Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings (82 page)

For this reason, persons of the three vehicles [Buddhists] who wish to follow the sacred path must all practice Zen. Aside from this there is no other entrance gate. Aside from this there is no other path, including the paths of calling out Buddha’s name to gain birth in the Western Paradise, practicing the sixteen precepts, attaining samadhi by chanting Buddha’s name, practicing the
pratyupanna samadhi
, and so on.
¹³¹

True nature has no pollution or purity, nor is there a difference between sacred and mundane. Zen schools that hold to ideas of “shallow” and “deep,” various “stages” of practice, and so on, or who claim to have some mystical “strategy,” or who practice while taking pleasure in what is above and despising what is down below, are practicing heretical Zen. If someone believes in karma and practices with the idea of good and bad, then that is the Zen of ordinary people. Practicing for the sake of the partial truth of self-enlightenment is the way of Hinayana Zen. Practicing for the enlightenment of the self and all beings is the way of Mahayana Zen. (Within these four types of Zen, each has its own different type of form and emptiness.) If you instantly realize that your mind is fundamentally pure, that from the beginning there are no defilements, and that you are fully endowed with an imperturbable wisdom, then you know that this mind is buddha mind, without any difference.

Practicing in this manner is the Zen of the highest vehicle, and it is known as the pure Zen of the Tathagatas, the Zen of one practice and three samadhis, or the samadhi of true thusness.

Guifeng died in the year 841 while visiting Xingfuta Monastery to perform ordination ceremonies. His body was returned to Gui Peak for cremation and his remains were interred there. He received the posthumous name “Meditation Wisdom.”

Thirteenth Generation

NANYUAN HUIYONG, “BAOYING”

NANYUAN HUIYONG (860–930) was a disciple of Xinghua Cunjiang. He came from ancient Hebei. Nanyuan was extremely strict and uncompromising in his approach to teaching Zen. He lived and taught at the “South Hall” (in Chinese,
Nanyuan
) of the Baoying Zen Monastery at Ruzhou. Nanyuan is the most important teacher of the third generation of the Linji school, and is a direct link in the lineage that stretches down to modern times.

Nanyuan entered the hall and said to the assembled monks, “On top of a lump of red flesh, a sheer precipice of eight thousand feet.”

A monk asked, “‘On top of a lump of red flesh, a sheer precipice of eight thousand feet.’ Isn’t this what you said?”

Nanyuan said, “It is.”

The monk then lifted and turned over the meditation bench.

Nanyuan exclaimed, “This blind ass has run riot!”

The monk started to speak.

Nanyuan hit him.

Nanyuan asked a monk, “Where have you come from?”

The monk said, “From Longwater.”

Nanyuan asked him, “Did it flow east or west?”

The monk said, “Neither way.”

Nanyuan then asked, “What did it do?”

The monk bowed and began to leave.

Nanyuan hit him.

A monk came for instruction. Nanyuan raised his whisk.

The monk said, “Today a failure.”

Nanyuan put down the whisk.

The monk said, “Still a failure.”

Nanyuan hit him.

Nanyuan asked a monk, “Where did you come from?”

The monk said, “From Xiangzhou.”

Nanyuan said, “What did you come here for?”

The monk said, “I came especially to pay respects to the master.”

Nanyuan said, “You’ve come here just when old Baoying isn’t here.”

The monk shouted.

Nanyuan said, “I said Baoying isn’t here. What good will it do to shout anymore?”

The monk shouted again.

Nanyuan hit him.

The monk bowed.

Nanyuan said, “Actually, you have struck me, so I hit you back. You want this to be widely known. Blind fellow! Go to the hall!”

A monk asked, “What is a seamless monument?”

Nanyuan said, “Eight seams and nine cracks.”

The monk asked, “What is the person inside the monument?”

Nanyuan said, “Hair uncombed. Face unwashed.”

Nanyuan asked a monk, “What is your name?”

The monk said, “Pucan [‘Practice Everywhere’].”

Nanyuan said, “What would you do if you encountered a turd?”

The monk bowed.

Nanyuan hit him.

A monk asked Nanyuan, “When the sacred and the mundane abide in the same place, then what?”

Nanyuan said, “Two cats. One of them is fierce.”