The Dharma Gate of Great Ease and Joy: The Practice of Nonthinking
Chan teaching · Cameron Highlands · May 2009
The Dharma Gate of Great Ease and Joy: The Practice of Nonthinking
A Dharma Talk by Teacher Hong Wenliang on a Teaching of Zen Master Keizan · Day Three
The following is a passage from the teachings of Zen Master Keizan:
“For the sake of liberating sentient beings, one temporarily borrows birth-and-death. It is like a shadow, like an illusion, with nothing truly real; provisionally, let this be called the essential point. Know that there are two ways to this essential point. First: let go of the myriad conditions and stop all worldly activity. Let the mind settle like water without waves, like a clear sky without clouds. If this is accomplished, one can truly be free from all characteristics; this is called accomplishment through non-interpenetration. To abide here is the single-practice samādhi of zazen. This too is the wondrous practice of the Seven Buddhas and the vital key of the ancestral teachers. Even if one does not meet the right person, if one can abide here—belonging neither to knowing nor to not-knowing—one naturally becomes a person of the Way, and even the buddhas can do nothing with such a person. This is the leisurely person of the Way who has nothing more to learn and nothing contrived to do: neither awakening nor delusion appears, and there is no thought of attainment or non-attainment; one simply sits upright like Mount Sumeru. This is the direct way of becoming Buddha with this very mind, the mind-seal of all buddhas and the intimate transmission of buddhas and ancestors. It is called the Dharma Gate of Great Ease and Joy, the practice of nonthinking. Yet if one does not practice, this mind does not reveal itself. Therefore those who do not enter this Dharma gate are all dim and foolish people.
“Second: amid walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, whenever one is engaged in any activity, that is the crucial time. Not forgetting for even an instant, think of not-thinking, and awaken into that which discriminating consciousness cannot reach. It is like the time before heaven and earth have divided, before body and mind have sprouted, when, above and below and throughout the four intermediate directions, there is no equal or counterpart; east and west are not distinguished, north and south are not divided; like the instant before one who is falling has struck the ground, when one is dreaming but not yet fully awake, or after an arrow has left the bowstring but before it has struck the target. Forgetting yet not forgetting, think of not-thinking. In this way, let go of all effort; then one can be without doing and without contrivance, in accord with that keenly wakeful, indescribable place. This is the time when a single thought accords. At this time even Buddha does not reach it, nor can sentient beings attain it; this is called the Way. When lightning flashes and sparks fly from struck stone, when thunder explodes in one’s ears, when someone unexpectedly calls out, when one steps on something and the whole body suddenly feels intense pain, the mind is immediately aware, without any lapse of mindfulness. When one falls from a horse or drops from a bridge, through conditions such as these, knowing is exhausted, feeling is forgotten, and one awakens and enters—just as Xiangyan did in ancient times.”
— Zen Master Keizan
May 2009 Chan retreat at Sam Poh Wan Futt Chi, Cameron Highlands — teaching from the third day.
This is a passage from Zen Master Keizan’s teachings. Who was Keizan? Do all of you know? After Dōgen came Ejō; after Ejō came Giun; after Giun came Keizan. We previously introduced verses by Zen Master Daichi. Daichi held Keizan in extremely high regard and respected him deeply. My book The Profound Meaning of the Xinxin Ming is an explanation of the Xinxin Ming. The first part draws on Master Zhenxie’s Xinxin Ming Niangu; the second part draws on Keizan’s Shinjinmei Nentei. This passage is very important. I hope all of you will give it special attention. If you understand this teaching, you will know why “just sitting” is the true gate of the Buddhadharma.
“For the sake of liberating sentient beings, one temporarily borrows birth-and-death.” All accomplished people, for the sake of liberating sentient beings, manifest birth-and-death just as Śākyamuni Buddha, Zen Master Rujing, Zen Master Keizan, and these other masters did. They can temporarily borrow birth-and-death. Can this be done or not? If you merely seek this from them, can they make you able to do this? Impossible. If there were some special method, some expedient method, Śākyamuni Buddha would long ago have taught it to people one by one. He would not have needed to spend forty-nine years continually teaching the Dharma and continually urging everyone to sit beneath the bodhi tree as he did.
First you must understand what “temporarily borrowing birth-and-death” means. Did all of you come into this birth-and-death by “temporarily borrowing” it? Most of us probably came muddle-headedly. Because this birth-and-death is temporarily borrowed, the way our existence in birth-and-death appears is like a shadow in a movie—“like a shadow, like an illusion.” If it were not like a shadow and an illusion, could it be temporarily borrowed? It could not. What can be borrowed in this way is itself like a shadow and an illusion. We ourselves are “like shadows and illusions, without anything truly real”; there is not the slightest self-nature. A flower is like a shadow and an illusion, without true reality. A microphone is like a shadow and an illusion; there is no truly real microphone. Can you actually realize this? Very difficult! Isn’t it difficult? We look and immediately think, “This is a flower! This is a microphone! These are real things.” A flower cannot speak or transmit sound; a microphone is not red or green and has no floral fragrance. How could both be dreamlike and illusory? How could neither be real? It seems very strange.
“Provisionally, let this be called the essential point.” Let us provisionally call this the essential point. What is the essential point? “Like a shadow, like an illusion, without anything truly real.” Everything is like a shadow and an illusion; nothing has true reality. This is the most important point. No matter whether you study Vinaya, Pure Land, or Esoteric Buddhism, you can realize that all of this—including your own existence, including the white clouds and blue sky—is like a shadow or illusion, without the slightest true reality.
Śākyamuni Buddha says in the Diamond Sūtra: “All conditioned dharmas are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, and shadows; like dew and also like lightning. Thus should they be contemplated.” By “contemplate,” he is not teaching you to think this way or believe this way. That is useless. Believing is useless; thinking is useless. “Ah! Elder Bai says this is like a shadow and an illusion.” Or you repeat Keizan’s words and say, “Everything is like a shadow and an illusion.” What use is that? You still cannot freely and at ease “temporarily borrow birth-and-death.” You are still reborn according to your karma; at that time, even other-power is of no use.
Now we come to a very important point. Keizan tells us that we should know there are two methods for realizing this essential point. What is the essential point? Everything lacks true reality and is like a shadow and an illusion. This essential point can actually be realized. Everyone must be very clear about this: there is only one essential point—everything is “like a shadow, like an illusion, without anything truly real.” This must be personally realized. He then tells us two methods. Very few Zen masters speak to us this directly. Why does he do so? To make us know this essential point. In modern language, “essential point” simply means the one point that truly matters.
What is the first method? “Let go of the myriad conditions, stop all worldly activity, and let the mind settle like water without waves, like a clear sky without clouds.” When all of you sit every day, just sitting—shikantaza—is precisely to “let go of the myriad conditions.” Sitting itself is also one of the myriad conditions, so sitting too is let go. Then even sitting is no longer “sitting”; sitting is not sitting. Who is sitting? “Even a thousand sages do not know it”: even if a thousand sages came, they would not know what you were doing.
“Let go of the myriad conditions.” Do not say, “I am sitting in meditation.” If you say that, have you let go? No. “Stop all worldly activity.” While sitting, you think about this and that, think over principles, wonder whether this is the only method, wonder whether there is some easier way that does not require enduring pain in the legs—you keep thinking about such things. That is worldly activity. Why call it worldly activity? Because you generate all kinds of theories, opinions, and views. “Stop all worldly activity”: just sitting is precisely the stopping of all your worldly activity. If you can do this, then you are truly “just sitting.”
