95. The Eightfold Awakening of a Great Human Being

Every buddha is a great human being. That to which a great human being awakens is therefore called the eightfold awakening of a great human being. To awaken to this teaching is the cause of nirvana.

It was the last instruction of our Original Master, Sakyamuni Buddha, on the night that he entered nirvana.


1. Wanting little
The Buddha said, "You beggars should know that people of big desire and abundant wants abundantly seek gain, and so their cares also are abundant. A person of small desire and few wants, being free of seeking and free of wanting, does not have this trouble. Small desire, wanting little, you should practise just for itself. Still more, wanting little can produce all kinds of benefits: People of small desire and few wants have no tendency to curry favour and bend in order to gain the minds of others. Again, they are not led as if they were enslaved by the senses. Those who practise wanting little are level in mind; they are without worries and fears; when they come into contact with things they have latitude; and they are constantly free from dissatisfaction. Those who have small desire and few wants just have nirvana. This is called 'wanting little.' "


2. Being content
The Buddha said, "If you beggars desire to be rid of all cares, contemplate contentment. The teaching of knowing contentment is the very place of plenty, ease, and peace. A person who is content, who knows satisfaction, even when lying on the ground is still comfortable. Those who are not content, who do not know satisfaction, even when living in a heavenly palace are still not suited. Those who do not know satisfaction, even when rich, are poor. People who know satisfaction, even when poor, are rich. Those who do not know satisfaction are forever being pulled through the five desires, as if they were slaves; they are pitied by those who know satisfaction. This is called 'being content.' "


3. Enjoying peace and quiet
The Buddha said, "If you beggars wish to pursue the ease of serene spontaneity, depart from noise and dwell alone in seclusion. People of quiet places are revered alike by mighty Indra and all the gods. For this reason you should leave behind your own groups and other groups, dwell alone in some empty spot, and intend to eradicate disgruntlement. Those who like crowds thereby usher in lots of trouble. It is like a great tree, for example, when flocks of birds gather on it, whereupon it is in danger of withering and breaking. Worldly attachments sink a person in heaps of suffering. It is like an old elephant, for example, drowning in mud, unable to get himself out. This is called 'detaching oneself.' "


4. Persisting
The Buddha said, "If you beggars keep at it, nothing will be difficult. For this reason you should keep on persevering. It is like, for example, a trickle of water constantly flowing, whereby it is able to drill through rock. If a practitioner is always losing heart and quitting, that is like twirling a stick to start a fire and resting before it gets hot: even though the desire is there to get fire, fire cannot be got. This is called 'persisting.' "


5. Not losing mental poise
The Buddha said, "For you beggars who seek friends in the good and seek sanctuary and help in the good, there is nothing like not losing mental poise. If a person does not lose his or her sense of balance and direction, the desperados of care and anguish cannot invade him or her. For this reason, you should constantly cultivate a sense of balance and direction and keep it as your own heart and mind. One who loses mental poise thereby loses all virtues. If your mental poise is unshakeable, if your sense of balance and direction is stable and strong, even if you go among desperados of the five desires you will emerge unscathed. It is like wearing armour to enter a battlefield, and thereby having nothing to fear. This is called 'not losing mental poise.' "


6. Tending the stillness of dhyana
The Buddha said, "If you beggars regulate your heart and mind, your heart and mind will be still. When the heart and mind abides in stillness, one is consequently able to witness the manifestation of the Law of arising and vanishing of the world. For this reason, you should constantly persist in the practice of all kinds of stillness, all kinds of balance. If one achieves stillness, balance, stability, then the mind does not scatter. It is like a household that values water keeping a dike in good repair. Practitioners also are like that. Through tending well the stillness of dhyana, we prevent the water of wisdom from leaking away. This is called 'stillness.' "


7. Cultivating wisdom
The Buddha said, "If you beggars possess wisdom, you will be free of greed and attachment. And, through constant self-reflection, you will prevent wisdom from being lost. This is just to be able, within the reality which is my teaching, to attain liberation. Those who are not so inclined are already different from people of the enlightened way and are also different from those clothed in white -- there is nothing to call them. Truly, wisdom is a sturdy ship in which to cross the ocean of aging, sickness and death. Again, it is a great bright torch for the darkness of ignorance; it is good medicine for all sick people; and it is a sharp axe to fell the trees of anguish. For this reason, you should listen to, wish for, and grow your own wisdom, and thereby develop yourself. A human being who possesses the light of wisdom is, albeit as eyes of flesh, a human being of clear vision. This is called 'wisdom.' "


8. Not being wordy
The Buddha said, "If you beggars engage in all kinds of tittle-tattle and rambling discussion, your own mind will be disturbed. Although you have left home, still you will be unable to get free. For this reason, beggars, you should quickly throw away that wordiness which disturbs the mind. If you want to enjoy the ease that comes with extinction of cares, you should well and truly cut out the fault of idle discussion. This is called 'not being wordy.' "



This is the eightfold awakening of a great human being. One by one, each being equipped with the eight, there may be sixty-four. Expanded, they may be countless, immeasurable, unfathomable. Abridged, they are sixty-four. They are our Great Master Sakyamuni's final teaching; they are what his Great Vehicle instructs; they are his supreme swan song during the night of the 15th day of the second month... after which he did not expound the Dharma again but finally passed into pari-nirvana.



The Buddha said, "You beggars should constantly endeavour, with undivided heart and mind, to pursue the transcendent way of awakening. Everything in the world, animate and inanimate, without exception, is a perishing and unstable form. Stop for a while and talk no more. Time must pass and so I am going to die. This is my last instruction."


For this reason disciples of the Thus-Come invariably learned it. Those who did not practise and learn it, and who did not know it, were not the Buddha's disciples. It is the Buddha's treasury of the eye of true Sitting and his fine mind of nirvana. Yet many today do not know it, and few have seen or heard it: they do not know it due to the trickery of demons. At the same time, it is not seen or heard by those with scant good roots accumulated in their own past lives. During the bygone days of the genuine Dharma and the imitative Dharma, all disciples of the Buddha knew it. They practised it and learned it in experience. Now there is not one or two among a thousand beggars who has heard of the eightfold awakening of a great human being. We should mourn the barbarism of a decadent age: there is nothing even to compare it with. While the Thus-Come's teaching of the true reality of Sitting still permeates the great-thousandfold world, while the spotless truth of Sitting has not yet disappeared, we should be quick to learn it. Do not be slack or lazy. To meet the Sitting Method of the Buddha, even in countless ages, is hard. To receive a human body also is hard. Even in receiving a human body, a human body on the three continents is better. And a human body on the southern continent is best of all -- because it can meet Buddha, hear the Dharma, leave home, and realize the way of awakening. Those unfortunates who died before the pari-nirvana of the Thus-Come neither heard about nor learnt this eightfold awakening of a great human being. That we now are seeing and hearing it, and learning it, is the influence of long-accumulated good roots. In learning it now, and thus developing life by life, until arriving without fail at the supreme awakening of Buddha and expounding this teaching for living beings, may we be akin to Sakyamuni Buddha; may there be no differences.


Treasury of the Eye of True Sitting
The Eightfold Awakening of a Great Human Being



Written at Eihei-ji temple, on the 6th day of the first lunar month in the 5th year of Kencho [1253].

95. The Eightfold Awakening of a Great Human Being

Every buddha is a great human being. That to which a great human being awakens is therefore called the eightfold awakening of a great human being. To awaken to this teaching is the cause of nirvana.

It was the last instruction of our Original Master, Sakyamuni Buddha, on the night that he entered nirvana.


