Shikantaza: A Talk in 2000 by Zen Master Hong Wen Liang
Sōtō Zen · Shikantaza · Hong Wenliang
Just Sitting
只管打坐
/Discourse by Dr. Hong Wenliang*
/Compiled by Liu Ying-Hsiao
The Bright Moon Rises over the High Peak at Night—It Turns Out to Be Just This Thief
Today, many people keep going in circles within Buddhist knowledge; this has nothing to do with liberation. What the Buddha truly wanted to point out is that the problem of sentient beings lies in their inability to let go of this thought—“I am listening to the Dharma,” “I am alive,” “I am practicing”—and this is the root of afflictions. Ordinary people all think that without this thought there would be nothing at all, and they fear falling into an empty void with nothing to grasp. After one Chan master realized the Way, he said, “The bright moon rises over the high peak at night—turns out it is just this thief.” This “thief” is the root of afflictions. The five hindrances—sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and remorse, and doubt—are like five fingers covering your eyes, preventing your native scenery from revealing itself. Many people practice desperately, exhausting every method—reciting the Buddha’s name, reciting mantras, chanting sutras, observing vegetarian discipline, and keeping the precepts—hoping to remove the five hindrances one by one and make their practice very pure. But the five hindrances are not real in the slightest; they are like empty space, so what is there to remove? Moreover, even if you practice until the five hindrances are completely cleaned away, fundamental ignorance is still there! When fundamental ignorance drops away, the five hindrances are like leaves on a rootless tree: they cannot stay green and naturally wither. The very thought of wanting to practice away the five hindrances and afflictions is fundamental ignorance. Fundamental ignorance has no cause.
All the Discriminations of a Sage Are Inseparable from the Dharma-body
The capacity of our mind is originally vast, and its functioning is inexhaustible. The six sense faculties respond: the eye sees forms, the ear hears sounds, the nose smells scents, the tongue knows tastes, the body knows touch, and the mind knows dharmas; every action and movement is the Dharma-body. The six faculties are originally completely unobstructed, without love or hatred; they arise and cease impartially in accord with conditions and are naturally liberated. The reason we feel that there are objects, that there are things existing, is because there is an “I.” A Chan master who realized the Way says, “Before the eyes, not a single thing”; he sees things too, but he does not have the delusive thought, “I see.” The “I” is conjured up by delusive thinking; if this delusion drops away, we will know very clearly what the state of “before the eyes, not a single thing” is. Only because of the delusive thought of “I” do we see objects as independently existing—that is “before the eyes, there is a thing.” When no-self is realized, everything is the Dharma-body. Seeing you, seeing a flower, hearing a sound—all are the Dharma-body: they manifest when conditions are met, arise and cease at once, and change without obstruction; therefore they are empty. We take the body and mind of the five aggregates to be very real and study Buddhism from that standpoint, wanting to use the “I” to transform the form-body and realize the Dharma-body; “If the causal ground is not true, the fruit will take a crooked course”—from the very beginning, we have taken the wrong road.
Deportment of the Practicing Buddha
Body and mind are not as small as we imagine; in reality they are boundless, with limitless possibilities. We mistakenly take this flesh-and-blood body to be the self and desperately try to make it as dignified as a Buddha; Dōgen Zenji has a work titled Deportment of the Practicing Buddha that points out this mistake. Here is a passage to illustrate it:
The buddhas always fully practice deportment; this is the practicing buddha.
The practicing buddha is not a reward-body Buddha, not a transformation-body Buddha, not a self-nature-body Buddha, not an other-nature-body Buddha; it is neither initial awakening nor original awakening, neither awakening by nature nor non-awakening.
Buddhas of this kind cannot stand shoulder to shoulder with the practicing buddha.
Therefore, when all buddhas practice the Buddha Way, they do not wait for awakening.
Only the practicing buddha can thoroughly penetrate and enact the path of going beyond Buddha.
Self-nature Buddhas and the like have not even seen it in a dream.
Nowadays, as soon as people see the word “deportment,” thoughts arise and they form ideas about what proper deportment should be. For example, they think a “hot girl” is not dignified enough, or that slumping from exhaustion, dozing off, having aching legs, or crying out in pain cannot be a Buddha’s deportment. These judgments of good and bad are all human discriminations. There was a Zen master in Japan named Sugimoto who awakened because he farted; is that not the deportment of the practicing buddha? Every movement and stillness is a manifestation of the Dharma-body, neither increasing nor decreasing; all of it is the deportment of the practicing buddha. A cockroach crawling, a little bird flying, and a fish swimming are all the deportment of the practicing buddha. Beings in hell do not have to escape from hell in order to be saved; rather, without changing the hell-realm, they are liberated right where they are. Everything is Buddha. Dōgen Zenji says that reward-body Buddha, transformation-body Buddha, self-nature-body Buddha, other-nature-body Buddha, initial awakening, original awakening, awakening by nature, and non-awakening all remain within human views; memorizing a pile of Buddhist technical terms is still human discrimination. The notion of an “I” that wants to become a Buddha and awaits awakening is itself fundamental ignorance. As for the practicing buddha and the true reality of all dharmas, one has not even seen them in a dream.
