In this compartment, although Yingxing was reading Buddhist scriptures, his little eyes kept glancing around. He was surprised to find that his master, the Sixth Patriarch, was sorting out the kapok cassock that symbolized the lineage of Zen Buddhism!
The Sixth Patriarch wrapped the cassock and walked outside the abbot.
Ying Xing, who had been quietly observing, asked curiously: "Master, what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to wash the cassock passed down by the Fifth Patriarch."
Yingxing breathed a sigh of relief and said, "I'll fetch water. I'll wash you here."
The Sixth Patriarch shook his head: "I still have to do my own thing."
The Sixth Patriarch held a Zen staff and walked out of his father-in-law's room. He took the cassock and walked out of the mountain gate, intending to go to Caoxi to wash himself.
Caoxi is winding and winding, with brilliant mountain flowers floating in the sky, reflecting the blue sky and white clouds. It draws an arc in front of Baolin Temple, and then runs into the distance with joy and singing.
Beside the stream, there were several novice monks washing clothes. They were so diligent that they even washed the clothes they were wearing - you teased them, I splashed them, and as a result, everyone was dripping wet.
They were carefree and seemed to be more joyful and lively than the clear water of Caoxi River. The large and small pebbles on the river beach seemed to be made of their giggles:
The water of Caoxi River is like a string or a hook. Like a string that softly chants the Bodhi tune, like a hook that does not hold the head of a white cloud, the Zen rhythm is quiet and quiet.
The Sixth Patriarch left quietly. On the one hand, he did not want his arrival to bring the laughter and laughter of his disciples to an abrupt end; on the other hand, this cassock was a sacred thing passed down from India by Patriarch Bodhidharma. If there were people washing clothes and washing clothes in the upper reaches of the stream, When dirt flows down the river, doesn't it desecrate the cassock?
The Sixth Patriarch turned and walked towards the deep mountains behind the temple, observing as he walked. Unknowingly, he had walked four or five miles and arrived at a dense and quiet mountain forest.
Here, there are towering ancient trees, green shade, fragrant grass, and auspicious atmosphere. For some reason, a faint smile appeared on the corner of the Sixth Patriarch's mouth. With a solemn look on his face, he stood in the middle of an open space, closed his eyes and remained quiet for a moment, then shook the Zen staff in his hand and thrust it into the ground.
He didn't seem to use any force, but the Zen staff was all pierced deep into the earth. What's even more incredible is that as the Zen staff was pulled out, a stream of clear spring gushes out, and in a moment it converges into a small clear pool.
The Sixth Patriarch took a handful of spring water and tasted it. It was sweet and refreshing, and his spirit was lifted. He squatted down and rinsed the cassock carefully...
"Amitabha." Suddenly a Buddha's name came from behind.
The Sixth Patriarch turned around, and a young monk bowed with his hands together and asked, "Excuse me, Master, how to get to Baolin Temple?"
The Sixth Patriarch saw him looking like he had traveled a long distance, holding a wet cassock in his hand. He stood up and asked, "Where are you from?"
Unexpectedly, when the monk saw the cassock in the hands of the Sixth Patriarch, he exclaimed, fell to his knees and shouted excitedly: "Disciple Fang Bian, pay homage to the Sixth Patriarch!"
The Sixth Patriarch was a little confused: "Fang Bian? Your name is Fang Bian? Have we ever met?"
"No, never. This is my first time getting close to the master."
"Then how do you know this poor monk?" asked the Sixth Patriarch.
Fang Bian said: "My disciple is from Western Shu. In order to seek Buddhism, I traveled to India, the hometown of Buddha, a few years ago. There, I met a magical eminent monk. My disciple asked him to teach Buddhism. He said that Buddha released The Dharma Eye Store inherited from Gyamuni and the cassocks passed down from generation to generation by the ancestors have long been in China. Now, they have been passed down to the sixth generation, and the Sixth Patriarch is currently promoting Zen in Caoxi, Lingnan. The old man inspired his disciples to return to China and come here Cao Xi seeks Dharma. So, when I saw this solemn and holy kapok cassock just now, I guessed that you are the Sixth Patriarch. Master, can you let me take a closer look at the cassock?"
"Of course." The Sixth Patriarch shook his cassock, and the water droplets falling down one after another were like crystal pearls, just like the magical light emitted by the cassock...
Fang Bian didn't even bother to pay homage, he just bowed to the ground and kowtowed as if he was pounding garlic...