“Let the mind settle like water without waves, like a clear sky without clouds.” Like water with no waves, like a clear sky with no clouds. Do not misunderstand this. “Like water without waves, like a clear sky without clouds” does not mean sinking into dullness and not knowing anything. It does not belong to not-knowing. If you say that “the mind settles like water without waves” means knowing nothing—sitting there unable to see anything or hear anything—what is that? That is dullness. That is the absorption of non-perception! Do thoughts still come and go? Yes. If there is a sound while you are sitting, do you hear it? Yes. So “the mind settles like water without waves” does not mean knowing nothing. That is not what it means for the mind to settle. Whatever is naturally heard, seen, or thought—including all kinds of thoughts—is simply allowed to appear naturally, without interference. But once you identify it and say, “Ah! What is this thought?” it is already wrong. If you judge one thought to be good and another bad, you have inserted a worldly standard of evaluation.
“If this is accomplished, one can truly be free from all characteristics.” To be “free from all characteristics” does not mean that there are no appearances. It means not being swayed by appearances. “Do I want it or not? Do I like it or not?”—that means you are not “free from all characteristics.” To be “free from all characteristics” means that worldly activity has ceased. Sound is simply sound; thought is simply thought; breathing is simply breathing; a movement of mind is simply a movement of mind. This is what is meant by “accomplishment through non-interpenetration.”
In my book The Profound Meaning of the Cāntóngqì, I say a great deal about interpenetration and non-interpenetration; you can consult it. “To abide here is the single-practice samādhi of zazen.” Abiding in this place, in this state, is called “the single-practice samādhi of zazen.” “Let go of the myriad conditions”—and sitting itself is one of those myriad conditions. Stop worldly activity. Do not sit there thinking about how things are going at home, what use it is for me to be here, or whether there is some other way to study the Buddhadharma. All of that is worldly activity—your own thinking. If you are thinking in that way, it is already not the single-practice samādhi of zazen. You are doing your own kind of meditation; you are not just sitting. Everyone, pay special attention to this. Every day when you sit, you must “let go of the myriad conditions.” Every condition is to be let go.
What does “letting go” mean? It does not mean that dusts or conditions first exist and then I go and put them down. That is not it. It is not that a condition is there and you then let it go. “Let go of the myriad conditions” means that when a condition arises, you do not split it off and then recognize or identify it as something apart.
To put it simply: clap!—there is the sound of the hands. “Ah, I heard a sound.” That is already not letting go, because the sound cannot be separated from you. A thought arises. It is not a matter of thinking, “I have such-and-such a thought”; the thought cannot be separated from you. If you say, “I know what thought this is,” haven’t you separated yourself from the thought? You have. Is thought one of the myriad conditions? Yes. Yet the thought is not separate from you. You and the condition are one and the same. Clap! The sound is just this; you are not separate from the sound. This is perfectly clear and vivid. Is the sound sitting over there while I go over and hear it? Or does the sound travel to my ear, where I then hear it? Neither. Where is there any coming and going? There is none. And yet it is heard.
This is because “the entire world of the ten directions is the true human body.” Your whole being is simply yourself. But the moment I say “the whole is yourself,” you overlay it with the “self” you imagine. Ordinarily you think, “Oh, this is myself.” Then when you hear that everything is yourself, you impose that mistaken thing you take to be yourself upon the whole. That is the “I.” See? Haven’t you split things into two? Clap! Clap! Clap! Not “me”—no. The sound itself is the condition, the whole condition. The single-practice samādhi of zazen is to be precisely like this.
Can this be accomplished by some other method? Absolutely not. Those other approaches amount to continually relying on other people to recite mantras for me, bless me, recite the Buddha’s name for me, and so on.
I have spoken before about the difference between investigating kōans and sitting. There are people who awaken through kōan practice, but they are very few, and those who awaken through kōan practice also sit frequently as a basis for their practice. Milarepa sat and sat continuously. He sat until the flesh of his buttocks became hardened in patches. It is not that you can dispense with sitting and simply practice some method and then attain accomplishment. There is no such thing. Moreover, those who attain through those approaches are ultimately few.
Only just sitting is this simple: simply let go of the myriad conditions, pay no attention to all worldly activity, and just sit—and even “sitting” is absent. It does not matter whether your capacity is high, middling, or low; whether you are intelligent or dull makes no difference at all. Whether you are learned or even literate makes no difference at all. Everyone can do it. The point is to let you know that everything is “like a shadow, like an illusion, without anything truly real.” Nothing is truly real. Only this “single-practice samādhi of zazen”—this is the first method.
“Abide here.” Abide right here, regardless of whether your capacity is high, middling, or low. You need only let go of the myriad conditions and concern yourself with nothing; do not even concern yourself with that “not concerning yourself.” Sound is just sound. If you say, “Oh, I heard a sound,” that is already off. Someone comes in and you think, “Oh, I recognize this person”—that is already off. These conditions are originally one with you. Our fundamental ignorance is precisely to take them as an “other.” In fact, are they not all your own realm? They are all your own realm. Yet this does not mean clinging to this illusorily arisen body of the four great elements and five aggregates and taking that to be your own realm. The whole is the entire world of the ten directions. This has to be accomplished through sitting, through the samādhi of zazen.
This is “the wondrous practice of the Seven Buddhas”—the wondrous practice of the Seven Buddhas before Śākyamuni Buddha. This is not boasting that sitting is the best practice. It is “the wondrous practice of the Seven Buddhas, the vital key of the ancestral teachers.” “Even if one does not meet the right person, if one can abide here...” Suppose you cannot find an excellent teacher, a good spiritual friend to guide you. If you can abide here—cross your legs, take your seat, sit upright, let worldly affairs drop away, pay them no heed, and let go of the myriad conditions—then that is enough. If, while sitting, you keep bringing family matters or company business into your head and turning them over, you are wasting your time. That is not zazen. You are merely sitting there indulging in random thought.
“If one can abide here, belonging neither to knowing nor to not-knowing”—this is the most important point. There is a sound: the hands clap, and naturally it is known as the sound of hands clapping; a bird calls, and naturally the birdcall is known. To identify it as the sound of clapping hands or the sound of a bird is already “knowing.” Yet it “does not belong to knowing.” This “knowing” does not belong to it. Knowing always has an object known, doesn’t it? Without an object, what would there be to know? Before the knowing that takes something as an object arises, isn’t it already there? Whether you know it or not, it is there all along.
Knowing is knowing: “I know this is a durian.” But that knowing is not the durian itself. “This is a flower”—that is knowing; that knowing is not the flower itself. You do not know that the flower and you are originally together; instead you say, “Ah, this is a flower,” then take the “knowing” that recognizes it to be something real, something truly existent. That is where the problem begins.
If it does not belong to knowing, then does it belong to not-knowing? You look at a flower and have no idea what it is; hear a birdcall and do not know it is a bird; strike your foot on a stone and do not even know the foot hurts—is that not-knowing? That is simply confusion and dullness. It is not not-knowing. It is keenly alive—numinous, yet obscure. We are all right here. Abide here. “One naturally becomes a person of the Way.” Then you are accomplished. Must you obtain something from outside? Must you ask someone else for it? You yourself are already in this state.
Before knowing, there is already an object of knowing. When you take this as “I know,” that “I know” is your consciousness moving. Before consciousness moves, isn’t that already the case? Clap! Clap! Clap! Is sound simply sound, and are you simply you? If sound is sound and you are you, when does the sound travel to you, or when do you travel to the sound? Where do the two meet? Sound is just sound. In that one instant—clap!—the whole of you is the sound. Because you take the body to be yourself, you find this way of speaking strange. You cannot release your clinging to this body and mind. You keep using all the functions of body and mind to imagine and to demand, and therefore you cannot understand what the Buddha is saying.