1. Wanting little
The Buddha said, "You beggars should know that people of big desire and abundant wants abundantly seek gain, and so their cares also are abundant. A person of small desire and few wants, being free of seeking and free of wanting, does not have this trouble. Small desire, wanting little, you should practise just for itself. Still more, wanting little can produce all kinds of benefits: People of small desire and few wants have no tendency to curry favour and bend in order to gain the minds of others. Again, they are not led as if they were enslaved by the senses. Those who practise wanting little are level in mind; they are without worries and fears; when they come into contact with things they have latitude; and they are constantly free from dissatisfaction. Those who have small desire and few wants just have nirvana. This is called 'wanting little.' "


2. Being content
The Buddha said, "If you beggars desire to be rid of all cares, contemplate contentment. The teaching of knowing contentment is the very place of plenty, ease, and peace. A person who is content, who knows satisfaction, even when lying on the ground is still comfortable. Those who are not content, who do not know satisfaction, even when living in a heavenly palace are still not suited. Those who do not know satisfaction, even when rich, are poor. People who know satisfaction, even when poor, are rich. Those who do not know satisfaction are forever being pulled through the five desires, as if they were slaves; they are pitied by those who know satisfaction. This is called 'being content.' "


3. Enjoying peace and quiet
The Buddha said, "If you beggars wish to pursue the ease of serene spontaneity, depart from noise and dwell alone in seclusion. People of quiet places are revered alike by mighty Indra and all the gods. For this reason you should leave behind your own groups and other groups, dwell alone in some empty spot, and intend to eradicate disgruntlement. Those who like crowds thereby usher in lots of trouble. It is like a great tree, for example, when flocks of birds gather on it, whereupon it is in danger of withering and breaking. Worldly attachments sink a person in heaps of suffering. It is like an old elephant, for example, drowning in mud, unable to get himself out. This is called 'detaching oneself.' "


4. Persisting
The Buddha said, "If you beggars keep at it, nothing will be difficult. For this reason you should keep on persevering. It is like, for example, a trickle of water constantly flowing, whereby it is able to drill through rock. If a practitioner is always losing heart and quitting, that is like twirling a stick to start a fire and resting before it gets hot: even though the desire is there to get fire, fire cannot be got. This is called 'persisting.' "


5. Not losing mindfulness
The Buddha said, "For you beggars who seek friends in the good and seek sanctuary and help in the good, there is nothing like not losing mindfulness. If a person does not lose mindfulness, the desperados of care and anguish cannot invade him or her. For this reason, you should constantly exercise control over your thinking and be present in mind. One who loses mindfulness thereby loses all virtues. If your energy of mindfulness is strong, if your capacity for conscious thought and conscious awareness is robust, if your sense of direction is resolute, even if you go among desperados of the five desires you will emerge unscathed. It is like wearing armour to enter a battlefield, and thereby having nothing to fear. This is called 'not losing mindfulness.' "


6. Tending the stillness of dhyana
The Buddha said, "If you beggars regulate your heart and mind, your heart and mind will be still. When the heart and mind abides in stillness, one is consequently able to witness the manifestation of the Law of arising and vanishing of the world. For this reason, you should constantly persist in the practice of all kinds of stillness, all kinds of balance. If one achieves stillness, balance, stability, then the mind does not scatter. It is like a household that values water keeping a dike in good repair. Practitioners also are like that. Through tending well the stillness of dhyana, we prevent the water of wisdom from leaking away. This is called 'stillness.' "


7. Cultivating wisdom
The Buddha said, "If you beggars possess wisdom, you will be free of greed and attachment. And, through constant self-reflection, you will prevent wisdom from being lost. This is just to be able, within the reality which is my teaching, to attain liberation. Those who are not so inclined are already different from people of the enlightened way and are also different from those clothed in white -- there is nothing to call them. Truly, wisdom is a sturdy ship in which to cross the ocean of aging, sickness and death. Again, it is a great bright torch for the darkness of ignorance; it is good medicine for all sick people; and it is a sharp axe to fell the trees of anguish. For this reason, you should listen to, wish for, and grow your own wisdom, and thereby develop yourself. A human being who possesses the light of wisdom is, albeit as eyes of flesh, a human being of clear vision. This is called 'wisdom.' "


8. Not being wordy
The Buddha said, "If you beggars engage in all kinds of tittle-tattle and rambling discussion, your own mind will be disturbed. Although you have left home, still you will be unable to get free. For this reason, beggars, you should quickly throw away that wordiness which disturbs the mind. If you want to enjoy the ease that comes with extinction of cares, you should well and truly cut out the fault of idle discussion. This is called 'not being wordy.' "



This is the eightfold awakening of a great human being. One by one, each being equipped with the eight, there may be sixty-four. Expanded, they may be countless, immeasurable, unfathomable. Abridged, they are sixty-four. They are our Great Master Sakyamuni's final teaching; they are what his Great Vehicle instructs; they are his supreme swan song during the night of the 15th day of the second month... after which he did not expound the Dharma again but finally passed into pari-nirvana.



The Buddha said, "You beggars should constantly endeavour, with undivided heart and mind, to pursue the transcendent way of awakening. Everything in the world, animate and inanimate, without exception, is a perishing and unstable form. Stop for a while and talk no more. Time must pass and so I am going to die. This is my last instruction."


For this reason disciples of the Thus-Come invariably learned it. Those who did not practise and learn it, and who did not know it, were not the Buddha's disciples. It is the Buddha's treasury of the eye of true Sitting and his fine mind of nirvana. Yet many today do not know it, and few have seen or heard it: they do not know it due to the trickery of demons. At the same time, it is not seen or heard by those with scant good roots accumulated in their own past lives. During the bygone days of the genuine Dharma and the imitative Dharma, all disciples of the Buddha knew it. They practised it and learned it in experience. Now there is not one or two among a thousand beggars who has heard of the eightfold awakening of a great human being. We should mourn the barbarism of a decadent age: there is nothing even to compare it with. While the Thus-Come's teaching of the true reality of Sitting still permeates the great-thousandfold world, while the spotless truth of Sitting has not yet disappeared, we should be quick to learn it. Do not be slack or lazy. To meet the Sitting Method of the Buddha, even in countless ages, is hard. To receive a human body also is hard. Even in receiving a human body, a human body on the three continents is better. And a human body on the southern continent is best of all -- because it can meet Buddha, hear the Dharma, leave home, and realize the way of awakening. Those unfortunates who died before the pari-nirvana of the Thus-Come neither heard about nor learnt this eightfold awakening of a great human being. That we now are seeing and hearing it, and learning it, is the influence of long-accumulated good roots. In learning it now, and thus developing life by life, until arriving without fail at the supreme awakening of Buddha and expounding this teaching for living beings, may we be akin to Sakyamuni Buddha; may there be no differences.


Treasury of the Eye of True Sitting
The Eightfold Awakening of a Great Human Being



Written at Eihei-ji temple, on the 6th day of the first lunar month in the 5th year of Kencho [1253].








**********************************************
Translated by Mike Cross, August 2008.

73. The Four Abodes of Mindfulness

The Four Abodes of Mindfulness:

1. Mindfulness of the body, as impure,
2. Mindfulness of feeling, as unsatisfactory,
3. Mindfulness of the mind, as impermanent,
4. Mindfulness of the real, as free of self.


Mindfulness of the body as impure: One skin-bag being mindful here and now of his own body is the whole universe in ten directions. Because it is the real body, it is the mindfulness of the body's impurity that springs up and springs out, on the road of looking lively. For those with no spring, mindfulness might be impossible. They might be like zombies, in which case allowing as action might be impossible, expounding as action might be impossible, and being mindful as action might be impossible.

There really is such a thing as being successful in mindfulness: remember, it is success in springing up and springing out. What I have called "successful mindfulness," is everyday actions in grooving shoes -- sweeping the ground and sweeping the floor. Sweeping the ground mindful that it might be any number moon, or sweeping the ground mindful that "That was just the second moon!", we sweep the ground and sweep the floor, and so the whole earth is It.

Being mindful of the body is the body being mindful. That by means of the body's mindfulness something else is mindful, is not it. Being mindful in and of itself is the superlative having arrived.

When body-mindfulness is realizing itself, mental mindfulness is not at all worth groping for -- it is not real.

Thus, mindfulness is vajra-samadhi, diamond constancy, and is surumgama-samadhi, all-conquering stillness. Both of these are mindfulness of the body as impure.

