Prajnatara and the Breathing Mind

Keizan's commentary

The teacher was a man of eastern India. At that time Puṇyamitra came to eastern India. The king of that country was named Firmness, and he honored a non-Buddhist teacher, the Long-Clawed Brahmin. As the venerable one was about to arrive, the king and the Brahmin both saw white vapor running from below to above. The king asked, “What auspicious sign is this?” The Brahmin knew beforehand that the venerable one was entering the territory. Afraid that the king would turn toward the good, he said, “This is only a sign that a demon is coming. What auspiciousness could it have?” He then gathered all his disciples and deliberated with them: “Puṇyamitra is about to enter the capital. Who can break him?” The disciples said, “Each of us has spell arts. We can move heaven and earth and enter water and fire. What is there to fear?” When the venerable one arrived, he first saw black vapor over the palace wall and said, “Only a small difficulty.” He went directly to the king. The king asked, “Master, why have you come?” The venerable one said, “I am going to liberate sentient beings.” The king asked, “By what Dharma will you liberate them?” The venerable one said, “I will liberate each according to their kind.” When the Brahmin heard this, he could not contain his anger. With an illusion spell he conjured a great mountain over the venerable one's head. The venerable one pointed at it, and it abruptly stood over the heads of the Brahmin's assembly. The Brahmin and his followers were terrified and submitted to him. The venerable one pitied their foolish confusion and pointed again. The conjured mountain disappeared at once. He then expounded the essentials of Dharma for the king and caused him to approach the true vehicle. He also told the king, “A sage in this country will succeed me.” At that time there was a Brahmin son about twenty years old. He had lost both parents as a child and did not know his family name. Sometimes he called himself Necklace, so people called him the Necklace Boy. He wandered through towns and villages and passed his days by begging. He was like Bodhisattva Never-Disparaging. If someone asked, “Why do you hurry in your practice?” he immediately answered, “Why are you arrogant?” If someone asked his family name, he replied, “The same family name as yours.” No one knew his reason.² Later the king and the venerable one rode out together in a carriage. They saw the Necklace Boy bow before them. The venerable one asked, “Do you remember what happened before?” The dialogue continued through, “What happens today surely accords with an affinity from the past.” The venerable one then told the king, “This boy is no other than Bodhisattva Mahāsthāmaprāpta. After this sage, two people will emerge. One will teach in southern India; the other's affinity lies in China. Within four or five years he will wish to return here.”³ Because of the former affinity, he named the boy Prajñātāra. The ancestral teachers who transmit Buddha's heart-seal and the sages whose heart-ground is open and bright may be arhats or bodhisattvas. Because they do not obscure the original way, some are tathāgatas who attained it in the remote past. Even if they appear to be beginners and later students, when they turn the pivotal point in a single thought, they manifest their originally complete virtue without lacking so much as a single hair. They share it with the Tathāgata and harmonize with all the honored ones. They do not emerge once and disappear once, yet neither do they emerge together as a single hand. There are not many kinds or separate articles. Therefore, to see today is to see the remote past. To look back upon the remote past is to guard today. You were born together with me; I lived together with you. We have never been separated by so much as a hair, and there has not been an instant when we did not accompany one another. When you can reach this ground, it is not a Dharma belonging to ancient or present and not an affair of faculty, object, and consciousness. Thus it is said: succession to Dharma surpasses the three times, while realization and accord continue unbroken through ancient and present. Because it is like this, a golden needle and jade thread closely stitch and pass through everything.⁴ When you look closely, which is the other and which is the self? Not the finest mechanism appears, nor does a sharp teaching device reveal itself. Arriving here, no one fails to obtain a seat, yet it necessarily comes divided alongside. Thus in the encounter just raised, “You expounded great prajñā; I set forth the profound sūtra.” If form is pure, the wisdom of all-knowing wisdom is pure. There is neither difference nor separation. Sentient being is precisely buddha-nature; buddha-nature is precisely sentient being. The former admits no external thing, and the latter transports no inner Dharma. Although the two capacities are divided in this way, multiplicity is finally not different. Therefore he is called Prajñātāra. It is like Vasiṣṭha above: ancient and present cannot be divided. How could emptiness and existence differ? Thus an ancient said: If you understand here, there is no affair at all; What obstruction could there be to essence and function, Divided or undivided?⁵ If you borrow empty space as the substance of the myriad forms, there is not a single hair of anything that confronts your face. If you borrow the myriad forms as the function of empty space, there is not a single hair of a divergent road. At this point, even to understand teacher and disciple, the transmission of the way, and the buddhas' and ancestors' recognition as many kinds seems to create joints and divisions. Yet to understand them as not two remains the view of a board-carrying fellow.⁶ If you examine and weigh it closely: A white heron standing in snow is not the same color; The bright moon and reed flowers do not resemble one another. Practice and roam in this way. Carry snow in a silver bowl; conceal a white heron in bright moonlight. To distinguish the encounter just raised, I happen to have a humble verse. Great assembly, do you wish to hear it?