Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — Third Collection, Part 8

One monk devoted himself exclusively to Buddha-recitation; another, priding himself on Chan practice, said to the Buddha-reciting monk: "You must wait until you are reborn in the Western Pure Land and behold Amitābha in person before you can attain awakening; but we who practice Chan attain awakening within this very life. The difference in speed is obvious enough — you should abandon recitation and take up Chan investigation instead."

The monk could not resolve this himself, and brought the question to me. I said: "Faculties differ in sharpness, and effort differs in diligence, depending entirely on the individual — each path has its own faster and slower cases, and one cannot simply declare one method right and the other wrong. It is like two people setting out on the same day toward a place of treasure, one by horse and one by boat — which will arrive first cannot be determined in advance; it depends on sharpness and diligence, and the same holds true for both Chan investigation and Buddha-recitation. Speaking of slowness: there are those who recite the Buddha's name for countless kalpas before their lotus finally opens, and there are those who investigate Chan for many lifetimes of hard effort without ever seeing their own nature. Speaking of speed: there are those who investigate Chan and awaken instantly, attaining the Dharma-body without passing through countless kalpas at all; and there are those who recite the Buddha's name and achieve complete, thorough realization within this very life, attaining the highest of the highest grade of rebirth at the moment of death. The ancients said: 'As with a person traveling a great distance, arrival itself is the only measure — one should not insist on ranking the difficulty of the road along the way.'"

The Sixth Patriarch himself showed that he could not read or write, and never once composed anything with his own brush his entire life — the Platform Sutra itself was entirely recorded by others, and so naturally contains many errors. Its claims about "a hundred and eight thousand" and "east" and "west" have already long been clarified elsewhere. But it also says: "Simply cultivate the ten wholesome deeds — what need is there to further vow rebirth in the Pure Land?" Yet the ten wholesome deeds are only the cause for rebirth in the heavens; even before any buddha had appeared in the world, a wheel-turning king could already guide sentient beings through the ten wholesome deeds alone. Could the Sixth Patriarch really have meant to teach people not to seek rebirth in the West to behold the Buddha, but only to seek rebirth in heaven instead? This claim is clearly unreliable! From this we know that whoever clings to the Platform Sutra's own words to reject the Pure Land has grievously misunderstood it.

The ancients said: "The great recluse dwells in the marketplace; the lesser recluse dwells in the mountains." And so there have been those willing to bury themselves contentedly amid worldly dust. But they fail to realize: dwelling in the marketplace while blending harmoniously with the crowd, finding stillness amid the noise, is something only a genuinely accomplished practitioner can do — it is not suitable for a beginner at all.

Someone might say: "Yongjia held that 'to dwell in the mountains before attaining the Way means seeing only the mountain itself, and inevitably forgetting the Way' — does this not mean he opposed mountain retreat entirely?" Each view has its own point. My own praise for mountain dwelling is meant as a warning to those already sunk in worldly dust and desire; and Yongjia's own statement is likewise entirely sound reasoning. A monk whose own great matter remains unclear must travel a thousand, ten thousand li to seek out a teacher and the Way, drawing close to a genuine spiritual guide, questioning him morning and night — how could he possibly remain ignorant and unaware, playing the role of a mere mountain-guarding ghost instead? This is why traveling to seek instruction must come first, and dwelling in the mountains only afterward — and this, too, does not contradict Yongjia's own words at all.

A sutra says: "Even the crawling and the sentient all possess buddha-nature." When Mencius refuted Gaozi, he asked: "Would this mean the nature of a dog is the same as the nature of an ox, and the nature of an ox the same as the nature of a man?" Some have cited the sutra's own words to criticize Mencius for this — I believe this is mistaken.

"All possess buddha-nature" is a statement of ultimate truth transcending this world; that man and beast differ is a statement about worldly, present reality — the two do not actually conflict with one another at all. If one traces things back to their ultimate root, then even the smallest ant or gnat is, at that very level, equal and undivided from the buddhas of all three times; but observed within present, worldly reality, human beings comprehend the ten thousand transformations of things while beasts possess only the barest sensory awareness — how could these possibly be regarded as equivalent?

And it is not only that humans and beasts differ: a dog set to guard the night will bark the instant it senses any disturbance; but a cow, even if someone were to force open the gate, drill through the wall, climb over it, or break down the door, would remain perfectly undisturbed, as though seeing and hearing nothing at all. The natures of dog and cow are clearly not identical — how much less so, then, between different human beings! All timber comes from a single source, trees, and yet the parasol tree, the catalpa, the trifoliate orange, and the thorn bush each differ in their own quality; the hundred rivers are all made of the same water, and yet rivers, lakes, ditches, and canals each differ in their own character. What is the same is never without its own difference, and what differs is never entirely without some underlying sameness. If one clings rigidly to one side without allowing for the other, then at the very moment the World-Honored One attained perfect enlightenment, he would have seen every sentient being attain enlightenment together with him at that same instant — why, then, would there still be sentient beings left in this world today at all?

There are monks who keep servants to command at will. But one who has left the household life already has disciples who can perform such service — why, then, would he need servants at all? Someone might say: "Disciples come seeking the Way, not to serve as laborers." Ah! When Confucius traveled from state to state, at one point his disciple Ran You drove his carriage, and at another his disciple Fan Chi drove it as well; when Tao Yuanming set out to answer a friend's invitation, a single student together with his own two sons carried his palanquin. Later generations even painted these very scenes as images of lofty, refined character. And yet today, having become a monk, one dotes on one's own disciples as though they were the children of a wealthy household, and instead spends money to purchase servants to cook meals, carry firewood, hold umbrellas, and deliver calling cards — that the corruption of this degenerate age should reach even this extreme!

Wen Shan's own "Six Songs" contain the line: "In the next life, when the karmic bond remains, flesh and blood shall be as they once were" — showing he genuinely believed in the three periods of time. And yet he did not seem to realize: when the causes and conditions of past karma converge, people gather together as a single family; and once those same causes and conditions are exhausted, they scatter again along separate roads — like birds roosting together in the same forest for the night, who at daybreak fly off in every direction, east, west, south, and north — how, then, could one ever be assured that things will remain "as they once were" at all? Wen Shan's own moral integrity and literary talent stand out across the generations, and yet this particular line of his sounds almost like something out of an old tale of lovers' vows exchanged in a palace hall — proof that he never gave real attention to Buddhist scripture. What a pity!