The Spirit of Zen by Sam Van Schaik

Author:Sam Van Schaik
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780300221459
Publisher: Yale University Press

TRANSLATION

Chapter Four

In the Sui dynasty, the successor to Huike was meditation master Sengcan, from Sikong Mountain in Shuzhou. The name and status of meditation master Sengcan’s family are unknown, and his place of birth cannot be found. The Further Biographies of Eminent Monks simply says, ‘after Huike came the meditation master Sengcan’.

He lived in seclusion on Sikong Mountain, sitting in pure solitude, and never wrote down his teachings. His secret dharma was only transmitted to the monk Daoxin, who served him for twelve years. Like water poured from one vessel to another or the passing of the flame from one lamp to another, Daoxin received everything.10 Once Daoxin had seen the buddha nature in himself, Sengcan gave his seal of approval in the genuine path.

Sengcan said to Daoxin –

The Lotus Sutra says:

There is only this one true way,11

No second or third.12

Know then that this noble path is profound, and cannot be grasped by explaining it in words. The dharmakaya is empty and still, and cannot be reached through seeing and hearing. So written words and oral explanations are just efforts wasted in speculation. The Laṅkāvatāra, the sutra that embodies the principle of peace of mind in the special greater vehicle, and distinguishes truth from error, says ‘the dharma path of the saints is silence, never taught in words’.13

Then the great master said, ‘Everyone else regards sitting at the moment of death as something exceptionally rare. I will now leave this life while I stand, liberating myself from samsara.’14 As soon as he had finished speaking, he held on to a branch, and in this posture he breathed his last breath. After his death an image of him was placed in the temple of Yugong Mountain monastery, where it can still be seen.15

* * *

From The Commentary on Explaining the Hidden:16

There is only one true way, profound and expansive,

But oh, the difficulties caused by our many categories!

Ultimate and conventional appear to be different,17

But they are the same in essence.

Ordinary people and sages may seem far apart,

But they are on the same path.

Look for a limit and you find

That in this openness there are no borders.

No end at the furthest point,

No beginning at the source,

No stopping at the edges.

This permeates understanding and confusion;

This blends together purity and defilement,

Combining existence and emptiness in tranquillity,

Embracing space and time so they are one and the same,

Just as gold is inseparable from rings and bracelets,

And a lake is unspoiled by the ripples on its surface.

The commentary says:18

The discussion of limits and borders shows that the principle is without interruption or adulteration. The discussion of beginnings and ends is because the buddha nature is not something that can be created. This way of teaching the nonduality of light and dark brings together good and evil in the path of equality.

It is without movement, but does not rest; without difference, but does not conform. The similes for this are the way the water makes waves, and the way gold is used to make objects.19 The gold of which these objects are made is their very substance, so there can be no objects without the gold.

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