Tōzan Gohon Daishi and the Stream

Keizan's commentary

The teacher's personal name was Liangjie. He was from Kuaiji, of the Yu family. As a child he recited the Heart Sūtra with his teacher. Reaching “no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, or mind,” he suddenly touched his face and asked, “I have eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and so forth. Why does the scripture say there are none?” His teacher was startled and said, “I am not your teacher.” He directed the child to bow to Zen Master Mo at Mount Wuxie and shave his head. At twenty-one Liangjie went to Mount Song and received the full precepts. His mother especially loved him. His elder brother had died, his younger brother was poor, and his father had already died. Once he turned toward the gate of emptiness, he left his aged mother for a long time and vowed, “Unless I attain the way, I will not return to my old village or bow before my parent again.” He left home with this vow. After finishing his study, he eventually lived at Tōzan. His mother, separated from her one son and seemingly without other support, searched for him daily. At last she joined beggars and wandered. Hearing that her son lived at Tōzan, she went there longing to see him. Tōzan firmly refused, locked his abbot's room, and did not let her enter or meet him. Grieving, she finally died outside the room.³ After her death Tōzan went out and found three measures of rice she had obtained by begging. He mixed them into the community's morning porridge and offered it to everyone, mourning her journey through the clouds. Soon afterward, the text says, his mother appeared in a dream: “Because you held your resolve firmly and would not see me, my deluded attachment of love was cut off where it stood. Through the power of that wholesome root, I was born in Trāyastriṃśa heaven.”⁴ Though ancestral virtues cannot be ranked, Keizan says Tōzan especially established this lineage through the strength with which he left his parent and guarded his resolve. During his study he first attended Nansen's assembly. At a memorial feast on Baso's death anniversary, Nansen asked, “Tomorrow we provide a feast for Baso. Will Baso return?” No one answered. Tōzan said, “He will come when he has a companion.” Nansen said, “Though young, this child is very fit for carving and polishing.” Tōzan said, “Reverend, do not take what is fine for something cheap.” Next he met Isan and said he had heard of National Teacher Nan’yō Echū's encounter about insentient beings preaching Dharma but had not penetrated its subtlety. At Isan's request he recited it: A monk asked the National Teacher, “What is ancient Buddha-heart?” The National Teacher said, “Walls, tiles, and rubble.” The monk asked whether those were not insentient and whether they could preach Dharma. The National Teacher said, “They always preach; they preach vividly and without pause.” Asked why the monk did not hear, he said one's own failure to hear could not obstruct another hearer. The sages hear it. Asked whether he heard, the National Teacher said no: “Fortunately I do not hear. If I heard, I would be equal to the sages, and you would not hear me preach.” When the monk concluded sentient beings had no share, the teacher said, “I preach for sentient beings, not for the sages.” Once sentient beings hear, they are no longer sentient beings. Asked for scriptural authority, he cited the Avataṃsaka Sūtra: “Lands preach, sentient beings preach, everything in the three times preaches.”⁵ Isan said, “I also have it here, but rarely meet the person.” Tōzan begged for instruction. Isan raised his whisk and asked whether he understood. Tōzan did not and asked him to speak. Isan said, “The mouth born from your parents will finally never speak it for you.” He directed Tōzan to Ungan, saying that if he could push aside the grass and discern the wind, Ungan would be worthy of his regard. Tōzan went directly to Ungan, recounted the encounter, and asked who hears insentient preaching. Ungan said, “The insentient hear.” Asked whether he heard, Ungan said that if he did, Tōzan would not hear him preach. Tōzan asked, “Why do I not hear?” Ungan raised his whisk and asked, “Do you hear?” Tōzan said, “I do not.” Ungan said, “You do not even hear me preach—how much less insentient beings.” Asked for scriptural authority, Ungan cited the Amitābha Sūtra: “Water, birds, and forests all recollect Buddha and recollect Dharma.” Tōzan had insight, and the encounter begun with the National Teacher became complete with Ungan.