Opening the Buddha's Knowledge and Vision, a Dharma Talk by Teacher Hong Wenliang
Chan teaching · Malacca · May 2005
Opening the Buddha’s Knowledge and Vision
A Dharma Talk by Teacher Hong Wenliang during a Chan Retreat in Malacca, May 2005
Shítóu Xīqiān made a statement that many people doubt and disagree with. He said:
“Practice is not a matter of meditative concentration; it is only a matter of opening the Buddha’s knowledge and vision.”
— Shítóu Xīqiān
I do not discuss diligence or meditative concentration. I do not talk about all that—how you must have meditative concentration, how you must be diligent. I do not talk about such nonsense. All you need is to open your Buddha’s knowledge and vision.
What is the Buddha’s knowledge and vision? It is that Buddha’s knowledge and vision we so often see: the Buddha’s knowledge and vision. The zhī is the zhī in “to know”; the jiàn is the jiàn in “opinion”: the Buddha’s knowledge and vision. Shítóu says that this must be opened. As for all those other matters—how to sit in meditation, how to apply effort, how to be diligent—I do not discuss them. I only look at whether you have opened the Buddha’s knowledge and vision.
So let me ask all of you: what do you think he means by the Buddha’s knowledge and vision? If you see this statement by Shítóu Xīqiān—he says, “Open the Buddha’s knowledge and vision”—what do you think he is referring to? The Buddha’s opinions? The Buddha’s thoughts? Perhaps the Buddha’s understanding and right view of this universe and life? The Buddha’s correct perspective and opinion—is that what it means? If so, then the Buddha would be just like us! He too would have views about human life, the mysteries of life, and the mysteries of the universe. His views would be like ours. It is only that he is more brilliant. He is a Buddha, after all! Would he still have “knowledge and vision”?
When Shítóu speaks of opening the Buddha’s knowledge and vision, he does not mean that you must have correct views just like the Buddha. That is not it. Let me explain this to all of you: the Buddha’s knowledge and vision is a fact. It is not that the Buddha possesses some brilliant view. No. What he calls the Buddha’s knowledge and vision is a true fact that can be seen everywhere.
What kind of fact? Did all of you down there hear me speak? I say “Āmítuófó,” and over there with you, “Āmítuófó” functions just like that. I say “Ah” here—is there an “Ah” over there with you? Yes! So, this “Ah” sound that you hear. Let me ask you: where did you manufacture this sound? Is there some place, some factory? Is the ear the factory? Then the brain is unnecessary? The air is unnecessary? My lips are unnecessary? Which one, ultimately, is the factory? I am asking about the “Ah” that you hear.
These things may seem boring, but what is very important lies right here. Ordinarily we do not regard this as a problem. Śākyamuni Buddha was the first to take what we ordinarily do not consider a problem and say, “Eh? This is a problem!” From birth we see and hear; we smell odors and taste saltiness or spiciness. Or the body makes contact and there is comfort or pain, and we take this to be natural. There is nothing to discuss, is there? Where is the problem? I look up at the stars in the sky; I look up and see them—seeing them is just seeing them. The wind blows over and I feel cool and refreshed—that is all. No one has ever thought much about this question—about this matter, about this fact. People do not take it as a problem; he was the first to take it as a problem. Then he worked on this. It became his ready-made kōan. He often paid attention to this. Only later did he discover where we are deluded and where the fundamental cause of that delusion lies. That is how he went about it. So what is the Buddha’s knowledge and vision? It is not that the Buddha has opinions or views. That is not it.
The Buddha’s knowledge and vision means this: I say “Ah” here, and there is an “Ah” over there with each of you. No factory for this “Ah” can be found. If there is no factory, are there workers? Is there a boss? Is there machinery that manufactures your “Ah”? You would have to manufacture an “Ah” before you could hear an “Ah,” wouldn’t you? Could this “Ah” be manufactured by our lips? Then block your ears and remove the auditory nerves—is there still an “Ah”? Your ears participate in the manufacture of this “Ah,” but they are not solely responsible for it. Right? Start from here.
The factory cannot be found. If there is no factory, there are no workers; the manufacturing machinery cannot be found, and the boss is unknown. What about capital? None—no capital is needed either. Once the “Ah” has been manufactured and has passed, this thing has to be discarded. The sound you just manufactured—now that I have spoken it—you need to hear something else. If it were left there, it would overlap and become mixed up. It vanishes in an instant. Where did you throw it? The source of production, the factory, the capital, the workers, the technology, the boss—none can be found. When it is not in use, when it has passed, you do not have to do anything to it. It clears away and is gone. Where did you throw it? Where did you throw that sound? You do not know. Where did it disappear to? Unknown.
