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Gateless Gate (Mumonkan, Wumenguan) #30
Dogen's 300 #278
Mind is Buddha
Gateless Gate (Mumonkan, Wumenguan) #30
Dogen's 300 #278
Mind is Buddha
- MAZU Daoyi (Baso Doitsu, 709-788, 8th gen), disciple of Nanyue.
- DAMEI Fachang (Daibai Hojo, 752-839, 9th gen), disciple of Mazu. Possibe Date: 782 (first meeting of Damei and Mazu; Damei in "middle-life" [age 30 -- leaving Mazu 6 years from death])
Damei asked Mazu in all earnestness, "What is the Buddha?"Wumen's Comment
Mazu answered, "Mind is Buddha."
If you grasp it on the spot, you wear Buddha's clothes, eat Buddha's food, speak Buddha's words, do Buddha's deeds; you are Buddha himself. Though this may be so, Damei has, alas, misled not a few people into mistaking the mark on the balance for the weight itself. How can he realize that even the mere mention of the word “Buddha” should make a man rinse his mouth for three days? If one is such a man, when he hears someone say, “Mind is Buddha,” he will cover his ears and run away.Wumen's Verse
The blue sky, the broad daylight – .Background: From the Avatamsaka (Flower Garland) Sutra, ca. 3rd-century CE
It is most detestable to hunt around;
If, furthermore, you ask, “What is Buddha?”
It is like shouting your innocence while holding the loot.
As mind is, so is the Buddha;Mazu also said...
As the Buddha is, so are living beings.
One should know that the Buddha's and mind's
Essential nature is boundless.
"If you wish to know your mind, this very one that is talking now is your mind. This is what is called the Buddha, and is the true dharmakaya of the Buddha, and is also called the Way."A Sequel
When Damei heard Mazu's response to his fundamental question, circumstances came together for him and he saw the Way. He settled in a litte hut in the forest some distance from Mazu's temple to polish his wisdom and compassion. One day he was discovered. A monk hiking in the forest came across a priest doing zazen in a little hut. He told his teacher Mazu about this.Aitken's Comment
Mazu said, "Ah, that must be Damei." He sent the monk back for a dialog with him.
"Where do you come from?" asked Damei.
"From Mazu," replied the monk.
"What is Mazu saying these days?" asked Damei.
"Not mind, not Buddha," replied the monk.
"Great Master Ma is confusing people," said Damei. "I still say this very mind is Buddha." The monk reported back to Mazu.
"The Great Plum [da-mei] is ripening," commented Mazu.
When Mazu pointed out the ox of this very mind to Damei, he was passing along the lesson he had learned from his old teacher Nanyue. “I wish to become a Buddha,” the young Mazu had said. “You are not giving yourself to your own Buddha,” his teacher had replied. “What is Buddha?” Damei asked. “This very mind is Buddha,” Mazu replied in turn. This is the hot coal that burns in the hearts of true Zen students to the present day.Dogen's Comment (Cleary)
I sometimes ask a student, “How about this very mind that tells you to take up a pistol and shoot somebody? Is that the Buddha?” Buji Zen people might say, “Yes, of course.” They wander in the limbo of pernicious oneness, where there is no purpose, no meaning, and certainly no Dharma Wheel. The Buddha which is this very mind and body is completely disregarded.
When they hear tell of 'mind itself,' what the ignorant suppose it means is that ordinary people's thinking awareness without awakened aspiration for enlightenment is itself Buddha. This is a consequence of never having met an enlightened teacher.Cleary's Comment
There is little to be said about this koan. A typical misunderstanding is to construe "the very mind itself" to refer to the ordinary subjective mentality with its conditioned thought habits. Zen makes a distinction between the false mind and the true mind. The main difficulty, from this point of view, is to give up seeking for a theoretically imagined enlightenment in order to experience the mind in its natural purity by direct intuitive insight and spontaneous understanding.Guo Gu's Comment
When Mazu said that this mind is buddha, he did not mean the buddha on the altar or the buddha that practitioners try to become. He also was not referring to your mind of vexations. What did he mean then? Is mind buddha?Low's Comment
Upon hearing “Mind is buddha,” Damei was awakened. However, it would be a mistake to take “mind is buddha” as some kind of ultimate truth, as a standard against which to validate your own original face. Awakening is neither knowledge nor an experience. Once you have tasted it, you find that it is actually the most normal, down-to-earth way that things are. It’s nothing special. Actually, you bask in it all the time. It is just your deluded thinking that blocks you. Is it really true that mind is buddha? You will have to find out for yourself. If you just take Mazu’s word for it, that’s just regurgitating someone else’s words, like throwing up someone else’s vomit. Digesting buddhadharma to make it your own is what practice is about. You have to make it your own. Otherwise, whatever you say will be meaningless.
What is this very mind? To call it Buddha is to poison it. To call Buddha this very mind is to confuse. It was Zhaozhou who originally said, "When I speak the word Buddha I want to wash my mouth out for three days afterwards." That is how it has become with words such as love, religion, and holiness: they leave a rancid taste in the mouth.Senzaki's Comment
"What is Buddha?" This is the first and last question in Buddhism. Mazu's response best translates as "The actual mind is the actual Buddha."Mahasattva Fu's Verse (Shibayama)
If you realize the origin, you will attain mind.Huangbo's Comment (Shibayama)
If you attain mind, you will see Buddha.