“Even the buddhas can do nothing with such a person.” You have naturally become a person of the Way; even the buddhas have no handle on you. Who could have a handle on you? Even demons would be frightened on seeing you. But if there is an “I” here hoping for this and that—hoping to reach the Pure Land, hoping to become a buddha, hoping to transform into light, hoping to manifest multiple bodies, and so forth—then there is a “you” there thinking this way and that, and the demons immediately arrive. You immediately become an ally of the demons. At that point the weakness of your attachment to body and mind can easily be exploited. If you want to be reborn in the Western Pure Land and escape birth-and-death, so long as there is a “you” there hoping for it, there is an opening for demons to take advantage of. “Even the buddhas can do nothing with such a person”—only this is “the leisurely person of the Way who has nothing more to learn and nothing contrived to do.”
“Neither awakening nor delusion appears; there is no thought of attainment or non-attainment; one simply sits upright like Mount Sumeru.” Awakening does not appear; delusion does not appear. “I am sitting in order to awaken. I want to attain fruition. I am deluded now, so I sit hoping that one day—ah!—I will suddenly awaken.” There is no such thing! That itself is already the person of the Way. What awakening or delusion could be added on top of the person of the Way? Is there awakening or delusion inside a sound? Sound is just sound. Clap!—and you are simply clap!; the whole body is nothing but it. Is there delusion or awakening in that?
When you eat something delicious, your whole body is nothing but that taste. Does the taste have a deluded taste and an awakened taste? You look at a Buddha image and then at some other image. “Oh, this is a Buddha image—so dignified.” Did you start thinking? You did. You look at another image: “Ah, this is nothing; this is not worth looking at.” Did you start thinking? When an image is seen, the image is simply present there. That which appears is entirely you. That is the true you—the true human being of the entire world of the ten directions.
To accomplish this, you must sit. You must sit right there. There are two essentials: let go of the myriad conditions and pay no attention to worldly affairs. Let go of the myriad conditions. Pay no attention to worldly affairs. “Sit upright like Mount Sumeru.” It does not matter whether your capacity is high, middling, or low. This has nothing to do with scholarship and nothing to do with being clever or dull. “Even the buddhas can do nothing with such a person.” At this point, delusion and awakening, attainment and non-attainment, are no longer issues.
This is “the direct way of becoming Buddha with this very mind.” It is not only Dōgen and Keizan who say this. Zen Master Yongjia also said, “With one leap, enter directly into the ground of the Tathāgata.” Many great ancestral teachers of the past taught the Dharma gate of sudden awakening. The sudden-awakening Dharma gate is the One Vehicle. Only this One Vehicle is Buddhadharma; the others are not Buddhadharma. Some people will object when this is said, because you are always carrying around this skin-bag of body and mind, together with all its opinions and views, and you cannot put down what you have heard and learned.
What does “a true person of the Way” mean here? It is simply you yourself, originally naked and bare. That is the true human body of the entire world of the ten directions. Pay special attention to this “true human body of the entire world of the ten directions.” Naturally compassion appears, because it is all yourself. Of course compassion appears.
Everyone should understand this “becoming Buddha with this very mind”: “the mind-seal of all buddhas, the intimate transmission of buddhas and ancestors, called the Dharma Gate of Great Ease and Joy, the practice of nonthinking.” He has told you everything. This is the mind-seal of the Buddha, like an official certification mark. Without this mind-seal, it is not Buddha, not Buddhadharma, not the Buddha Way. Only with this mind-seal can it count as genuine Buddhadharma and the genuine Buddha Way.
“The intimate transmission of buddhas and ancestors.” The ancestral teachers transmitted it directly, generation after generation, without a giver and a receiver standing apart. Here “intimate transmission” means intimacy, not secrecy. It is so intimate that there is no way to separate teacher and disciple; teacher and disciple simultaneously become one, and it is transmitted in this way. What was transmitted? Originally there is nothing to transmit! Originally this is the true human body of the entire world of the ten directions. You merely—ah! ah!—wake up. This intimate teaching is called the “Dharma Gate of Great Ease and Joy.”
