Questions from the Wan Ling Record
Huang po (d.850)
Question: At the moment of Enlightenment, where is the
Buddha?
Answer: Whence does your question come? Whence
does your consciousness arise? When speech is silenced, all movement stilled, every sight and sound vanished—then is the Buddha’s work of deliverance truly going
forward! Then, where will you seek the Buddha? You cannot place a head upon your head, or lips upon your lips; rather, you should just refrain from every kind of dualistic
distinction. Hills are hills. Water is water. Monks are monks. Laypeople are laypeople. But these mountains, these rivers, the whole world itself, together with sun,
moon, and stars—not one of them exists outside your minds!
Outside Mind, there is nothing. The green hills which
everywhere meet your gaze and that void sky that you see glistening above the earth—not a hairsbreadth of any of them exists outside the concepts you have formed for
yourself! So it is that every single sight and sound is but the Buddha’s Eye of Wisdom.
Phenomena do not arise independently but rely upon
environment. And it is their appearing as objects which necessitates all sorts of individualized knowledge. You may talk the whole day through, yet what has been
said? You may listen from dawn till dusk, yet what will you have heard? Thus, though Gautama Buddha preached for forty-nine years, in truth no word was
spoken.
Question: Assuming all this is so, what particular
state is connoted by the word Bodhi?
Answer: Bodhi is no state. The Buddha did not
attain to it. Sentient beings do not lack it. It cannot be reached with the body nor sought with the mind. All sentient beings are already of one form with
Bodhi.
Question: But how does one “Attain to the
Bodhi-Mind?”
Answer: Bodhi is not something to be attained.
If, at this very moment, you could convince yourselves of its unattainability, being certain indeed that nothing at all can ever be attained, you would already be Bodhi-minded.
Since Bodhi is not a state, it is nothing for you to attain. And therefore, it is written of Gautama Buddha: “While I was yet in the realm of Dipamkara Buddha, there was
not a grain of anything to be attained by me. It was then that Dipamkara Buddha made his prophecy that I, too, should become a Buddha.”
If you know positively that all sentient beings are already
one with Bodhi, you will cease thinking of Bodhi as something to be attained. You may recently have heard others talking about this “attaining the Bodhi-Mind,” but
this may be called an intellectual way of driving the Buddha away! By following this method, you only appear to achieve Buddhahood; if you were to spend eon upon eon in that
way, you would only achieve Sambogakaya and Nirmanankaya. (ie you would achieve the physical and spiritual aspects of a Buddha, which an Enlightened One bears within various realms of
transitory existence, but you would lack the Dharmakaya, the aspect of a Buddha as identical with the Absolute.) What connection would all that have with your original and real
Buddha-Nature? Therefore is it written: “Seeking outside for a Buddha possessed of form has nothing to do with you.”
Question: If we have always been one with the Buddha
Absolute, why are there nevertheless beings who come into existence through the four kinds of birth and enter the six states of existence, each with the characteristic form and
appearance of its kind?
Answer: The essential Buddha-Substance is a perfect
whole, without superfluity or lack. It permeates the six states of existence and yet is everywhere perfectly whole. Thus, every single one of the myriads of phenomena in
the universe is the Buddha. This substance may be likened to a quantity of quicksilver which, being scattered in all directions, everywhere re-forms into perfect wholes. When
undispersed, it is of one piece, the one comprising the whole and the whole comprising the one. The various forms and appearances, on the other hand, may be likened to
dwellings. Just as one abandons a stable in favor of a house, so one exchanges a physical body for a heavenly body, and so on up the planes of Prateyaka-Buddhas, Bodhisattvas,
and Buddhas. But all alike are things sought by you or abandoned by you; hence the differences between them. How is it possible that the original and essential nature of the
universe should be subject to this differentiation?
Question: How do the Buddhas, out of their vast mercy and
compassion, preach the Dharma to sentient beings?
Answer: We speak of their mercy and compassion as vast
just because it is beyond causality and therefore infinite. By mercy is really meant not conceiving of a Buddha to be enlightened, while compassion really means not conceiving
of sentient beings to be delivered.
In reality, their Dharma is neither preached in words nor
otherwise signified; and those who listen neither hear nor attain. It is as though an imaginary teacher had preached to imaginary people. As regards all these dharmas
(teachings), if, for the sake of the Way, I speak to you from my deeper knowledge and lead you forward, you will certainly be able to understand what I say; and as to mercy and
compassion, if for your sakes I take to thinking things out and studying other people’s concepts—in neither case will you have reached a true perception of the real nature
of your own Mind from within yourselves. So, in the end, these things will be of no help at all.
Huang-Po
Excerpted from The Zen Teaching of Huang Po-On the
Transmission of Mind
Translated by John Blofeld 1958
|
No comments:
Post a Comment