Buddha crossing a predestined person: Dharma and wisdom in life

Chapter 13 Learning to Let Go—Ordinary Mind Is the Way, Perseverance Is the Demon (1)
Eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are sleepy

Someone asked Huihai: "Monk, don't you need to work hard to cultivate the Tao?"

Hui Hai said, "Of course I work hard."

The man asked, "How do you work hard?"

Hui Hai replied: "Eat when you are hungry, and sleep when you are tired."

The man asked again: "Everyone is like this, monk, are you any different from them?"

Hui Hai replied: "Of course it's different. They refuse to eat when they eat, and pick and choose in every possible way; they refuse to sleep when they sleep, and care about everything, so they are different."

■Sentiment——

"Sleep when you want to sleep, sit when you want to sit, take cool when you are hot, and turn to fire when you are cold", "Sleep when you are sleepy, wake up when you are healthy, go shirtless in summer, and have to be covered in cold winter" (Jing Cen Master's words).The Buddha has the "Four Great Vows" to save all sentient beings. From the perspective of Zen Buddhism, this is too great and lofty, and it is a manifestation of the lack of "ordinary mind".

If you want to sleep, you can sleep, if you want to sit, you can sit, the Buddha nature and the real life are completely integrated.Mazu and Huihai developed Hui Neng's inclination to determine the Buddha's nature with the human heart, and further turned the Buddha into a person to face directly, erasing all artificial processes.The reason why Tao is so common is that all dharmas originate from the nature of the human mind, and there is no other way without them.In Mazu's Zen method, the heart is the real Buddha. Since the heart is all-encompassing, why bother to seek immortality everywhere?

Without bondage, how can we be free

Huihai joined Matsu for the first time.Mazu said to him, "I don't have anything here, why do you come here to ask for Dharma?"

Hui Hai asked again: "What is your own treasure?"

Mazu said: "What I'm asking now is that your own treasures have everything, there is no shortage, and the use of self-nature is working. If there is no self-nature, where do these things come from?"

Hui Hai realized.

Later, someone asked Huihai, "What is liberation?"

Huihai replied: "There is no binding in itself, so there is no need to solve it, just use it and go straight."

■Sentiment——

The so-called liberation does not have a definite definition in Buddhism.From the interpretation method of Mahayana Contemplation, as long as there is something to rely on, it is not liberation, as long as it stays in a certain state, it is not liberation, and as long as it is achieved through a certain method, it is not liberation.Liberation means absolute freedom, having everything without being attached to everything.In other words, the entire Mahayana teachings of Buddhism are developed on this basis, which not only affirms the existence of liberation, but also denies that liberation is a specific state.

Spring has flowers and autumn has moon

Zhaozhou once asked Nanquan, "What is Tao?"

Nanquan replied, "An ordinary mind is the way."

Zhaozhou further asked, "What is a normal mind?"

Nanquan's answer was: "There are flowers in spring, moon in autumn, cool wind in summer and snow in winter. If you have nothing to worry about, it is a good time in the world."

■Sentiment——

"Nosy things" are nothing more than money, beauty, fame, power and the like. In Nanquan's view, this is not the real life of a person.Zen tells people that life is ordinary after all, don't be nostalgic, don't be persistent, like a knife slashing water, it has been flowing so calmly, indifferently and freely since ancient times.

"Ordinary mind is the way", first of all, people need to stay close to the ordinary and stay in the ordinary.A person haggarded by daily trivial matters and numb by the mediocrity of life, his heart often seeks outside in indifference, unable to face up to the fact that he is living. In the eyes of Zen people, a person who abandons life The most unfortunate person is precisely the person who seeks outside his heart.

you bring food, i eat

Longtan Chongxin was born in poverty and made a living selling cakes.When Emperor Daowu was young in Longtan, he knew that he was talented, so he lent him the hut next to the temple. To express his gratitude, he gave Daowu ten cakes every day.Dao Wu collected the cakes, and each time he left one to Longtan and said, "I gave this to you, I hope your descendants will prosper."

One day, Longtan felt strange and thought: "This is obviously the cake I gave him, why did you give it back to me? Is there any other meaning in it?" So he boldly asked Wu, who told him Said: "It was you who sent it, and it was returned to you. Is there anything wrong with that?"

After hearing this, Longtan realized quite a bit, so he decided to become a monk and follow Taoism.After a while, he said to Daowu: "Since I came here, have you never heard you give me instructions?"

But Dao Wu said: "Since you came here, I haven't failed to give you instructions for a moment."

He asked again: "What are you instructing?"

Dao Wu said: "You hand tea, I will take it;

Long Tan lowered his head and thought for a while.At this time, Dao Wu said again: "If you see the Tao, you can see the Tao immediately. Otherwise, as soon as you use your thinking, you will have a deviation." After hearing this, Longtan was truly enlightened.

■Sentiment——

The heart is as simple as that, as long as you follow your self-nature, wander freely, follow all external conditions, and act recklessly; with an ordinary heart, without distinction between saints and ordinary people.

Deteriorating
Zhaozhou once had a "deteriorating" fight with a waiter.Before the fight, the two agreed: "If you are inferior in a fight, you will not win, and the winner will lose the fruit."

The waiter said: "Please ask the monk to make a question."

Zhaozhou said, "I am a donkey."

The waiter went on to say, "I have the stomach of a donkey."

"I'm donkey dung."

"I'm a dung bug."

"What are you doing in the dung?" Zhaozhou asked.

"Over the summer."

"You lost, bring the fruit." Zhao Zhou said.

■Sentiment——

Insects belong to sentient beings, and donkey dung belongs to ruthless, and spending the summer in dung is no longer "deteriorating", but turning from bad to good, which violates the prior agreement, so Zhaozhou said that the waiter lost.

With such extreme words and deeds, the Zen masters have pushed the "ordinary mind is the way" to every aspect of things and every corner of life.

what is manjusri
A monk once asked Monk Jingcen: "What is Manjusri?"

Jing Cen replied, "The walls are rubble."

"Then what is Avalokitesvara?"

"Sound language is."

"What is Samantabhadra?"

"The heart of all beings is."

"What is Buddha?"

"The physical body of all living beings is."

■Sentiment——

Manjusri, Avalokitesvara, Samantabhadra, and Buddha are all the same, where all saints are equal, and everything is equal to me.

The words and deeds of some Zen masters became even weirder amidst the scolding, like Danxia who burned the Buddha to keep warm, scolded "Old Shakyamuni", like Deshan scolded "Sakyamuni Laozi is a dry shit stick", like Linji Yao "When you meet the Buddha, you kill the Buddha, when you meet the ancestors, you kill the ancestors", like Yunmen wants to "kill them with a stick and eat them with dogs", all of these are to preserve the truth of life and the ordinary mind of Zen practitioners.

dress and eat
In the second half of the ninth century A.D., there was a Zen master named Muzhou. Someone asked him once: "We have to dress and eat every day. How can we get rid of these things?"

The Zen master replied, "We dress and eat."

The questioner then said, "I don't understand what you mean."

"If you don't understand, just dress and eat."

■Sentiment——

We are all finite and we cannot live outside of time and space.As creatures on this earth, we have no way of grasping the infinite, how can we escape from the limitations of existence? This may be the idea expressed by the monk in the first question.To this concept, Zen Master Muzhou replied: You must seek transcendence in finite things. There is no infinite thing beyond finite things. If you want to seek something beyond, it will make you out of touch with this relative world. , which is tantamount to self-destruction.You don't want to sacrifice your life for the sake of salvation, do you?If so, drink and eat and find freedom in eating and drinking.

Day-to-day ignorance

Once, Master Xuansha prepared tea for Wei Jianjun, and Wei Jianjun asked him, "How can I use it for daily use without knowing it?"

Xuan Sha didn't answer his question, but just gave Wei some fruit to eat.After Wei Jianjun finished eating the fruit, he asked this question again.

So Xuansha said: "It's just that we don't know it because of our daily use."

