The *Perfect Enlightenment Sutra*'s Four Sections

Banshō's commentary on the case

Guifeng analyzed this passage under the heading “suddenly realizing the deluded mind.” It is also called “forgetting mind and entering awakening.” Banshō adds four instances of the graph “No”: not arising, not extinguishing, not knowing, not distinguishing. These four phrases of eight graphs each—thirty-two graphs—are all treated as illnesses in communities elsewhere, but here as medicine. What are the illnesses elsewhere? “Do not give rise to deluded thoughts”—is this not a scorched sprout and ruined seed? “Do not extinguish the deluded mind”—is this not nursing an illness until the body is lost? “Do not rely on comprehending knowledge”—is this not temporarily being absent, like a dead person? “Do not discriminate the real”—is this not a muddled buddha-nature and bucket-confined suchness?¹ Tell me: what are the four medicines? Tendō must compound and bring them. When Ōbaku first visited Hyakujō, Hyakujō said, “Lofty and grand—what matter brings you here?” Ōbaku said, “Lofty and grand, I have come for no other matter.” Lofty grandeur and open solidity are both marks of the great person. Amid clustered weapons, such a person crosses straight through with the body horizontal. In a forest of thorns, such a person swings the arms and walks on. There are no five-colored strings beneath the heels, no cross-shaped barrier upon the tongue, no trace of mud at the nose-tip, and no gold dust in the eyes. Is this not a person at ease and freely alive?³ Try exchanging Tendō's three graphs “Do not speak/move it” for Banshō's four “No” graphs. You will see the Dharma gate of one graph, which an ocean of ink cannot write to exhaustion.² Tokusan said, “The entire scriptural canon is old paper for wiping filth.” For those already clear, he feared that it would pierce through oxhide. Compounding medicine in thousand-year-old paper does not hinder covering the eyes of those not yet clear.⁴ Cijue said, “The Perfect Enlightenment and Surangama are constantly my companions.” Moreover, from the World-Honored One's passing to the gengchen year, Banshō calculates 2,170 years. Thus the paper is far more than a thousand years old. The chronology is Banshō's traditional calculation, not a modern historical date.⁵ An immortal biography says Ge You could carve a wooden sheep and rode the sheep up Mount Sui. Later he met Lord Fuqiu, who said, “If the strings beneath your feet had not been severed, you too would not have attained freedom.” This is legendary material used to explain puppet-like constraint.⁵ It covertly accords with Yongjia: Let the four great elements go; do not grasp them. Within the nature of quiescent extinction, follow food and drink. All conditioned activities are impermanent; everything is empty. This itself is the Tathagata's great perfect enlightenment. Although so, the “Brahma of What-Should-One-Do” is still lacking.⁶