The Sixth Patriarch smiled slightly and said, "Fang Bian, is there rice on the ground?"
Fang Bian was stunned, looked at the ground, and said, "No!"
The Sixth Patriarch said: "There is no rice, how can you be like a chicken eating rice?"
Fang Bian understood that the Sixth Patriarch was joking and stood up embarrassedly.
The Sixth Patriarch was thoughtful and asked: "Fang Bian, you value this cassock so much, then what have you been doing?"
Fang Bian didn't understand the Sixth Patriarch's intention and answered truthfully: "My disciples have the skill of making statues from their ancestors. Before I became a monk, I made a living by making statues of gods. After I became a monk, I often made statues of Buddha for believers."
The Sixth Patriarch said, "No wonder you keep praying to a cassock representing Dharma! Then, Fang Bian, please make one for me to see."
In fact, the original intention of the Sixth Patriarch was to say that the true Buddha is invisible and the reality has no form. How can one person create a true image of the Buddha?
Fang Bian couldn't understand the meaning of Zen, and said excitedly: "Disciple He Shixiu has been blessed to have the honor to make a statue of the master! Thank you, master, for your trust!"
The Sixth Patriarch took Fang Bian back to Baolin Temple. There was a wandering monk named Zhichang waiting for him in the living room.
It turned out that this monk named Zhichang was from Guixi, Xinzhou. He became a monk when he was a child, determined to clarify his mind and nature, and become a saint. However, even though he worked hard, meditated day and night, and continued to practice, ten years later, his heart was dark, and it is still dark now. Enlightenment and seeing the Tao are just a dream. As he grew older, his troubles also increased day by day. He was restless every day and wanted to take out his ignorant heart and wash it in the clear mountain stream. Naturally, the heart cannot be taken out and cleaned, so let’s experience the physical body. With a stick and a bowl, he traveled freely.
The lonely clouds on the rocks reflect the bright sun, the clear springs and the crescent moon illuminate the Zen mind; the natural scenery of the mountains makes you feel at ease, and the sound of the stream is gentle and smooth. The magnificent mountains and rivers, the ethereal breeze and the bright moon further inspired his passion to fully understand the universe and the path of life. He heard that Monk Datong of Baifeng Mountain in Hongzhou had excellent Zen skills, so he made a special trip to pay homage. However, he came full of enthusiasm, but Monk Datong was cold and indifferent. For more than three months, he did not teach him a single Zen method. He just asked him to meditate and recite the Buddha's name with the crowd.
In order to repeat these daily lessons, would Zhi Chang still use his staff to travel thousands of miles to find his teacher?
So, on a dark night when he couldn't see his hand, he was eager to seek the Dharma. He didn't care about anything, rushed directly into the abbot, and asked the monk Datong: "It has been more than three months since I came here, monk, and I have not received any teachings." .What does master mean?”
"If you have any doubts, just ask. There is no doubt that you will learn on your own. The mountain monk is hanging on the silk, and those who are willing to take the bait will take the bait." Monk Datong said, trying to catch him.
Zhi Chang asked impatiently: "Master, what is my original nature?" Monk Datong pointed upward and said: "Can you see the void?"
Zhi Chang said: "Yes, I can see."
Monk Datong asked again: "Does the void you see have a shape and appearance?"
Zhichang replied: "Void has no shape, so how can it have any appearance!"
Monk Datong then gave a detailed explanation: "Your nature is like a void. Nothing can be seen in the void, which is called right view; nothing can be known, which is true knowledge. It has no color, no size, no length, but To see the ethereal spirit, to be pure and pure, and to realize the body is round and bright, is to see one’s nature and become a Buddha, that is, to know and see the Tathagata.”
After listening to Monk Datong's sermon, Zhichang felt like looking at flowers in the mist or looking at the moon in the water, hazy and misty. Beauty is beautiful, wonderful and wonderful, but it's just vague, illusory and unreal, no matter what I can't see it clearly, and I can't understand the meaning of Zen.
With no other choice, he went upstream of the Gan River, crossed the high Dayu Mountains, and traveled thousands of miles to Caoxi to pay homage to the Sixth Patriarch.
After listening to his story, the Sixth Patriarch said: "No wonder you don't understand. What Monk Datong said still has the disadvantages of knowledge. Now, I will tell you a gatha so that you can understand it."
The Sixth Patriarch’s voice is like the spring breeze in February, nourishing the mind that is often desolate:
If you don’t see a single dharma, then you won’t see it.
