CHAPTER 17

Someone asked: "What about the 'Land of the Three Eyes?'"

The Master said: "When you and I together enter the Land of Pure Mystery we put on the robe of pureness and persuade the Dharmakaya Buddha; when we enter the Land of Non-differentiation we put on the robe on non-differentiation and persuade the Sambhogakaya Buddha; when we enter the Land of Emancipation we put on the robe of brightness and persuade the Nirmanakaya Buddha. These Lands of the Three Eyes are all dependent transformations.

"According to the masters of the sutras and sastras, the Dharmakaya is regarded as basic substance and the Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya as function. From my point of view the Dharmakaya Buddha cannot expound the Dharma. Therefore a man of old said: The [Buddha-]bodies are posited depending upon meaning; the [Buddha-]lands are postulated in keeping with substance.' Therefore we clearly know that the Dharma-natured bodies and Dharma-natured lands are objects and lands established through dependent understanding. Empty fists and yellow leaves used to fool a child! Spiked-gorse seeds! Horned water chestnuts! What kind of juice are you looking for in such dried-up bones!

"Outside mind there's no Dharma, nor is there anything to be obtained within it. What are you seeking? Everywhere you're saying, 'There's something to practice, something to prove.' Make no mistake! Even if there were something to be obtained by practice, it would be nothing but birth-and-death karma. You are saying, 'The six paramitas and the ten thousand [virtuous] actions are equally to be practiced.' As I see it, all this is just making karma. Seeking Buddha and seeking Dharma is only making hell-karma. Seeking bodhisattvahood is also making karma; reading the sutras and studying the teachings is also making karma. Buddhas and patriarchs are men with nothing to do. Therefore, [for them] both defiling passions and activity and also passionless ness and non-activity are 'pure' karma.

"There are a bunch of blind shave-pates who, having stuffed themselves with food, sit down to meditate and practice contemplation: arresting the flow of thought the don't let it rise; they hate noise and seek stillness. This is the method of the heretics. A patriarch said: 'If you stop the mind to look at stillness, arouse the mind to illumine outside, control the mind to clarify inside, concentrate the mind to enter samadhi-all such [practices] as these are artificial striving.

"This very you, the man who right no is thus listening to my discourse, how is he to be cultivated, to be proved, to be adorned! He is not one to be cultivated, he is not one to be adorned. But if you let him do the adorning, then everything can be adorned. Don't you be mistaken!

"Followers of the Way, you seize upon words from the mouths of those old masters and take them to be the true Way [and say]: 'These good teachers are wonderful, and I, simple-minded fellow that I am, don't dare measure such old worthies.' Blind idiots! You go through your entire life holding such views, betraying your own two eyes. Trembling with fright, like donkeys on an icy path, [you say to yourselves:] 'I don't dare disparage these good teachers for fear of making karma with my mouth!'

"Followers of the Way, it is only the great teacher who dares to disparage the Buddhas, dares to disparage the patriarchs, to determine the right and wrong of the world, to reject the teachings of the Tripitaka, to revile all the infantile fellows, and to look for a man amidst fortunate or unfortunate circumstances.

"Therefore, when I look back over the past twelve years for a single thing having the nature of karma, I can't find anything even the size of a mustard seed. The Ch'an master who is like a new bride will fear lest he be thrown out of his temple, be given no food to eat, and have no contentment and ease. From olden days our predecessors never had people anywhere who believed in them. Only after they had been driven out did their worth become recognized. If they had been completely accepted by people everywhere, what would they have been good for? Therefore it is said: 'The lion's one roar splits the jackals' skulls.'

"Followers of the Way, people everywhere say that there is a Way to be practiced, a Dharma to be proven. Tell me, what Dharma will you prove, what Way will you practice! What is lacking in your present activity! What still needs to be patched up!

"The immature young teacher, not understanding this, believes in these fox-spirits; he lets them talk the kind of nonsense that binds other people and say that only by harmonizing the principles and practice and by guarding [against] the three karmas can Buddhahood be attained. People who talk like this are as numerous as the fine threads of spring rain.

"A man of old said:
If you meet a man on the road who has penetrated the Way,
Above all do not try to approach the Way.
Therefore it is said:
When a man tries to practice the Way, the Way does not function,
And ten thousand evil circumstances vie in raising their heads.
But when the Sword of Wisdom flashes forth, nothing remains;
Before brightness is manifest, darkness is bright.

Therefore a man of old said, 'Usual mind is the Way.'

"Virtuous monks, what are you looking for? The non-dependent man of the Way who right now before my eyes is listening to my discourse, clearly distinguishable, [it is you who've] never lacked anything. If you want to be no different from the Patriarch-Buddha, just see things this way. There's no need to waver.

"Your minds and Mind do not differ - this is called [your] Living Patriarch. If mind differs, the essential nature and forms will be different. Since mind does not differ, therefore the essential nature and forms are not different.