Broadly, seeing a bright star in the middle of the night is called "being mindful of the body, as impure." Relative discussion of purity and defilement is not it. The body which I have, which is my existence, is the very negation of purity. This real body is just the negation of purity.

Learning in practice like this is, when demon becomes buddha, getting a grip on the demon in order to beat the demon and become buddha. It is, when buddha becomes buddha, getting a grip on buddha in order to form a conception of buddha and become buddha. It is, when a human being becomes buddha, getting a grip of being human in order to retune the human being and become buddha. We must get to the bottom of the truth that a way through exists just at the place where a grip is got.

It is like, for example, the washing of clothes. Water is dirtied by the clothes, and the clothes are permeated by the water. You use this water to wash with, and you replace this water and wash, but it is all still the using of water, and is all still the washing of clothes. During the first wash and the second wash, if in your view something remains not cleansed, do not hang around doing nothing!

When all the water is used up, carry on with other water. Even if the clothes are clean, carry on washing them. For water, all sorts of water can be used -- all sorts are good for washing clothes. We can investigate the truth that if the water is impure there might be fish in it.

As for clothes, all sorts of clothes need washing.

Working it out like this, we are realizing the universal law of laundry. At the same time, we are seeing into cleansing -- the point being this: our original purpose is not always to wet clothes with water, and our original purpose is not to dirty water with clothes; rather, it is in using dirty water to wash clothes that the original purpose of washing clothes exists.

Going further, there are methods of washing clothes and washing other objects, by using fire, wind, earth, water and space. And there are methods of washing and cleansing earth, water, fire, wind and space using earth, water, fire, wind and space.

The point of being mindful of the body, as impure, is also like this.

Thus, the body in its entirety, the mindfulness in its entirety, and the impurity in its entirety, are just the dull red robe that our mothers bore. If a Buddhist robe were other than the dull red robe their mothers bore, buddha-ancestors would never wear it -- how could Sanavasa be the only one? We should dwell mindfully on this principle of enlightenment, learning it in practice and getting right to the bottom of it.



Mindfulness of feeling as unsatisfactory: Suffering, dukha, dis-ease, pain, bitterness, hardship, trouble, dissatisfaction... is a feeling. That it is the independent subject feeling, is not it. That it is objective feeling, is not it. That it is feeling as something that exists, is not it. That it is feeling as what does not exist, is not it. It is the living body feeling. It is the living body suffering. It means sweet ripe melons being replaced by bitter gourds. This is bitter to the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow, and bitter to the conscious mind, the unconscious mind, and so on. This is the practice and the experience of a mystical power that is a cut above -- a mystical power that springs out from the entire stem and springs out from the whole root. Thus, "It has been said that living beings suffer. Yet what actually exist are suffering living beings." That living beings are self is not it. That living beings are the other is not it. What actually exists is suffering living beings. In the end, it is impossible to deceive others. Sweet melons are sweet through to their stems. Bitter gourds are bitter through to their roots. And yet it is not easy to grope what is this bitterness, this dukha, dis-ease, dissatisfaction. We should ask ourselves: what is this dissatisfaction?



Mindfulness of the mind as impermanent: The Old Buddha Daikan Eno says, "Impermanence is the Buddha-nature." So impermanence, changeability, as understood by various types, is in every case the essence of the Awakened -- the Buddha-nature. Great Master Yoka Genkaku says, "Actions are impermanent; all is empty. Just this is the great and round awakening of the Thus-Come." Mindfulness of the mind, as impermanence, is just the great and round awakening of the Thus-Come and is the Thus-Come himself, greatly and roundly awakened. The mind -- citta, heart, thinking, intention -- even if it intends not to be mindful, follows the external world completely; therefore where the mind is, there also is mindfulness. Broadly, arrival at the unsurpassed awakening of the Buddha, realization of the supreme integral truth of full enlightenment, is just impermanence, just changeability, and is mindfulness of the mind. That the mind is constant and unchanging, is not necessarily it. Because they are far removed from the four lines and beyond the hundred negations, fences, walls, tiles and pebbles, and stones large and small, are the mind, are impermanence, and are mindfulness itself.



Mindfulness of the real, as free of self: The tall, realized in Sitting, are the Real Long Body. The short, realized in sitting, are the Real Short Body. It is thinking in activity which, because it is real, is free of the small self -- free of I, me, mine; free of the expectant, grasping, manipulating subject. A dog as the Buddha-nature is negation, a bit of nothing, freedom, absence. A dog as the Buddha-nature is affirmation, something, existence, presence. All living beings, as bits of nothing, are the Buddha-nature. All instances of the Buddha-nature, being freedom, are living beings. All the buddhas, being nobody, having nothing, are buddhas. All instances of the Buddha-nature, as freedom, are the Buddha-nature. All living beings, bereft of all and lacking nought, are living beings. Because it is like this, we study all real things as being, without anything, all real things, and we learn this in practice as mindfulness of the real, bereft of me. Remember, it is to spring out from the whole body of self-entanglement.



Sakyamuni Buddha says, "All buddhas and bodhisattvas, those who are awakened in the truth and those who are of it, will be forever at ease in this teaching, treating it is a sacred womb."

So the buddhas and bodhisattvas have each treated these four abodes of mindfulness as a sacred womb. Remember, they are a sacred womb for the balanced awareness of bodhisattvas in the penultimate stage before the full awakening of buddha, and they are a sacred womb for the subtle awareness of bodhisattvas in the ultimate stage before the full awakening of buddha. We have it in these words already: "All buddhas and bodhisattvas." How could those in the stage of subtle awareness not be included? Even the buddhas themselves treat these four abodes as a sacred womb. And bodhisattvas who have transcended stages prior to balanced awareness or beyond subtle awareness also treat these four abodes of mindfulness as a sacred womb. Truly, the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow of the buddhas and the ancestors are nothing but the four abodes of mindfulness.







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Translated end of July 2008 during a spell by the forest in France, inspired by re-reading "bodhinyana, teachings of Ven. Ajahn Chah," and mindful of Marjory Barlow's exhortation that our practice of mindfulness -- or whatever else we choose to call it -- "has to be REAL."


By the forest stream
Thirstily
A loser sits
Drinking sound.

87. Bringing [Fish to Fry and Other] Offerings for the Buddhas

The Buddha said:

If the past does not exist,
Then the buddhas of the past do not exist.
If the buddhas of the past do not exist,
There is no leaving home and receiving the means.

We should definitely remember that in each of the three times -- the past, the present, and the future -- the buddhas exist. Now, with regard to the buddhas of the past, do not say that they have a beginning and do not say that they have no beginning. If we engage in false speculation about existence or nonexistence of beginning and ending, we are not learning the Buddha's Sitting-method at all. Those who honour the buddhas of the past, those who leave home to follow and obey them, inevitably become buddhas. We become buddha through the good influence of serving buddha. How could ordinary beings who have never served offerings, even to a single buddha, themselves become buddha? There can be no becoming buddha without cause.

The Sutra of the Collected Past Deeds of the Buddha (Chapter 1: His Service of Offerings) says:

The Buddha told Maudgalyayana, "I remember in the past, in the orders of countless infinite world-honored ones, I planted good roots and pursued the supreme and integral truth of full awakening.

Maudgalyayana! I remember in the past I took on the body of a wheel-rolling king and met thirty billion buddhas, all of whom had the same name -- Sakya. I, come-as-I-am, along with throngs of voice-hearers, appreciated those buddhas, waited on them, venerated them, and served offerings to them, providing them with the four things: namely, clothes, food and drink, bedding, and medicine. At that time those buddhas did not give me notification that 'You will get the supreme and integral truth of full awakening. And, as one who understands the world, a teacher of gods and men, and a world-honored buddha, in future ages, you will be able to realize true enlightenment.'

Maudgalyayana! I remember in the past I took on the body of a wheel-rolling king and met eight billion buddhas, all of whom had the same name -- Burning Torch. Along with multitudes of voice-hearers, I appreciated them, waited on them, venerated them, and served offerings to them, providing them with the four things: namely, clothes, food and drink, bedding, and medicine; plus banners, canopies, flowers, and incense. At that time those buddhas did not give me notification that 'You will get the supreme and integral truth of full awakening, as one who understands the world, a teacher of gods and men, and a world-honored buddha.'