Another time, a monk ran to ask him to show him the way to enlightenment. Xuansha asked him, "Have you heard the sound of the stream?"

The monk said, "Listen."

Xuansha then said, "This is where you come in."

■Sentiment——

The "Langa Sutra" says: "The birth of the mind is the birth of all kinds of dharmas, and the extinction of the mind is the extinction of all kinds of dharmas."

Mazu also often said to his disciples: Human nature is full of Tao, as long as you are not sticky in both good and evil, you are a person who cultivates Tao.If you take the good and abandon the evil, and use your mind to contemplate emptiness and meditation, you will be artificial. If you pursue it externally, you will be farther away from the Tao.

let go when it's time to let go

There was a man named Fanzhi, who was a follower of Brahmanism.

On this day, he will rush to a village to hold a sacrifice for the local believers.He traveled day and night without sleep, rushing all the way, for fear of missing the auspicious day and time chosen by divination.

At this moment, the sky suddenly darkened, and big raindrops began to fall.Helpless, Fan Zhi had no choice but to run under a big tree to shelter from the rain, thinking that he would continue on the road after the weather cleared.

The rain gradually subsided, but the sky also became darker and darker. With the faint starlight, along the rugged and steep cliffs, Fanzhi Linyuan meandered forward on ice.In the darkness, Fan Zhi suddenly slipped and stepped on a pile of muddy mud. He lost his center of gravity, staggered, and fell into the valley. Like a bird with its wings broken, his body quickly fell to the bottom of the valley.In a time of crisis, he had quick wits and opened his arms to grab at the dark night sky.After a flurry of grasping, he suddenly touched a tree branch hanging upside down in the crevice of the rock. Fan Zhi hurriedly hooked it with his arm. The man was like a dragonfly with broken wings, hanging on the mountainside, unable to get up or down.

Fanzhi thought: This time is terrible. How can someone come to save me in such a dark night? I really hope that the Buddha will be merciful and use his supernatural powers to save me, a heretic.When Fanzhi was turning his mind, he suddenly heard a peaceful and kind voice saying:
"Fanzhi! Do you really hope that I can save you?"

Hey! Isn’t that the Buddha’s Dharma voice? Fanzhi seemed to see a ray of light, and shouted hoarsely to the cliff: “Compassionate Buddha! I'll go up!"

"It's easy for me to save you, but you have to do what I say, and then I can save you!" Buddha said earnestly.

"Buddha! I'm at this juncture. As long as you can save me, I will follow your instructions in everything." Fan Zhi earnestly requested.

"Okay! Then please put down the hand that is clinging to the branch, so that I can save you." Buddha said calmly.

When Fan Zhi heard that the Buddha asked him to let go of the tree roots on which his life depended, he shouted in shock:

"How is this possible? If I let go of the branch, wouldn't I fall into a deep valley? No matter what I say, I can't let go."

"You cling to the tree and don't let go, how can I help you up?" Buddha frowned slightly.

■Sentiment——

There is a song that says "Shoot when it's time to take action". In people's thinking habits, they all like to "sell" to obtain immediate benefits, but few people understand that when necessary, we should learn to "let go"—let go The benefits already in hand are used to obtain greater benefits.For example, Brahma in this story, although he will not be in danger of his life temporarily if he catches the tree, it is not a long-term solution.If you want to be truly saved, you must leave this tree in the end.Therefore, when the opportunity (Buddha) comes, Fanzhi must let go.

put down the burden and hurry
A young man came all the way to find Master Wuji with a big package on his back. He said, "Master, I am so lonely, painful and lonely, and I am extremely tired from the long journey. My shoes are broken and the thorns are cut. Both feet; my hands were injured and bleeding profusely; my voice was hoarse from shouting for a long time...why can't I find the sunshine in my heart?"

The master asked, "What's in your big package?"

The young man said: "It is very important to me. It contains the pain every time I fall, every time I cry after being injured, every time I am lonely... I can come to you only by relying on it."

So Master Wuji brought the youth to the river, and they crossed the river by boat.

After landing, the master said: "You carry the boat and go on your way!"

"What, carrying the boat on the road?" The young man was surprised, "It's so heavy, can I carry it?"

"Yes, child, you can't carry it." The master smiled and said, "The boat is useful when crossing the river. But when we cross the river, we have to put down the boat and go on the road. Otherwise, it will become our burden .Pain, loneliness, loneliness, disasters, tears, these are all useful to life, they can make life sublimated, but if you don’t forget it for a moment, it becomes the burden of life. Let it go! Children, life can’t be too heavy.”

The young man put down his burden and continued on his way. He found that his steps were easy and pleasant, much faster than before.It turns out that life doesn't have to be so heavy.

■Sentiment——

The words of Zen Master Wuji are undoubtedly a blow to our head - if we can give up those attachments to pain, loneliness, disasters, etc., and transcend gains and losses, interests, safety, life and death, and suddenly look back, you will find that you have escaped from the sea of ​​suffering, "naked, clean, No worries".This is the so-called "the sea of ​​bitterness has no limit, and the shore is the same when you turn back."

There is something

When a little monk went to fetch water from the river, he didn't notice that a small tadpole was brought into the water.He was about to put the little tadpole with its long tail back into the wooden shaft and take it to the river when the old abbot saw it and walked over and said, "Put it in a glass bottle and raise it for a few days, and see what it does." change, and then let it go to the river before it's too late."

The little monk raised the little tadpole temporarily, and sometimes fed it some steamed buns, or took it out of the room to dry in the sun, and loved the little tadpole very much.Every three or five days, the old abbot came over to check on the growth of the tadpoles.About half a month later, the tadpole's long tail became significantly shorter, and two small legs grew out of its hind abdomen.After more than ten days, the tail of the little tadpole became even shorter, and two legs grew under the mouth.The old abbot looked at the little tadpole that was about to grow into a frog, and then at the little monk who diligently raised it, and said nothing.

A few days later, the tadpole's tail disappeared completely, and finally turned into a small green frog.The old abbot held the glass bottle and looked at it again and again, and then said to the young monk: "You can release it back to nature. It has finally changed from a tadpole to a frog, Amitabha..."

When the little monk went to fetch water again, he let the little frog go.On the way back, he met the old abbot coming down from the mountain with a bundle of branches on his back.He was very confused and said to the abbot: "You are so old, why do you still go up the mountain to cut firewood yourself?"

The abbot smiled and said, "I'm not cutting firewood, I'm going to rescue the young trees. Trees are not as good as tadpoles. Their 'tails' won't disappear by themselves. They must be cut off by hand."

The little monk suddenly became enlightened, and all of a sudden he let go of many troubles in his heart, and he became much more relaxed.

■Sentiment——

Willing to give up, why not give up?

Tadpoles lose their tails and grow into frogs; small trees lose their branches and grow into towering trees.A person's life is nothing but between "giving up" and "getting". "Giving up" is not necessarily a disaster, and "gaining" is not necessarily a blessing.But people often like "get" and don't like "give up".He cares about the slightest gains and losses, and as a result, he loses a lot of things that should be "gained".As it is said in "Dream of Red Mansions": The organ is too clever to calculate, but it missed Qingqing's life!

buy paper
One day, Zen master Pansi ordered his waiter to go to Beijing to buy a batch of high-quality paper materials.This waiter has always been praised as having the "talent of Zi Gong", and he is quite intelligent.

The waiter didn't dare to take it lightly, and came back with a batch of papers after thousands of choices.But after reading the paper, the Zen master said:
"this is not OK!"

He refused without mercy.So the waiter had to go to Beijing again to buy another kind of paper.

"This doesn't work either!"

The Zen master looked at the paper he bought for the second time, and said indifferently.

As a result, the waiter had no choice but to bite the bullet and go to Beijing again.

After the waiter bought the paper for the third time, the Zen master still said coldly: "No!"

The disciple thought to himself: "I really don't understand the disciple's hard work at all!"

But after thinking about it, the disciple suddenly realized his mistake, and apologized to the master immediately.

"Understood!...Well, in fact, the paper I bought at the beginning is fine." The Zen master said.

■Sentiment——

The waiter must have carefully selected the paper in the paper store before buying the paper.But in his heart, there is inevitably such a regret: if he bought A, maybe C would be better....In order to dispel the myths in the minds of his disciples, Zen Master Pansi deliberately said with a straight face: "No!" In fact, for an enlightened Zen master, he does not let go of the good or bad paper.Even if he is given a crude straw, he will not feel disgusted.The crux of the problem is the mentality of the waiter.

Buddha Heart
Zen Master Huizhong once asked Zi Phosphorus to enshrine (enshrine refers to a monk official title): "You have been studying Buddhism for a long time. Let me ask you, what exactly does 'Buddha' mean?"

Ziphos replied without hesitation: "Buddha means 'enlightenment'."

Zen Master Huizhong asked further: "Can the Buddha also be deluded?"

Purple Phosphorus replied affirmatively: "No. How can you be deluded if you have become a Buddha?"

Zen Master Huizhong asked back: "Since you are not deluded, what do you do when you become enlightened?"

The offering of purple phosphorus is speechless.

Another time, the enshrinement was devoted to annotating the "Siyi Brahma Questions Sutra".

Zen Master Huizhong taught: "Those who comment on the classics must be able to understand the Buddha's mind and know various Buddhist principles; but this is not enough. At the same time, they must understand the lives of the public, otherwise they will not be competent."

Ziphos thought that the Zen master was criticizing himself, and replied displeasedly: "You are right! That's what I do, otherwise I wouldn't write."

After hearing this, Zen Master Huizhong didn't speak, but asked the waiter to bring a bowl of clear water, put seven grains of rice in the water, and put a pair of chopsticks on the bowl.Ask the purple phosphorus offering: "Then tell me what this means?"

Ziphos shook his head in confusion.

Only then did Zen Master Huizhong teach bluntly: "You don't even understand what I mean, so how can you say you have understood the Buddha's heart?"

■Sentiment——

The Sixth Patriarch said: "Buddhism is in the world, you can't leave the world to realize it, and seeking Bodhi when you leave the world is like looking for the horns of a rabbit."

Zen Master Huizhong's water, rice, bowls and chopsticks mean that the Dharma is inseparable from life, and the Dharma that is separated from life is useless.

Purple Phosphorus is far away from life and annotated Buddhist scriptures, which is actually far away from the Buddha's heart.It is always a sin to give up living in the present moment, even for the pursuit of knowledge or truth.

Life injects vigor and vitality into the truth, and the truth that abandons life is pale and powerless.To practice, to see the nature of the mind, and understand the truth.The same is true for reading.

Wash the dishes after porridge
What is Tao?Tao is something that works all the time in daily life.Zhaozhou has performed quite well in this respect.A monk asked: "Students are new to the jungle, please ask the teacher for guidance."

Zhaozhou asked lightly, "Have you eaten the porridge?"

The monk replied: "I have eaten."

The Zen master went on to say, "Go and wash the bowl."

The monk suddenly understood.

■Sentiment——

In the Zen method, everyone is a Buddha with supernatural powers, as long as he is at ease everywhere, he is the way.

That is, the mind is the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha, the confusion is the sentient beings, the liberation of the sentient beings is the Buddha, and the real life is the wonderful use of the Buddha.Wanting to become a Buddha and a patriarch all day long is the karma that hinders the Buddha, and being obsessed with external appearances can only lead you farther and farther away from the Buddha and the Tao.

not sick body
Before Dongshan died, a monk asked him, "When Master was sick, did he still have a healthy body?"

Dongshan replied, "Yes."

The other party asked again: "With a healthy body, can you see Master?"

Dong Shan replied, "I was looking at him."

The other party asked again: "I don't know what Master thinks of him?"

Dongshan replied, "When I look at it, I can't see any disease."

■Sentiment——

(End of this chapter)