Kumarata and the Jewel

Keizan's commentary

The teacher was from the country of the Yuezhi and belonged to the Brahmin caste. In a former life he was a god in Īśvara Heaven, the sixth heaven of the desire realm. Seeing a bodhisattva's jeweled necklace, he suddenly became attached and fell to Trāyastriṃśa, the second heaven of desire. There he heard Kauśika—Śakra—teach the perfection of wisdom. Because Dharma prevailed, he ascended to Brahmā's heaven in the form realm. His faculties were sharp, he taught the essentials of Dharma well, and the gods honored him as their guide. When the time came for him to succeed to the ancestral rank, he descended to the country of the Yuezhi.² When the Eighteenth Ancestor traveled there to teach and liberate, he saw extraordinary energy above a Brahmin household and was about to enter. The teacher asked, “Whose follower are you?” Gayaśāta said, “I am a disciple of Buddha.” Hearing the name “Buddha,” Kumārata's heart and spirit were startled, and he immediately closed the door. Gayaśāta knocked for a long time. The teacher said, “There is no one in this house.” Gayaśāta said, “Who is it that answers, ‘No one’?” Hearing these words, the teacher knew he was an extraordinary person, quickly opened the gate, and welcomed him. Gayaśāta then spoke the words beginning “Long ago the World-Honored One predicted” through “awakened the knowledge of former lives.” Examine this encounter closely. Even if you clarify names and the way, or clarify birth, death, going, and coming as the genuine human body, unless you clarify your own original nature as empty-bright and numinously open, you do not know what the buddhas realize. You will therefore be startled by a bodhisattva's emitted light and become attached on seeing the fine marks of the buddhas. Why? Because you have not escaped the three poisons of greed, anger, and delusion. Look at the teacher's former causes. Through attachment he fell to Trāyastriṃśa. Through former affinity he heard Śakra teach, ascended to Brahmā's heaven, and was born in Yuezhi. Accumulated work and piled-up virtue were not empty. At last he met the Eighteenth Ancestor and awakened knowledge of former lives. People commonly think “knowledge of former lives” means knowing the past and knowing the future. What use would that be? Simply see the originally unchanging own-nature, without holy, ordinary, or delusion. Then a hundred thousand Dharma gates and measureless subtle meanings are all in the source of heart. Beings' inversion and buddhas' accomplishment of the way are within your own square inch. This is not a dharma of faculties and objects or a form of heart and field. Arriving here, what will you call ancient and what present? Which are buddhas and which beings? Not one dharma obstructs the eye, and not one dust-mote touches the hand. There is simply one empty-bright expanse, open and fallen away without boundary. It is the Tathāgata truly awakened in the remote past, the original being that has never been deluded.³ When it is awakened and known in this way, it does not increase. When it is not known in this way, it does not diminish. Directly touching that it has been this way from the remote past is called awakening knowledge of former lives. Unless you reach this ground, you are vainly disturbed by feelings of delusion and awakening and shifted by forms of coming and going. At last you do not know that you yourself are here or clarify that original heart has never gone wrong. You therefore trouble the buddhas to appear in the world and make the ancestral teacher travel far from the west. The original purpose of appearing in the world and coming from the west is only this matter, nothing else. Apply yourself with careful attention. Know it as numinously alert and undimmed, plainly bright and unconcealed. Knowing that there is originally one expanse of light is called knowledge of former lives. Today I again have humble words and wish to pass through a little of this principle. Great assembly, do you wish to hear them?