The Contest between Su Dongpo and the Chan Master Liaoyuan Foyin

During the Song dynasty, Su Dongpo and Chan Master Liaoyuan Foyin were good friends, and the two often discussed the Dharma together. One day, Chan Master Foyin said, "How about we have a contest to compare our understanding of the Buddha-dharma? Whoever loses will pay a penalty." Su Dongpo agreed. The Chan master spoke first: "In my eyes, you look like a Buddha." Su Dongpo replied: "In my eyes, you look like a pile of dung." Thereupon Chan Master Foyin said, "You have lost; the penalty is the jade belt at your waist," and so he untied the jade belt from Su Dongpo's body and kept it for himself. Everyone, please judge: why did Su Dongpo lose?

Chan Master Foyin, having attained realization, could perceive the existence and functioning of his own tathāgatagarbha, and could also know the tathāgatagarbha within the bodies of sentient beings. He saw that all sentient beings have the tathāgatagarbha manifesting, and that in the future they can become Buddhas by means of this tathāgatagarbha; therefore he saw all sentient beings as Buddhas. Su Dongpo, however, because he had not attained realization and did not understand the tathāgatagarbha and Buddha-nature within himself and within sentient beings, became attached to marks; looking at sentient beings, he could only see their external false appearances, seeing Chan Master Foyin's outward appearance as a dung bucket. This shows that Su Dongpo's own mind was not tranquil, and he did not see the true reality of all dharmas.

Chan Master Foyin had wisdom; he transformed the other's appearance into a Buddha's appearance. When the mind can transform into a Buddha, one can become a Buddha, drawing near to the Buddha, dwelling close to the Buddha, and thus becoming a Buddha quickly. Su Dongpo was a great literary figure of his generation, skilled with brush and ink, with excellent writing and eloquence; unfortunately, he had many Chan clichés but little actual practice, and in that life he did not attain realization. In the Ming dynasty, he was reborn as a famous Chan master, again with excellent writing, full of poetic charm, and he wrote many works on the Buddha-dharma. He is said to have attained enlightenment, but in reality it is not clear; still, his wisdom was not very high. The reason is that the habits from his previous life as a literary figure carried over into later lives, and his actual practice was still not deep and thorough enough.

Su Dongpo's manas grasped at the Chan master's appearance as a bad appearance, and his mind consciousness discriminated it as a bad appearance; thus both Su Dongpo's manas and mind consciousness were defiled, and the seeds of these two minds delivered by the eighth consciousness were defiled. This shows that Su Dongpo had not cultivated these two consciousness-minds well; the consciousness-minds had not transformed, and his inner mind remained filthy. The more the manas grasps at the faults of others, the more it becomes defiled—defiling one's own mind for no reason at all. Why bring this upon oneself? After being contaminated, the defiled seeds are stored in the eighth consciousness, and in the future the consciousness-seeds delivered by the eighth consciousness will all be defiled and impure—then when will purity ever be restored? Having defiled oneself, one must clean it up oneself, which is both troublesome and full of suffering. One must never keep grasping at the faults of others; instead, look at others' good qualities, and then the appearances within the mind will all be good appearances. The own mind will be influenced by these good appearances, the mind can then become good, and what is stored in the eighth consciousness will all be good seeds, wholesome seeds; the consciousness-mind will then be wholesome. Cultivating in this way is good—the more wholesome one is, the closer one is to the Buddha.