⁶ He later asked Ungan, “My residual habits are not exhausted.” Ungan asked, “What have you ever been doing?” Tōzan said, “I do not even practice the holy truths.” Ungan asked, “Are you joyful yet?” Tōzan said, “Joy is not absent. It is like finding one bright jewel atop a heap of sweepings.” He also asked, “What is it like when I intend to meet?” Ungan said, “Ask the interpreting official.” Tōzan said, “I am asking now.” Ungan said, “What is he saying to you?” When Tōzan was leaving, he asked, “After the reverend reaches one hundred years, if someone suddenly asks whether I can portray your true likeness, how should I answer?” After a long pause Ungan said, “Just this is it.” Tōzan hesitated. Ungan said, “Ācārya Jie, in shouldering this affair you must be exceedingly exact.” The teacher still had doubt. Later, crossing water, he saw his reflection and greatly awakened to the former intent. He wrote: Take utmost care not to seek from another, Or it will estrange me far away. I now go alone, Yet everywhere I meet him. He now is precisely me; I now am not him. One must understand in this way To accord with suchness.⁷ Tōzan completed the affair of a lifetime's study and quickly left doubt and obstruction. This was the exact affinity. As for insentient Dharma preaching, lay practitioner Zhang Fen of Nan’yō once asked the National Teacher for instruction. The National Teacher said, “If you ask about insentient preaching, you must understand the insentient before you can hear me. Simply go hear insentient Dharma preaching.” Asked how insentience appeared within present sentient skillful means, he replied: “Within all present movement and function, the streams of ordinary and holy have not the slightest arising or extinction. This is subtle consciousness, belonging to neither being nor nonbeing, vividly seeing and knowing, simply without the binding attachment of affective consciousness.”⁸ This is why the Sixth Ancestor said, “When the six faculties distinguish objects, it is not consciousness.” Ordinary people think “insentient” means walls, tiles, lanterns, and bare pillars. The National Teacher's expression does not. Views of ordinary and holy have not separated; attachments to delusion and awakening have not arisen. It is not the calculation of affective discrimination or the movement of birth/death and going/coming. There is a subtle consciousness, vividly seeing and knowing but not bound by affective consciousness. Thus Tōzan said one must understand this way to accord with suchness. If you know that everywhere you go, you go alone, there is no time you fail to accord with all suchness. An ancient said there is no wisdom outside suchness realized by suchness and no suchness outside wisdom cultivated by wisdom. Suchness is unmoving, lucidly and constantly knowing. Perfectly bright knowing does not rely on thought; vividly seeing and knowing is not binding attachment. Having received the teachers' instructions, Tōzan understood genuine insentience and greatly raised the wind of this lineage. Look carefully. This subtle consciousness that vividly sees and knows is called insentient because it does not run after sound and color and lacks the bonds of affective consciousness. Do not hear “insentient” and recklessly reduce it to walls. When you do not attach to affective thoughts and delusion or distribute seeing and hearing recklessly, that subtle consciousness is bright, not dark, lucid and clear. You cannot obtain it by grasping because it bears no form and is not being. You cannot leave it by discarding because it has accompanied you since remote kalpas and is not nonbeing. It is not the affect of knowing, cognition, thought, and measurement—how much less does it bear the four elements and five aggregates? Thus Wanshi said, “There is wisdom apart from affective discrimination and a body that is not the four elements and five aggregates.” This is that subtle consciousness. “Always preaching vividly” means there is no time it does not appear. It makes one raise eyebrows and blink, walk, stand, sit, lie down, act in urgency, die here and be born there, eat when hungry, and sleep when tired. All are preaching. Speech, work, movement, stillness, and deportment are again preaching. It is not limited to preaching in words or without words. Something comes forth majestic and brightly unconcealed. Frogs, earthworms, and everything manifest; therefore it always preaches vividly and without pause. See it exactly, and later you will become a model for others like Founding Ancestor Tōzan. For the moment, how will you express this principle?