Maudgalyayana! I remember in the past I took on the body of a wheel-rolling king and met three billion buddhas, all of whom had the same name -- Pusya. Along with great gaggles of voice-hearers, I appreciated them, waited on them, venerated them, and served offerings to them, kitting them out fully with the four things. At that time those buddhas did not give me notification that 'You will become buddha.' "

Besides these he served offerings to innumerable buddhas. In the body of a wheel-rolling king he would invariably govern four continents; the wealth at his disposal for serving offerings to the buddhas would be truly colossal. As a great wheel-rolling king, he would be the king of a sizeable chunk of the ancient Indian cosmos -- a world of three-thousand worlds. Service of offerings in those days would be beyond what we ordinarily imagine today. Even if the Buddha himself explained it, it might be hard for us to comprehend.


The Buddha's Treasury Sutra (Chapter 8, Cleansing Oneself of Views) says:

The Buddha told Sariputra, "I remember in the past, pursuing the supreme and integral truth of full awakening, I met thirty billion buddhas, all named Sakyamuni. I then, for every one of them, became a wheel-rolling king and used my body up serving to buddha and disciples offerings of clothes, food and drink, bedding and medicine, all in pursuit of the supreme and integral truth of full enlightenment. But those buddhas did not enlist me, saying, 'In future you will be able to become buddha.' Why not? Because I was expecting something for myself.

"Sariputra! I remember in the past I was able to meet eight thousand buddhas, all named The Constant Light. I then, for every one of them, became a wheel-rolling king and used my body up serving to buddha and disciples offerings of clothes, food and drink, bedding and medicine, all in pursuit of the supreme and integral truth of full awakening. But those buddhas did not notify me that, 'In future you will be able to become buddha.' Why not? Because I had my own fish to fry.

"Sariputra! I remember in the past I met sixty thousand billion buddhas, all named Brightness. I then, for every one of them, became a wheel-rolling king and used my body up serving to buddha and disciples offerings of clothes, food and drink, bedding and medicine, all in pursuit of the supreme and integral truth of full awakening. But those buddhas also did not notify me that, 'In future you will be able to become buddha.' Why not? Because I had the idea of something in it for me.

"Sariputra! I remember in the past I met three billion buddhas, all named Pusya. I then, for every one of them, became a wheel-rolling king and served offerings of the four things. All did not enlist me -- because there was expectation of gain.

"Sariputra! I remember in the past I was able to meet eighteen thousand buddhas, all named Mountain King. It was in an age named 'the Upper Eight.' In the orders of all these eighteen thousand buddhas, I shaved my head and dyed a robe, and I trained in the supreme and integral truth of full awakening. All did not enlist me -- because I had an agenda.

"Sariputra! I remember in the past I was able to meet five hundred buddhas, all named Flowers Above. I then, for every one of them, became a wheel-rolling king and served offerings of every kind to the buddhas and their disciples. All did not enlist me -- because I had an ulterior motive.

"Sariputra! I remember in the past I was able to meet five hundred buddhas, all named Majestic Virtue. I served them offerings of every kind, but all did not enlist me -- because of my attachment to getting a result.

"Sariputra! I remember in the past I was able to meet two thousand buddhas, all named Kaundinya. I then, for every one of them, became a wheel-rolling king and paid homage to the buddhas, serving offerings of every kind. But all did not enlist me -- because of my intention to achieve.

"Sariputra! I remember in the past I met nine thousand buddhas, all named Kasyapa. I served offerings of the four things to the buddhas and their hordes of disciples, but all did not enlist me -- because I had expectation of reward.

"Sariputra! I remember in the past there were ten thousand ages in which no buddha appeared. In the first five hundred of those ages, there were ninety thousand of those loners who pursue awakening in isolation. I used up bodies and lives serving those loners all kinds of offerings of clothes, food and drink, bedding, and medicine; and I honoured and praised them. In the next five hundred ages, I served offerings of the four things to a further eighty-four thousand billions of loners, and I honoured and praised them."

"Sariputra! After these thousand ages there were not even any more of the loners who pursue isolated awakening. I then died on the southern continent of Jambudvipa, where human beings are able to serve offerings to the buddhas. I suffered rebirths in a spiritual sphere, becoming Great King Brahma. I continued in this cycle for five hundred ages, continually being born in a spiritual sphere and becoming Great King Brahma, not being born in the human world of Jambudvipa. After enduring these five hundred ages, I was born down in Jambudvipa, and I governed Jambudvipa until my life there ended and I was born in the Heaven of the Four Quarter Kings. When my life there ended, I was born in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three Gods, where I became the top god, Indra. Thus I proceeded: it took five hundred ages before I was born in Jambudvipa; then I spent cycles of five hundred ages being reborn in spiritual spheres and becoming Great King Brahma.

"Sariputra! In nine thousand ages, only once was I born in Jambudvipa. For nine thousand ages I was born only in spiritual spheres above the heavens. When an age burnt out, I would be born in the Sky of Luminous Sound, but once the world was re-created I was again born in a spiritual sphere. For nine thousand ages, I was not reborn among human beings.

"Sariputra! In these nine thousand ages there were no buddhas nor even any lone pursuers of isolated awakening, and many living beings fell into evil ways.

"Sariputra! After the passing of these ten thousand ages, there appeared in the world a buddha with the name Universal Protector -- Thus-Come, Deserving of Offerings, Integrally and Fully Enlightened, Perfect in Clarity and Practice, Fared Well, Understander of the World, Unsurpassed, Trainer of Men, Teacher of Gods and Human Beings, World-Honored Buddha. At that time when my life finished in a spiritual sphere and I was born in Jambudvipa, I became a wheel-rolling king named Communal Sky, whose human life span was ninety thousand years. I used up body and life to serve to that buddha, along with ninety billion of his beggars, offerings of all kinds of comforts. I did this for ninety thousand years, all in pursuit of the supreme and integral truth of full awakening. But this Buddha, Universal Protector, also did not notify me that 'In future you will be able to become buddha.' Why not? Because I at that time had not been able to master the teaching that everything in Sitting is reality -- I was greedily expecting to get something for my scheming self.

"Sariputra! During that age there appeared a hundred buddhas, each named differently. I then, for every one of them, became a wheel-rolling king and used up my body serving offerings to buddha and disciples, in pursuit of the supreme and integral truth of full awakening. But these buddhas also did not notify me that 'In future you will be able to become buddha' -- because I was expecting to get something.

"Sariputra! I remember in the past, during the seven hundredth infinity of ages, I was able to meet a thousand buddhas, all named Jambunada. I used up bodies and lifetimes serving them offerings of the four things, but they also did not enlist me -- because of my desire to gain something.

"Sariputra! I remember in the past, again during the seven hundredth infinity of ages, I was able to meet six hundred and twenty myriads of buddhas, each named Knowing All the Rules. I then, for every one of them, became a wheel-rolling king, and used up my body serving offerings of all comforts to buddha and disciples. But they also did not enlist me -- because I was after something in return.

"Sariputra! I remember in the past, again during the seven hundredth infinity of ages, I was able to meet eighty-four buddhas, all named Imperial Form. I then, for every one of them, became a wheel-rolling king, and used up my body serving offerings of all comforts to buddha and disciples. But they also did not enlist me -- because the idea of gaining the end was still there.

"Sariputra! I remember in the past, again during the seven hundredth infinity of ages, I was able to meet fifteen buddhas, all named Sun Bright. I then, for every one of them, became a wheel-rolling king, and used up my body serving offerings of all comforts to buddha and disciples. But they also did not enlist me -- because I was still after something.

"Sariputra! I remember in the past, again during the seven hundredth infinity of ages, I was able to meet sixty-two buddhas, all named Good Serenity. I then, for every one of them, became a wheel-rolling king, and used up my body serving offerings of all comforts to buddha and disciples. But they also did not enlist me -- because I was still set on gaining something.

