The Fourth Patriarch Dao Xin said: “there are no good or bad external situations, good or bad come from the mind. If the mind does not impose any label, how can fabricated affliction arise? When fabricated afflictions do not arise, the true mind is free and all-aware.” The world of phenomena has no good or bad; good or bad came out of your mind, from the definition you created. If you don’t impose your own definition of phenomenon, false thinking will not arise. If you try to define manifestations, you will suffer from an affliction, you will drift with external circumstances.
The sharp and quick-witted dialogues of Chan masters come after enlightenment. Since your present development is still insufficient, what I teach you is for your familiarization. Once you’re able to turn the principles I taught into the basis of your own understanding, you can apply it and harness the power of transformation. To mature one’s spiritual understanding takes time. For example, you have all heard many times that you ears grow numb the practice of “seeing phenomena, know the mind, seek fault from oneself and take responsibility, and change thoughts to eradicate attachment”. But are you able to apply it? If it is not yet the foundation, the core of your thinking, it is not the root of your understanding, then you won’t be able to apply it. You have to turn this understanding into your own so that it can deliver its power. Just like a weapon is only useful if it is yours and you know how to use it. If you don’t know how to use it, then it is only something you think of occasionally.
Fourth Patriarch Dao Xin, The Mind Sermon
Myriad dharma doors all return to the mind. Marvelous merits as incalculable as river sands have the mind as the ultimate source. All spiritual paths of discipline, calm-abiding, wisdom, and supra-mundane powers and transformations are inseparable from and wholly and completely encompassed by your mind.
Vexations and karmic obstacles are all by nature emptiness and stillness; causes and effects play out like a dream. There are no Three Realms to transcend, no Bodhi to seek. Human and non-human, essence and form are of the same nature. Great Dao, the vast spaciousness, is devoid of thoughts and discrimination. Just now you already possess suchness – lacking nothing at all, no different from the Buddha.
All you need is to let the mind be as itself – neither contemplate nor cleanse the mind, neither give in to greed and anger nor hold onto grievances and anxiousness – so that it is free from any obstructions. Allow the mind to encompass all of space and time, doing neither good nor evil. In moving, resting, sitting, and lying down, what you see and have encountered, all is the miraculous manifestation of the Buddha. In blissful freedom from vexations, such is called the Buddha.
(Fa Rong) Master (asked) said: Since the Mind is already whole and complete in itself, who is the Buddha? What is the mind?
Patriarch (answered) said: Without the mind there is no inquiring the Buddha. The Buddha cannot be sought without the mind.
(Fa Rong) Master (asked) said: If contemplation is not allowed, how do we respond to arising phenomena?
Patriarch (answered) said: Phenomenon is neither good nor ugly; goodness and ugliness arise from the mind. If the mind stops imposing concept and label, how can fabricated afflictions arise? If fabricated afflictions do not arise, the true mind is free and all-aware. Allowing the mind to be as itself and ceasing corrections is called the abiding dharmakaya that is unchanged and eternal.
The circumstance of this Koan is as follows. After the Fourth Patriarch, master Dao Xin transmitted the robe and dharma to the Fifth Patriarch, he then went on a spiritual journey to many places. One day he saw a spiritual aura surrounding Mt. Niu Tou, he knew there lived a great spiritual master. He asked a monk: does a man of the Dao live here? The man replied: of all the monks, which one is not a man of the Dao? The Fourth Patriarch responded: Which one is actually a man of Dao? Upon this question from the Fourth Patriarch, the monk found no adequate answer. Later on, after some troubles, the Fourth Patriarch finally found Master Fa Rong.
The Fourth Patriarch Dao Xin transmitted the dharma to the Fifth Patriarch Hong Ren, but he also transmitted dharma to Master Fa Rong. While many considered the lineage of Master Fa Rong a lateral branch, however he actually received a direct transmission from the Fourth Patriarch, therefore is of a direct lineage. In this example of the Six Patriarch Master Hui Neng who lived in the monastery of the Fifth Patriarch for nine months without attending even one lecture except doing manual labor. It was not until just prior to departure, when the Fifth Patriarch taught him the Diamond Sutra very briefly for a few hours and bestowed the dharma lineage. In the case of the Fourth Patriarch, he even stayed in Master Fa Rong’s hut for one entire night, therefore one cannot say Master Fa Rong was only a lateral branch of Master Dao Xin’s lineage. Buddha Dharma is attainable for anyone who realizes the Mind, reachable for anyone of the Dao; it is principally a matter of spiritual cultivation. Direct or branch lineages both require enlightenment. Without enlightenment all labels are meaningless.
“The Mind Sermon” is the dharma teaching the Fourth Patriarch gave to master Fa Rong. Myriad dharma doors all return to the mind means that all phenomena are inseparable from our own mind. Fang Cun is the meaning of the mind. Eighty-four thousand dharma doors are devised for the purpose of curing sentient beings’ eighty-four thousand habitual patterns and attachments. Because the mind has eighty-four thousand thoughts and functions, and in order to return these functions back to the source, there must also be eighty-four thousand dharma doors. All dharma doors are inseparable from the mind; they are all for the purpose of administering antidotes to the mind’s attachments and habitual tendencies. The purpose of spiritual cultivation is to understand, realize and to actualize the mind. The scripture states: “If one says there is a single Dharma superior to nirvana, I say it is only a deluded dream.” To say that even one Dharma is more superior than nirvana is to express a heretic view. All Dharma are created by the mind. All Buddhist sects, such as Chan, Pureland, Vinaya, Vajrayana and Sutrayana are the creations of the mind, they must all return to the mind, never separate from the mind.
To be continued, stay tuned.
~ Miao Tsan