Body and Mind Dropped Off: Just Sitting
The deportment of the practicing buddha is just sitting. What is just sitting? First, let us look at a story of Dōgen Zenji’s awakening:
The master entered the hall and, rebuking a monk for sleeping while sitting, said, “Practicing Chan is body and mind dropping off; what are you doing just sleeping?”
On hearing these words, I suddenly had a great awakening.
I went straight to the abbot’s quarters, burned incense, and bowed.
The master said, “What is this bowing about?”
I said, “Body and mind have dropped off.”
The master said, “Body and mind dropped off. The dropped-off body and mind!”
I said, “This is only a temporary device; Master, do not certify me rashly.”
The master said, “I do not certify rashly.”
I said, “What do you mean by ‘not certifying rashly’?”
The master said, “The dropping off has dropped off.”
I then let it rest.
Dōgen Zenji entered monastic life at a very young age and studied many sutras, Vinaya texts, and treatises; his conclusion came down to one thing: “Dharma-nature is originally inherent; the self-nature body is naturally present.” Since everything is original awakening, why do we need to practice? This question troubled Dōgen Zenji, and he went to China, found Zen Master Rujing, and resolved it. One day, while Dōgen was sitting, the practitioner beside him was scolded by Zen Master Rujing for dozing off; Dōgen heard this and suddenly had a great awakening. He then went to the abbot’s quarters and reported to Zen Master Rujing, “Body and mind have dropped off!” Rujing was indeed a clear-eyed Zen master: he saw Dōgen’s subtle attachment to there being such a thing as “body and mind dropping off,” and immediately said, “What ‘body and mind dropping off’? It is the originally dropped-off body and mind!” At this point Dōgen shed his final attachment to dharmas. But Dōgen still did not fully understand the great functioning, so Rujing told him, “The dropping off has dropped off.” Dōgen then let it rest. This is just sitting.
Just sitting does not mean sitting there trying to use contemplations of impurity, compassion, and dependent origination to counteract greed, hatred, and delusion in order to become a Buddha. Those are only the Buddha’s skillful means; do not cling to them tightly and take those methods themselves to be the Buddhadharma. If you cling to “just sitting” and give rise to the thought that you must not recite the Buddha’s name, chant sutras, observe vegetarian discipline, or keep the precepts, you are already meddling with so many things—how is that “just sitting”? So just sitting means this: there is no “just” either, and there is no “sitting” either. Seeing is just seeing, hearing is just hearing, smelling is just smelling, tasting is just tasting, touching is just touching, and knowing is just knowing. If the delusion of the false self has not dropped away and, after hearing this teaching, one simply does whatever one wants, would this Dharma not become poison?
The Myriad Dharmas Come to Verify No-Self
Dōgen Zenji once said: “Studying Buddhism is simply studying the self; studying the self is forgetting the self.” Studying the self means not seeking outside; one’s own precious body and mind are the very place of practice. Yet to forget the self, one must never use the “self” to forget the self. Then how should we practice? Do not give rise to thoughts of practicing some extraordinary Dharma, nor use an “I” to seek to realize the myriad dharmas. Seeing with the eyes, hearing with the ears, smelling with the nose, tasting with the tongue, touching with the body, and knowing with the mind—these are the myriad dharmas. The myriad dharmas change without cease and leave no trace; they are present as though absent, while body and mind are not obstructed in the slightest—why would an “I” be needed to direct and judge before seeing, hearing, perceiving, and knowing can occur? Let the myriad dharmas kill off the “I,” kill off this “thief”—this is the Dharma gate of great ease and joy!
A Single Drop from Caoxi
Huairang went to Huineng to inquire about the Dharma, and Huineng asked him, “Where have you come from?” Huairang answered, “From Mount Song.” Huineng then asked, “What is it that thus comes?” Huairang could not answer. After eight years, Huairang realized the Way and only then answered Huineng, “To describe it as a thing is to miss the mark.” Dōgen, referring to this episode, said:
Śākyamuni said: “The ‘all’ is sentient beings; ‘entire being’ is Buddha-nature.”
What is the essential purport of this?
It is precisely the teaching expressed in the words, “What is it that thus comes?”
Śākyamuni Buddha transmitted this to Kāśyapa; Kāśyapa transmitted it down through Huineng, then through Rujing and Dōgen, and on to today’s Japanese Sōtō Zen master Harada Sekkei—this is what has been transmitted. The one thing to be explained is how to leave behind human views. This most fundamental thought—the thought that there is an “I”—is very difficult to detect. Ordinary people live by this thought and practice by this thought. Sentient beings remain unwilling and afraid to let go of this thought of a delusive self, because they think that if they let it go, nothing will remain. The Zen master says, “The bright moon rises over the high peak at night”; through the method of “just sitting,” with the six faculties left free, one enters a self-forgetting state in which there is no knower and no known. Then one day, when a condition is encountered, old habitual tendencies and delusive thoughts suddenly arise. A flash of illumination! Ah! “It turns out to be just this thief.”
Dr. Hong Wenliang
Education: Graduated from the School of Medicine, National Taiwan University.
Experience: Attending surgeon, Kaohsiung Municipal Ta-Tung Hospital.
Forensic Medical Examiner, Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office.
Director, Kaohsiung Hong Surgical Clinic.
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