What is it that keeps no companion among the myriad dharmas?

The layman Pang Yun asked the Chan master Mazu Daoyi: "Who is the one who keeps company with no dharma?" The master said: "When you can swallow all the water of the West River in one gulp, then I will tell you." Upon hearing this, the layman Pang Yun awakened. What did he awaken to? He awakened to this "thing" that keeps company with no dharma—yet is not a thing. What kind of thing is it? Why does it keep company with no dharma?

What the layman Pang Yun awakened to was the self-natured pure mind. This mind keeps company with no dharma, because the tathāgatagarbha has no form, so it keeps no company with form; it has no sound, so it keeps no company with sound; it has no odor, so it keeps no company with odor; it has no taste, so it keeps no company with taste; it has no touch, so it keeps no company with tangible objects; it has no dharmas, so it keeps no company with mental objects. The tathāgatagarbha has no six faculties, so it keeps no company with the six faculties; it has no six consciousnesses, so it keeps no company with the six consciousnesses. The tathāgatagarbha has no Four Noble Truths, so it keeps no company with the dharma of the Four Noble Truths; it has no bodhisattva's six pāramitās, so it keeps no company with the six pāramitās; the tathāgatagarbha has no twelve links of dependent origination, so it keeps no company with the dharma of the twelve links of dependent origination; the tathāgatagarbha has no worldly dharmas, so it keeps no company with any worldly dharma. When the world all ceases, He does not cease; therefore the tathāgatagarbha is precisely the mind that keeps company with no dharma whatsoever.

Moreover, because He does not mix together with the myriad dharmas—this is what the Āgama sūtras call "not being contained within"—the five aggregates and eighteen realms are not within the tathāgatagarbha, and the tathāgatagarbha is not within the five aggregates and eighteen realms. The two are not of the same kind, do not mix together, are not one thing, not the same thing; therefore they cannot be mixed. When the five aggregates perish, the tathāgatagarbha does not perish; He can exist independently by Himself, existing without depending on any dharma—thus He keeps company with no dharma.

Chan master Mazu instructed the layman Pang Yun: "When you swallow all the water of the West River in one gulp, then I will tell you." In fact, he had already spoken it out; it is just that it cannot be known through the conscious thinking, imagination, and inference of ordinary people. Pang Yun was also a sharp-witted fellow; at that moment he knew that He would manifest and reveal Himself—his wisdom was extraordinary. It is not like what we people nowadays think: that since one simply cannot drink the water of the West River, let alone drink it dry, one lets go of it—and letting go is enlightenment. Or one thinks that the water of the West River is also manifested by my own mind and is therefore emptiness, and that understanding this principle is enlightenment. To understand it this way is mistaken; one cannot awaken to the tathāgatagarbha mind-substance, much less know how the tathāgatagarbha produces the five aggregates and the myriad dharmas.

Now, we also drink water every day, yet we all treat it as an ordinary matter and let it slip past, never knowing that there is a mystery here—this is what is called "used daily yet unknown." Chan master Zhaozhou used to tell those who came to visit him: "Go have some tea." The words of great Chan masters always carry a special intent, a deliberate purpose. Alas, ordinary people do not understand their meaning and drink tea once after another in vain, gaining nothing in the end. We should, while drinking tea, ask ourselves: who is drinking the tea? What is the principle behind drinking tea? If we do this, sooner or later one day we will be able to awaken to the secret within.