Chapter 12

The Master addressed the assembly, saying:

"Followers of the Way, as to Buddha-dharma no effort is necessary. You have only to be ordinary with nothing to do- defecating, urinating, putting on clothes, eating food, and lying down when tired.

Fools laugh at me, but
The wise man understands.

A man of old said:

To make work on the outside
Is just being a blockhead.

"Just make yourself master of every situation, and wherever you stand is the true place. No matter what circumstances come they cannot dislodge you [from where you stand]. Even though you bear the remaining influences of past delusions or the karma from [having committed] the five heinous crimes, these of themselves become the ocean of emancipation."

"Students nowadays know nothing of Dharma. They are just like sheep that take into their mouths whatever their noses happen to hit against. They neither discriminate between master and slave, nor distinguish host from guest. Such as these, having entered the Way with crooked motives, readily enter bustling places. They cannot be called true renouncers of home- on the contrary- they're in fact true householders.

"Now he who is a renouncer of home must, acquiring the usual and true insight, distinguish between Buddha and Mara, between the true and the false, the secular and the sacred. If he can do this, then he may be called a true renouncer of home. But if he cannot distinguish Mara from Buddha, then he has only left one house to enter another. He may be dubbed a karma-creating sentient being, but he cannot be called a true renouncer of home.

Now supposing there were a Buddha-Mara, inseparably united in one body, like the mixture of water and milk of which the King of Geese drinks only the mild, the follower of the Way who possesses the true Dharma Eye would handle Mara and Buddha equally.

If you love the sacred and hate the secular,
You'll float and sink in the birth-and-death sea.