What do we call this fact? We have always assumed: “You say ‘Ah’ over there, and ‘I’ hear it.” That is an assumption we take to be right; it does not accord with the facts. The Buddha discovered this. This is not the fact. For if “I” were the one hearing it, then “I” would have to manufacture this sound before “I” could hear it. Just because your lips move like this—two flaps of skin moving—does not necessarily mean that a sound will resound here on my side. So who manufactured the sound? No one can be found. It was not manufactured by me, by you, by empty space, by a god, or by a Buddha—and yet there it is. This is what is called: no factory can be found, no capital can be found, no engineers can be found, no workers can be found. Bang!—out of nowhere, there it is. When the conditions are there, it is there; its source is unknown. This is called “coming from nowhere”—what the Buddhist scriptures call “coming from nowhere.” When it is gone, when it disappears, you do not need to find a garbage dump for it; it clears itself away. It goes nowhere and arrives nowhere. Coming, it comes from nowhere; going, nowhere does it arrive. Where was it thrown away? Where is the garbage dump? How was it cremated? What medicine was used to remove it? None of that is needed. It is gone. This is sound.
So when I say “Ah,” an “Ah” appears over there with each of you, right? What is really, actually the case at that moment is not that each of you has a “you” there hearing a sound I emitted from here, each of you hearing this sound at your place. That is not how it is. Then how is it? Since no place can be found where this sound was manufactured... In fact, we have fooled ourselves. Why have we fooled ourselves? We have always assumed that in hearing, seeing, thinking, and feeling there is an “I”: an “I” who hears, an “I” who sees, an “I” who feels, an “I” who thinks, an “I” who makes decisions. There is always that “I”—this deluded notion from beginningless time.
They give an example: noodles are put into a pot of oil. When they are lifted out, the oil has soaked right through them. How are you going to remove it? You cannot, can you? It is very difficult to get the oil out of the noodles. Our thought of “I”—that delusion, that mistaken idea—is just like this. It is very difficult to remove. Apart from the method of “just sitting” that Śākyamuni Buddha taught us, there is almost no way to remove it. It looks like such a simple matter—removing the oil from the oily noodles. It is not easy to remove.
Because of this deluded thought of “I,” we believe there is an “I” who hears, an “I” who sees, an “I” who feels, an “I” who thinks, and, more seriously still, an “I” who decides. “Do I want to come to this Chan retreat? Yes.” So I came. People who have studied well all think it was “I” who decided. If there is no-self, yet that decision is still made by you, then there is no need to talk about the Buddhadharma. It was not you who decided! But it was not I who decided, nor you, nor my mother, nor my child. Clearly it was I who decided, wasn’t it? That is exactly how it is. This delusion is very difficult to remove.
So, back to the sound just mentioned. I say “Ah” here and there is an “Ah” over there with you. It is not you hearing, not your ears hearing, and not your brain hearing, because the place where this sound arises—the factory—cannot be found. Then how do you hear it? Here is the question: how do you hear it? The source of the sound is unknown, no one does anything to it, and yet there it is! Clearly there is the sound “Ah”—it is there! Sometimes Chan patriarchs put it simply: “nonexistent yet present”—that is how simply they put it. Yet it is there: where did it come from? Who made it? There is no one; no one can be found: “present yet nonexistent.” Everything is like this.
How can this be put better? “Present yet nonexistent; nonexistent yet present” also means this: when you hear, they use a very good expression: “hear with the whole body.” When you see: “see with the whole body.” What does “whole” mean? The whole body, the whole mind, the whole body-mind—the whole thing. Not only your ears: your hair, your skin, your pores, your toenails, the intestines, stomach, lungs, and heart inside your belly—all of it. In whole-body hearing, all of it is hearing itself. This does not mean that your skin, teeth, eyes, ears, hair, and pores all together hear the “Ah.” No! The whole thing becomes “Ah.” This is called “hearing with the whole body.” We do not know it.
So how does hearing happen? We call it happening “in the dark,” without our knowing. How hearing really happens, why there really is this sound—even a Buddha does not know. A Buddha does not know either. Yet when I say “Ah,” immediately there is “Ah” over there. So this is called hearing with the whole body.
You raise your head and look at this flower. At the moment of seeing, it is seeing with the whole body. It is not the eyes seeing, or the brain seeing—none of that. It is not the optic nerve seeing either—none of that. Your whole body-mind, the four great elements and the five aggregates, all become this flower. You say, “That is strange. The four great elements and five aggregates are here. I’m not a flower here! My skin, my hair, my heart—then how did this become a flower? The flower is over there. I did not become a flower.” That is because you have fixed the body-mind of the four great elements and five aggregates in place, taking it to be a fixed thing with self-nature, and you cannot let go of it. The four great elements and five aggregates are like clouds, like illusions; in that very moment, the whole of them becomes the flower. You separate the flower from the four great elements and five aggregates, and so you say, “I did not become the flower.” Here you have been deceived by form-obstruction. Do you know? Form-obstruction—there is an obstruction, and you think, “This is still my hand. How could it become a flower? Don’t talk nonsense!”
Let me tell you: as for the existence of this physical body, when you touch it, there is this obstruction. This thing belongs to the realm of deluded thought. The true you is the Dharmakāya! The true you is that thing—Dharmakāya and Dharma-nature—functioning. So that thing merges with the flower before you, or with an “Ah” sound before you. Whether it is the sound “Ah” or the appearance—the visible form—of a flower, that is what this thing merges with, like water poured into water. Your Dharmakāya and Dharma-nature, and the external forms, sounds, odors, tastes, tangible objects, and mental phenomena: the external forms, sounds, odors, tastes, tangible objects, and mental phenomena too are Dharma-nature, are Dharmakāya—water. The four great elements and five aggregates here on your side are also the same; their true original face is Dharmakāya, Dharma-nature. Both are Dharmakāya. So water and water connect very easily! It is not a matter of connecting; they are one thing to begin with.
That is why, as soon as there is seeing, an appearance is present. This is because of your four great elements and five aggregates: your four elements—earth, water, fire, and wind—are the same as my four elements: earth, water, fire, and wind. Their self-nature is emptiness; all are equally Dharma-nature. So upon encounter, it is like pouring water into a bucket of water: an appearance immediately appears. Are you still going to ask where it was manufactured? If you say that your body is your body, while the sound opposite you—the sound coming from over there—is “Ah,” and “Ah” is “Ah,” and my body has not become “Ah,” then your delusion of taking this obstructed thing to be yourself remains so firmly fixed. You cling desperately to this body-mind—to this form-obstruction that I myself feel—and because you take it to be yourself, you say, “I have not changed! How could I be hearing with the whole body? Sound is sound, and I am I.” You fall into that. You do not understand your true Dharma-nature body. Is this clear?
Once this is clear, you will understand the opening of the Buddha’s knowledge and vision that Shítóu Xīqiān spoke of. The Buddha’s knowledge and vision is just this: whatever you encounter, you become what you encounter. When you encounter a red flower, your Dharma-nature, the true you, is wholly the flower. When you hear “Ah,” your entire Dharmakāya—the existence of the true you, the Dharmakāya—is the same thing as that “Ah.” The Dharma-nature body of the sound “Ah” and the Dharma-nature body on my side that can hear are the same thing, and so “Ah” immediately appears. Do not search for a factory; do not investigate who manufactured it.
No one takes this very simple, very direct fact as a problem. Because we are born able to hear and see, it seems natural, inevitable. This “inevitability” has harmed us, because we already carry a deluded notion: life after life we are reborn, and life after life there is an “I”—“I” am in saṃsāra. That “I” has never been let go of. So we roll around in saṃsāra, building walls and running about inside them. So, as for this body-mind obstructed by physical form, its true Dharma-nature and the existence of its true Dharmakāya must not be forgotten. The existence of Dharmakāya and Dharma-nature pervades the whole universe. It is a function that reaches everywhere, liberated and at ease—very free and at ease.
Because of how it functions, when I encounter you, your appearance immediately appears; when you encounter me, my appearance immediately appears. Your Dharma-nature body and my Dharma-nature body are one thing. So fundamentally there is no need to manufacture. It is not “you” who sees; it is not “you” who hears my voice. Have you understood this? This is called the original fact: whatever you encounter, you become that. When the object is large, immediately there is “large”; it immediately appears. You become large. It is not that you see something large; you become large. That “you” is the you of Dharma-nature, not the you of form-obstruction. Can you understand? It is the you of Dharma-nature, so when you encounter something small—ah, very small—you become small. When you hear a loud sound, you become that loud sound. When you hear a quiet sound, you become that quiet sound. It is the Dharma-nature you that becomes that; it is not this obstructed thing of yours that changes into it. Okay?
So it is inevitable. Our interaction with what we encounter—the mutual functioning, the reciprocal functioning—no one can escape it. This is not something the Buddha gave you. We call this mutual functioning inevitable; not one person can escape it. When you encounter a wall, you are the wall. When you smell that fragrance, even if you do not want to smell it, the fragrance is there. Why? As for your Dharma-nature body, that fragrance is your Dharma-nature body becoming that fragrance. It is not the nose smelling the fragrance. This is where we are mistaken. Okay? Can you understand? This is very, very, very important.
In the Cāntóngqì, Shítóu Xīqiān simply wants us to open the Buddha’s knowledge and vision. The Buddha’s knowledge and vision is our fact: our mutual functioning and mutual activity with whatever we encounter. When this interaction occurs, it is inevitable; no one can avoid it, because everyone is an existence of Dharma-nature and Dharmakāya. True existence is the Dharma-nature body, the Dharmakāya Buddha. Our existence is so great and sublime. You take these bones, this skin, these things to be “I”; you are underestimating yourself. Originally it is a great existence, an existence of Dharma-nature, such a boundless, immeasurable, unobstructed existence. You shrink it down to only this—to this small, concrete, obstructed piece of body and mind. You diminish yourself until you are so small. How pitiful! Drunk, you have forgotten yourself.
Once this is clear, you know that the Buddha’s knowledge and vision refers to this fact. This fact is called the Buddha’s knowledge and vision. So Shítóu Xīqiān is saying, “Ah, just open it. Opening it is enough.” You are originally this fact. This is truly how you are: it is the Dharma-nature body that is functioning; it is the Dharmakāya Buddha that is functioning. Every one of you is the Dharmakāya Buddha functioning in that way, interacting with what is encountered. What is encountered is also the Dharmakāya Buddha. So when I attained the Way, I, together with the great earth and sentient beings, simultaneously attained the Way—that is what this means.
If you separate it out, then of course a tree is a tree, a dog is a dog, and the people present at that time were the people of that time. Then why, when Śākyamuni Buddha attained Buddhahood more than 2,500 years ago, would he and all of them have become Buddhas together? Wouldn’t we today then have to be descendants of Buddhas? That makes no sense. So some monks on the internet say that this was probably remembered incorrectly, or that somebody thought the Buddha was so great, added an extra line of praise, and got the praise wrong. In fact, such a person does not understand. He does not understand this matter of the Buddha’s knowledge and vision that was just discussed.
If the Buddha’s knowledge and vision is misunderstood, no matter how you study, you will never make sense of the Buddhadharma. It is all based on this “I”: I see, I think, “Is your reasoning right or not?” You see? This is called our being in the rut of thought: inside that rut, we look for the Buddhadharma, think about the Buddhadharma, and try to work out the Buddhadharma. If the Buddha’s knowledge and vision has not been opened, then it is different: no matter how you think or how you look at it, it is not what the Buddha taught.
That is what he is explaining in this first section. Since I have been talking about Shítóu Xīqiān: he says he does not discuss meditative concentration. Sitting meditation and meditative concentration are very important, aren’t they? Quieting down, opening the Buddha’s wisdom, and so on. He says, “I do not discuss that; I do not place much emphasis on it. But I want every one of you—since you have studied with me and are reading the text I left behind, especially the Cāntóngqì—to understand where my true intent lies, where the meaning beyond the words lies. I want all of you to open your Buddha’s knowledge and vision.”
The Buddha’s knowledge and vision is your fact, your true fact. It does not mean using your intellect and saying, “My views are now the same as the Buddha’s views. I have opened the Buddha’s knowledge and vision.” That is not what it means. You understand that when you interact with what you encounter, it is because your true existence is Dharma-nature, the Dharmakāya Buddha. That is your genuine, real, true human body. Therefore, as soon as you encounter an appearance, there is an appearance; when you encounter a sound, the sound is you; when you encounter an appearance, the appearance is you.
If you say, “You are you, and I am still I,” then could it be that when I encounter you, you become me? You are being deceived by this obstruction. You cling desperately to this thing as “I.” So if the mark of self has not been removed, you cannot understand the Buddhadharma. Yet sometimes people say, “I no longer have the mark of self.” “I” no longer have the “mark of self”—what does that mean? I cannot understand it! “I no longer have the mark of self. I have now practiced to the point where there is no mark of self...” Who is it that has no mark of self? Because he has not opened the Buddha’s knowledge and vision, he is still muddled there.
“I practice very well. Strange—this problem is still here.”
“Hmph, you still have this problem?”
“Yes!”
Then there is nothing I can do. I nod: “All right, forget it, forget it. Your Shítóu road is slippery—you cannot understand this.”
Is everyone clear about this point? Then there is no need to discuss the Cāntóngqì any further.
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