The Spring of Awakened Life

Q: How should one act so as to see the light? A: Directly use the manas to contemplate and observe.

A: The steps are too high; find a footstool to step on.

Q: Seeing without discriminating, hearing without discriminating, doing without discriminating. Neither welcoming nor rejecting, neither inside nor outside. Can one thereby see the light? A: Stones and wood do not discriminate either—what is the difference between you and them? Q: What if there is discrimination but it is not dwelt upon in the mind—using it and immediately leaving it—would that work? A: No. Deluded in its use, deluded in its leaving—what benefit is there in that? Q: I remember the Master once said: as soon as the manas directs attention, it stops; as soon as it contacts, it stops—no "feeling," and still less "perception" or "volition." Would that work? A: That is cultivating meditative concentration (samādhi); it is not ultimate.

Q: If one knows that all dharmas are false and illusory, does one see the true reality of signlessness? A: Arhats also see that all dharmas are false and illusory—have they seen true reality? A: They do not know it; Mahāyāna practitioners know it. Q: What use is knowing? A: When I see the myriad dharmas as shadows and illusions, I thereby see the projector. Q: Does one see the projector first, or the shadows first? A: One first sees the shadows as illusory, and simultaneously knows it is the projector's function. Q: If one has not seen the projector, how can one know it is the projector's function? By guessing? A: The myriad dharmas are like bubbles; seeing the bubbles, one sees the great ocean. Q: Since beginningless kalpas, sentient beings see bubbles every day—who has seen the great ocean? A: Sentient beings' minds and eyes are not yet opened; they do not know to investigate, and they put the root and branches in reverse order. Hence they only see the shadows, not knowing that the shadows are the effect of light. Take it up right now—all are Tathāgatas; the entire wave is just water. A: It is truly not easy, but may we press forward courageously!

A: I do not stand outside the waves to look at the water. Q: What is there outside the waves? The waves are just water—who still sees waves? A: Outside the waves there is no dharma. Sentient beings only see the waves, not knowing it is water. Buddhists see the waves and also do not know it is water, yet they go off to imagine a separate "water." A: Birth and death have always been in the water, yet it is unknown—only because it is too familiar, too intimate. Q: Zhuangzi said: fish forget each other in the water; people forget each other in the Dao. Would that work? A: It would. But even so, birth and death are not thereby resolved. Q: "If the mad mind does not cease"—if it ceases, is that enough? A: Without finding the original source, how can the madness cease? A: Through birth after birth and death after death, I have never come; the tide rises and falls, but the seawater neither arises nor ceases.

Q: Birth and death are illusory dharmas—sentient beings constantly abide in nirvāṇa yet do not know it? A: Indeed. Q: I, within the purity of nirvāṇa, watch my own birth and death, watching the changes of sentient beings' births and deaths. A: Within nirvāṇa, everything should be nirvāṇa—why would there be seeing, and birth and death? A: Within nirvāṇa there is no seeing—the bodhimaṇḍa of quiescent extinction. Q: Can one see birth and death without being deluded by birth and death? A: To have seeing is already delusion; to establish knowing upon knowing is the root of ignorance.