Basyasita and the Robe

Keizan's commentary

The teacher was a man of the country of Kashmir, of the Brahmin caste. His father was Tranquil Practice and his mother Constant Peace-and-Joy. At first his mother dreamed that she received a divine sword, and through this she became pregnant. As Venerable Siṃha traveled, he reached Kashmir. There was a man named Pārika. Because he had originally practiced meditation and contemplation, there were five communities: meditation-concentration, knowledge and views, grasping form, relinquishing form, and not speaking.² After the venerable one had gathered these five communities, his reputation spread far and wide. While seeking an heir to the Dharma, he met an elder who brought forward his son and asked: “This child is named Sita. From the moment of birth he has kept his left hand clenched. Now he has grown, but still he has never been able to open it. I beg you, venerable one, reveal his former-life cause.” The venerable one looked at him, held out his own hand, and said, “You may return my jewel.” The boy suddenly opened his hand and offered the jewel. Everyone was astonished. The venerable one said, “In my previous life I was a monk and had a young attendant named Vasa. Once, when I attended a vegetarian feast by the Western Sea, I received an alms-jewel and entrusted it to him. Now he returns my jewel; this is entirely as it should be.” The elder thereupon gave his son permission to leave home, and the venerable one immediately gave him the full precepts. Because of the former affinity he named him Vasiṣṭha.³ When the teacher finally succeeded to the lineage, Siṃha said, “I now entrust to you the Tathāgata's treasury of the true Dharma eye. Protect it well so that it may reach the furthest limit of the future.” To say that his former-life affinity was disclosed means this: in a former life he was already the boy Vasa, to whom the venerable one entrusted the jewel. He maintained it even while entering the womb and until he was born in the elder's household. Finally he offered it to the venerable one. From this you should understand that the encounter does not necessarily mean the fleshly body breaks apart while only a true body exists. If this body were a body that perishes, how could the jewel have been maintained until now? You should therefore know that relinquishing one life and receiving another are not originally the destruction of a body. At this point you cannot say, “The hundred bones all disintegrate and scatter; one thing remains eternally numinous.” What thing could remain eternally numinous?⁴ There is only the manifestation of relinquishing a body and the manifestation of receiving a body. Therefore it must be said that before and after are not two, and ancient and present are not separately different. Even so, this cannot be called body, nor can it be called heart. Since body and heart are not divided, ancient and present cannot be divided. Therefore it is just so. Vasa alone is not like this. To speak the truth, every person without exception is like this. There is therefore no place of birth and no place of death. According to the time, you merely change head and exchange face. It is not necessarily that you exchange the four elements and renew the five aggregates. No single lump of flesh ever comes covering you, and not the slightest piece of bone ever comes supporting you. Though there are a thousand kinds of form and ten thousand classes of things, all are the original light of heart. Without knowing this principle, you think this one young and that one old. Yet there is no old body at all and no original youth. If it is like this, by what could you judge birth and death or divide before and after? For this reason the text points out that Vasa in the former life and Sita today are not two bodies. This is precisely the former-life affinity. Therefore the Tathāgata's treasury of the true Dharma eye was transmitted and entrusted, nourishing the furthest limit of the future. You should accordingly know that all buddhas and ancestors have never originally awakened, while all foolish people are finally not deluded. At one time there is practice; at another there is the arousal of resolve. The resolve for awakening has no ending and no beginning. Sentient beings and buddhas are originally neither inferior nor superior. They simply range freely, just so. Thus, throughout vast kalpas, they have maintained this exactly as it is and have merely not forgotten the former affinity.⁵ This morning, to point directly to this encounter, I again have a humble verse: