English Translation (Chinese Original at the bottom):

A teaching by Zen Master Hong Wen Liang.

Explanation of the Record of Chan Master Hongzhi: “Therefore it is said, the myriad dharmas are the radiance of mind; all conditions are clarified only by their nature.” If you can distinguish that this is a visual appearance, that is a sound, and that this is thought in the intangible domain of mind, all of this is due to that “nature,” which enables you to discern clearly—merely clarification by nature, not some real entity. Thus, in such a moment, naturally you need not speak of not being entangled by conditions—how could you be entangled by conditions? Who would ensnare you? What could be ensnared? The whole of it is the total field of the dharma-realm already complete as it is—this is the meaning. This is the “truly great person of wisdom.” This alone is genuine great wisdom—“perfect and equal awakening”; this is the Buddha’s seeing and knowing.

Your six sense faculties are originally just like this; the utmost Way manifests there. This is called “thus can self-know.” It is simple: you are originally like this. As long as you do not stain it, as long as you do not add in the delusive thought “this is mine,” you will then know your own genuine functioning. That movement is not some “you” who uses; that movement—moving—is best just called “moving.” “Thus self-illumined” does not mean some self deliberately knowing itself; it is because it is your own affair. Your teacher, your lama, even the Buddha cannot know exactly how your own ears and eyes, your six faculties, move. It is you who move—not the Buddha who moves. It is not someone else’s power that knows; even when you say “I know how I am thinking,” it is that very thinking of yours moving there. Therefore it is “self-illumined.” Only you are most clear about your own true situation. So long as you do not raise delusive thoughts, do not add “these are my ears moving, my eyes moving,” then—if your madness flares up, if you split your mind—you create subject and object; once there is subject and object, emotions are stirred and become emotional dusts. Originally the six sense-objects have no fault. How could the six dusts have any sin? Is this clear to everyone here?

Walking, standing, sitting, lying—daily life—doing business, being a doctor, a lawyer, a president, a warlord, a hooligan, a great villain—all is “borrowing the road to set the feet.” If your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind were not functioning there, why would I speak of “pure and wondrous luminosity”? In everyday life, of course, when you fight with someone that too is “borrowing the road to set the feet,” and when you do many charitable deeds as well. Are you not using your six faculties? If you want to strike someone, without your eyes to see the target, how could you strike? “Spirit’s pivot, wondrously responsive”—the six faculties move. Because you have realized that the six faculties themselves are pure and wondrously luminous, it is not that there is a “me” needed in order to move. Move like this—self-forgotten, without the least bad intention of “that is mine,” cleanly shed. To move like this is “the spirit’s pivot, wondrously responsive.” As long as delusive thoughts are not added in, still you must move—how could you not move? “Whatever is encountered is true”—whatever you do is just right.

“Not even a hair’s breadth, not even a speck of dust, is something from outside.” Clap! A sound like this, or drinking water—the mind and circumstances are one. Your whole dharma-body is moving there—is this an external thing? We have always taken it to be something external; therefore you fundamentally do not know the pure, wondrous luminosity. Not knowing the wondrous luminosity, you do not know the pure field either. That field is originally pure and wondrously luminous. When you look at me, when you listen to me, it is your pure, wondrous luminosity moving there. It is not that “I go drink a cup of tea,” or “I go look at you—you are over there, I go look.” Not like this. If you experience this deeply, you will be wholly and truly “self-illumined,” “self-clarified,” “wisdom.” Thus, when you realize this, you will “not have even a hair or a speck” that is external. Now when you hear the sound of a car outside, it is not that outside there is a sound-dust; your dharma-body moves right here. Your pure, wondrous luminous field does not move; whatever horns they honk has nothing to do with you. You certainly have this—your pure, wondrous luminous field—so that sound is precisely that field moving thus. Therefore it is said that not even the least bit or the least mote is something from outside; it is the transformations revealed in your own inch-square of mind. Once this is clarified, you make no division into you, me, and others; thus it is not that you yourself are living, nor that there is some self of yours that dies. It is the whole dharma-realm. Your birth is the dharma-realm’s birth, the appearance of birth; when dying, it is the power of the dharma-realm—as when autumn arrives, it takes on the aspect of autumn. It is not that summer dies and becomes autumn—no! In accord with conditions, it appears accordingly. All of it is your own manifestation; it is not “some external thing.” There is no problem here. If you only infer by speculation, you can only think it out this far. But when you constantly are “moment by moment unconfused,” it is not that you force yourself to be unconfused; your six faculties are originally moving in an unconfused state. What clouds it is that we suddenly raise a strange thought, erecting the frame “hey, I am listening,” and the constant light is dimmed. But it is not truly dimmed; it is just that a very self-referential cloud covers it. It has not moved away; it is “pure by nature from the beginning.” The hardest thing to realize personally is precisely that not a hair or a speck is “from outside.”

