Buddhamitra Hears the Mind Verse

Keizan's commentary

The teacher was from the country of Daigā and belonged to the Viśāla clan. When Buddhanandi traveled to teach there, he came to the house of a Viśāla elder. Seeing white light rise above it, he told his followers: “A sage must live in this house. His mouth has no speech: he is a true vessel of Mahāyāna. His feet do not tread the ground: he knows only contact with defilement. He will be my heir.” As soon as he had spoken, the elder came out, bowed, and asked, “What do you need?” Buddhanandi said, “I seek an attendant.” The elder said, “I have one son. He is already fifty years old, but his mouth has never spoken and his feet have never walked.” Buddhanandi said, “Just as you describe him—he is truly my disciple.” When the teacher heard that Buddhanandi had seen him and spoken in this way, he abruptly rose, bowed, and asked in verse: Father and mother are not closest to me. Who is the one most close? The buddhas are not my way. What is the one most truly the way? Buddhanandi answered with the verse beginning “Your words are intimate with heart” and ending “neither joined nor apart.” When the teacher heard this wondrous verse, he immediately walked seven steps. Buddhanandi said, “Long ago this child met a buddha and made vast compassionate vows. He worried that his parents' loving attachment would be difficult to abandon, so he neither spoke nor walked.”¹ In truth, father and mother are not closest to me, and the buddhas are not my way. Therefore, if you wish to know what is truly intimate, you cannot compare it with father and mother. If you wish to know what is truly the way, you cannot learn it from the buddhas. Why? Your seeing and hearing finally borrow no other person's eyes and ears. Your hands and feet do not use another person's motion and stillness. Sentient beings are this way, and the buddhas are this way. If one learns from the other and the other learns from the one, it is finally not intimate. How could it be made into the way? To guard and maintain this principle, Buddhamitra did not speak and his feet did not tread for nearly fifty years. He was truly a vessel of Mahāyāna, only not within contact with defilement. “Father and mother are not closest to me”—these are your own words. They are precisely intimate with your heart. “The buddhas are not my way”—and so his feet had never walked. This is your conduct. It accords with the way. Seeking a buddha with form outside yourself is finally wrong conduct. Therefore, below the gate of the ancestral teachers, they did not establish writings. Through direct pointing and single transmission, seeing nature and becoming buddha, they let people know direct pointing. There was no other pattern for single transmission. They simply had people sit through and cut off the root of intention, until white mold grew around the mouth. This is not hating speech or valuing silence. It is meant to let you know that your heart is this way. It is like clear water and like empty space, wholly white and clean, harmonious and unobstructed. Outside your own heart not one thing appears; above your own numinous awareness not one speck can obstruct. The whole body is bright and clear, beyond comparison with pearl or jade. Do not compare the light of sun and moon with your own light. Do not compare the light of a fire-jewel with your own eye. Have you not heard: “Each person has one expanse of light, bright as a thousand suns shining together. Those in darkness seek inward; for those in brightness, nothing remains outside.”² Consider quietly: do not make inside intimate, and do not make outside remote. Although it has been this way from ancient past to present, do not stage your own fall and your own rise. Therefore ancestral teachers meet one another intimately. They meet only like this; there is nothing more. The encounter just given should clarify it. It does not necessarily say that you must arrive through cultivation and realization. It does not say that you must exhaust it through study. It simply says that your heart is wholly intimate with you, and that you yourself are the way. Outside this, do not seek a buddha with form. Do not seek a formless buddha either. Know truly: with whom could you be joined? From whom could you be separated? It is finally neither union nor separation. Even if you call it body, this is not separation. Even if you call it heart, this is not union. Though you reach such ground, do not seek heart outside body. Though there is birth and death, going and coming, it is not something body and heart make. The buddhas maintain it in this way and constantly realize it through the three times. The ancestors maintain it in this way and have appeared through the three countries. All of you should maintain it in this way and do nothing beyond your share. Through all twelve hours you have finally never missed one another. The twelve links of dependent origination are instead the turning of the Dharma wheel. Revolving through the five paths is itself the turning axle of Mahāyāna. The karma received through the four modes of birth is precisely your own livelihood.³ Even if you say “sentient” and “insentient,” they are exactly alternate names for the eye. Even if you say “sentient beings,” that is another name for heart and intention. Do not treat heart as superior and intention as inferior. Would you despise one word for the eye and honor another? On this ground there is finally no realm of faculties and objects, and no view of mind and dharmas. Therefore every person is entirely the way, and no affair is anything other than heart. This morning, to point out the encounter once more, I have humble words. Great assembly, do you wish to hear them?