"I carried on like this until I saw The Constant Light: meeting that buddha, all at once I understood non-arising, and he immediately notified me that, 'In future, after the passing of infinities of ages, you will be able to become a buddha named Sakyamuni, Thus-Come, Deserving of Offerings, Integrally and Fully Enlightened, Perfect in Clarity and Practice, Fared Well, Understander of the World, Unsurpassed, Trainer of Men, Teacher of Gods and Human Beings, World-Honored Buddha.' "






-- to be continued

10. Not Doing Any Evil

Old Buddha says:


Not doing any evil,
Allowing what is good,
Cleansing one's thinking,
This is the teaching of the buddhas.

This, as the universal precept of the ancestral founders, the Seven Buddhas, is being truly communicated from past buddhas to future buddhas, future buddhas having transmitted it to past buddhas. It is not only of the Seven Buddhas: This is the teaching of all the buddhas. We should work on, work out and get to the bottom of this principle of enlightenment. This expression of the Sitting-method of the Seven Buddhas always sounds like expression of the Sitting-method of the Seven Buddhas. What has been communicated, what has been transmitted, is thorough acquaintance with what is going on in here. This already is the teaching of the buddhas. It is the teaching, the allowing, and the experience of hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of buddhas.



With regard to the said "any evil," among good, bad, and indifferent, there is bad. As an abstraction it is without appearance -- as goodness and indifference also are without appearance and are devoid of anything that leaks out from them: they exist only in real forms.

At the same time, within these three abstractions, actually, there are innumerable kinds of real situation. With evils, there are similarities and differences between what is harmful and bad in this world and what is harmful and bad in other worlds. There are similarities and differences between former times and latter times. There are similarities and differences between what is harmful and bad in the heavens above and what is harmful and bad in the human realm. How much greater is the difference in waking up to bad, good, and indifferent on the way of the Buddha's awakening, as opposed to the way of the world.

Good and bad are time. Time is not good or bad. Good and bad are facts. Facts are not good or bad. When facts are unbiased, bad is unbiased. When facts are unbiased, good is unbiased.

That said, when we are learning the Buddha's supreme integral truth of full awakening, when we are hearing the teaching of it, allowing practice in the groove of it, and experiencing the effect of it, it is deep, it is distant, and it is delectable.



We hear of this supreme awakening of Buddha sometimes from our mates, and sometimes from the sutras. And at the beginning it sounds like this: "Do no harm." If it does not sound like "Do no harm," it is not the Buddha's true method of Sitting: it may be the preaching of demons. Remember, what sounds like "Do no harm" is the Buddha's true method of Sitting. This "Do no harm" was not first concocted by an ordinary bloke and then kept going as it was: rather, when we hear teaching that is in process of becoming the expounding of Buddha's awakening, this is how it sounds. What sounds like this is speech which is the supreme awakening of Buddha in words. It is the Buddha's awakening talking already, and so it is talking the Buddha's awakening.

When it becomes expounding of the supreme awakening of Buddha, and is heard, wherein, being turned around, we desire to do no harm, and we get in the groove of doing no harm, and harm goes on not being done: then the power of practice is instantly realized. This realization is realized on the scale of the whole earth, the whole world, the whole of time, and the total reality of Sitting. Such is the scale of not doing.

Just such a person in just such a moment -- even if he lives at a place and comes and goes at a place where he might do evil deeds, even if he faces circumstances in which he might do evil deeds, and even if she seems to mix with friends who are doing evil deeds -- such a person is such that evil deeds cannot be done at all. Because the power of not doing realizes itself, evils cannot voice themselves as evils -- they are without the requisite tools.

There is a principle of enlightenment in taking up one thing at a time and letting go of one thing at a time. In just such a moment, the principle is known that evil does not break and enter into a person, and the principle is clarified that people do not destroy evil.

When I devote my whole mind to allowing it to be practised, and when I devote my whole body to allowing it to be practised, there is eighty or ninety percent realization of it even before the moment, and there -- behind the brain -- not doing is present. When you garner your whole body-mind and practise it, when anyone garners their whole body-mind and practises it, the power is instantly realized of allowing it to be practised through the reality of the four material and the five experiential elements -- in which case not even reduction to four or five elements taints the integrity of the self. Even the four material and five experiential elements of these reductionist days carry on being practised; and the power which the four and five elements have, as practice in the present moment, makes the said four and five elements into the practice itself. We cause the mountains, rivers, and the Earth, and the sun, moon, and stars, to allow the practice, wherein the mountains, rivers, and the Earth, and the sun, moon, and stars, in their turn, allow the practice in us.

It is not one Eye for all time; it is glistening eyes at many moments. Those moments, because they are moments in which the Eye glistens in eyes, allow the buddha-ancestors to practise, to hear the teaching, and to experience the effect. And because the buddha-ancestors have never allowed the teaching, practice, or experience to become tainted, teaching, practice and experience never get in the way of the buddha-ancestors. When a buddha-ancestor is thus allowed to practise, there is no buddha-ancestor who -- before or after the moment, in the past, present, or future -- tries to wriggle out of it.




When, by his doing, an ordinary being becomes buddha or becomes an ancestor -- when the doing does not get in the way of the buddha-ancestor that was already in him -- he, by his doing, becomes a buddha-ancestor. This truth should be attentively considered in walking, standing, sitting, and lying, through all twelve hours. In the doing that makes a buddha-ancestor, the ordinary being -- albeit without being destroyed or diminished or deprived -- has been dropped off. The doing allows our good and bad karma into the groove of practice. This does not involve us in doing something to change or manufacture karma. It is rather that there are times when karma, cause and effect, allows us into the groove of practice. The practice in which the original features of this cause and effect are already clear and distinct is just not to do. Nothing arises out of it. There is no constancy in it. It is not to be unclear about cause and effect. Nor is it to fall down into cause and effect. Because it is a dropping off.




When we really go into it like this, evils are realized as having become indivisible from not doing them. Aided by this realization we can see through and can sit away all evils, as not doing. Just in the moment of this sitting -- while we are realizing it in the beginning, middle, and end as not doing any evil -- evils do not arise from causes and conditions; they are nothing but not doing. When evils are seen without bias, all things in Sitting are seen without bias.

Those who recognize evils as arising from genetic causes and environmental conditions but do not see their own dependently originated self as a function of not doing, are a pitiful lot. If the seeds of buddhahood originate dependent upon conditions, then conditions originate dependent upon the seeds of buddhahood!

It is not that evils are nonexistent: it is simply a matter of not doing. It is not that evils exist: it is simply a matter of not doing. It is not that evils are emptiness; they are a not doing. It is not that evils are material forms; they are a not doing. It is not that evils are a not doing; it is simply a matter of not doing.

For example: spring pines are neither nonexistence nor existence; they are not doing. An autumn chrysanthemum is neither nonexistence nor existence; it is not doing. Buddhas are neither nonexistence nor existence; they are not doing. The pillars and the stone lanterns out there, and temple stuff like whisk and staff, neither exist nor do not exist: they are not doing. The self neither exists nor does not exist: it is not doing.

Learning in practice like this is the law of the universe being realized, and is us realizing the law of the universe -- we work at it from the standpoint of host and we work at it from the standpoint of guest. Being like this already, when we regret having done what was not to be done, this also is nothing other than not doing striving to work itself out. To purport, in that case, that if it will pass for not doing we might as well do it, is like walking north and expecting to arrive at Southampton.

The not doing of evils is not only a well looking at a donkey; it is the well looking at the well, and the donkey looking at the donkey. It is a human looking at a human. And it is a mountain looking at a mountain. Because there is explaining of this principle of mutual correspondence, it is the not doing of evils. It is:

The true Universal body of Buddha,
As space,
Showing itself in forms corresponding to concrete objects,
Like a moon in water.

Because what corresponds with concrete objects is not doing, what shows itself in forms is not doing. As space, it claps its hands to the left and claps its hands to the right. Like a moon in water, it is the water being restricted by the moon.

These instances of not doing are real realizations that should never be doubted.




