the Dharma became the standard reference for Chan's own patriarchal lineage precisely because it settled this dispute methodically rather than simply asserting one school's superiority, tracing an unbroken chain of twenty-eight Indian patriarchs before continuing into the Chinese succession Zhuhong summarizes here.
122. 傳燈 — Transmitting the Lamp
A lament, striking in its directness, over the visible decline of genuine Chan vitality by Zhuhong's own time — tracing the problem not to any external obstacle but to the simple absence of practitioners who genuinely give rise to the bodhi-mind.
自拈花悟旨，以至舂米傳衣，西域此方，燈燈續照。而黃梅之記曹溪曰：「向後佛法由汝大行。」乃南嶽、青原燦為五宗，大盛於唐，繼美於宋，逮元尚多其人，而今則殘輝欲燼矣！所以然者，無其種故也。祖師云：「汝學心地法門，如下種子；我說法要，譬彼天澤。」然則既無其種，天澤何施？今剃髮染衣者雖遍滿域中，然皆外騖有為緣事；其近裏者，又不過守律飭躬，誦經禮懺而已。其誰發無上菩提之心，單提此事，孜孜密密，扣己而參，不捨寸陰，而必求正悟者哉？乃欲望空田之穫粟，責露柱以生花，無是理也。
From Kāśyapa's own awakening at the raised flower, down through the pounding of rice and the transmission of the robe, the lamp has been passed from hand to hand, unbroken, from India to this land. And when the Fifth Patriarch at Huangmei confirmed the Sixth Patriarch, he said: "From now on, the Buddha-dharma will flourish greatly through you." From the Sixth Patriarch it passed to Nanyue Huairang and Qingyuan Xingsi, and Chan branched out brilliantly into five schools, flourishing greatly in the Tang, continuing its splendor into the Song, still finding many worthy heirs through the Yuan — but now, in our own age, its glowing embers are nearly reduced to ash! And the reason for this is simple: there is no longer any seed left to receive it.
The Patriarch himself said: "You study the Dharma-gate of the mind-ground exactly as one plants a seed in the field; what I teach is like the rain that heaven sends down upon it." But if there is no seed at all, upon what could heaven's rain possibly fall? Today, those who shave their heads and don dyed robes fill the whole land, and yet nearly all of them chase after external, conditioned affairs; even those who turn somewhat inward do no more than keep the precepts, discipline their own conduct, recite sutras, or perform ritual repentance. Who among them actually gives rise to the unsurpassed bodhi-mind, single-mindedly devoting himself to this one great matter, diligently and quietly turning inward to investigate his own nature, never wasting a single moment, resolved to seek genuine awakening? This is exactly like hoping to harvest grain from an empty field, or expecting a bare wooden pillar to burst into flower — there is simply no such possibility!
This is one of the most directly pessimistic assessments Zhuhong offers anywhere in either collection about Chan's contemporary state — unlike his more measured, structural complaints elsewhere (the collapse of the three schools' distinct robes and monasteries in entry 62, or the vanishing of the Heze lineage in entry 121 immediately above), here he names the root cause as a simple absence of genuine motivation, and the "Patriarch" quoted is Nanyue Huairang's own instruction to Mazu Daoyi from the tile-polishing exchange already referenced in entry 75's discussion of Zhongfeng Mingben.
123. 金丹 — The Golden Elixir
A careful, two-sided comparison between Daoist inner alchemy and Buddhist meditative attainment — conceding real structural resemblance while insisting the traditions' actual goals remain entirely distinct, and closing with a sharp rebuke of monks who prefer Daoist texts to their own tradition's.
或問：「玄宗有云：『金丹之法，與二乘坐禪頗同。』此語然歟？」予曰：「此紫陽語也。不曰異而曰同，不直曰同而曰頗同，言之不苟發者也。雖然，禪者不可因是而生異見也。學大乘以二乘為禁，故《梵網》呵二乘曰邪曰惡，況同而未同者乎！」或問：「丹可得聞乎？」乃為之喻曰：「鍊鉛汞而成丹，譬之修定慧而成道也。神凝氣結，乃成大丹；止極觀圓，不真何待！其究雖殊，而喻可以互顯也。玄宗尚以身之精、氣、神為外藥，而教人求內藥之元精、元氣、元神，彼從事於五金、八石、尋草、燒茆者，亦惑矣！禪宗尚以十地見性為如隔羅縠，而必曰永斷無明方名妙覺；彼止於化城、住於百尺竿頭者，猶遠之遠也！奈何圓頂方袍，號為釋子，不思紹隆佛種，而耽耽焉頌《道德》、講《南華》，不亦顛倒乎哉！」
Someone asked: "The Daoist tradition says: 'The method of the golden elixir closely resembles the seated meditation of the Two Vehicles.' Is this really true?" I answered: "These are Ziyang's own words. He does not say they differ, and does not flatly say they are the same, either — he says only that they closely resemble one another — a man who does not speak carelessly. And yet a Chan practitioner must not, on this basis, form some mistaken view. Those who study the Mahāyāna are forbidden even the Two Vehicles themselves — the Brahma Net Sutra condemns the Two Vehicles as both deviant and evil — how much more so, then, something merely resembling, but not actually identical to, the Two Vehicles!"
Someone asked: "May I hear more about this elixir?" I offered this analogy: "Refining lead and mercury into an elixir is like cultivating concentration and wisdom to accomplish the Way. When spirit condenses and vital energy coheres, the great elixir is formed; when cessation is carried to its utmost and contemplation becomes perfectly complete, how could this not be genuine realization? Though their ultimate ends differ, the analogy illuminates both sides at once.
Even the Daoist tradition itself treats the body's own essence, breath, and spirit as merely the 'outer medicine,' teaching students instead to seek the 'inner medicine' of primordial essence, primordial breath, and primordial spirit — and yet those who busy themselves with the five metals, the eight minerals, gathering herbs, and burning compounds on Mount Mao remain thoroughly confused nonetheless! Chan itself treats even a bodhisattva's realization at the tenth ground as though seeing through a thin gauze veil, insisting that only the permanent severing of ignorance deserves the name of subtle awakening — and yet those who rest content at the phantom city, or remain stalled at the top of a hundred-foot pole, remain far, far further still from the goal!
How, then, can it be that men who have shaved their heads and donned monastic robes, calling themselves disciples of Śākyamuni, give no thought at all to carrying forward and glorifying the Buddha's own lineage, and instead devote themselves eagerly to chanting the Daodejing and lecturing on the Zhuangzi? Is this not entirely upside down?"
Ziyang is Zhang Boduan (987–1082), the founding patriarch of the Southern Lineage of Daoist internal alchemy, whose own Understanding Reality explicitly makes the careful, qualified comparison ("closely resembles," not "is identical to") that Zhuhong is responding to here; the "phantom city" and "hundred-foot pole" are both standard Buddhist figures for premature, incomplete attainment mistaken for the final goal — the phantom city from the Lotus Sutra's parable of a guide conjuring a false resting-place to keep exhausted travelers moving toward their true destination, and the hundred-foot pole from a well-known Chan verse urging the practitioner to take one further step even from what feels like the very summit of attainment.