Why is it called great ease and joy? Outside of verifying that you yourself are the true human body of the entire world of the ten directions, there will always be things that worry and trouble you. Let go of the myriad conditions. Pay no attention to worldly affairs. “Sit upright like Mount Sumeru.” Is that not great ease and joy? The moment you bring up, “Oh dear, am I doing this right?” the ease and joy are gone. “Is this okay? Wouldn’t a personally transmitted method still work?” If someone else could make me a buddha, then Śākyamuni Buddha wasted forty-nine years! He could simply have had everyone line up in front of him and blessed them one by one. Even Śākyamuni Buddha could not do that. Why? Because we ourselves are Buddha. He only tells you what you yourself are. I will say it once more: it is precisely the true human body of the entire world of the ten directions.
And what of those great accomplished practitioners? They borrow this birth-and-death. Because birth-and-death is “borrowed,” it is like a shadow and an illusion. This is precisely the Dharma Gate of Great Ease and Joy, the practice of nonthinking.
A practice based on thinking says, “I must recite a mantra. I must recite a Buddha-name.” Do you need to use your thinking mind? Yes. In ritual practice you have to remember how to form mudrās and many other details. Scholarship requires even more: there are so many scriptures in the Buddhist canon, and you think through and study them one by one. But this practice—just sitting—does not involve that kind of thinking.
What is nonthinking? We have actually been living through nonthinking all along. When you eat, do you know how the food turns into your flesh and blood? You do not. Yet you know how to eat, and once you eat it, it becomes your flesh and blood. Clap! Does this sound exist only after you think it into being? Even without thinking, it sounds. In the very same instant, it is already one—one with the condition. Is there any room left for you to insert thought? Therefore, when you sit upright there, it is the Dharma Gate of Great Ease and Joy, the practice of nonthinking.
This is not a matter of showing off human knowledge. This practice is truly the wondrous practice of the Seven Buddhas, the intimate transmission of the ancestral teachers, the practice of nonthinking. It has been explained so clearly. A practice of thinking is useless; once you fall asleep, you forget it. Someone gives you a blessing—when you are asleep, do you still remember that blessing? “Ah, that blessing is very effective; it still works while I sleep.” Really? At the moment of death, will it definitely function?
The Buddha has already told you that you are originally the true human body of the entire world of the ten directions. What more is needed? This is the Dharma Gate of Great Ease and Joy. Some people trust it deeply and enter into it; then faith is nondual—nondual faith. If you cannot trust this, the Buddhadharma will have nothing to do with you. It becomes a non-Buddhist path: relying on something else in order to turn this stinking skin-bag into some better state that “I” desire. That is merely playing with worldly dharmas.
“Yet if one does not practice, this mind does not reveal itself.” He tells you clearly: although you are originally the true human body of the entire world of the ten directions, if you do not practice, it does not reveal itself. This mind does not manifest. “Therefore those who do not enter this Dharma gate are all dim and foolish people.” Those who do not trust this Dharma gate are all dim and foolish people. There is nothing more to say: too foolish, sunk in darkness, unable to bring forth any brightness, without the least bit of light—dim and foolish people.
After all this, he says: “the mind-seal of all buddhas, the intimate transmission of buddhas and ancestors, called the Dharma Gate of Great Ease and Joy.” Only this practice is “the practice of nonthinking.” Yet if you do not practice it, it will not reveal itself. He has said it so clearly. “Sit upright like Mount Sumeru.” Just sit like this, regardless of whether your capacity is high, middling, or low, right? I have repeated this several times because I hope all of you can experientially realize this essential point.
So what are you to verify? You are to verify that all of this exists like a shadow and an illusion. Pinch yourself and there is pain: the pain too is like a shadow and an illusion. This does not mean imagining that things are like shadows and illusions, as though you were watching shadows in a movie or as though an illusory image had appeared. You strike yourself and there is pain—that very pain is like a shadow and an illusion. We sit here in zazen and listen to the Buddhadharma: this too is like a shadow and an illusion. This is the first method.
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