It's as big as floating clouds covering the sun.
If you don’t know one law and keep it empty,
It's like Taixu giving birth to lightning.
This knowledge makes me happy at a glance,
Misunderstanding has never solved the problem.
When you think about it, you know it is wrong.
His own aura often appears.
The Sixth Patriarch's gatha is like a lamp of wisdom that shines through the darkness of a thousand kalpas; a few drops of spring water melts through the ice of thousands of years. The sun of wisdom bursts out in Zhichang's heart, and he is suddenly enlightened. He cried with joy and said a verse while crying:
Unfounded knowledge,
Pray for Bodhi.
Feelings are realized in one thought,
Ning Yue is lost in time.
The source of self-awareness,
Follow the photos in vain.
Don’t enter the ancestor’s room,
Bewildered and interested.
…
One night half a month later, the Sixth Patriarch was in the main hall to inspect the practice experience of his disciples.
Yingxing realized that the master was very strict today and could not get away with it, so he used another of his special skills - to escape!
Ying Xing hid behind the adults and quietly moved towards the door of the hall. When he approached the threshold, he suddenly turned around and walked towards the door, almost bumping into Fang Bian who was about to enter.
Fang Bian carefully protected the thing covered with cloth in his arms and cursed: "You daredevil, you almost made half a month of my hard work go to waste!"
Ying Xing's curiosity was aroused and he forgot his purpose of sneaking out. He chased after Fang Bian and asked, "What kind of treasure are you protecting that deserves such fuss?"
Fang Bian ignored him and went straight to the Sixth Patriarch and said, "Master, I have completed the statue as instructed. I wonder if it can enter your Dharma eyes?"
Yingxing rushed forward and lifted up the tarpaulin. What he found in Fang Bian's hands was a seven-inch-tall and lifelike statue of the Sixth Patriarch.
Yingxing shouted in surprise: "Wow! It looks like it! The nose is a nose, the eyes are eyes, they are exactly the same! Master, did you shrink into it, or did it enlarge into you?"
Regardless, he grabbed the statue and looked at it, down, left, and right. If possible, he really wanted to break it open to see if there were flesh and bones inside. After looking at it for a while, he handed the statue to the Sixth Patriarch.
The Sixth Patriarch did not answer and asked strangely: "Yingxing, who is this?"
"Master, this is you."
The Sixth Patriarch pointed to this statue that was identical in spirit and form to himself and said, "If this is me, who are you dedicating it to?"
As he spoke, his keen eyes caught Huairang among the disciples.
Huairang shuddered and felt the Zen feeling coming to his face...
The Sixth Patriarch asked: "If this is me, what about that?"
The enlightened disciples such as Xingsi understood in their hearts that the Sixth Patriarch was taking the opportunity to instruct the Zen monks to understand their own nature: that is, they were asking about the Buddha's nature. All living beings have Buddha nature. Although ordinary people cannot manifest it because of too many worries, they do not lack their Buddha nature, and every move we make, whether we blow our beards or stare, is the function of our Buddha nature.
Therefore, Buddha nature is also the self-nature, true mind, and original face. However, our Buddha nature is not a fixed thing. It has no shape, color, or any entity, so it cannot be grasped.
At the same time, Buddha nature is alive and cannot be explained with any concepts or frames, so the Zen founders often randomly use function words such as "this, that" to refer to it.
The confused Ying Xing didn't know what "that" meant, so he said in confusion: "Master, it is you, you are it, can we separate it?"
The Sixth Patriarch said meaningfully: "If we can't separate it, just take it back."
Just as Yingxing was about to retract his hand holding the statue, the Sixth Patriarch hit him lightly, and then said with a smile: "This is a forced separation."
If one can hit you and the other is in your hand, doesn't that mean they are separated? Isn't it the function of "that" to hit you? For some reason, Huairang felt Master's hand hitting his soul. The hair on his body stood on end and he was sweating profusely...
Fang Bian was a smart man. Hearing what Master said, he immediately understood and said: "If this is the case, the statue must be dedicated to Master. One becomes two, two becomes one; neither one nor different, not different but not one."
The Sixth Patriarch said: "I accept it, I accept it."
The Sixth Patriarch held his own statue and smiled at it. Then, he said to Fang Bian: "Fang Bian, although you have mastered the technique of vivid sculptures, you do not understand the true Buddha nature."