To allow all that is wholesome and good: All that is wholesome and good, among the said three abstractions, is goodness. Even though all that is wholesome and good is included in goodness, there has never been any good that is realized beforehand and waits for somebody to allow it. And there is not any good that fails to appear at the very moment of doing good. The myriad kinds of good are shapeless, but, faster than iron is drawn to a magnet, and with more force than a Himalayan blizzard, they converge on the place of doing good. It is impossible for the Earth, mountains and rivers, the world, a national land, or even the force of accumulated karma, to hinder this coming together of good.

Still, the same principle applies: recognition of what is good differs between worlds. What can be recognized as such is called "good" -- and so it is like the manner in which the buddhas of the three times demonstrate the method of Sitting. The similarity is that their demonstration of the method, when they are in the world, is pure timing. Because the length of their life and the measurements of their body also have continued to be left entirely to the moment, they demonstrate the method in which there are no categories. So it is like good occasioned by faith-practice, and good occasioned by Sitting-practice, which are far removed from each other, not being different things. Or for example it is like a voice-hearer's keeping of precepts being a bodhisattva's breaking of the precept.

That what is wholesome and good originates and dies dependent on genetic causes and environmental conditions, is not it. All that is wholesome and good is everything in Sitting, but that everything in Sitting is all good, is not it. Causes and conditions, and origination and death, and all that is wholesome and good, if they are true from the head, then all equally are true to the tail. All that is wholesome and good is an allowing, but it is one beyond the self and unknown to the self; nor is it of the other and nor is it known by the other. In knowing and seeing self and other, in the knowing there is self and there is other and in the seeing there is self and there is other, and thus individual eyes glisten energetically in the sun and in the moon -- and this is an allowing.

Just in the moment of allowing practice to happen, the realized law of the universe is right there, but that the law of the universe is emerging is not it, and that the law of the universe is enduring is not it. How much less could we call this allowing "what was originally practiced in the past"? Doing good is an allowing -- but not one that can be fathomed intellectually.

Allowing, right now, is energetic glistening of the eye -- but it is beyond the intellect to fathom it. That it has been realized is not for the purpose of fathoming intellectually what the method of realization is. What is fathomed by the energetic eye cannot be the same as what is fathomed by other methods. That the many kinds of good are existence, nonexistence, form, emptiness, and the rest, is all not it; it is simply that they are an allowing. Wherever they are realized and whenever they are realized, they are, without exception, an allowing. And in this allowing, without exception, there is realization of all that is wholesome and good.

Realization as allowing is the universe, but it is beyond arising and vanishing, and it is beyond causes and conditions. Getting in, as allowing; staying with, as allowing; getting free, as allowing, and so on, are also like this. At the place where we allow one among the many kinds of good, the whole reality of Sitting is allowed, the whole body of the Thus-Come is allowed, real land is allowed, and so on.

The cause-and-effect of this good, similarly, is the universe as the realization of allowing. That cause is before and effect after, is not it; it is rather that when cause is round fulfilment, effect is round fulfilment, when cause is in balance, reality is in balance, and when effect is in balance, reality is in balance. Anticipated by causes effects are felt, but it is not a matter of before and after, because it takes place in the truth of awakening in which before and after are in balance.



"Cleansing one's thinking" is (1) one's self, by oneself, naturally, or spontaneously; (2) cleansing; (3) that; (4) thinking, or intention. The meaning is this:

One's natural self is not to do.
What cleanses is not doing.
That is natural.
The intention is naturally one's own.

That is not a doing.
Thinking is not a doing.

The intention is to allow.
Cleansing is allowing.

That is an allowing.
Spontaneity is an allowing.

Therefore it is said, "This is the teaching of the buddhas."

Those called "buddhas" are, in some cases, like gods of nonconformity. But even among nonconformist gods there are those who fit in and there are misfits, and not all nonconformist gods are buddhas. In some cases, buddhas are like wheel-rolling kings. But not all sacred wheel-rolling kings are buddhas. We should work on and learn in practice enlightened reasoning like this. If we do not learn how buddhas may actually be, even if we seem to be striving hard without reward, we are only ordinary beings accepting suffering; we are never grafting in the groove of the Buddha's awakening. Not doing, and allowing, are donkey business being not yet gone, and horse business coming in.




Haku Kyo-i of Tang China is a lay disciple of Zen Master Bukko Nyoman, and a second-generation descendant of Zen Master Baso Do-itsu. When he was governor of the Hangzhou district he went to practise under Zen Master Choka Dorin. In the story, Kyo-i asks, "What is the great intention of the Buddha-Dharma?"

Dorin says, "Not doing any evil, Allowing what is good."

Kyo-i says, "If that were it, even a child of three could say it!"

Dorin says, "A child of three can say it, but an old man of eighty cannot practise it."

Spoken to like this, Kyo-i immediately makes a prostration of thanks and then leaves.



Truly, though Kyo-i is a descendant of the Shogun Haku, he is a wizard of the verse rare through the ages. They say he is one of the top twenty-four men of letters. Sometimes he is called a Manjusri and sometimes a Maitreya. Nowhere do his refined sentiments go unheard. Still, though he might be a big fish in the ocean of the brush, on the Buddha’s way of awakening he is a beginner and a late learner.

What is more, he seems never to have seen the import, even in a dream, of this “Not doing any evil, Allowing what is good.” Kyo-i thinks that Dorin is telling him “Don't do any evil but do what is good!” -- recognizing this only as an imperative. He neither knows nor sees the truth that, in the Buddha’s way of awakening, the past and present are pervaded by age-old not doing of evil and time-honoured allowing of good. Thus, he has not set foot in the area of the Buddha-Dharma, and he lacks the power of the Buddha-Dharma, and so he speaks as he does. Even when the deliberate doing of evil is proscribed, and even when the deliberate doing of good is encouraged, it is all in the reality of not doing.

In general, the Buddha-Dharma, the Buddha’s method of Sitting, whether you are hearing about it for the first time in the vicinity of your mates, or whether you are enjoying its ultimate fruit, is completely the same thing. This is called “top being true and bottom being true,” is called “wonderful cause and wonderful effect,” and is called “buddha as cause and buddha as effect.” The truth of cause-and-effect to which the Buddha awoke is beyond discussion of reaping reward or retribution, and reductionism, and the rest of it; that being so, without buddha as cause, there is no experience of buddha as effect. Because Dorin is speaking this principle of enlightenment, the Buddha’s method of Sitting is present. Evils -- in however many layers they are covering the whole universe, and however many times they have gulped down the whole of reality -- are just the liberated possibility of not doing. The many kinds of good -- being already that which is good in the beginning, middle, and end -- are the essence, form, substance, energy, and other virtues of allowing, realized as they are.

Kyo-i has never trodden in these tracks at all, and so he says, “Even a child of three could say it.” Lacking the power to say something that truly says something, he speaks like this. How pitiful, Kyo-i, you are. Just what are you saying? Never having found out what the tendency of buddha is, have you ever known a three-year-old child, or have you not? One who knows a three-year-old child must also know the buddhas of the three times. How could one who has never known the buddhas of the three times know a three-year-old child? Do not think that to have met face-to-face is to have known. Do not think that without meeting face-to-face one does not know. One who has come to know a single particle knows the whole universe, and one who is versed in a single truth of Sitting is versed in the myriad truths of Sitting. One who is not versed in the myriad truths of Sitting is not versed in a single truth of Sitting. When a student of versing is versed to the hilt, he sees the myriad truths of Sitting, and sees a single truth of Sitting; and, on that basis, a student of single particles is inevitably studying the whole universe.

To think that a three-year-old child cannot speak the Buddha-Dharma, and to think that what a three-year-old child says might be easy, is extremely stupid. Why? Because to clarify birth, life, growth, development; and to clarify demise, death, dying, disappearance, are the one great purpose of a devotee of Buddha.

An ancient worthy said, “At the moment of your birth, you had in you the lion’s roar.” That bit of the lion’s roar is good vibrations coming from the Thus-Come's turning of the Dharma-wheel, and is itself the turning of the Dharma-wheel.