Mind is Buddha; Buddha is mind.
You truth-seeker, look into your own mind.
If you realize that Buddha is in yourself,
you will not seek after him outwardly.
Mind is Buddha; Buddha is mind.
If your mind is clear, you will realize Buddha.
A monk asked, "From earliest times they all say, 'Mind is Buddha'; I wonder which mind could be Buddha?"Shibayama's Comment
Huangbo answered, "How many minds do you have? If a thought of consciousness arises, you are at once in the wrong. From time immemorial until today, 'Mind is Budddha' has never been changed. There is no other Dharma. It is therefore called the attainment of true satori."
Zen is a teaching which contends that "Mind is Buddha," and training in Zen aims to make it possible to be personally awakened to this fact.Yamada's Comment
Shakyamuni Buddha's great enlightenment was simply the realization that, "The whole universe is one and empty." The truth realized by all the past, present, and future Buddhas is identical to Shakyamuni's realization. In empty oneness there is no duality; it transcends all dualistic opposition. Just one at every point of time and space. This oneness is sometimes called "Mu," sometimes "the sound of one hand," sometimes "one's primal face before one's parents were born," or "the subtle Dharma," "the subtle mind of nirvana," "mind, "one mind," "Buddha," or "our essential nature," and so forth. All these names, however, are only symbols or labels for this empty oneness. Enlightenment is nothing other than grasping this oneness by living experience. Everything you see and hear and touch and feel and think is nothing but mind. Although it may move as greed, anger, or folly, or wanting to eat or love or hate, all these are no other than mind.Daido Loori's Comment Dogen's 300
The buddha mind is the basis of truth, and geteless is the dharma gate. If you seek after the dharma, you will move away from it. Outside of mind there is no buddha; outside buddha there is no mind.Daido's Interjections
Although Mazu is able to enlighten Damei with his "Mind is buddha," in the end he only succeeds in creating a nest for generations of of practitioners that persists to this day.
Putting aside the words and ideas of "mind is buddha," right now, show me the reality.
Damei Fachang asked Mazu, "What is buddha?"Daido's Verse
(This is an old question that has been batted around monasteries for centuries; still, it deserves an answer.)
Mazu said, "Mind is buddha."
(Although it is true, it is a pity to have said so.)
The truth fills the universe --Hotetsu's Verse
nothing is hidden.
Yet if you are not intimate with it, when it's revealed,
you'll think about it for the rest of your life.
Endless play everywhere. No inside, no outside.
The ten thousand things cross the ten thousand synapses,
Merge into a single axon, which passes itself into
The dendrites of ten thousand other cells.
This is not just a nervous system.
It is mountains, rivers, the great wide earth.
No outside, no inside. Endless play everywhere.
Illustration by Mark Morse, http://www.thegatelessgate.com/
Appendix: Alternate Translations
Case
Case
Damei asked Mazu in all earnestness, "What is the Buddha?" Mazu answered, "Mind is Buddha."
Aitken: Ta-mei asked Ma-tsu, “What is Buddha?” Ma-tsu said, “This very mind is Buddha.”
Cleary: Damei asked Mazu, "What is Buddha?" Mazu said, "The very mind itself is Buddha."
Guo Gu: When Damei asked, “What is buddha?” Mazu said, “This mind is buddha.”
Hinton: Plum-Vast asked the patriarch Sudden-Horse Way-Entire: “What is Buddha?” “This very mind is Buddha,” replied Sudden-Horse.
Low: Daibai asked Baso, “What is Buddha?” Baso answered, “This very mind is Buddha.”
Sekida: Daibai asked Baso, “What is the Buddha?” Baso answered, “This very mind is the Buddha.”
Senzaki: Daibai, a Zen monk, asked Baso, “What is Buddha?” Baso replied, “This mind is Buddha.”
Shibayama: Taibai once asked Baso, ‘“‘What is Buddha?” Baso answered, “Mind is Buddha.”
Verse
The blue sky, the broad daylight – /It is most detestable to hunt around; /If, furthermore, you ask, “What is Buddha?” /It is like shouting your innocence while holding the loot.
Aitken: The blue sky and bright day— /no more searching around. /“What is Buddha?” you ask. /Hiding loot, you declare your innocence.
Cleary: On a clear day, in the bright sunlight. /Don't go searching around; /To go on asking "what" /Is to protest your innocence while holding the loot.
Guo Gu: Stop seeking after it /Under the clear blue sky in broad daylight. /Asking how it is (that mind is buddha) /Is like holding on to stolen goods and claiming your innocence!
Hinton: Clear blue midday skies: cut clean through /to the intimate essence of this, and you’re /done searching. To ask What is like saying /you’ve been robbed while holding the loot.
Low: Broad daylight under a bright blue sky, /No more need to search. /“What is Buddha?” you ask; /Even with loot in your pocket, you say you are innocent.
Sekida: The blue sky and bright day, /No more searching around! /“What is the Buddha?” you ask: /With loot in your pocket, you declare yourself innocent.
Senzaki: Under the blue sky in the bright sunlight, /One should leave off searching. /To ask, “What is Buddha?” /Is like hiding the loot in one’s pocket and declaring oneself innocent.
Shibayama: A fine day under the blue sky! /Don’t foolishly look here and there. /If you still ask “What is Buddha?” /It is like pleading your innocence while clutching stolen goods.
Thanks for the prism!
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