The Sixth Patriarch saw that he was at a loss and inspired him: "Buddha Sakyamuni said in the Diamond Sutra, 'All appearances are false.' This means that the real Buddha is formless. Buddha people should not be attached to the external image and lose their own mind. What we worship should be the innocent Buddha with his own nature, not these clay or wooden statues."
Fang Bian seemed to understand something.
The Sixth Patriarch's big hand stroked the top of his head and said, "Fang Bian, you are a monk. May you always be a role model for humans and heaven, and may you always be a blessing to the world."
Like an enlightenment, a feeling that he has never experienced before slowly flows from the top of his head into Fang Bian's heart, like a Bodhi seed, blooming a cool and bright lotus in his heart...
The Sixth Patriarch took off the cassock he usually wore and solemnly presented it to Fang Bian.
Fang Bian held his cassock in his hand and was so excited that he didn't know what to do. Two lines of hot tears were like a stream bursting its embankment, flowing freely and happily.
He walked out of the Main Hall, came to the side of the hall, and used the sword to divide the cassock given to him by the Sixth Patriarch into three parts: one part was draped on the statue of the Sixth Patriarch, one part was put into his arms, and the last part He carefully wrapped it in brown bark and buried it deeply in the ground.
Then, he knelt on that place, clasped his hands, and swore to heaven: "In the future, if someone digs up the earth and finds this cassock, it will be me reborn in the world. I will be the abbot of Baolin Temple, rebuild the temple, and spread the word Dharma.”
That night, Huairang didn't sleep a wink all night. He kept thinking about "that".
When he first came to Baolin Temple, Master Sixth Patriarch asked him: "What kind of thing is coming?" From that moment on, this doubt floated in his mind like a cloud, coming unannounced. , lingering; it was like swallowing something in one gulp, which could not be resolved, digested, or spit out, and it just stayed in his heart for a long time——
What kind of thing is coming?
As time goes by, this doubt not only does not disappear, but grows day by day.
He can't eat well, sleeps restlessly, doesn't know what to do, and doesn't know how to lie down. He confronts the doubts in his heart every day, trying his best to break through this darkness and find his true face...
——This is meditation. No doubt, no enlightenment, small doubts and small enlightenments, big doubts and great enlightenments; if the mind and body are doubted together, and the opportunity is ripe, it will inevitably explode with a "bang" - great enlightenment!
Last night, the master's soul-stirring glance made Huairang feel that his body and mind were suddenly empty, and only that doubt remained in his heart. All his mind, all his thoughts, all his energy were devoted to this question that had been bothering him for many years, making him unable to distinguish between east and west, north and south, forgetting to sleep and eat...
In the morning, Huairang was still confused.
When the elder brother Xingsi assigned him a day's work, he asked him to still collect firewood. So, he came to the mountain in a daze and stayed there for a whole day, not even going back to the temple for lunch.
In the evening, he was walking back with his empty load of firewood. When he looked up by chance, he suddenly found that it was the season of ripening rice again, and it was the time when the setting sun was shining with gold. Everything was just like when he first came to Caoxi.
Eight years passed leisurely, and what remained in his heart was an inexplicable touch. He saw the colorful clouds in the blue sky leisurely, heard the friendly sound of the spring in the creek, smelled the fresh fragrance of flowers along the mountain path, and felt the intoxication of the fruits in the golden autumn... Suddenly, a feeling of returning home emerged in his heart.
I see! He was suddenly enlightened, the doubts exploded, and he was reborn, as if he had put down a huge burden - he threw down the load of firewood on his shoulders, shouted happily, and ran quickly to Baolin Temple...
The Sixth Patriarch was actually standing outside the mountain gate!
It seemed that he had never moved in eight years; it seemed that eight years did not exist for him; it seemed that he had been waiting for him! He gave him an earth-shattering shout:
"What kind of thing is coming?"
“If you say it looks like something, it’s a miss!”
Huairang's answer was like a tiger roaring in the forest, shaking the mountains.
Like a boulder thrown into a deep pool, sweet joy poured out from Huairang's heart like ripples, filling every cell and pore in his body...
I don't know how long it took for him to calm down from the great joy of enlightenment. He smiled shyly and explained to the master: "Everyone's inherent Buddha nature is formless and formless. It cannot be described with words, nor can it be described with things." It’s a metaphor, so it would be wrong to say it resembles something.”
The Sixth Patriarch nodded vigorously, laughed with arms and legs, and returned to Baolin Temple together with Huairang.
