Legendary Dharma Teachings 鴆毒

鴆毒

Zhen Poison

The Zhen bird is said to be tainted with an unparalleled poison referred to as 鴆毒 Zhendu. The Zhen's feathers were dipped into liquor to create a poisonous liquid that was often used to carry out assassinations. The Zhen's poison was said to be so deadly that it needed only to pass through one's throat kill a person.

Legends are rather like the Zhen poison. Theymust be inspected but not digested as they are. One must sift through all material available and sort out the chaff from the wheat with the hope that sufficient truth might be obtained to help Dharma understanding.

  Legendary Teachings of Master Hui-Kó

The Lankavatara Sutra says: "Sakyamuni contemplated in stillness, and therefore abandoned birth and death fully. This is called 'non-clinging'." Of all the awakened ones of the ten directions, past and present, no one achieved Buddhahood without training in sitting meditation.

The Ten Stages Sutra says: "Within the bodies of sentient beings there is an indestructible awakened nature. It akin to the sphere of the sun: Its body is bright, round, and full, [its light] vast and boundless. Because it is covered over by the layered clouds of the five skandhas, sentient beings do not see it. If you meet the wind of Prajna, it blows away the five skandhas. When the layers of clouds are completely vanquished, the enlightened nature is shining perfectly bright, clear, and pure."

The Avatamsaka Sutra says: "It is as vast as the universe, as ultimate as the void. But it is also like a light in a vase that cannot shine upon anything outside." Here is another simile: When clouds close in on all sides and the world is darkened, how can the sunlight be bright and clear? The sunlight has not been annihilated - it is just covered over and obscured by the clouds. The pure reality-nature of sentient beings is also like this. It cannot become fully manifest precisely because layers upon layers of clouds - defilements, the perceptions of false thoughts grasping at objects - cover over and obscure the Way of Sages. If false thoughts are not created, you sit in silent purity, the sun of great nirvana is spontaneously bright and clear.

A worldly book says: "Ice is created from water, but ice can stop water. Ice is solid, whereas water flows." [Similarly,] falsehood is created from the real, the falsehood can lose the real in delusion. When falsehood is ended, the real appears - the ocean of mind is clear and pure, the Dharmakaya is empty and pure.

Therefore, when learners rely on written and spoken words as the Way, these are like a lamp in the wind: they cannot dispel darkness, and their flame is extinguished. But if learners sit in purity without concerns, it is like a lamp in a closed room: it can dispel the darkness, and it illuminates things with clarity.

If you completely realize the clear purity of the Essence of Mind, then all vows are fulfilled, all practices are completed, all is accomplished. You are no longer tied to states of being. For those who find this Dharmakaya, the numberless sentient beings are just one good person: the one person who has been there in accord with This through a countless aeons.

If pure zeal and true virtue are not cultivated within you, it means nothing even if you encounter countless Buddhas past, present, and future. Thus we know that sentient beings liberate themselves by realizing Mind - Buddhas do not save sentient beings. If Buddhas can save sentient beings, why haven't we become enlightened? It is just because pure zeal and virtue have not been generated within. Unless the mind accomplishes what the tongue speaks of, you will never avoid taking on form according to your deeds.

Thus, enlightened nature is like sun and moon to the world. Within wood, there is [the potential for] fire. Within humans, there is an enlightened true nature; it is also called the lamp of Buddha-nature and the mirror of nirvana. The great nirvana mirror is brighter than sun and moon: inside and out it is perfectly pure, boundless, and infinite.

Another simile is smelting gold. When the dross is destroyed, the pure gold is unharmed. When the forms of "sentient beings" and "birth and death" are destroyed, the Dharmakaya is unharmed.

Attainment in sitting meditation is experienced by oneself within one's own body. Thus a painted rice cake does not satisfy hunger: if you speak of feeding it to other people, how can it satisfy them? Though you wish to remove the obscurations of the past, instead you make the future branches even stronger. The Avatamsaka Sutra says: "It is like being a beggar, day and night counting the treasures of others without having a single penny of his own."

The Way is also like this. Moreover, those who read should study for a while, then hasten to put the scriptures away. If you do not give them up, it is the same as verbal learning - this is no different from looking for ice by boiling water.

Thus all the verbal explanations spoken by the Buddhas speak of the unspeakable. Amid the reality of all phenomena, they are speechless, but nothing is left unsaid. If you realize this, when one is raised, a thousand follow. The Lotus Sutra says: "Not real, not false, not thus, not otherwise."

Great Teacher Huike said: "I explain this True Dharma as it really is: ultimately it is no different the real, profound inner truth. [Sentient beings] mistake the wish-fulfilling gem for rubble and pebbles. When they empty themselves and realize for themselves that it is a real gem, then ignorance and wisdom are equal and no different. You must realize that the myriad phenomena are all Thus.

"Out of compassion for those with dualistic views, I take up a brush and write this. When you observe that your body is no different from the Buddha's, there is no need to search further for Parinirvana."

He also said: "When I first generated the Bodhicitta (literally 'enlightenment mind', or mind intent on enlightenment), I severed my arm and stood in the snow from twilight until midnight, not noticing the snow pile up past my knees, because I was seeking the Supreme Vehicle."

In the seventh scroll of the Avatamsaka Sutra it says: "Entering correct concentration in the east, samadhi arising in the west. Entering correct concentration in the west, samadhi arising in the west. Entering true concentration in the eye, samadhi arising in the phenomena of form: it reveals that the phenomena of form are inconceivable and beyond the ken of devas and humans. Entering correct concentration in the phenomena of form, samadhi arising in the eye, so that mindfulness is not disturbed. We observe that the eye is unborn and has no inherent identity; we observe empty, still extinction without anything at all. It is this way, too, with ear, nose, tongue, body and conceptual mind.

"Entering correct concentration in the body of a boy, samadhi arising in the body of a grown man. Entering correct concentration in the body of a grown man, samadhi arising in the body of an old man. Entering correct concentration in the body of an old man, samadhi arising in the body of a good woman. Entering correct concentration in the body of a good woman, samadhi arising in the body of a good man. Entering correct concentration in the body of a good man, samadhi arising in the body of a nun. Entering correct concentration in the body of a nun, samadhi arising in the body of a monk. Entering correct concentration in the body of a monk, samadhi arising in the stages of study and the stages beyond study. Entering correct concentration in the [Sravakas] stages of study and beyond study, samadhi arising in the body of a Pratyeka Buddha. Entering correct concentration in the body of a Pratyeka, samadhi arising in the body of a Tathagata. Entering correct concentration in a single pore, samadhi arising in all pores. Entering correct concentration in all pores, samadhi arising in the tip of one hair. Entering correct concentration in the tip of one hair, samadhi rising in the tip of all hairs. Entering correct concentration on the tips of all hairs, samadhi arising in an atom of dust. Entering correct concentration in an atom of dust, samadhi arising in all atoms of dust. Entering correct concentration in the great ocean, samadhi arising in the great conflagration. One body can be countless bodies, and countless bodies can be one body."

If you understand this, when one is raised, a thousand follow. The myriad things are all Thus.