Jayata and the Karmic Wind

Keizan's commentary

The teacher was from northern India. His wisdom was deep and open, and he guided measureless people. When he met the Nineteenth Ancestor in central India, he asked, “My parents have long trusted the Three Treasures, yet they have constantly been entangled in sickness, and nothing they undertake goes as they wish. “My neighboring household, however, has long engaged in work classified as caṇḍāla. Their bodies are always strong and healthy, and everything they do succeeds. Why are they so fortunate and I so guilty?”² Kumārata said, “Why is this worth doubting? The results of good and evil occur at three times. Ordinary people continually see humane people die young, violent people live long, the rebellious prosper, and the just meet disaster. They then claim that cause and effect do not exist and guilt and merit are empty. “They especially fail to know that consequence follows cause as shadow and echo, without error by even a hair. Even after hundreds of thousands of myriads of kalpas, it is not erased. Causes and conditions necessarily meet.” Hearing this, the teacher at once released his doubt. Kumārata then spoke the words beginning “Although you now trust the three modes” through “immediately awakened former wisdom.” Students should see every part of this encounter with exact care. Jayata said that his family had long trusted the Three Treasures but remained sick and frustrated, while the neighboring household practiced caṇḍāla occupations yet remained healthy and successful. He thought, “I have taken refuge in Buddha-Dharma for many years. Through its power my body should always be well and my affairs accord with my wishes. Instead nothing does, and sickness confuses my body. What wrong have I done? “The caṇḍāla household has always done evil and cultivated no wholesome seed. Yet their affairs are auspicious and their bodies strong. What fortune do they possess?” People today think the same way. Even monastics retain this thought; how much more laypeople. Kumārata said, “Why is this worth doubting? The results of good and evil occur at three times.” People see the humane die prematurely and the violent live long, people who commit grave offenses prosper and deeply just people meet disaster. They do not clarify the past or comprehend the future. Deluded only by what is before their eyes, they think cause and effect do not exist and guilt and merit are empty. This is extreme foolishness, caused by shallow study of the way. The three modes are these. First, karma whose result follows in the present: one performs good or evil in this life and receives its result before this life ends. Second, karma received in the next birth: one acts in this life and receives the result in the following life. The five grave offenses and seven obstructions, Keizan says, necessarily ripen then. Third, later-result karma: a cause made in this life bears fruit in a third or fourth later life, or after measureless lives.³ Thus one may receive present good because of past good, while different former actions produce different present results. A person with purely good or evil causes feels a correspondingly pure result; a person with mixed causes receives mixed results. The power of Buddha-Dharma practice can also turn a heavy result and let it be received lightly, or make a light one absent in the present. A bad cause from a past kalpa might otherwise bring severe suffering in the future, but through present practice it may be received lightly. One may be entangled in illness, frustrated in one's affairs, or treated lightly whenever one speaks. All of these, in this account, are heavy future sufferings received lightly now.⁴ One should therefore rely on the power of Buddha-Dharma practice all the more. Practice with courageous vigor, and even results of deeds performed in the remote past can become light. Even when a student understands the way to some degree, he may receive a bad reputation, fail in his affairs, or lack physical strength. Think of this as turning the heavy and receiving it lightly. If someone hates you, never resent him. If someone slanders you, never blame him. You may even honor the slanderer; do not loathe him. The work of the way grows daily, and former karma disappears moment by moment. Still, practice and investigate with close care. Although you trust the three modes, you have not known karma's root. Karma differentiates good and evil result and ranks ordinary and holy. The threefold world, six paths, four modes of birth, and nine modes of existence are all karmic recompense. This karma arises from delusion. Delusion hates and loves what need not be hated or loved, and judges right and wrong where no such judgment need be made. It knows as male what is not male and as female what is not female; it divides self and separates other. Non-awakening means not knowing your own source, not knowing the place where the ten thousand dharmas are born, and losing wisdom everywhere. This is called ignorance. Originally there is no calculation and no conditioning dust. This heart is originally pure and turns against no condition. One transformation of this heart is called non-awakening. Awaken to this non-awakening and your own heart is originally pure, your own nature numinously bright. Clarified in this way, ignorance breaks, the twelvefold cycle is finally empty, and the four births and six paths swiftly disappear. Every person's original heart is this way. It therefore has no division of arising and ceasing and no grade of fabrication. There is no hatred or love, increase or decrease—only utterly still, vividly numinous. If you wish to see original heart, put down all affairs, let every condition rest, and do not think good or evil. For a time, place your eyes at the tip of your nose and look toward original heart.⁵ When one heart is still, all marks end. Because root ignorance breaks, the branch-and-leaf results of karma do not remain. Do not therefore remain at nondiscrimination or be confined at the edge of nonthinking. It is not permanence or impermanence, ignorance or purity. There is no barrier of buddhas and no division of beings. Reach the ground of clean, white, perfect brightness. Only then will you be a native patch-robed monk. If it is this way, you can be the same as the buddhas. Arriving here, every conditioned and unconditioned thing ends and is like dream and illusion. Try to grasp, and the hand is empty. Try to see, and the eye is not confined. At this ground you clarify the purport before the buddhas appeared and reach the place before beings became inverted. If your study has not reached it, then even if you bow to buddhas through all twelve hours and regulate body and heart in all four postures, it is only a superior human or heavenly result, a karmic result still accompanied by outflows. It is like a shadow following a form: although present, it is not substantial. Every one of you, put spirit into it and clarify original heart. As usual, I append a humble verse. Do you wish to hear it?