Vasubandhu and the Unborn

Keizan's commentary

The teacher was from Rājagṛha and belonged to the Viśākha clan. His father was Radiant Canopy and his mother Solemn Unity. The household was wealthy but childless. His parents prayed for an heir at the stupa of the thousand buddhas. One night his mother dreamed that she swallowed two jewels, one bright and one dark. She woke pregnant. Seven days later an arhat named Worthy Assembly came to their house. Radiant Canopy bowed to him, and the arhat remained seated and accepted it. Solemn Unity came out to bow, but the arhat left his seat and said, “I return the bow to the great being of the Dharma-body.” Radiant Canopy could not fathom this. He took a precious jewel, knelt, and offered it to test whether the arhat was genuine. Worthy Assembly accepted it without declining or thanking him. Unable to bear this, Radiant Canopy asked, “I am a man, yet you paid no attention when I bowed. What virtue does my wife have that made you leave your seat?” The arhat said, “I accepted your bow and jewel only because I value your merit. Your wife carries a holy child who will become the world's lamp and wisdom-sun. I therefore avoided her bow; it was not because I value a woman more.” He predicted two sons: Vasubandhu, whom the arhat revered, and Cuṇi, “Wild Magpie.” The second was said to be a bird that had nested on the Buddha's head during Snow Mountain practice, later becoming a king and receiving a prediction to be born beside the sage. A month later the twins were born.² At fifteen Vasubandhu bowed to the arhat Guangdu, left home, and received precepts from the bodhisattva Xianpipohé. When the Twentieth Ancestor Jayata came to Rājagṛha and proclaimed the sudden teaching, the local students prized debate. Their leader was Vasubandhu, whose name was glossed “Pervading Practice.” He always ate one meal, never lay down, bowed to Buddha at the six periods, and was clean and free of desire. The assembly took refuge in him. Jayata wanted to liberate him. He first asked the assembly, “This ascetic Pervading Practice can cultivate pure conduct. Can he obtain the Buddha-way?” They said, “Our teacher practices vigorously. Why could he not?” Jayata said, “Your teacher is far from the way. Even if he practiced austerities through dust-mote kalpas, they would all remain roots of delusion.” They asked, “What virtue do you contain that you criticize our teacher?” Jayata answered with the words beginning “I do not seek the way” through “awakened undefiled wisdom.” Vasubandhu rejoiced and praised him. Jayata asked the assembly, “Do you understand my words? I spoke this way because his heart seeking the way was too urgent. A string pulled too tight snaps. Therefore I did not praise him. I wanted him to abide on the ground of ease and enter the wisdom of the buddhas.” This encounter is a foremost secret of studying the way. People think there is a buddha to become and a way to obtain. They keep fasts and pure conduct, sit for long periods without lying down, bow to buddhas, turn sutras, and pile up every merit for the sake of attaining the way. All of this makes flowers fall in a sky without flowers and bores a hole where no hole exists. Even through dust-mote kalpas, there will be no share in liberation. Directly having nothing toward which heart reaches—this is called the way. Therefore desire for contentment instead becomes the root of greed. Necessarily preferring long sitting has the fault of remaining lodged in body. Trying to eat only once retains a view of food. Trying to bow to buddhas and turn sutras produces flowers before the eyes. Each practice, when grasped this way, becomes a root of delusion and is not the matter of one's original share. If long sitting were the way, everyone would come sitting for ten months before birth. That itself would be the way—why seek it again? If keeping a fast were the way, then when sickness made meal times irregular, would one cease to be a person of the way? This is very laughable. Buddha's disciples establish many pure regulations and display the conduct of buddhas and ancestors in these forms. But grasp them and practice them one-sidedly, and they instead become affliction.³ If you loathe birth and death, going and coming, and then seek a way elsewhere, from beginningless time you have died here and been born there without interruption. Where could there be a time to obtain the way? To become entangled in every affair and then seek a way through it is entirely mistaken understanding. What buddha could there be to become? What being could there be to remain deluded? Not one person is deluded, and not one dharma waits to be awakened. Thus “turn delusion into awakening” and “turn ordinary into holy” are all words of people not yet awakened. What ordinary person could be turned? What delusion could awaken? Master Kassan said: Plainly, there is no dharma of awakening; A dharma of awakening instead deludes people. Stretch out both legs and sleep— No false, and no true.⁴ This is truly the body of the way. Even so, beginners and later students must investigate closely and reach this even, peaceful ground. Why? If you do not stand on real ground yourself, another person's words may confuse you. You raise your eyes and try to see, and buddha-demons invade you. Today you may hear this teaching and understand, “There is nothing to obtain.” But another teacher may say that there is a Dharma to acquire, or a buddha-demon may come and say there is another practice to perform. Your heart will move after all, and you will become inverted. Receive the correct instruction of the buddhas, investigate and penetrate closely, and reach your own ground of ease. A person who reaches it once is like someone who has eaten his fill. Even if offered a royal feast, he cannot desire it. Thus it is said, “Fine food does not suit a full person.” An ancient said, “Troubled once, at once at ease.” Seen closely, the heart of one's own original share sees neither buddha nor being. How could it reject delusion and seek awakening? To let a person see this directly, from the ancestral teacher's coming from the west onward they had everyone—wise or unwise, old student or new—simply sit upright in one piece and abide in themselves. This is the Dharma gate of great ease.⁵ From vast ages until today, you have mistaken what never went wrong for error. Do not mind only the frost on another person's gate and forget the treasure inside your own house. Your intimate friend is meeting you now. Do not postpone awakening until some distant future. Simply turn the patched robe and inspect closely within your own square inch. Never seek from another. If you do this, hundreds of Dharma gates and boundless Buddha-work all flow from here, covering heaven and earth as they go. By all means avoid seeking the way. Simply maintain yourself. From vast ages onward you have carried it here and carried it away, never apart for a moment. But if you do not know that self is present, you are like someone holding an object in his hand while searching east and west. How mistaken is that? It is only forgetting yourself. Look completely today. The wondrous way of the buddhas and the ancestors' single transmission lie only in this one matter. Do not doubt it. When you reach this ground, you will not doubt the tongues of old teachers throughout the world. The source says that after hearing this Vasubandhu awakened undefiled wisdom. If you wish to awaken the undefiled ground, simply maintain yourself. If you wish to maintain yourself, know that from birth through old age it is only this. There is not one dust-mote to discard and not one dharma that can be left out. Do not think of awakening a separate undefiled wisdom. Today, as usual, I have humble words and wish to unfold the encounter. Do you wish to hear them?