Essays in Zen Buddhism : $b First seriesSuzuki, Daisetz Teitaro
Religion
Essays in Zen Buddhism : $b First series
Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro
Zen Buddhism
“As the Dharma in essence has no desire to possess, the wise are ever
ready to practise charity with their body, life, property, and they
never begrudge, they never know what an ill grace means. As they have
a perfect understanding of the threefold nature of emptiness, they are
above partiality and attachment. Only because of their will to cleanse
all beings of their stains, they come among them as of them, but they
are not attached to the form. This is known as the inner aspect of
their life. They however know also how to benefit others, and again how
to glorify the path of enlightenment. As with the virtue of charity,
so with the other five virtues [in the Prajñāpāramitā]. That the
wise practise the six virtues of perfection is to get rid of confused
thoughts, and yet they are not conscious of their doings. This is
called ‘being in accord with the Dharma.’”
* * * * *
The doctrine of the Two Entrances is evidently taken from the
_Vajrasamādhi-sūtra_[f84]; and that of the Four Acts is an
amplification of the second form of Entrance as is expounded in the
Sutra. A comparison with the passage[4.29a] from it will make this
point clear at once:
“Said the Buddha: The two entrances are ‘Entrance by Reason’ and
‘Entrance by Conduct.’ ‘Entrance by Reason’ means to have a deep faith
in that all sentient beings are identical in essence with the true
nature which is neither unity nor multiplicity; only it is beclouded
by external objects. The nature in itself neither departs nor comes.
When a man in singleness of thought abides in _chüeh-kuan_ 覺觀, he will
clearly see into the Buddha-nature, of which we cannot say whether
it exists or exists not, and in which there is neither selfhood nor
otherness. He will also find that the nature is the same both in
the masses and in the worthies. He thus firmly holds the ground of
the diamond-heart and never moves away therefrom; he is serene and
not-doing, and free from conceptual discrimination. This is called
‘Entrance by Reason.’
“‘Entrance by Conduct’ means not to be unsteady and reclining in mind
and not to be in its shadows changing like a stream. Wherever you
are, let your thought be serene and not to be seeking after anything.
Let it be like unto the great earth unmoved even in a raging storm.
Giving up all thoughts of egoism in your heart, save all beings and
let them cross over to the other shore. There are no births, no signs,
no clinging, no abandoning; in the mind of a Bodhisattva, there is no
going-out, no coming-in. When this mind which neither goes out nor
comes in enters into that which is never entered into, it is called
entering. This is the way the Bodhisattva enters into the Dharma. The
Dharma is not empty in form, and the Dharma of non-emptiness
is not to be put aside as non-entity. Why? The Dharma that is not
non-entity is filled with virtues. It is neither mind nor shadows, it
is pure in its suchness.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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