“Wondrously transcending the path of words”—by language, writing, thought, you may write and think for half a day, and none of it is it. It itself has this capacity; it itself wondrously surpasses. When we hear the sound of a frog, “ah—right, right,” yet in truth the real sound of the frog we have no way to reach: “the path of language is cut off; the domain of the mind’s activity ceases.” However you think it, it is not itself; however you say it, it is not itself. “Ah, so hot!”—is that “so hot” the heat itself? Then bring forth that heat—can you present it? “Wondrously transcending the path of words”—because through language and writing, through trained thought, we can express by language and script, yes? But language, writing, and discursive mind are false, illusory signs; they are not the real heat itself. The real is hot—or, how do you say it in Hakka? “ne”? You say “ne,” I say heat is “Ah-shui.” In the end is “Ah-shui” right or is “ne” right? The genuine heat itself does not care whether you call it “ne,” “Ah-shui,” or “hot”—it does not care. Because when we say “ne,” or “hot,” or “Ah-shui,” none of that is it. They are illusory and false. The real is only that very “Ah-shui” itself—by what thought, language, or writing could you truly reproduce it? There is no way. This is what is called the real. We cannot touch it, cannot grasp it, cannot conceive it. This is “wondrously transcending the path of words.” Who wondrously transcends the path of words? Clap!—this very “wondrously transcending the path of words.”

If you are constantly in this correct, original way—“the constant light right before you, moment by moment unconfused”—then of course you know that mountains, forests, grasses, and trees are all manifesting this affair. What you see and what you hear are your own dharma-body appearing in accord with conditions; thus, before your eyes there is radiance and earth-shaking movement. “The four great elements and the six faculties, inner and outer, are illusory”—the six faculties are not any real things. What are they in themselves? Unknown. Therefore the four great elements and the six faculties are thoroughly empty and quiescent; inner and outer are illusory. Illusory yet empty and quiescent—things without any self-nature gathering together—inner and outer are like this. Then how is it that they appear so distinctly before you? How is this? What indeed is it? Here you must apply your heart to investigate—thus he, upon seeing the morning star, had such an event.

Dharma-nature is without form and without appearance—how could you recognize some dharma-nature as “yours” and “mine”? One cannot even speak of “the same,” for to say “the same” requires appearances to compare; “not the same” also requires appearances to compare. Since it is “non-abiding,” that is, it has no appearance—you cannot locate it; if there is an appearance you can locate it, “ah, there.” Location. “Non-abiding” means formless and without appearance: neither great nor small, neither sound nor smell—nothing at all—beyond the range of your cognition. Therefore non-abiding is signless; signless is non-abiding. Non-abiding is emptiness. Emptiness is limitless capacity: whatever conditions are present, it becomes those conditions. What is the fundamental essence? Search yourself to death and even the Buddha would not know—because it belongs to the unknown. In educating people, we always teach people to know; thus modern education fails in this way. Genuine education should include “something not known.” Only when you know there is something not known is it true knowing.

Yet after hearing so much, in practice—when you stand up you say, “Huh, what was just said?” It sounded right while hearing it, but upon standing you cannot bring any strength to bear. Why? What you heard and thought were all matters within imagination, things at the level of conceptual understanding; without that event of “seeing the morning star,” all of it is but water and moon.

What is the best method of practice? So much doctrine and explanation—do not leave even a bit of it in your head. If you force yourself to remember, that is just remembering—it has no effect. The best method is: whatever you are doing, whatever you think, hear, feel—whenever any habit arises, whether an angry thought or greedy thought—immediately know whether there is an “I” moving there. Practice just this, and it is enough for your cultivation. You will certainly discover that the false “I” is moving there. Not only in bad things—also in good things; and even in what is neither good nor evil, still that “I” is moving. I cross my legs without noticing—and there is that “yo…” the “I” accomplishing so-and-so; that “I” is certainly there. This is because you have not thoroughly realized; that event of “seeing the morning star” has not occurred. Outside of this—outside what Buddhism, outside Chan—Buddhism’s generations of transmission certify nothing other than this; the rest are merely done at the level of scholarship and thought. When does this come? Just as I have said before: “A night’s rain of falling blossoms; the whole city is fragrant with flowing water.” “On Sumeru’s peak there is a rootless tree; without touching the spring wind, flowers bloom of themselves.” A tree without roots—why would its flowers open of themselves without spring? What is this? It is beyond thinking—at the moment you awaken. Upon seeing something—at such a moment—“ah!” Just that “ah”—“a night’s rain of falling blossoms”—there, it has come; whether you want fragrance or not, the “whole city is fragrant with flowing water.” Whether you want fragrance or not, you still get fragrance. If you strain to want fragrance, to want awakening—you will not get it. It is just like this. You cannot make it night; now it is night. What is “night”? Is there some “night” that comes from somewhere? It is the relation between earth and sun—I like to use a modern explanation people can grasp—when the relation changes, that is night. From where would some “night” fall down? Thus all the myriad phenomena of life and death are like this. But if you do not have your own fundamental nature, without the responsive function, then there would be no night—forever useless, nothing to do with you.

—— Extracted from “Explanation of the Record of Chan Master Hongzhi,” taught by Teacher Hong in Singapore and Malaysia.

Your field must certainly radiate light and shake the ground. How to radiate and shake the ground? In accord with conditions. Yet you do not dwell on conditions. Is this something produced by thinking? Something you arrive at by cultivating? Something gained by study? None of these. It is “of itself thus” from the outset. This “of itself thus” is not the “naturalness” of your views and understanding—that is something you think. When you personally realize this natural thing, it is not through thought. It is originally just like this—that is the thought of essence. “That is very hot”—if you have not touched heat, it is merely so said.

Mountains and rivers, the sound of frogs—none of these are separate; there is no division between me and what I see, between me and what I hear—only then is it “reflecting without a dualistic stance toward conditions, knowing without touching things.” Is this not “knowing without touching things”? This precisely is it. You say this is inanimate—why then does it have knowing? It is only that you do not understand the knowing that knows without touching things, and thus you persist in thinking that such knowing is impossible.

You stubbornly assume that cognition must be a mental operation that goes out to cognize, and you take that as knowing; therefore you do not understand its meaning, nor the Buddha’s “both together pacified and extinguished.” “Both together pacified and extinguished” does not mean there is no sound, no appearance, no pain, no itch—not like that. Pain is very painful; comfort is very comfortable. But is there an experiencer and a thing experienced? The subject and object you suppose are not there. Yet it does not belong to the exchange of the subject and object you hypothesize—this is “both together pacified and extinguished.” The illumining and the one who illumines—both together are quenched. Do you understand? Because this “illumining” and “illumined” are notions you have set up, a concept arises called “there is an illuminer and an illumined,” “there is a hearer and that which can be heard.” Such “illuminer and illumined” are conceptual.

“To settle the matter” means to settle one’s own matter of birth and death. How to settle it? You must know what you yourself are. Why is “knowing what you are” called “apprehending Mind”? We would not take hair, nose, feet, and hands to be ourselves, right? Because we all know they will grow old, die, rot, be burned or buried and become water, become earth—return to earth. We all know these things are given to us for temporary use. Yet we still invariably suppose there is a soul—we call it mind. Is this soul really there or not? If it exists, where is it hidden? It has no appearance. Without an appearance, how do you know there is a soul? You cannot see it or touch it—yet you say it exists. Ordinary people think like this. So those who study the Buddha-dharma continually call this their soul, their mind—therefore there can be rebirth. Otherwise, what is it that is reborn? Does the body come back? We invariably assume “my mind is precisely my mind,” and so it can be good or bad, go to hell or to the heavens—always “my mind” changing up and down. Is there not, then? The Buddha-dharma speaks of rebirth—everyone takes it like this—of wholesome and unwholesome karma. And where do wholesome and unwholesome karma adhere? They adhere to what you take as “mine,” not something else—absolutely “mine.”

What is it like? Unknown. The Buddha tells us it is formless, colorless, without appearance, untouchable, unseen. Yet the Buddha speaks of rebirth—so it exists, how could it not? But look—the mistake lies here. What the Buddha truly said is that even your “soul” does not exist—not even your “soul.” And as for the functioning of our mind—do we not take that as “mind”? A rainbow in the sky—does it not both exist and not exist? The moon’s reflection on water—is it present? It is present—you cannot say it isn't. But when you take your “soul” as truly existing, you are taking the moon’s reflection on water as real—you try again and again to scoop it up. Only after repeatedly trying to scoop it up do you know you cannot. Therefore practice—study, reading scriptures, sitting in meditation, bowing to the Buddha, doing good—these are not useless. You must pass through this (body-and-mind shed) or else you will never give up the fixation.

Repeatedly try to scoop—where do you try? In daily life, at the gates of the six faculties. Carefully observe it; carefully make offerings to it. To “make offerings to the person of no-mind” is like this. This practice is difficult—difficult to the extreme—because we immediately forget.

At the very moment, it is already past; you are within conditions but not on conditions. A wooden horse neighs in the wind; a clay ox emerges from the sea—everywhere is just so. This is the person of no-mind. Leap out of your thought and conjecture.

Without even stirring a thought, he points to this dharma-seat, representing that original position. Speaking in terms of essence and function, he uses “the portent has not yet arisen” to indicate it. Before it has begun to function, before its functioning is revealed, one must “borrow function to clarify position”—borrow the sounds, feelings, appearances, thoughts, tactile sensations, fragrances, and so on which issue forth from it—borrow the various functions that appear, the kinds of virtues, merits, and uses that are displayed. “Ah! So there is the one”—from that position, that is, from the fundamental essence, we “borrow function to clarify position.” That is one side. The other is: “as soon as an influence shows, one must also borrow position to clarify function.” When there is an influence, there is already a shadow, a sound, a thought moving, an emotion moving, qi moving. When qi moves there is influence; there is some appearance—whatever it may be, a thought or qi—so long as there is something perceptible. “As soon as an influence shows,” when there is just a hint of a message, “one must also borrow position to clarify function”—this sound, this appearance, this thought, this feeling, this qi—how did it come? You must borrow the fundamental essence to explain it—“borrow position to clarify function.” Both are needed: one is “borrowing position to clarify function,” the other is “borrowing function to clarify position.”

Whether from color, sound, fragrance, taste, touch, and dharmas—“Ah!”—you suddenly penetrate to the source; or from the source you suddenly understand the function—the six sense-objects as well—altogether are marvelous function. None of this can be done by thinking, right? Hence we call it “one-thought accord.” In that very instant, without analysis, without any emotional veneration—none of that—one-thought accord. How is that moment described? “The junctures of before and after are cut off.” The before and the after are cut. What does it mean? It means there is no time. We assume there is time past in front and time after behind, and thus we feel time is flowing. When the junctures before and after are cut, time stops. But it is not that there is some “time” that can stop—how could time stop? The junctures of before and after are cut—time is cut. Time is what we imagine. Within our ideation there is a flow we call “time”; our mind strings it together.

Inference—comparison—is the mind’s measure. It is a function of mind. What of the appearance itself? It is not something produced by mind. How would eyes present anything if there were no thing? Without something there, the eyes cannot present. The operation of eyes and things is together—this is the movement of the dharma-realm. It is not that your mind sees things coming and going, up and down—not like that. It is the functioning of the eyes’ own dharma-nature, the truly natural inherent power moving together with the outer circumstance—“mind and circumstance are one”—moving as it moves, moving as it truly moves. In moving, do not add comparison. Comparison is the mind’s analysis. To compare “this with the previous two,” you can then speak of this movement, of coming and going. But at the very moment the appearance itself manifests—at that moment—how could there be comparing with before and after? To compare with before, you must remember the prior appearance.

To remember is the mind moving. Without memory, how would you know movement? But the eyes—and the ears—when there is something, it appears; when there is not, it vanishes. Without this “comparison,” without that comparing faculty. Comparison means setting two things side by side. But the earlier has already passed—once a sound has passed, it is past. When you hear a later sound, by comparing you then say “this one sounds better, the former did not.” For the earlier you rely on imagination—on the power of mind. Delusive thought—what we call the discriminating power of mind—is added in so you can compare: pleasant or not, loud or soft. In that very instant, what “large or small” is there? None. This is my slight clarification of “borrowing function to clarify position” and “borrowing position to clarify function”—not using the head to contrive; it is originally like this. We simply had not noticed.

They say, “Bring me the daytime.” Impossible! “When the wind blows, the grass bends; when water arrives, the channel is formed.” When the earth and sun revolve to align with the equator, daytime naturally appears—I cannot hand it to you. When conditions mature, it is naturally thus. Chan Master Hongzhi’s reply—“the wind bends the grass; water arrives and the channel forms”—is not evasion; it truly is like this. If your conditions have not come together, then they have not; yet you hope to know the Chan meaning transmitted by the Buddhas generation to generation—there is nothing I myself could say.

Because of habit, the thought arises—and immediately “I see, I hear.” Whatever thought arises, it is that “I” presiding. The “I’s” opinion inevitably enters in. At the “first-thought juncture,” your “wondrous” cannot arise. “Wondrously surpassing the first-thought juncture”—that “wondrous” does not emerge. You understand in theory that the “I” is wrong—that it is an imagined “I.” You understand this. But in reality, in every lift of the hand and step of the foot, there is that “I” investigating and watching—that one taking the lead. The “wondrous” does not arise—this is the very point. Therefore “one must further turn the body along another path” right here. When “essence” can reveal “function,” do not let the dualistic “I do something, I see something”—this thought—be added. The ears, fundamentally without this thought, are hearing; the eyes, without the thought “I see,” are seeing. They themselves are originally just like this. But our fault is that we continually have the extra thought “I am seeing, I am hearing” spring up beforehand.

Therefore, at the “first-thought juncture,” if you can illumine that faint sign and its function—once illumined, it is originally like that; essence and function move thus—do not cut in line with that added thought.

Original Chinese: