Hongren and the Path

Keizan's commentary

The teacher was a man of Huangmei County in Qizhou. Formerly he was the pine-planting practitioner of Potou Mountain. Once he asked the Fourth Ancestor, “May I hear the Dharma-way?” The ancestor said, “You are already old. If you hear it, how could you teach it widely? If you come again, I can still wait for you.” The practitioner left. At the water's edge he saw a young woman washing clothes. Bowing, he asked, “May I lodge with you?” She said, “I have a father and elder brothers. You may go ask them.” He said, “Only if you assent will I dare go.” The woman nodded. He turned his staff and departed. She was the youngest daughter of the Zhou family. When she returned home, she was immediately pregnant. Her parents were deeply disgusted and expelled her. With nowhere to return, she spun thread for hire in the village by day and slept beneath public buildings at night. Eventually she gave birth to a son. Considering him inauspicious, she abandoned him in a muddy inlet.³ The body floated against the current without becoming wet. Divine creatures protected it for seven days without harm: by day two birds spread their wings side by side and covered him; by night two dogs bent their legs and guarded him. His vital appearance was bright, and none of his six faculties was deficient. Seeing this wonder, the mother took him back and raised him. When he grew, he begged for food with his mother. People called him the Child Without a Surname. A wise man said, “This child falls short of the Tathāgata only by seven marks.”⁴ Later, as the Fourth Ancestor traveled on the Huangmei road, he met the boy. Seeing that the child's bone structure was remarkably fine and unlike that of an ordinary child, he asked, “What is your surname?” The exchange continued until the ancestor silently recognized him as a Dharma vessel. Through an attendant, Daoxin requested the mother's permission for the boy to leave home. He was seven. He immediately received the robe and was ordained. From the time he transmitted Dharma and left home, not one of the twelve periods, day or night, obstructed his sitting cushion. Though he lacked no other duties, he continued to sit in this way. Finally, in the second year of Shangyuan, he instructed his disciples, “My affair is already finished. I must go.” He then died seated.⁵ There is a surname that is not received from father, received from ancestor, inherited from Buddha, or inherited from patriarch. This is called buddha-nature. Practicing Zen and studying the way are originally for reaching the root and openly clarifying heart-nature. If you do not reach the root, you are born in vain and die in vain, confusing yourself and confusing others. What is called original nature means this: through your deaths and births, though each face and form differs, at no time or instant are any of you without lucid wisdom. You should understand it through today's encounter. From the time the pine-planting practitioner requested the Dharma-way until, as a seven-year-old child, he inherited robe and Dharma, heart did not necessarily change because of birth. How could nature alter because of form? Zen Master Wanshi wrote in his portrait praise for Great Master Hongren: Before and after, two bodies; Present and ancient, one heart.⁶ Although the two bodies had already changed, ancient and present did not have separate hearts. Know that from immeasurable kalpas onward it has been just so. If you embody and penetrate this original nature, it cannot originally be distinguished by the four castes, because the four castes share this same nature, like the nature of water. Thus when people of the four castes leave home, all are equally called members of the Śākya family. This lets them know there is no difference. Truly, I am not separated and you are not separated. We barely carry faces called self and other, just like bodies before and after. Without discerning it in this way and clarifying heart, you recklessly proclaim the self immediately before you and divide your own body from another's. You therefore attach feeling to each thing and become confused along with time. Once you clarify this ground, though you change form and turn through birth, how could it obstruct you or alter heart? Know it through the practitioner and the child in this story. He was already born without a father. You should understand, Keizan argues, that a person is not necessarily born by receiving the bloodline of father and mother.⁷ Even so, conventional attachment sees body, hair, and skin as received from one's parents. You should know that this body is not simply the five aggregates. If you understand this body as just so, nothing at all accompanies you, and yet there is not one moment in which it differs from you. Thus an ancient said, “All sentient beings, from immeasurable kalpas onward, have never emerged from the samādhi of Dharma-nature.” Embody and practice it this way, and you will quickly meet the Fourth Ancestor and stand shoulder to shoulder with the Fifth. There will be no separation between Japan and China and no distinction between ancient and present. For the moment, how can you point directly and accord with this principle?