Learned friends,
our self-natured bodhi
is fundamentally pure and clean.
Use only this mind of yours for direct
understanding and attainment
of buddhahood.
Posts Tagged → hui neng
the great dharma boat
When hate and
love don’t block the mind,
stretch out both legs and
then lie down.
If you hope and intend
to transform others, you must perfect
expedient means. Don’t cause them to have
doubts, and then their self-nature
will appear.
The Buddhadharma is
here in the world; enlightenment is
not apart from the world. To search for Bodhi
apart from the world is like looking for
a hare with horns.
Right views are
transcendental; deviant views
are all mundane. Deviant and right
completely destroyed: the
Bodhi nature appears
spontaneously.
This verse is
the Sudden Teaching, also called
the great dharma boat. Hear in confusion,
pass through ages, in an instant’s
space, enlightenment.
your own nature is the pure land
The unenlightened person
does not understand his own true nature,
does not realize the Pure Land in his own body,
and thus petitions all over. The enlightened person
never differs no matter where he is. For this reason
the Buddha says, “Wherever I may be I am always
in comfort and bliss…If only your mind is pure,
your own nature is itself the Pure
Land of the West.”
cast aside all thoughts
enlightenment is not apart from the world
To be unstained
in all environments is called no-thought…
If you stop thinking of the myriad things, and cast aside
all thoughts, as soon as one instant of thought is
cut off, you enter another realm.
The Dharma of no-thought means:
even though you see all things, you do not
attach to them, but, always keeping your own nature
pure, cast the six thieves of the senses to
exit through the six gates.
Even though you are
in the midst of the six dusts,
you do not stand apart from them,
yet are not stained by them, and
are free to come and go.
how can it be taken by force?
Having left the Fifth Ancestral Teacher’s place, Hui Neng traveled south for two months, and had reached the Ta Yu Range. He was pursued by the monk Hui Ming, who was originally a general, accompanied by several hundred men, who wanted to seize the robe and bowl (emblematic of succession to the ancestral teachers).
Ming was the first to overtake him. The Sixth Ancestral Teacher threw down the robe and bowl on a rock and said, “This robe signifies faith: how can it be taken by force?” Ming tried to pick up the robe and bowl, but was unable to move them. At that point he said, “I have come for the Dharma, not for the robe.”
The Ancestral Teacher said, “Since you’ve come for the Dharma, you should put to rest all your motivations, and don’t give rise to a single thought, and I will explain for you.” After a silence, he said, “Without thinking of good, and without thinking of evil, at just such a time, which is your original face?”
At these words, Hui Ming was greatly enlightened. He also asked, “Besides the intimate words and meaning that struck home a moment ago, is there any further intimate message?”
The ancestral teacher said, “If it were said to you, it wouldn’t be intimate. If you turn around and reflect, what’s intimate is in you.”