Another old worthy said, “Life and death, going and coming, are the human body as true reality.”

So to clarify the body as reality, and to enjoy the benefit of the lion’s roar, may truly be the one great matter, and it can never be easy.

For this reason, it is also the one great purpose to clarify the motives and actions of a three-year-old child. Between these and the motives and actions of the buddhas of the three times, there are similarities, and there are differences -- for which reason Kyo-i, in his stupidity, says what he says, never having heard a three-year-old child speaking the truth, and not even suspecting that such speaking of the truth might exist. He fails to hear Dorin’s voice, awake with truth, and louder than thunder, and so, as if to complain about Dorin not expressing the truth, he says, “Even a child of three could say that!" Thus Kyo-i does not hear the lion’s roar of an infant, and he blunders ignorantly by a Zen master’s turning of the Dharma-wheel.

The Zen Master, unable to contain his compassion, says further: "A child of three can say it, but an old man of eighty cannot practise it." What he is saying here is this:

'Among children of three there are truth-speaking words, to the bottom of which we should take pains to get. Among old men of eighty there are impossible-to-practise paths, on which they should painstakingly work. Whether an infant speaks the truth is up to you. But it is not up to the infant. Whether an old man is unable to practise is up to you. But it is not up to the old man.'

To pursue the Buddha’s truth of Sitting like this, to explain it like this, and to put ourselves on its pedestal like this, is the principle of enlightenment.

Treasury of the Eye of True Sitting
Not Doing Any Evil





Delivered to the assembly at Kosho-horin-ji temple on the evening of the moon -- the 15th day of the 8th lunar month -- in the 2nd year of En-o [1240].








* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This translation done at the beginning of July, 2008. Copyright Mike Cross. If you want to use it, please ask.

10. Not to Do Any Evil [Preamble]

Not to commit wrongs,
To practise the many kinds of right,
Naturally purifies the mind;
This is the teaching of the buddhas.

[1994]



Not to do any kind of harm,
To allow the many kinds of good:
For yourself, clarify that intention.
This is the teaching of the buddhas.

[June 2008]



Not doing any evil,
Allowing all that is good,
Cleansing one's thinking/intention,
This is the teaching of the buddhas.

[July 2008]




To clarify what the Buddha meant by the third line is a great challenge.

The 1994 translation reflected a certain bias, and the June 08 translation reflected another kind of bias -- a position arrived at in antagonistic reaction against the first kind of bias.

The July 08 version reflects renewed effort over the past couple of weeks to translate into English the Shobogenzo chapter in question, plus the input of Professor Richard Gombrich, to whom I am indebted for:

(1) reminding me of the principle of "lectio difficilior potior : it is the difficult reading which is likely to be the original, the easy one an attempt by the tradition to smooth over the difficulty."
(http://www.ocbs.org/content/view/62/113/)

(2) the following translation direct from the Pali:

Not doing any evil,
Performing good,
Cleansing one's thoughts,
This is the teaching of the Buddhas.


To clarify what the Buddha meant by the third line is the great challenge. The true meaning, as I fail to see it now, was definitely not as I understood it in 1994, and not either as I tried, fudgingly, to understand it a few weeks ago in June 2008. I think I understand from my Alexander tradition a little bit about the importance of clarifying one's intention. But the original word is not clarify. The original word is cleanse.

So what did the Buddha mean by "cleansing one's thoughts/thinking/intention"?

What kind of thinking/intention is dirty, impure, soiled, tainted? And what does it mean to cleanse such thinking? How does one go about this?

I ask the question not because I am interested in anybody else's opinion. I ask the question because I myself want to know, I want to learn in practice, what the Buddha really meant.

To be continued.

11. Time, as Existence

An old Buddha says,

There is a time to stand on top of the highest peak.
There is a time to move along the bottom of the deepest ocean.
There is a time of the three heads and eight arms.
There is a time of the sixteen-foot or eight-foot golden body.
There is a time of a staff or a whisk.
There is a time of a veranda pillar or a stone lantern.
There is a time to be the third son of Chang or the fourth son of Lee.
There is a time to be the Earth and space.

In these words “there is” and “time,” time is already just existence, and all existence is time. The sixteen-foot golden body of Gautama is time itself. Because it is time, it has the resplendent brightness of time. We should learn it as the twelve hours of today. The three heads and eight arms of the King of Passion are time itself. Because they are time, they must be completely the same as the twelve hours of today. How long and drawn out or short and pressing the twelve hours are has never been quantified; still, we call it “twelve hours.”

Because the direction in which time travels is clear from the trail it leaves, people do not doubt it. They do not doubt it, but that does not mean they have understood it. The doubting that living beings tend do in regard to every unknown thing and fact, is itself uncertain -- our track record of doubting, and the doubting that we do today, are not always sure to match up. The only thing we can say, for the present, is that doubting is a matter of time.

By first bringing order to the self, we make the world whole. We should glimpse every individual and every object in this whole world as discrete moments of time. Just as object and object do not impede each other, moment and moment do not impede each other. This is why there can be rousings of the mind in the same moment, and there can be moments of rousing the same mind. It is the same also for training practices, and realizations of the way. Through bringing order to the self, the self sees what it is. The truth that the self is time is like this.

We should learn in practice, on the basis of enlightened reasoning like this, that the whole earth includes myriad phenomena and hundreds of things, and each thing and each phenomenon exists in the whole earth. Going and coming like this is a first step on a training trip. When we arrive at a plot of land which is It, it is just single things and single phenomena. It is beyond understanding or not understanding of phenomena. It is beyond understanding or not understanding of things. Because time as existence is only this exact moment, time as existence is invariably the whole of time; and things as existence, and phenomena as existence, each are time. The whole of existence, the whole Universe, exists in individual moments of time. We should reflect for a while, and consider whether or not any of the whole of existence, or any of the whole Universe, has leaked away from now.

In the time of the ordinary bloke who does not learn the Buddha’s now of Sitting, on the contrary, there is the following view -- he interprets the words that time is existence as follows: “I became at one time the three-headed and eight-armed King of Passion, and became at another time the sixteen-foot or eight-foot golden body of Gautama. It was like, for example, crossing a river or crossing a mountain. The mountain and the river still exist, but now that I have crossed them and am dwelling in a jewelled palace with crimson towers, the mountain and river are to me as heaven is to earth.”

Enlightened reasoning, however, is not limited to this one line. Others are as follows:
- When I was climbing a mountain or crossing a river, I was there in time, and there must have been time in me; so, being as I am already, my time must not be up.
- If time is not seen as a process, then the only time of climbing a mountain is the here and now of time as existence.
- If time does allow itself the form of a linear progression, then present here in me, existing in time, is the here and now, which is time as existence.
- How could that time of climbing a mountain and crossing a river fail to gulp down, and fail to puke up, this time of the jewelled palace and crimson towers?
-The three heads and eight arms were time yesterday; the sixteen-foot or eight-foot golden body is time today -- and yet this truth of yesterday and today is nothing but moments of going straight into the mountains and surveying a thousand or ten thousand peaks: it not about what has passed.
- The three heads and eight arms are a passage of my time as existence: though they seem to be in the distance, they are of the present.
- The sixteen-foot or eight-foot golden body also is a passage of my time as existence: though it seems to be yonder, it is of the present.

In sum, pine trees are time, and bamboos are time.

Neither should we understand only that time flies. We should not learn that flying is the only ability of time. If we just left time to fly away, some gaps in it might appear. Those who fail to go through and hear of the truth of time as existence, fail because they understand time only as having passed.

To grasp the nub and express it: all that exists, throughout the whole universe, is both a continuous line, and separate moments, of time. Because it is time as existence, it is time as my own very existence. Time as existence has the virtue of flashing by. That is to say, from today it passes in flashes to tomorrow; from today it passes in flashes to yesterday; from yesterday it passes in flashes to today; from today it passes in flashes to today; and from tomorrow it passes in flashes to tomorrow. Because it is a virtue of time to pass in flashes, moments of the past and present do not run into pile-ups or tail-backs. Rather, Seigen is a time; Obaku is a time; and Baso and Sekito are a time. Because oneness of the self and the other is there already, in time, there is oneness of practice and experience in many times.

