Haklenayasas and the Crane Flock

Keizan's commentary

The teacher was a man of the country of Yuezhi, of the Brahmin caste. His father was Thousand Victory and his mother Golden Light. Because they had no child, they prayed before the golden banner of the Seven Buddhas. His mother then dreamed that on the summit of Mount Sumeru a divine child held a golden ring and said, “I am coming.” She awoke and found herself pregnant. At seven the child was roaming through a village when he saw the people's promiscuous sacrifices. He entered the shrine and rebuked it: “You falsely manufacture calamity and blessing and delude the people. Every year they expend sacrificial animals. The injury you cause is exceedingly grave.” As he finished speaking, the shrine's image suddenly collapsed. The people of the district therefore called him a holy child. At twenty-two he left home. At thirty he met Venerable Manorhita. The teacher was called Haklenayaśas. Keizan says that lekana is Sanskrit while “crane” is Chinese; combining Sanskrit and Chinese produces the name Haklenayaśas. Because a multitude of cranes followed the teacher, this became his name.² When he met Manorhita, many extraordinary things occurred. Although each could be raised, I will take up just one encounter. The teacher asked the venerable one, “Through what affinity have I drawn this flock of cranes?” Manorhita said, “During the fourth kalpa you were once a monk invited to attend an assembly in a dragon palace. All your disciples wanted to accompany you. You examined the five hundred members of the community and found not one capable of bearing the wondrous offering. “The disciples then said, ‘Master, you always teach: Those equal in food are also equal in Dharma. Now it is already otherwise. What holiness is there in that?’ “You therefore allowed them to attend. After you relinquished that life, you took life elsewhere and taught throughout many countries. Because the merit of those five hundred disciples was slight and their virtue meager, they were born among the feathered race. Now they are drawn by your wisdom, and so they follow you as this flock of cranes.”³ Hearing these words, the teacher asked, “By what skillful means can they be liberated?” The venerable one replied, “I have the unsurpassed treasure of Dharma…” and continued through the words of the case. In truth, within the principle that food is equal and Dharma is equal, holy and ordinary are not divided. Yet although principle led teacher and disciples alike to accept the dragon palace's invitation, bodies of slight merit and meager virtue could not bear the wondrous offering, and therefore they entered the feathered race. Students should take this encounter especially to heart. Teaching Dharma should be without discrimination, and food should be shared equally. Yet some can digest the faithful's alms, while others are injured by the faithful's alms. At this point it appears that things are not equal; indeed one must call it discrimination.⁴ Why? If you see food and see Dharma, then even though you view them as equal and understand them to be one, there is already the portion that sees Dharma and the portion that sees food. You do not escape two views. Bewildered by a heart that craved and sought, the disciples followed their teacher to the assembly. They consequently became the feathered race. Know that they had not penetrated the principle that food is equal and Dharma is equal. They were directly bound by names and conditioned forms. As for the unsurpassed great Dharma spoken of now, what could be called food, and what could be called Dharma? Which is holy, and which is ordinary? It is already nothing that shape or shadow can reach. It is difficult even to name it heart or nature. This Dharma is not received from Buddha and not received from an ancestor. It is not bestowed on a son and not transmitted by a father. There is no thing that can be called self or other. From where, then, could the names food and Dharma arise? How much less could there be a place to answer an invitation, or any becoming a flock of cranes? Therefore fasten your eye upon the details and investigate them completely. First you must know that your own heart and original nature are spiritually open and wondrously luminous. Maintain this well and ripen deeply in it. Then know further that there is the matter of the buddhas and ancestors transmitting the lamp. Only then will you begin to attain it. Even if you clarify the meaning of your own original nature and the place of your liberation is already equal to the buddhas and ancestors, there is still an unsurpassed great treasure of Dharma that must be heard and received. It can guide beings to the limit of the future. This is not the principle of original nature. How much less is it a realm of seeing and hearing? It far surpasses sentiments of ancient and present, and from the beginning it never stops at the boundary between sentient beings and buddhas. Therefore you cannot call this person a Buddha, nor can you call this person ordinary. Unless one sits upright in the hall, one does not cross over the mechanisms at either end. Thus, although you seek a shadow, you cannot obtain one; although you search for a track, you cannot find one.⁵ When you reach this limit, what thing is heart-nature? What thing is awakening? Vomit it all out in one vomit. Shit it all out in one shit. At such a time, you are a great person beyond measure. Unless you arrive at such a place, you remain an ordinary person, forever a sentient being turning through cyclic existence. For this reason, all of you must see and attain it in detail and resolve to shoulder the unsurpassed great treasure of Dharma. This is old Śākyamuni's fleshly body still warm. Do not merely stagnate in this name and labor over its form. In study and practice, you must distinguish the real. Wishing to point directly to this principle, I have a humble verse: