Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings (16 page)

A fascinating exchange between Nanyang and a student of the Hongzhou Zen school of Zen master Mazu Daoyi demonstrates the breadth of the National Teacher’s ability. Mazu’s teaching gained fame through his famous assertion that “mind is Buddha.” This passage is taken from an excerpt of
The Record of National Teacher Huizhong
that is preserved in the
Transmission of the Lamp
.

The National Teacher asked a monk, “Where are you from?”

The monk said, “From the South.”

The National Teacher said, “Are there any teachers there?”

The monk said, “A great many.”

The National Teacher said, “What is it that they teach people?”

The monk said, “In that place, worthies directly impart the teaching ‘mind is Buddha’ to their students.

“Right now, you completely possess the nature of conscious perception. This benevolent nature can cause the raising of an eyebrow and the twinkling in an eye. It is employed when coming or going, and it pervades the body. If you tap your head, the head knows it. If you stamp the feet, the feet know it. The ancients called it ‘pervasive consciousness.’ Aside from this, there is no other Buddha. This body is subject to birth and annihilation, but the nature of mind is beginningless, and does not undergo birth and death. The body subject to birth and death is like a dragon that loses and regrows its bones, or a snake that sheds its skin, or a human that leaves his old home. This body is impermanent, but its nature is eternal.”

National Teacher Huizhong criticized this, saying, “If that’s so, then their teaching is no different from the heretical
Senika
doctrine.
⁴⁷
Teachers of that doctrine said, ‘Within this body is a spirit. Although this spirit can know [the body’s] affliction, when the body expires the spirit departs from it. If I am burned up, this spiritual host moves on. Although I am not eternal, this host is eternal.’ With such an understanding, true and false can’t be distinguished.”

Nanyang appears to draw a distinction between an individual eternal mind and a universal mind. Later in the same text, the National Teacher is quoted in the following exchange:

A monk asked, “What is Buddha?”

The National Teacher said, “Mind is Buddha.”

A monk asked, “Does mind have defilements?”

The National Teacher said, “Defilements, by their own nature, drop off.”

A monk asked, “Do you mean that we shouldn’t cut them off?”

The National Teacher said, “Cutting off defilements is called the ‘second vehicle.’ When defilements do not arise, that is called nirvana.”

A monk asked, “How does one sit in meditation and observe purity?”

The National Teacher said, “There being neither pollution nor purity, why do you need to assume a posture of observing purity?”

A monk asked, “When a Zen master observes that everything in the ten directions is empty, is that the dharmakaya?”

The National Teacher said, “Viewpoints attained with the thinking mind are upside down.”

A monk asked, “Aside from ‘mind is Buddha,’ are there any other practices that can be undertaken?”

The National Teacher said, “All of the ancient sages possessed the two grand attributes, but does this allow them to dispel cause and effect?”
⁴⁸
Then he said, “The answer I’ve just given you cannot be exhausted in an incalculable eon. Saying more would be far from the Way. Thus it is said that ‘when the Dharma is spoken [with an intention] of gaining, then it is just like a barking fox. When the Dharma is spoken without the intention of gaining, then it is like a lion’s roar.’”

When Nanyang Huizhong was near death, he took leave of the emperor Dai Zong.

The emperor said, “After you have gone, how should your disciple memorialize you?”

Nanyang said, “Please build me a seamless monument.”

After a long pause, Nanyang said, “Do you understand?”

The emperor said, “No.”

Nanyang said, “After I’m gone, my disciple Danyuan will understand about this matter. Please ask him about it.”

On the nineteenth day of the second month in [the year 775] the National Teacher laid down on his right side and passed away. His stupa was built in the Dangzi Valley and he received the posthumous name “Zen Master Great Rectitude.”

Later, Dai Zong summoned Danyuan and asked about the previous matter.

Danyuan was silent for a long while, and then said, “Do you understand?”

The emperor said, “I don’t understand.”

Danyuan recited the following verse:

South of Xiang,
North of Tan,
In the middle a unified golden nation,
Beneath a shadowless tree, everyone ferried together,
In the porcelain palace, no worthies are found.

YONGJIA XUANJUE

YONGJIA XUANJUE (665–713) was one of the great disciples of Huineng. He came from Benjun. Yongjia is often remembered by his nickname, the “Overnight Guest,” due to his legendary brief encounter with his teacher, Huineng. Yongjia was persuaded by Huineng to stay at Cao Xi only one night. During that night Huineng confirmed Yongjia’s enlightenment.

Yongjia Xuanjue was also an adept in the Tiantai school of Buddhism, a sect that originated at Mt. Tiantai in Zhejiang Province. His writings, compiled in a work called the
Yongjia Collection
, compare the Zen practice of
zazen
(sitting meditation) with an equivalent practice of the Tiantai school known as
zhiguan
.