Going into the mud and going into the water, similarly, are time.

The view of the ordinary bloke of today, and the grounds from which his view arises, are what the ordinary bloke experiences, but are not the ordinary bloke’s reality. It is just that reality, for the present, has given rise to an ordinary bloke. Because he understands this time, and this existence, as other than the ultimate truth of reality, he thinks “the sixteen-foot golden body has got nothing to do with me!” His trying to let himself off the hook by thinking “I am never the sixteen-foot golden body!” are also just flashes of time as existence. They are glimpses of it by one who has yet to ground himself in experience of it.

What causes the midday hours of the horse and sheep to be ordered as they are in the world today, is the rising and setting of something ineffable that abides in its place in reality. The rat also is time, and the tiger also is time.

Living beings are time, and buddha is time.

This time experiences the whole universe using the three heads and eight arms, and experiences the whole universe using the sixteen-foot golden body. When the universe gets to the bottom of the whole universe using the whole universe, this is what is called getting to the bottom. When use of the sixteen-foot golden body, using the sixteen-foot golden body, is realized as kick-starting of the mind, as training, as the awakening of buddha, and as nirvana, this is just existence, just time. It is simply to get to the bottom of the whole of time, as the whole of existence -- there being nothing left over at all. If there are any leftovers they are just leftovers. Therefore, getting even halfway to the bottom of time as existence is getting to the very bottom of half-time, as existence.

Those phases through which we seem to blunder heedlessly, also, are existence. Because we surrender anew to the other, even while those moments before and after are manifesting our heedless blundering, they are occupying their place in time, as existence. Vigorously occupying one’s own place in reality is time itself, as existence. We should neither disturb it with “absence” nor force it into “existence.”

Striving only to be mindful of how relentlessly time is passing, we do not understand it intellectually as what is yet to come. Intellectual understanding is time, but nothing is contingent on that. There is no bag of skin who, recognizing time as a process, has penetrated it as time as existence, abiding in its place. How much less could any have experienced time passed through the gate? Who, even if he recognizes the abiding-in-place aspect, is able to express the truth that time is maintaining, and leaving be, its prior attainment of the ineffable? There is nobody who, even if he has been asserting it to be like this for a long time, is not still groping for the manifestation before him of its real features.

Left at the mercy of the ordinary bloke’s time as existence, even the awakening of buddha, and nirvana, are still time as existence -- albeit with the faint air about them of only being a process.





Broadly speaking, nets and cages notwithstanding, time, as existence, is realized. Celestial kings appearing to the left of me, and celestial throngs appearing to the right, are time as existence in which, even now, I am using up energy. Time as the existence of mundane beings of land and sea, far removed from those celestial realms, is realized through me now using up energy. The individual beings of many species who in darkness and in daylight are time, as existence, are all the realization of me using up energy. They are continuing flashes of energy expenditure. We should learn in practice that if it were not for the momentary continuance of me using up energy now, not one real thing could be realized, not a single object could continue from one moment to the next. We should never learn that passage from one moment to the next is like movement east and west of the wind and rain. That the whole universe is unmoving and unchanging, is not it. That the whole universe goes neither forward nor backward, is not it. It is passage from one moment to the next. Passage from one moment to the next is like, for example, spring. In spring there is an innumerable variety of momentary signs and situations -- this is the meaning passing from one moment to the next. We should learn in practice that passage from one moment to the next continues without there being any external thing. The momentary passing of spring, for example, inevitably passes, moment by moment, through spring itself. It is not that the momentary passing of time is spring; rather, because spring is the momentary passing of time, passing time has already realized awakening in the here and now of springtime. We should research this in detail, coming back to it and leaving it again and again. If we think, in discussing the momentary passing of time, of a boundary formed by external objects, within which something that can pass from moment to moment moves eastwards through thousands of worlds and through thousands of aeons, then we are not devoting ourselves solely to learning in practice of the Buddha’s way of awakening.




Master Yakusan Igen, the story goes, at the suggestion of his Master Sekito Kisen, goes to interrogate Master Baso Do-itsu: “I am more or less clear about the meaning of the three vehicles and twelve divisions of the teaching, but what was the Ancestral Master’s intention in coming from the west?”

Questioned like this, Baso says:

“There is a time to direct the other to lift an eyebrow or wink an eye.

There is a time not to direct the other to lift an eyebrow or wink an eye.

There is a time when directing the other to lift an eyebrow or wink an eye is the right thing.

There is a time when directing the other to lift an eyebrow or wink an eye is not the right thing.”

Hearing this Yakusan is greatly enlightened and says to Baso, “In Sekito’s order I have been like a mosquito that climbed onto an iron ox.”

What Baso says is not the same as anybody else. His eyebrows and eyes might be the mountains and oceans -- because the mountains and oceans are his eyebrows and eyes. His directing the other to lift might be seen up in the mountains. His directing the other to wink might calm the oceans down. The right thing has become familiar to the other, and the other has been led by the directing. That the not right thing is not to direct the other, is not it; and that not directing the other is not the right thing, is not it -- but both these negations are time, as existence; as the mountains also are time, and the oceans also are time. If they were not time, the mountains and oceans could never be: do not deny the existence of time in the here and now of the mountains and oceans. If time decays, the mountains and oceans decay. If time is not subject to decay, the mountains and the oceans are not subject to decay. In the train of this enlightened reasoning, the bright star appears, the Thus-Come appears, the Eye appears,and a twirling flower appears -- which is time. If it is not for time, then it is not it.




Zen Master Shoken Kisho is a Dharma-descendant of Rinzai, and the direct successor of Shuzan. On one occasion he says before the assembly:

“There is a time when the will is there but the words are not there.

There is a time when the words are there but the will is not there.

There is a time when the will and the words are both present.

There is a time when the will and the words are both absent.”

The will and the words are both time, as existence. Being present and being absent are both time, as existence. Before the time of being there is up, a time of not being there comes in -- the will is the donkey and the words are the horse; the horse has been made into words and the donkey has been made into will. Presence is not about coming, and absence is not about having yet to come. Time, as existence, is like this. Presence is impeded by presence itself; it is not impeded by absence. Absence is impeded by absence itself; it is not impeded by presence. The will restricts the will and meets the will. The words restrict the words and meet the words. Restriction restricts restriction and meets restriction. Restriction restricts restriction. This is time. Restriction is being utilized by things in the external world, but there has never been anything called restriction that restricted things in the external world. I am having an encounter with human being; human being is having an encounter with a human being; I am having an encounter with myself; and getting out is having an encounter with getting out -- all of which, without time, would not be like this. Again, the will is time, as the real law of the universe; the words are time, as the pivotal thing -- going on up; presence is time, as the physical substance, stripped bare; and absence is time, as adhering to this, and letting this go away. We should exercise discernment like this, taking time, as existence. Though venerable veterans hitherto have each expressed it as they have, how could there be nothing further to say? I would like to say:

The will and the words being halfway there IS time, as existence.

The will and the words being half absent IS time, as existence.

There should be going into it and getting to the bottom of it, like this.

Directing the other to lift an eyebrow or wink an eye is time, as being half way there.

Directing the other to lift an eyebrow or wink an eye is time, mixed up with existence.

Not directing the other to lift an eyebrow or wink an eye is time, as being half way there.

Not directing the other to lift an eyebrow or wink an eye is time, mixed up with existence.

When we come back to it and leave it like this, being there in practice and not being there, those are moments of time, as existence.


Treasury of the Eye of True Sitting
Time, as Existence


Written at Kosho-horin-ji temple on the 1st day of winter in the 1st year of Ninji [1240].

Copied during the summer retreat in the 1st year of Kangen [1243] -- Ejo.






Translated again during the last week of June, 2008.


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This translation copyright Mike Cross, 2008.
If you wish to use it, please ask. If you would like clarification of anything, please ask. If you object to anything, speak up. If you notice any typos or other mistakes, please let me know.