Zen Masters Of China. Richard Bryan McDaniel
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Название: Zen Masters Of China
Автор: Richard Bryan McDaniel
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Здоровье
isbn: 9781462910502
isbn:
During the day, Huike went into the village to beg for food, which he brought back to share with Tanlin. But when he offered Tanlin a portion, the wounded man snapped that he could not take it up because he now only had one hand. Huike pointed out, gently, that it was no different with him. Tanlin failed to be comforted, however, and eventually fell away from the practice of Zen, complaining that his fate must be due to a karmic debt he had incurred in the past.
While in the mountains, Huike was approached one day by a layman with leprosy. The layman hoped that Huike could free him of the sins that he believed were the cause of his condition. Echoing his own teacher, Huike told the man, “Bring your sins here, and I’ll rid you of them.”
“When I reflect on my sins,” the man admitted, “I’m not sure what they are.”
“Then you’re cleansed,” Huike told him. “Now all that remains is for you to take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.”
“I understand that you are a member of a group known as the Sangha, but what are the Buddha and the Dharma?”
“Mind is Buddha. Mind is Dharma. Dharma and Buddha are not two. So it is with Sangha.”
The leper then made one of those intuitive leaps of understanding only possible when one has been considering a problem, as he had been considering the problem of sin, for a long time: “Now I understand that sins are neither within nor without,” he exclaimed. “Just as the Mind is, so is Buddha, so is Dharma. They aren’t two.”
Huike recognized that here was the man who would be his successor and gave him the name Sengcan, which means “jewel monk.”
When the persecution began to abate, Huike returned to the capital, where he once again attracted disciples, much to the irritation of other teachers in the city. A meditation teacher named Dao Huan, in particular, resented the second patriarch’s popularity. Desiring to find out what Huike was teaching, Dao Huan ordered one of his own disciples to go to Huike and pretend to ask for instruction. But once the disciple met the second patriarch he was so impressed that he took up Zen practice in earnest. When Dao Huan did not hear back from his disciple, he sent several messengers to fetch him, but each came back without the disciple. Some time later Dao Huan encountered his former disciple in the market and asked, “Why is it that I had to send so many messengers to bring you back? Why are you behaving in such an ungrateful manner? Didn’t I exhaust myself in opening your eye to the truth?”
To which the former disciple replied, “My eye was right from the beginning. It was only because of you that I came to squint.”
Dao Huan stormed off, even more angry with Huike than before.
For several years, Huike continued in this manner, living unostentatiously and teaching those who sought him out. One day he was talking to a group of people gathered in front of a Buddhist temple wherein the local priest was giving a discourse on the Nirvana Sutra. The priest’s lecture was not very interesting, and some of those near the door, who could hear Huike speaking outside, stepped out to listen to him. The temple priest, annoyed by the situation, later denounced Huike to the authorities, asserting that the Zen master was promoting heresy. The charge would no doubt have been seconded by Dao Huan and others. The priest must have had some political influence because Huike was arrested and condemned to death. He did not resist being taken into custody and faced his execution with equanimity, remarking only that—like Tanlin—he no doubt had a karmic debt to repay.
He was one hundred and seven years old at the time of his death.
JIANZHI SENGCAN
After the leper Jianzhi Sengcan had been ordained by Huike, he also lived in obscurity. When presenting him with Bodhidharma’s robe and bowl, Huike had warned Sengcan of the civil unrest coming to the country. “Now that you have my teaching,” Huike had instructed him, “it is your responsibility to preserve it. Don’t make your dwelling in the cities and towns where you will draw the attention of the authorities, but go to the mountains.”
Little is known of Sengcan’s activities in the mountains, but he is recognized as the author of the Xinxin Ming (Inscription on the Believing Mind), a verse composition still popular with Zen practitioners. The following passages, “liberally” translated by D. T. Suzuki, show how Daoist terminology had been united with Buddhist principles:
The Perfect Way [Tao or Dao] knows no difficulties
Except that it refuses to make preference:
Only when freed from hate and love,
It reveals itself fully and without disguise.
A tenth of an inch’s difference,
And heaven and earth are set apart;
If you want to see it manifest,
Take no thought either for or against it.
To set up what you like against what you dislike—
This is the disease of the mind:
When the deep meaning of Tao is not understood
Peace of mind is disturbed and nothing is gained.
The Tao is perfect like unto vast space,
With nothing wanting, nothing superfluous:
It is indeed due to making choice
That suchness is lost sight of.
Pursue not the outer entanglements,
Dwell not in the inner void;
When the mind rests serene in the oneness of things,
The dualism vanishes by itself.
. . . .
When we return to the root, we gain the meaning. . . .
. . . .
Try not to seek after the true,
Only cease to cherish opinions.
Tarry not with dualism,
Carefully avoid pursuing it;
As soon as you have right and wrong,
Confusion ensues, the mind is lost.
. . . .
The object is an object for the subject,
The subject is a subject for an object:
Know that the relativity of the two
Rests ultimately on the oneness of the void
. . . . .
The infinitely small is as large as large can be,
When external conditions are forgotten;
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